Tag Archives: Nate Holden Performing Arts Center

RADICAL FICTIONS

Leave a reply

At this week’s INSTITUTE FOR THEATRE AND SOCIAL CHANGE CONFERENCE, Bryonn Bain will give the keynote address A DIALOGUE ON RADICAL FICTIONS and join an opening night panel including authors Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Jody Armour, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and Brent Blair.

The conference will feature a performance of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “brilliantly crafted” play AN OCTOROON.

“From Dion Boucicault’s 1859 play The Octoroon, about a white Southerner who falls in love with a mixed-race woman, Jacobs-Jenkins fashioned a kind of theatre-essay, whose parentheses are filled with dialogue about performing blackness, the theatre as a live art, and the basic concerns that haunt the thinking mind trapped in a body that’s defined by skin color, gender, or speech: life makes each of us a target for someone else. AN OCTOROON isn’t just an alternative to the irony-free ‘black American theatre’ of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson; it’s part of it—and part of many other things, too, because Jacobs-Jenkins’s surrealism grows out of naturalism, the strange circumstances that make us open our mouths, hoping to be heard, even as we forget to listen.” — Hilton Als*

 

INSTITUTE FOR THEATER AND SOCIAL CHANGE CONFERENCE

Thursday through Saturday, April 12, 13, and 14.

CAAM, USC, and the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center

 

A DIALOGUE ON RADICAL FICTIONS

Thursday, April 12, at 7 pm.

CAAM, 600 State Drive, Expo Park, Los Angeles.

 

AN OCTOROON

Friday, April 13, at 7 pm.

CAAM, 600 State Drive, Expo Park, Los Angeles.

 

BRYONN BAIN—LYRICS FROM LOCKDOWN

Saturday, April 14, at 8 pm.

Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4708 West Washington Boulevard, Los Angeles.

 

*Hilton Als, “God Only Knows,” The New Yorker, March 6, 2017.

Above: Bryonn Bain in Lyrics from Lockdown. Photograph by Tom Sullivan.
Below: Lance Gardner in the West Coast premiere of An Octoroon, in 2017 at Berkeley Rep. Photograph by Kevin Berne. 

Image credit below: Berkeleyside.

 

CLAIROBSCUR DANCE AT THE HOLDEN

Leave a reply

untitled-75+copy

This weekend in Los Angeles, Clairobscur Dance premieres SUPREMACY RIDE, choreographed by company founder Laurie Sefton, and A BILLION BRILLIANT BITS, a new section of TRIPTYCH: EXPERIENCE IN DEFIANCE, Sefton’s collaboration with hip-hop poet and performer Jason Chu.

.

“The 2016 election and degradation of our government is a wake up call. Now is the time to do something, to speak out, to take action, to protest. It is also a time where people are coming together, making time in their lives to affect change for what they believe in. The complacency introduced by the allure of the device is waning, people are out in the streets arguing, making a stand for what they believe in, working-out what they believe in and how to be impactful. We needed this.” — Laurie Sefton

.

Also on the bill is Sefton’s 2017 work GIRL, GET OFF.

“GIRL, GET OFF is framed as an exploration and discovery of gender roles. It doesn’t follow a specific narrative, but aims to capture the appeal of different orientations from a woman’s point of view. Contemporary dance often has same sex couples. GIRL, GET OFF puts women in a place of control and empowerment in choosing, embracing, and celebrating our gender roles in an increasing fluid environment.” — Laurie Sefton

CLAIROBSCUR DANCE 

SUPREMACY RIDE—TRIPTYCH: EXPERIENCE IN DEFIANCE—GIRL, GET OFF, Saturday, March 24, at 8 pm.

NATE HOLDEN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, 4718 West Washington Boulevard, Los Angeles.

clairobscurdance.org/upcoming-events

Megan Pulfer (left) and Natalie McCall in 2017, dancing Girl, Get Off. Photograph by Denise Leitner. Image credit: Clairobscur Dance.

Image result for clair obscur girl, get off

Denise-Leinter-Photographer-17-1000x580

LAURIE SEFTON PREMIERES

Leave a reply

Dancers Jonathan Stanley and Sophie Diamond

As the artistic response to the current administration continues to take shape, the first great works are emerging. The movies Beatriz at Dinner and Get Out, and Culture Clash’s theater piece Sapo, were written during the long campaign in the run-up to Election Day 2016, and are a direct reaction to the toxic rhetoric and degrading actions that continue to inundate the world.

On March 24, Clairobscur Dance founder, artistic director, and resident choreographer Laurie Sefton will present, with her company, the world premieres of her SUPREMACY RIDE, and TRIPTYCH: EXPERIENCE IN DEFIANCE, the latter a collaboration with hip-hop poet Jason Chu, who will perform onstage with the troupe.

“[When Obama was elected] many of us thought there was a big movement toward positive change. There was, but it is continuing in a bigger way now, a more contentious way. People are being forced to take sides, decide what they believe in, and take a stand. Obama’s leadership and ‘hope’ did prepare people in many ways: it prepared us to believe, to decide, and now—with our current president—to resist and act.

“After the 2016 election, and attending the Women’s March, I felt a call to action. I had never made political work before, but I felt I had to do something. I am more interested in inspiring people to think about what they are doing, about where they are going, and how they can be more thoughtful in their decisions. Art is my weapon, so I’m using it.” — Laurie Sefton

 

CLAIROBSCUR DANCE 

SUPREMACY RIDE—TRIPTYCH: EXPERIENCE IN DEFIANCE—GIRL, GET OFF, Saturday, March 24, at 8 pm.

NATE HOLDEN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, 4718 West Washington Boulevard, Los Angeles.

clairobscurdance.org/upcoming-events

Top: Dancers Jonathan Stanley and Sophie Diamond in Supremacy Ride.

Bottom: Stanley, Samantha Blaz, and Ellen Akashi in Supremacy Ride. Photographs by Denise Leitner.

Dancers Ellen Akashi, Samantha Blaz and Jonathan Stanley