Performance forecasts for the Historic Asolo Theater in Sarasota
ESTABLISHED 1798
Queen Caterina
Chick Austin
Hang on to your HAT because this season is going to be wild and wonderous— inside and outside the Historic Asolo Theater!
Let this performance almanac guide you through the year ahead, and offer notable cultural calculations, celestial coincidences, and tips for life’s enjoyment and intrigue. Seed 2024–2025 with refreshing artistic alternatives to the extreme social and meteorological weather of the current moment.
Forecast ahead: funky atmospheric pressure, eco-performance tidal surges, jazzy headwinds, locally inspired breezes, and 72% creative humidity with late spring hip-hop-hurricane warning. May we predict ways of consorting and witnessing that give you relief and insight during the hottest season on record!
Theatrically yours,
The Performance Team
SunHAT Eco-Performance Fest
November 13–18
The future is fertile at Sarasota’s only dedicated Eco-Performance event!
For professional tree huggers and recreational eco-enthusiasts alike, this festival will honor our beautiful coast and green spaces, reflect on climate realities, and dream up resilient Florida futures. Leave your eco-anxiety at the door and take a ride through this week-long, estate-wide eco-get down with daringly affordable Pay What You Will pricing that encourages exploration. Get wild with site-specific fungi dance, artist talks under the banyans, vegan rap under a full moon, herb walks, futurist eco-operas, and water conscious clowns.
“These performances are Cultural SPF for our times, they offer emotional respite, a balm, and a space for celebration of our human community and the creative force of our non-human world.”
— Elizabeth Doud Currie-Kohlmann Curator of Performance
Mondo Bizarro
IN THIS BOOKLET, YOU WILL FIND OUR CROP OF SUNHAT PERFORMING ARTISTS
Check ringling.org for more walks, talks, and meals that provide spaces for community to reflect and regenerate together across The Ringling campus.
Gelsey Bell
Mushroom Dinner + Artist Talk Back
Herb Walk
Dance
Heginbotham
DJ Cavem
Artist Talk
Compagnie Zolobe
Map by Don Brandeis
Photo by Whitney Browne.
VIRGO VISIONARY Born September 5, 1912, in Los Angeles, California, John Milton Cage Jr. was lauded as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century and was instrumental in the development of modern dance.
Dance Heginbotham
You Look Like a Fun Guy
NOV 13 + 14, 5:15 PM North Searing Lawn
You Look Like a Fun Guy is an outdoor dance and theater work inspired by mushrooms, their astonishing powers to facilitate transformation, their relationship to avant-garde composer John Cage, and their tastiness. The mushroom is an organism which can transform dead things into living things, an organism which can build an underground network spanning miles, an organism which gave the avant-garde composer John Cage a shower of game show cash which he used to support the Merce Cunningham Dance Company!
RELATED PROGRAM
MUSHROOM DINNER + ARTIST TALK BACK with John Heginbotham NOV 13, 6:45 PM
Join us for a multi-course, mushroom-based meal with the creative culinary force of Chef Leonardo Pileggi, the urban farm magic of Sarasota’s Petrichor Mushrooms, and wine pairings from local gem Seagrape Wine Company.
FUNGI LOVE TO COMPOST Composting is one way to tackle climate change. Recycling food and other organic waste into compost provides environmental benefits, including improving soil health, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, recycling nutrients, and mitigating the impact of droughts.
Photo by Amber Star Merkens.
courtesy of the artist.
OKRA WISDOM Fried, stewed or pickled, okra (Hibiscus esculentus) is loved far and wide. Everyone with a patch of dirt should plant this fast growing, self-pollinating, heat-loving tropical annual essential to Southern cooking.
Photos
with DJ Cavem
NOV 14, 7:00 PM
Bolger Campiello
Join us for our festival opening party with the phenomenal eco-hip-hop artist and vegan chef DJ Cavem. Cavem coined the term eco-hip-hop in 2007 and it has since sprouted into a global movement. His mission is to rap about climate change, food justice, and plant-based foods. Having performed at the Obama White House, been featured in Oprah Magazine and on the Rachael Ray Show, Dr. Ietef “DJ Cavem” Vita has become known as more than just a rapper—he is an activist and educator. His performances and workshops galvanize youth and adult audiences.
OKRA Brought by enslaved people from West Africa to the Americas in the 1660s, it became a dietary staple in Brazil, the Caribbean, and the South. Plant it in spring or fall. This superior source of soluble fiber is heart healthy. Hungry? Try making a gumbo, the Bantu word for “okra”.
TREE TRUTH The Baobab tree, native to Madagascar, stores water in the trunk to endure harsh drought conditions in warm climates with seasons marked more by changes in precipitation than temperature. Baobabs are important as nest sites for birds.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Only 0.5 percent of water on Earth is freshwater, and climate change dangerously affects that supply. The past twenty years, terrestrial water storage in soil moisture, snow, and ice has dropped at a rate of one centimeter per year, with threats for global water security.
this weekend 25 million years ago, the Florida peninsula was still under a shallow tropical ocean, which is why we have so much sand and limestone.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
FLORIDA GEOLOGY KITCH On
Gelsey Bell
MƆɹ NIŊ (Morning // Mourning)
NOV 15 + 16, 7:30 PM
Historic Asolo Theater
This experimental opera inhabits a world in which all humans have disappeared from Earth. An ensemble of five vocalist/multi-instrumentalists witnesses and guides the audience through the changes on Earth as forests grow back, new species evolve, and the human-made world erodes away. The piece is a fantastical and playful exploration into the dire political and ethical contradictions that structure current human relations with nature. This work was inspired by the book The World Without Us (2007) by Alan Weisman.
What do you think it will look like 25 million years from now? What kinds of fossils will we leave behind? Biodegradation fact: It will take approximately 500 years for a flamingo lawn ornament to fully photodegrade.
THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER is the second longest river in North America, flowing between 2,350–2522 miles from its source at Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico. When compared to world rivers, the Mississippi River ranks fourth in length following the Nile, Amazon, and Yangtze Rivers.
Photo and map courtesy of the artist.
mondo bizarro
Invisible Rivers
NOV 16 + 17, 5:15 PM
North Searing Lawn
Louisiana-based Mondo Bizarro and the Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange combine the twin influences of art and education to involve citizen audiences. Part procession, part performance-art talk, Invisible Rivers uses music, theater, and boatbuilding to share experiences from the rapidly changing coastal region of southeast Louisiana. The artists host dialogues and performances on their pontoon “float lab” to elaborate stories of our region’s interconnected struggles against coastal land loss, environmental racism, and displacement in the land we love.
Invisible Rivers was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from the Mellon Foundation and additional support from the Doris Duke Foundation.
WATERSHEDS are areas of land with waterways that flow to a common destination. The Sarasota Bay Watershed spans 161.4 square miles and contains 152 named lakes/ponds, 35 named rivers/streams/canals and 11 named bays/bayous.
ART OF PERFORMANCE
MICRO
WIP
WORKS IN PROGRESS
MicroWIP
JAN 24, 7:30 PM Historic Asolo Theater
Get the first look at the newest performances being made in the Sarasota-Manatee area. Now in its third year, the HAT’s MicroWIP (Micro Works-in-Progress) presentations provide local creatives with a platform to show new work. This evening features ten-minute max excerpts of freshly squeezed performances and represents The Ringling’s commitment to supporting artists based in Sarasota and Manatee Counties. By presenting works-in-progress, we offer a semiformal way for artists to experiment with new ideas in front of live audiences. For artists, this important step is key in the creative cycle and provides space for experimentation and feedback.
The Ringling and UnidosNow present
Noche Unidos
Season Kickoff Party
Featuring Bomba Yemayá + 79rs Gang
Jan 31
7:00 PM VIP ADMISSION
7:30 PM GENERAL ADMISSION
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage in the magical Museum of Art Courtyard at NocheUnidos!
We will honor the rich and dynamic cultures that have influenced our Gulf Coast community with dancing, music, fellowship, and food.
Dress in white as we come together to usher in the season with elegancia.
(SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO) Bomba Yemayá leads the contemporary movement of the emblematic Puerto Rican musical genre “bomba” from the island’s rich cultural heritage.
(NEW ORLEANS, LA) 79rs Gang interweaves traditional Mardi Gras rhythms with vibrant contemporary hip-hop styling that fuse together traditional sounds, and Carnaval energy.
Why do we wear white? In many cultural traditions, white symbolizes positivity, clarity, and new beginnings. Florida laughs at fashion rules and enjoys the happy glow of white and bright colors all year long!
Photos courtesy of the artists.
Global Jazz
Jazz, hip-hop, and tap dance are American art forms that remain on the vanguard of collective and individual creative impulses nationally and around the world.
This season offers a set of four exceptional global Jazz artists and two dance works by choreographers who have pushed innovations while being the standard bearers of their disciplines. Some of the 2024-2025 series artists are well known and others thrilling discoveries—all of them are stars in the constellations of forms that are as enduring as they are crucial.
The Ringling’s Art of Performance has a remarkable track record of presenting exceedingly high-quality Jazz from a wide range of artists. This spring, a progression of mainstage performances provide spaces to enjoy, debate, and celebrate the power and meaning of Jazz.
Cultural Fertilizer
Jazz is like a verdant garden or lush rainforest— it must have key essential nutrient elements to come to life and feed our souls–if not, it just ain’t got it! The Jazz NPK—or essential elements for Jazz to thrive—includes blues, syncopation, swing, and creative freedom.
Photos courtesy of the artists.
Nélida Karr
FEB 13, 7:30 PM
FEB 14, 7:30 PM
Historic Asolo Theater
Nélida Karr is considered the “contemporary revelation of Equatorial Guinean music” and has become the voice of the new generation of African singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists. She classifies her music as “Afro-Fusion” impregnated with the many influences she assimilated while growing up in Malabo, the capital of the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa. She produces an eclectic mix of music of the Bubi ethnic group and Equatorial Guinean rhythms such as Katya, Kotto, Bonko, Mokom, and Antonobe, deeply embedded with Jazz, Blues, Spanish, and Latin influences.
The Equatorial Guinea flag features a silk-cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra) on its coat of arms. It is one of the few countries in the world that centers the tree on its flag. The others are Belize, Fiji, Haiti, and Lebanon. The tree on Florida’s state flag is the Sabal Palm, also known as the Cabbage palm, which became the official state tree in 1953.
Photos courtesy of the artist.
At least two instruments called “guitars” were in use in Spain by 1200: the so-called guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, a wide fingerboard, and several sound holes and the guitarra latina (Latin guitar) which had a single sound hole and a narrower neck.
Two Rivers Ensemble
featuring Amir ElSaffar
FEB 15, 7:30 PM
FEB 16, 5:00 PM
Historic Asolo Theater
This remarkable sextet of Jazz and Middle Eastern musicians led by composer, trumpeter, santur player, and vocalist Amir ElSaffar has made innovative strides in using the maqam modal system with the American Jazz idiom. Deeply rooted in the musical forms of Iraq and nearby regions, the music still speaks the language of swing, improvisation, and group interaction, resulting in a sound that is distinct from other contemporary cross-cultural musical fusions. ElSaffar has been described as “uniquely poised to reconcile Jazz and Arabic music,” (The Wire) and “one of the most promising figures in Jazz today” (Chicago Tribune).
THE SANTUR is a hammered dulcimer of Mesopotamian origin. This trapezoid box zither has a walnut body and 92 steel or bronze strings which are struck with two wooden mallets called “midhrab”. Native to Iraq, Syria, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Greece, and Azerbaijan, it is one of the main instruments used in the classical Iraqi Maqam tradition.
Photos courtesy of the artist.
RIVER WISDOM When two rivers join, it’s called a ‘confluence’, which describes the coming together of two separate things. Confluences are important in ecology and culture because they often mark where changes in energy, chemistry, and habitat take place. Confluence generates life!
courtesy of the artist.
Alain Pérez
FEB 21 + 22, 7:30 PM
Historic Asolo Theater
Cherished as a performer and as an ambassador of Latin Jazz and Cuban Popular Music worldwide, bassist, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Alain Pérez is one of Cuba’s most active and versatile musicians on the scene today. He has performed and recorded with Jazz legends in various musical vernaculars, such as the original Chucho Valdés Quartet, the renowned Paco de Lucía sextet, Enrique Morente, and the Jerry González quartet. He is the bandleader of his own widely sought after orchestral project, a prolific producer, and a GRAMMY® winner and nominee in multiple categories as interpreter and producer.
UPRIGHT BASS | The earliest illustration in the history of the string bass dates from 1516, but written accounts record instances of “viols” as large as a person. These early instruments were tuned in various ways and there were as many as 50 different tunings used during the history of the string bass.
Photos
The Baby Laurence Legacy Project
featuring Brinae Ali, The Baltimore Jazz Collective + Wendel Patrick
MAR 14, 11:00 AM
MAR 15, 7:30 PM
MAR 16, 5:00 PM
MAR 17, 1:00 PM
Historic Asolo Theater
The Baby Laurence Legacy Project investigates and celebrates the artistic genius of Donald “Baby Laurence” Jackson, a Baltimore-bred game-changer, and his impact on tap dance and Jazz music. This multidisciplinary work aims to redefine the relationship between technology, tap dancing, and Jazz music to build a platform for sharing Laurence’s largely forgotten story. It will reveal to audiences how Laurence embodied the bebop aesthetic, which channeled defiance of the white gaze and a self-referencing Black consciousness as in the music of Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, and Charlie Parker.
Tap dancer and Jazz artist Baby Laurence (1921–1974) was born in Baltimore and performed with many of the great Jazz instrumentalists. A singular vocal and dance talent, he worked with the Jazz bands of Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Count Basie, and appeared with the incomparable Josephine Baker.
Mark calendarsyourfor National Tap Dance Day!
The presentation of The Baby Laurence Legacy Project was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from the Mellon Foundation and additional support from the Doris Duke Foundation.
Rennie Harris Puremovement
Losing My Religion
APR 4 + 5, 7:30 PM
Historic Asolo Theater
This new creation by legendary choreographer Rennie Harris is a retrospective inspired by his personal journey and today’s current political and socioeconomic theater. Losing My Religion is an abstract work inspired by his thoughts on the world’s collective dilemmas that examines the historical use of hip-hop and street dance as languages of protest, resilience, and power, while inviting audiences to imagine the ways in which they can use their bodies as resistance.
HIP-HOP is a cultural keystone. In the natural environment, keystone species are defined as species that other species depend on, and that if removed, would drastically change the ecosystem where they live. These species play such a fundamental role that they cannot be easily lost or replaced. Think of hip hop as one of America’s keystone species.
This work is part of a commission by the Hermitage Artist Retreat through their prestigious Greenfield Prize and reflects The Ringling’s ongoing regional collaborations to support creative practice in Florida.
Lívia Mattos Trio
APR 18 + 19, 7:30 PM
Historic Asolo Theater
Bahia-based accordion player, songwriter, vocalist, filmmaker, and visual artist Lívia Mattos started her artistic adventures as a circus performer and has since developed her singular skills as a musician and unconventional frontwoman with surprising arrangements, inventive lyrics, and refreshing originality. Uniquely entertaining and musically rich, her concerts blend Brazilian popular music, burlesque Jazz, and circus sensibilities.
RELATED
PROGRAM
ACCORDIONASTIC CIRCUS LADY (A Sanfonástica Mulher-Lona)
APR 19, 1:00 PM
Celebrate World Circus Day with Lívia Mattos!
Dressed as a circus tent, Mattos performs a strolling mini concert with her inseparable accordion. Many dream of running off with the circus, but in this case, the circus ran off with her!
ACCORDIAN HISTORY The accordion arrived in Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century and has been pervasive in Brazilian music since. It is featured in Cajun, Quebecois, Irish, and English folk music where we hear vestiges of polkas, schottisches, marches, mazurkas, and waltzes from the accordion’s European origins.
RELATED PROGRAMS
MASTERCLASSES Skill building and experimentation with visiting Art of Performance master artists in the Perret Performance Studio.
ARTIST TALKS Intimate dialogues with artists, scholars, and community regarding themes and performance practice with Art of Performance.
FILMS Curated screenings of films related to performance and cultural identities of Art of Performance artists and genres.
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
The Ringling hosts performance-based artists in residence from a variety of disciplines. Creative residencies reinforce the essentials for artistic development: time, space, and resources to experiment and iterate while prototyping works for premieres and touring. Most new performance works develop in multi-year incubation periods, which is why artist residencies privilege process over product. These amazing creatives will be in residence in 2024/25:
(BALTIMORE, MD; PROVIDENCE, RI)
Join us this season at the HAT’s pre- and post- show hang out in the Benfer Courtyard. Grab a drink, chat with friends, and discuss the performances in a casual, outdoor neighborhood See you @ the HAT Lounge!
DR. CHRIS OMNI
ANNALISA
DIAS
Groundwater Arts
LAMICHAEL LEONARD
TARA MOSES
Groundwater Arts
TICKETS
SunHAT Eco-Performance Fest
We believe issues of the environment concern citizens of all ages, in every community, and from all walks of life.
SINGLE TICKETS
Starting at $0.99
The festival’s “Pay What You Will” ticket structure allows full access at the daringly affordable price of $0.99 per show with an option to contribute more if you wish.
Historic Asolo Theater (HAT)
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SINGLE TICKETS
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SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGES
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Members save 10% on all tickets and subscriptions. Student and active military discounts apply for most events.
The Ringling’s Art of Performance season delivers broad access to provocative and timely performing arts that reflect a wide range of experiences, disciplines, and relevant cultural expressions. The series embodies The Ringling’s values of inclusion, inspiration, and excellence through performance programs that elevate community engagement, community partnerships, and the plural exchange of ideas in tandem with visiting artists. The program supports Florida-based, national, and international performance makers in developmental residencies and creative research in our theater facilities.
The Ringling is the State Art Museum of Florida administered by Florida State University. It features an art museum, historic mansion, circus museum, historic theater, conservation center, arboretum, and research library, situated on 66 acres of spectacular bayfront property in Sarasota. The Ringling is an extraordinary center of art and culture engaging with the local, state, and global communities and is accessible to and inclusive of all.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Ringling respectfully acknowledges that we are located on the traditional Homelands and the ancestral territories of the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, as well as the ancient tribes of the Calusa, Uzita and Tocobaga. We also acknowledge the local freedom-seeking community called Angola, and the people later known as Black Seminoles.
We honor the resiliency of Indigenous communities, and we extend our gratitude as we live and work on their Homelands. We pay our respect to the Elders, both past and present, who have stewarded these lands and waters through generations since time immemorial.
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
ART OF PERFORMANCE
The Art of Performance program is supported in part by Art of Performance Endowment, Arthur F. and Ulla R. Searing Endowment, Dorothy Jenkins Ringling Museum Endowment, Ed and Elaine Keating Endowment, Ellin Family Art of Our Time Endowment, Leon and Margaret Ellin Fund, Mandell and Madeleine Berman Foundation Endowment, Selby Foundation Endowment, Stanley and Gloria Goldman Endowment, Michael & Kathy Bush, Warren R. & Marie E. Colbert, The Huisking Foundation, and Judith and Stephen Shank.
NOCHEUNIDOS | UNIDOS NOW
Van Wezel Foundation
First Horizon Huisking Family Fund of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County
Kathy Schersten MCR Health
DJ Speedy Jr
Manatee Community Foundation
but mighty! Be part of the most global, unexpected, and vibrant performance series in Sarasota. Cultivate your calendar for a promising cultural harvest.
