ERS members Mike Iveson and Lucy Taylor in rehearsal for The Sun Also Rises
More than 100 artists from around the world will come together under the artistic direction of New York’s Baryshnikov Arts Center to launch the first Ringling International Arts Festival, Oct. 7-11, 2009. The nine mainstage productions featuring dance, music and theater reflect the BAC’s commitment to presenting contemporary, innovative work by both emerging and established artists at the forefront of their fields and will showcase three remarkable theaters and the Museums, grounds and gardens of the Ringling estate.
“We are most fortunate to be partnering with the Baryshnikov Arts Center,” shares Dwight Currie, Associate Director of Programming at the Ringling Museum. “They have brought to the festival a caliber of artistry that is rarely found outside the major cultural capitals of the world.”
The impressive line-up begins with an opening night celebration on October 7 with a one-night only concert by the Florida State University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by celebrated Atlanta Symphony music director Robert Spano and featuring New York-based pianist Pedja Muzijevic, in a program of Liszt and Beethoven. And, as an added benefit, for every pair of tickets purchased to the celebration, attendees will send an area student to the event free of charge.
Two programs of chamber concerts showcase masterworks from Debussy, Mendelssohn and Dvořák alongside the world premiere of a work by American composer Mason Bates. The concerts will feature an ensemble of internationally renowned musicians, including pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinist Jennifer Frautschi, cellist Edward Arron, and horn player Eric Ruske.
Post-modern cabaret diva Meow Meow descends on the Festival with Beyond Glamour: The Absinthe Tour. Accompanied by pianist Lance Horne and cellist Yair Evnine, Meow Meow embarks on a wild journey of obsessive love songs, karaoke splendor, and gorgeous cabaret ditties.
Acclaimed experimental theater company Elevator Repair Service (ERS) will present a compelling experiment in the literary adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (Part 1)--a workshop premiere commissioned by the Festival. Combining slapstick comedy, hi-tech and lo-tech design, and its own style of choreography, ERS delves into a new, multilayered narrative work.
Legendary director Peter Brook will present the U.S. premiere of his new production Love is my sin. Bringing Shakespeare’s sonnets to life, Love is my sin reveals Shakespeare’s intimate diaries: a key to his passions and jealousies, and his private questions about time, aging, and death. Love is my sin features long-time collaborators Bruce Myers and Natasha Parry.
Following highly praised performances of her debut play at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Ella Hickson brings this award-winning work, Eight, to the Festival. Eight’s cast will include young actors from the UK and students from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. Eight delivers a rich portrait of modern Britain through a collection of incisive monologues from characters ranging from a single working mother to a young Iraq war veteran.
One of Spain's leading flamenco virtuosos, María Pagés will present her latest work, Flamenco y Poesía. Performed by her company of nine dancers and musicians, Flamenco y Poesía translates the cadences of poetry into dance, revealing a shared language between the words of José Saramago and Federico Garcia de Lorca and the rhythms of the human body.
Choreographer Deganit Shemy has captured attention in her native Israel and also in New York, where she founded Deganit Shemy & Company in 2005. Shemy brings her new work Arena, which plays with space and calculated time, creating an emotionally-charged world that blurs the lines between the real and the imagined. The evening-length version of Arena is a festival commission and world premiere.
Aszure & Artists and OtherShore share a program of contemporary dance. Drawing from classical ballet and contemporary dance vocabularies, Aszure Barton (Resident Choreographer of Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal) plumbs the human psyche to craft the commissioned piece Busk that explores the visual architecture of movement, color and sound. OtherShore will present The Snow Falls in the Winter. Created by Annie-B Parson and co-directed by Paul Lazar of Big Dance Theater, this dance-theater piece borrows from Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson and explores notions of training and teaching.
For visual arts lovers, the festival will present three special exhibitions. Headlining the exhibitions is Louise Fishman Among the Old Masters, October 8 – 11, 2009. Renowned for her lean abstract paintings with muscular blocks of color in which paint is applied in many layers, six of Fishman’s paintings will be paired and placed in conversation with selected Old Master paintings within the Museum of Art’s permanent collection galleries. From museums across the nation come important paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts Eighteenth Century Venice in the exhibition Venice in the Age of Canaletto, Oct. 8, 2009-Jan. 10, 2010. The iconographic characteristics and religious functions of Buddhist deities are examined in Paths to Paradise: The World of Buddhism exhibition of objects from diverse Asian cultures on display August 22-Nov. 15, 2009.
Additionally a variety of special performances, conversations, programs and events will take place throughout the five days. For a complete schedule visit www.ringlingartsfestival.org.
