NEW STAGES: NARRATIVE IN MOTION

Beyond Words

“Bowers effortlessly brings us to laughter and tears, often at the same time.” - The New York Post

Word Becomes Flesh

January 24-26, 2013, 7:30 pm

Written and Directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpiece series

Thursday-Saturday, 7:30 pm, Historic Asolo Theater / 941.360.7399

Tickets: $25, $20, $15, Enjoy free admission to ViewPoint: The Interplay Between Music and Dance and FSU Dance Theatre (see below) when you purchase all four Narrative in Motion programs.

In the early decades of the last century, A. Everett Austin, Jr. – known throughout the world of art as “Chick” – revolutionized modern museum practice. With a deep appreciation for the artistry of musicians, choreographers, and dancers, he led the way in presenting performing arts in American museums. “The function of a museum,” Chick declared, “is more than merely showing pictures. The museum is the place to integrate the arts and bring them alive.” To that end, Austin purchased the eighteenth-century Historic Asolo Theater, which now serves as the Ringling’s performance gallery. Here – in a cultural community already rich with the traditional performing arts – New Stages deepens our discourse on the performative through new expressions in theater, dance, and music.

The 2013 series heralds the welcome return of storytelling. By embracing the power of language, gesture, character, and emotion, artists are moving beyond the inscrutable abstractions of the experimental to explore once again the narratives of human relations. This authentic embodiment – when combined with poetry and a renewed sense of musicality – emerges into new forms that explore and exemplify the rich diversity of ideas at play in the world today.

Mark Bamuthi Joseph creates performance narratives by integrating poetry, contemporary movement, and live music in a new theatrical form based on hip hop aesthetics.

Presented as a series of letters to an unborn son, Word Becomes Flesh documents nine months of pregnancy from a young father’s perspective. It is a passionate plea for social responsibility and understanding that lyrically and choreographically examines the experience of fatherhood in America’s black community.

Enjoy free admission to these performances when you purchase tickets for all four programs in the Narrative in Motion series (for $100).

A gravity-defying spectacle” – The New York Times “Alternately funny and poetic . . . LEO soars!”

Beyond Words

February 7-9, 2013, 7:30 pm

Written and performed by Bill Bowers

This acclaimed multi-disciplinary artist employs an eloquent mixture of music, monologues and mime in his investigation of the silence surrounding the matters of gender. With both audacity and compassion, Bowers explores what it means to be a boy and the messages we receive on our way to becoming men.

It is an inclusive montage that celebrates humanity in capacious terms rather than any narrow punitive viewpoint that diminishes us all.

– The New York Post

Le0

“Kate Weare creates terrifically satisfying dance phrases. And her fine company of four brings these steps to full, luscious life.”

– The New York Times

February 21-23, 2013, 7:30 pm

Produced and Created by Circle of Eleven Based on an Original Idea by Tobias Wegner

From Berlin, the Circle of Eleven blends music, acrobatics, dance, and theater in the spirit of classic German variety theater. LEO is not a play, a circus act, or a film project. It is a genre-defying performance that won “Best of Edinburgh Award” in 2011 and went on to become the hottest ticket for Spoleto 2012.

LEO explores a world where gravity has shifted and the hero must undertake a logic-defying adventure that reveals not only his dreams and desires but also his lust for life.

ViewPoint: The Interplay Between Music and Dance with Elizabeth Weil Bergmann

January 19, 10:30 am, Historic Asolo Theater

Kate Weare Company

March 7-9, 2013, 7:30 pm

With both rawness and precision, Kate Weare maps a humanism that is contemporary and profoundly stirring.

For the Historic Asolo, Weare presents a program of open narrative spaces into which she invites the viewers to insert themselves and to see the work through the lens of personal experience.

The presentation of Garden is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

A Co-production with the Sarasota-Manatee Dance Alliance. Choreographer Elizabeth Weil Bergmann – with Moving Ethos directors

Courtney Smith Inzalaco and Leah Verier-Dunn - illustrate how music influences the experience of modern dance.

FSU Dance Theatre

March 22 & 23, 7:30 pm, Historic Asolo Theater

Works by the resident faculty, alumni, and guest artists of this top-ranked university dance program.