2022-2023 Theatre and Dance Events at Texas Performing Arts, University of Texas

Announced May, 2022:

 

TX performing arts schedule

 

Theatre
Makuyeika Theatre Collective: Andares (Mexico)
McCullough Theatre | Sat, Sep 24 at 7:30 p.m. (Texas Premiere)


Woven from ancestral myths, traditional music, and a three-person narrative, Andares reveals the extraordinary spirit of Mexico’s remote corners and the astonishing pathways of its humblest of inhabitants. With a live musician and inspired actors, this profound play shines a light on a range of realities — land usurpation, widespread violence, community resistance — that Indigenous people face at the crossroads of modern life and tradition. The work is performed in Spanish and Indigenous languages with English supertitles.

Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral is a theatre company dedicated to creating original works currently centered on the narratives and theatricalities of Mexico’s Indigenous people, touching themes of social, cultural, and human value with keen, artistic sensibility. Meaning “wayfarer” in the language of the Wixarika people, Makuyeika was formed after an extensive search across the country’s Indigenous communities, a project undertaken by Héctor Flores Komatsu as an inaugural recipient of the Julie Taymor World Theatre Fellowship.

"Fantastical and historical... An affecting exploration..." —The New York Times



Theatre – Texas Performing Arts 22-23 Resident Artist
Virginia Grise & Martha Gonzalez (Cedar Park, TX and Los Angeles U.S.A)
Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind — Performance Lecture
Bass Concert Hall Rehearsal Room | Thu, Oct 20 at Time TBA


Austin-based playwright Virginia Grise discusses the process of adapting Helena María Viramontes' 2007 novel Their Dogs Came with Them for the stage. In 2018, Grise adapted and staged the work at a medium security women’s prison in Goodyear, AZ with a team of collaborators from both inside and outside the prison. Six months later, the play was staged site-specifically under the I-19 Freeway in Tucson, AZ with a community cast of scholars, organizers, and actors. Grise and musical director Martha Gonzalez of the Grammy-Award winning band Quetzal are creating a concept album and multimedia concert to tell the story of the destruction and displacement of a Mexican American community when six intersecting freeways were built right through the heart of the neighborhood. As part of her residency with Texas Performing Arts, Grise will discuss her process with collaborator Gonzalez and how their unique adaptation centers music (a mix of Mexican and Afro-Cuban rhythms, jazz, funk, rock, gospel, and R&B) as a driving narrative force, drawing on the theatrical possibilities of a concert and video to create a sonic landscape and rich visual world steeped in symbolism and poetry. 


 

Dance – 2022-23 Texas Performing Arts Artist in Residence
Cullberg: Works by Deborah Hay (Austin, U.S.A. and Sweden)
McCullough Theatre | Sat, Jan 28  

The Match at 2:00 p.m. and 

Horse, the solos at 7:30 p.m. featuring live music by Graham Reynolds 

(U.S. Premiere)

Deborah Hay is an internationally renowned choreographer whose unique approach to movement forever changed the way the world makes and views dance. Hay is recognized as a pivotal figure in the development of post-modern dance and her work as a founding member of the iconic 1960s Judson Dance Theatre in New York, one of the most radical and influential post-modern art movements, is legendary.

Based in Austin since 1976, Hay recently established her archive at the Harry Ransom Center, a major destination for the study of dance, theatre, and film at UT Austin. She continues to create new work and evolve her practice at 80 years old. When pandemic-induced closures made the debut of her latest work with renowned Swedish contemporary dance company Cullberg impossible, Hay shifted gears. A series of solos were captured on video from the stage of Texas Performing Arts’ McCullough Theatre to allow the artistic dialog to continue. The resulting work, Horse, the solos, is a meditation on the climate crisis and modern survival, with new music by Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds. “Horse, the solos is choregraphed in a manner that relies on an intuitive understanding of risk, efficiency, and survival. There is control in efficiency but not risk taking. Combined they establish the conditions for [the work],” says Hay.  For its U.S. premiere, Graham Reynolds will perform the music live for the first time.  The program will open with a rare solo performance by Deborah Hay.

A performance of Hay’s 2004 masterpiece The Match will kick off a day of performance, discussion, and film screenings. This iconic work contains meditation-like exercises that invisibly bind the dancers to the material by establishing a mental, emotional, and bodily rigor visible in the performance. Time Out, New York proclaimed “The Match is a fascinating, vibrant battle of wits that unfolds through a silent score of movement.” 

 

Dance

Dance Theatre of Harlem (New York, U.S.A)
Bass Concert Hall | Fri, Feb 10 at 7:30 p.m. (Austin Premiere)


Now a singular presence in the ballet world, the Dance Theatre of Harlem Company tours nationally and internationally, presenting a powerful vision for ballet in the 21st century. The 17-member, multi-ethnic company performs a forward-thinking repertoire that includes treasured classics, neoclassical works by George Balanchine and resident choreographer Robert Garland, as well as innovative contemporary works that use the language of ballet to celebrate African American culture. Through performances, community engagement and arts education, the Company carries forward Dance Theatre of Harlem’s message of empowerment through the arts for all.

 

 

Dance / Music

Vuyani Dance Theatre (South Africa)
Cion: Requiem of Ravel's Boléro
Bass Concert Hall | Wed, Apr 19 at 7:30 p.m. (Austin Premiere)


Experience South African star Gregory Maqoma’s choreographic genius in Austin for the first time. His company Vuyani Dance Theatre performs an innovative, visually stunning full-length work that brings literature to life, drawing inspiration from the character Toloki in South African author Zakes Mda’s novel Cion, and music from French composer Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. It’s a universal story encompassing the past and the present that champions our ability to band together to share the burden of grief. Set in a graveyard with the persistent cries of people in mourning and the a cappella music of Isicathamiya singers in the background, the performance vividly elicits emotions associated with the loss of life. Ultimately, Maqoma has created a powerful requiem that seeks to stand against the darkness of death and bring audiences hope for humanity. 

“A haunting South African mixture of choreography and voice.” — The New York Times 
 

 

Theatre / Multidisciplinary – Texas Performing Arts 2022-23 Artist in Residence 

Kenyon Adams (Austin, U.S.A)


Kenyon Adams is an interdisciplinary artist and creative director. Through performance-based practices, he seeks to reclaim or expand embodied ways of knowing, towards imagining and constructing sustainable futures.  Through his residency, he will develop Compline, a ritual performance work with vocal ensemble choir.  Adapted from the liturgical practice of the “night prayer” in the Episcopal tradition of canonical hours (fixed prayer times.) The work will be the third piece in Adams' cycle of three secular liturgies, WATCHNIGHT: WE ARE ALMOST TO OUR DESTINATION. Inspired by the concept of "Watchnight" services developed within regional black church traditions in the Southeastern United States, the trilogy invites audiences to participate in revised liturgical practices towards communal consciousness, nourishment, and witness-bearing.