PERFORMANCE

With the conclusion of the Ringling International Arts Festival in 2017, The Ringling expanded the Art of Performance into a year-long season of programing.

50 GUEST ARTISTS

66 LOCAL DRUMMERS

8 PERFORMANCE PRODUCTIONS

15 ENGAGEMENT PROGRAMS

131 PERFORMANCES

356 TICKETS FOR COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND SCHOOLS

1 COMMISSIONING OF NEW PERFORMANCE

This extended season enabled us to provide engaging and explorative opportunities for our community through workshops, masterclasses, and conversations with artists throughout the year.

The Ringling’s new Art of Performance season presented provocative time based art across a range of performance disciplines that included dance, music, and theater. Through public performances and engagement programs with artists in the Historic Asolo Theater and beyond, the program integrated art forms and presented culturally diverse and significant programming.

Beginning with a unique sound/light interactive installation in The Ringling’s Monda Gallery, the season continued with a diverse selection of dance, music, and theater in our Historic Asolo Theater and on The Ringling grounds. The season concluded with Spotlight Florida. This new initiative provides an annual platform and developmental support for contemporary artists from around Florida. Our first Spotlight Florida residency spanned a six month period in which Sarasota-based Moving Ethos dancers used our Perret Performance Studio space to develop a new work, hosted a myriad of community engagement programs and concluded in April with the world premiere of girlwoman in the Historic Asolo Theater.

PERFORMANCES

FOR 2018-2019:

VOLUMES by Ezra Masch

AUG 16 – SEP 6, 2018

VOLUMES was an installation and performative work by Ezra Masch. Featuring a drum set wired to suspended LED lights that reflected tone and amplitude of the drums, the 60+ performers each played 20 minute sets on the drums and experimented with the visual patterns and forms generated in the lights – playing the lights as much as they play the physical drum set. Special guest performers included Brian Blade, Greg Fox, Taylor Gordon, and Antonio Sanchez.

TRANSIENT LANDSCAPES by Matthew Duvall

OCT 19 & 20, 2018

Matthew Duvall, percussionist for Eighth Blackbird, returned to The Ringling to present a series of percussive performances that simultaneously celebrated and utilized The Ringling’s flora and fauna as an instrument of sound. The work Inlets was performed in the Historic Asolo Theater and Transient Landscapes was performed throughout the grounds of The Ringling.

THE NATURE OF FORGETTING Theatre Re

NOV 9 & 10, 2018

At the intersection of art and science, The Nature of Forgetting bursts with creativity, joy and heartache. A collaboration with neuroscientist Kate Jeffrey, this London-based theater company created a moving articulation of the countless dimensions of memory and amnesia, linking science with real life experiences.

Point Of Interest

Raphael Xavier

NOV 30 & DEC 1, 2018

Crackling with bravado and high-energy physicality, Raphael Xavier, and a multi-generational cast, perform a series of solos, duets, and quintets in his newest work, featuring a soundscape of beats, spoken word poetry and musical rhythms. Point of Interest ventured into the mature space for hip-hop dance, following the standard of traditional Breaking aesthetics while pushing the boundaries of a culture and dance form commonly associated with youth.

All Over The Map

Bill Bowers

JAN 18 & 19, 2019

Veteran solo artist Bill Bowers uses movement, mime, and comedy to recreate his indelible memories from thirty years of touring. 50 states, 30 years on the road, 25 countries, 2 hookers, 1 bunny, and a mime, the audience was taken to places so unbelievable they could only be true. Bowers has performed on Broadway, at the Kennedy Center, the White House, and the finest grade school cafetoriums around the world.

Matt Haimovitz + Vijay Iyer

FEB 22 & 23, 2019

Provocative and iconoclastic cellist Matt Haimovitz collaborates with renowned jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer to present a program of duets and solos drawn from Iyer’s compositions alongside music of Zakir Hussein, John McLaughlin, J.S. Bach, Ravi Shankar, Billy Strayhorn, and others. It was a program of unprecedented virtuosity and depth.

SIN SALIDA Union Tanguera + Kate Weare

MAR 22 & 23, 2019

American choreographer, Kate Weare, collaborated with French tango ensemble, Union Tanguera, to reveal the formal strengths and distinctions between the tango and contemporary dance partnering. Sin Salida examined the fundamental connection point of tango, the embrace and how it connects humans to one another.

SPOTLIGHT FLORIDA Moving Ethos

APR 12 & 13, 2019

Continuing a commitment to provide a platform and support for local contemporary artists, Sarasotabased Moving Ethos was selected for the first 6-month residency at the Charlotte and Charles Perret Family Performance Studio in The Ringling’s Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion. The work developed, girlwoman, was performed at the conclusion of their residency.

40,247 OBJECTS

975 NEW ACQUISITIONS

941 GIFTS 16 BEQUESTS 18 ITEMS PURCHASED

60 OBJECTS LOANED

215 OBJECTS BORROWED

The Collections department oversaw multiple and complex exhibition installations and our growing collection acquisition program as well as shepherding our works on loan to institutions around the world.

Some of the highlights of the past year included the renovation of collection storage vault spaces in the Historic Circus Museum and the second phase of the gallery reinstallation project in the original 21 galleries of the art museum, completing galleries 16-18.

Collections installed and de-installed 10 exhibitions over the year consisting of both in-house & traveling projects. Two of the international traveling exhibitions Knights and Fabric of India required extensive preparation work in design, fabrication, and installation, as well as registrarial and conservation oversight of the objects. A large-scale Japanese object rotation in Chao Gallery & Mezzanine Gallery in the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Center for Asian Art also occurred during the year.

Collections were involved in two additional projects that required much planning and reorganization. The first was the reorganization of our off-site storage facility which involved the removal of older exhibition furniture and the relocation of many objects back to onsite storage. A second major project occurred late in the year as we began the renovation of the Historic Circus Museum. Many circus objects had to be temporarily relocated to other storage facilities on the property while renovation of Circus Museum was underway.

Collections staff participated in a public presentation entitled Collections, Behind the Scenes to provide an in-depth look at the work of Registration, Conservation, and Exhibit Prep and Design. Collections also participated in a blog article entitled Secrets of the Collections Department. The department hosted an NEH Preservation Digital Workshop with the Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology and an object training workshop for local FBI and Homeland Security agents. Staff also participated on the Advisory Committee for The Sarasota African American Cultural Arts & Historical Coalition, Inc. to assist in the planning for the Newtown Cultural Center. Staff members also attended national & international conferences and gave presentations at: International Institute for Conservation, American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), Alliance of American Museums (AAM), American Institute for Conservation, and the Midwestern Conservation Guild.

Our collections were sought out by art museums in the U.S. and Europe with significant paintings loaned to the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum in Florida, the Currier Museum of Art in New Hampshire, the San Diego Museum of Art and the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums’ Legion of Honor in California. Internationally, work traveled to the Städel Art Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and the Musée National du PortRoyal des Champs, Paris, France.

975 new acquisitions entered The Ringling’s collection this past year. Acquisition highlights included a Deana Lawson photo Binky & Tony Forever from 2009, Walker Evans photographs of Florida scenes from 1941, 78 photographs by prominent US photographers working in Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republican from the 1930s to 1980s, and 36 Indian works (27 miniature paintings, 3 drawings and 6 Mandela paintings) that expands The Ringling’s holdings of Indian miniature paintings. Numerous Japanese modern woodblock prints and Circus posters also entered into our collections.