On Stage This Summer: Pennsylvania Ballet Performs Trisha Brown Work, Prism Quartet Collaborates with Partch Ensemble, and More
mann-center-firebird-2015-02
Scenes from the Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest featuring puppets designed, constructed, and choreographed by Janni Younge. Courtesy of the Mann Center.
rair-live-at-dump-2015-21-web
Martha McDonald performs Songs of Memory and Forgetting as part of RAIR: Live at the Dump. Photo by Mike Persico.
prism-color-theory-2014-01.jpg
The PRISM Quartet. Photo by Jon Rohrer.
A number of Center-supported performances take the stage this summer, including Pennsylvania Ballet's presentation of Trisha Brown's O zlozony/O composite, presented by Bryn Mawr College, seven new musical commissions by The Crossing, and the world premiere of Pablo Batista's music and dance production El Viaje (The Journey). See our highlights below, and visit our events page to discover more upcoming projects and programs.
PRISM Quartet investigates the concept of "musical color" through a series of workshops, performances, and collaborations. Partnering with the Brooklyn-based group Sō Percussion (June 4), andPartch (June 11), an ensemble devoted to American composer Henry Partch, PRISM will present two concerts featuring new commissions that pair the saxophone with a wide range of percussion instruments.
Live at the Dump: Songs of Memory and Forgetting
June 5 and 12
RAIR (Recycled Artist In Residency) presents Martha McDonald's site-specific installation and performances at Northeast Philadelphia's Revolution Recovery recycling facility and artist space. While playing original music on repurposed instruments, McDonald will lead audiences through an interpretive musical tour of the site, navigating through the sorting piles to explore the fragile nature of memory. Watch a video of McDonald at RAIR in The Wall Street Journal.>>
O zlozony/O composite
Bryn Mawr College's retrospective, Trisha Brown: In the New Body, culminates in performances of the postmodern choreographer's O zlozony/O composite by the Pennsylvania Ballet, marking the first time a US ballet company will perform Brown's work. Inspired by the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz and Edna St. Vincent Millay, O zlozony/O composite combines Brown's signature choreographic voice with the refined movement of classical dance.
Seven Responses
The Crossing has commissioned seven renowned composers to create musical responses to 17th-century composer Dieterich Buxtehude's Jesu Membra Nostri, a series of seven short cantatas that address the body of Jesus Christ. The Crossing will perform alongside leading ensembles Quicksilver Baroque and the International Contemporary Ensemble, alternating their performances and presenting the historic cantatas alongside their contemporary counterparts in two programs.
El Viaje (The Journey)
Percussionist and Pew Fellow Pablo Batista presents the world premiere of a new performance work that tells the story of the spiritual and cultural resilience of those forced to emigrate from Africa to the Americas. El Viaje will blend traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms, contemporary Western instrumentation, Afro-Caribbean choreography, and multi-media imagery to create an immersive musical experience.
Firebird: Reimagined
The Mann Center for the Performing Arts brings together The Philadelphia Orchestra, Grammy Award-winning South African vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and South Africa's renowned Handspring Puppet Company in a multidisciplinary interpretation of Igor Stravinsky's orchestral score for the 1910 ballet The Firebird.
Related Grants
RAIR: Live at the Dump
Pablo Batista
PRISM Quartet
Related Questions of Practice
Questions of Practice: Artists Martha McDonald and Billy Dufala on Ephemerality
Mind, Movement, and Memory: Douglas Crimp and Peter Eleey on Choreographer Trisha Brown
Questions of Practice: Writer and Dancer Wendy Perron on the Meaning of "Contemporary"
Center Grantees Make National News: The Mann Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PRISM Quartet, and More
Fellows Friday News: 12 New Fellows Announced; Justin Cronin's Novel Tops Times Best Sellers List; J.C. Todd Wins International Poetry Award
Live at the Dump: Talking Trash with Tom Sachs and Nato Thompson
Chopin's Voice: Chopin's Music in Performance
This interactive panel discussion, part of Swarthmore's Chopin Without Music, reveals new possibilities for contemporary theater and classical music to intersect in performance.
event-content
chopin-039-s-voice-chopin-039-s-music-in-performance
Dancing around the Bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg, and Duchamp
The Philadelphia Museum of Art traced the influence of Marcel Duchamp on the dance, music, and visual artwork of these four equally protean figures.
dancing-around-the-bride-cage-cunningham-johns-rauschenberg-and-duchamp
Mary Lattimore: Fellows Friday Q&A
We speak to Mary Lattimore, a classically trained harpist who incorporates experimental techniques and technologies into her music.
question-of-practice-content
fellows-friday-q-amp-amp-a-with-mary-lattimore
Questions of Practice: Ernesto Pujol on Durational Performance
Social choreographer Ernesto Pujol explains why durational performance "fights our cult of speed."
questions-of-practice-ernesto-pujol-on-durational-performance
That Which Is Fundamental
The first multi-concert retrospective of Julius Eastman, an African American composer who was active internationally in the 1970s and 80s, but who died at age 49, included rarely-performed works that showcased the composer's broad compositional practice.
that-which-is-fundamental
Questions of Practice: Centrala's Michał Zadara and Barbara Wysocka on Intersecting Contemporary Theater and Classical Music in Performance
Director Michał Zadara and actress Barbara Wysocka on creating an innovative adaptation of Fryderyk Chopin's two piano concertos performed without a piano.
questions-of-practice-centrala-039-s-michal-zadara-and-barbara-wysocka-on-intersecting-contemporary-theater-and-classical-music-in-performance
Winifred Lutz
Winifred Lutz is an installation artist and a 1992 Pew Fellow.
winifred-lutz
Mendelssohn Club Open Rehearsal
Get a sneak peek at a rehearsal of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia's Bach/Mendelssohn St. Matthew Passion. for an introduction to the world of choral music.
mendelssohn-club-open-rehearsal
Judy Hussie-Taylor
Judy Hussie-Taylor has served as Executive Director of Danspace Project, a New York City venue for independent experimental choreographers, since 2008. Hussie-Taylor served as a Pew Fellowships panelist in 2012 and 2013, a Performance LOI panelist in 2014, and as the Performance panel chair in 2015.
judy-hussie-taylor
From Wealth of Tears to Cheerful Hearts: Odes by Bach and Blow
Tempesta di Mare presented a concert series of baroque interpretations in collaboration with the Philadelphia Singers.
from-wealth-of-tears-to-cheerful-hearts-odes-by-bach-and-blow
Swarthmore College Exhibition: Friends
Swarthmore College presents Friends, one of three culminating exhibitions at Twelve Gates Arts for Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary.
swarthmore-college-exhibition-friends
In Plain Air
A new composition by Nathan Davis and Phyllis Chen, performed by the highly acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), activates Christ Church's historic campus and celebrates the installation of a new custom-built pipe organ.
in-plain-air
Barkley L. Hendricks
Barkley L. Hendricks (b. 1945 in Philadelphia) is a figurative painter and photographer best known for his life-sized portraits of people of color from the urban northeast.
barkley-l-hendricks
Mixplace Studio
The Slought Foundation developed a research and mentoring initiative that partners West Philadelphia youth with architecture and design students from the University of Pennsylvania.
mixplace-studio
Podcast from Pew Charitable Trusts Explores the Creative Process with Composer Jennifer Higdon and the Center's Paula Marincola
In The Pew Charitable Trusts' "After the Fact" podcast, host Dan LeDuc talks with Center executive director Paula Marincola about support for the arts and with Pew Fellow and Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning composer Jennifer Higdon about her creative process.
news-content
podcast-from-pew-charitable-trusts-explores-the-creative-process-with-composer-jennifer-higdon-and-the-center-s-paula-marincola
Zydeco Crossroads
WXPN's yearlong project explores the origins and evolution of zydeco, a form of African-American roots music that blends Creole traditions, blues, and R&B.
zydeco-crossroads
Michelle Hensley
Michelle Hensley is artistic director of the Minneapolis-based theater company Ten Thousand Things, where she has directed and produced over 60 tours of award-winning drama to nontraditional audiences, in locations which included prisons, shelters, and housing projects.
michelle-hensley
Rachel Zolf
Zolf's poetry and art videos explore memory, history, ethics, and the limits of language.
rachel-zolf
On Tour: Where to Find Center-Funded Projects Around the World in 2016
Center-supported performance projects and exhibitions continue to have successful presentations after their initial premieres in our region.
on-tour-where-to-find-center-funded-projects-around-the-world-in-2016
Fellows Friday: Q&A with Musician Chris Madak
Musician and Pew Fellow Chris Madak on artistic motivation, the notion of "perfection," and more.
fellows-friday-q-amp-amp-a-with-musician-chris-madak