Over the years Aynur has become one of the most well known musicians from Turkey and a representative for the Kurdish people. A best-seller among Kurdish folk albums, Aynur vocal style are praised not just in Turkish media, but also in international media. Musically she tries to blend Kurdish with Western music, interpreting her traditional repertoire in a modern way. She has collaborations with famous musicians and bands like world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Silk Road Ensemble, Kayhan Kalhor, Javier Limon, Kinan Azmeh, Mercan Dede, Salman Gambarov, Cemil Qocgiri, Morgenland All Star Band, Nerderland Blazers Ensemble, and Sertab Erener.
Venue: Mandeville Auditorium
Leilehua Lanzilotti and Argus Quartet
Praised for playing with “supreme melodic control and total authority” and “decided dramatic impact” (Calgary Herald), the Argus Quartet has quickly emerged as one of today’s most dynamic and versatile ensembles, winning First Prize at both the 2017 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and the 2017 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition. They will perform an evening of new music by contemporary indigenous artists including Ahupua’a by 2022 Pulitzer finalist Leilehua Lanzilotti.
Program: Leilehua Lanzilotti: ko’u inoa, ahupua’ a for string quartet (newly commissioned work), and beyond the accident of time for five voices/percussion; inti figgis-vizueta: mayu: the great river for string quartet and talamh (land) for string quartet
Ephrat Asherie Dance Company: UnderScored
UnderScored is a multi-faceted project rooted in the intergenerational stories and memories of New York City underground club heads. Created in collaboration with legendary elders from the underground dance community, Archie Burnett, Michele Saunders and Brahms “Bravo” LaFortune, the cast ranges in age from age 28–79. This project takes shape as a series of performances, community based events and an oral history archive.
Rooted in African American and Latine street and social dances, Ephrat Asherie Dance (EAD) explores the expansive narrative qualities of various street and club styles including breaking, hip hop, house and vogue, as a means to tell stories, develop innovative imagery, and find new modes of expression.
Co-commissioned by ArtPower at UC San Diego
Fémina
Lyrically poignant with hip-hop and Latin folk major influences, Fémina is Argentine soul music with a purpose. The harmony-soaked vocals and electro-folk charisma of the Trucco sisters propels a new project by this acclaimed female powered band and carries messages of equality and empowerment. Hailing from the tiny mountain town of San Martin de los Andes in Argentina, the band’s live shows are often theatrical in nature, and mix a variety of Latin American genres with rap, spoken word and beautiful melodies. A unique and thrilling combo.
This event is part of UC San Diego’s Latinx History Month celebration.
Rosanna Gamson/World Wide
Sugar Houses
“The choreography and music are gripping, the company is impressive, and the uses of mixed-media are meaningful.”—Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
Immersed in the dark world of the Brothers Grimm, Sugar Houses is a new dance theater work that employs the tale of Hansel & Gretel to explore the dynamics of scapegoating, and the complexity and complicity of looking the other way. Created by celebrated choreographer Rosanna Gamson, this adult retelling of the tale exposes hidden histories and finds contemporary resonances in the familiar story, recounted in bold imagery informed by the horror genre. The audience joins a cast of six dancers/singers/actors on stage in an evening filled with gallows humor, choral singing, athletic dancing, arcane rites, and spooky incantations. Traditional American songs arranged by Fahad Siadat and Tomasz Krzyzanowski and witches’ spells by famed horror writer Brian Evenson are performed live with sonic sampling by Simon Greenberg.
The presentation of Sugar Houses by Rosanna Gamson/World Wide was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This project was supported by a National Performance Network (NPN) Artist Engagement Fund, with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information, visit www.npnweb.org.
David Roussève/ REALITY | Halfway to Dawn
“Shattering dance/theater.”—New York Times
Choreographed, written, and directed by David Roussève, Halfway to Dawn is an evening-length work weaving dance, music, sound, video, and text to uncover the deeper ”truths” of African American, gay jazz composer Billy Strayhorn’s life (1915–67) while also creating a dialogue on urgent social issues of our own time. The work is danced to a score of Strayhorn and Duke Ellington songs, from raise-the-roof jazz anthems to emotion-laden ballads. Halfway to Dawn intersects fact, conjecture, comment, abstraction, and fantasy to create an abstract portrait of Ellington’s most important, though largely unknown, collaborator.
Founded in 1988, David Roussève/REALITY creates expressionistic dance/theater works that combine the accessibility, grit, and passion of African American traditional and pop cultures with the challenging compositional structures of avant-garde dance and theater in order to explore socially-charged, immensely relevant, and often spiritual themes.
Manual Cinema | No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks
No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks brings to life the story of one of Chicago’s most beloved figures. Brooks was an icon, a poet laureate, and a Pulitzer Prize winner, but she was also a treasured educator and mentor to the countless writers and children who knew her as their very own “Miss Brooks.” Weaving together poetry, storytelling, original music performed by a full jazz combo, and striking visuals, No Blue Memories is an exploration of Brooks’s beloved city and a story of how she navigated identity, craft, and politics over the course of one of the most remarkable careers in American literary history. A Chicago-based performance collective, Manual Cinema uses vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble to transform the experience of attending the cinema, imbuing it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality.
Roland Auzet
“Art is a game between all people of all ages.”—Marcel Duchamp
Music is a tool to create and consolidate a totality, a community of reflections on our daily lives.
A bare hands is a sound performance, focused like a magnifying glass on an object that we know well. With my “bare hands,” I will look at … a car. We’ll have an intimate encounter that will reveal the joys of rhythms and sounds.
From the time we were children we have played with and in cars. We travel in them, for sure, but we also talk, take shelter from the rain, eat, and make love in them. Sometime we even live in them…a sad fact too often the case today.
The car as object will live through sound. It is not mute but its language is secret. It is the secret of all secrets. It contains all the worlds. It is our history; it is.
Part of San Diego Symphony’s It’s About Time festival.
Malpaso Dance Company
“ . . . elegant and bold, inventive and joyful.”—Times Union
Following their 2014 U.S. debut in a sold-out run in New York City—which garnered high praise from the New York Times—Malpaso have continued to play a prominent role in the renewed artistic dialogue between America and Cuba. Representing Cuba’s expanding cultural life, Malpaso—whose name, jokingly, means “misstep”—skillfully blend unfussy ballet, their native Afro-Cuban traditions, and intensely physical modern dance. Since being established in 2012 by resident choreographer and artistic director Osnel Delgado, Malpaso have quickly become one of the most sought-after Cuban dance companies. Emphasizing a collaborative creative process, they are committed to working with top international choreographers while also nurturing new voices in Cuban choreography.
For their San Diego debut, Malpaso will perform Indomitable Waltz, choreographed for the company by ArtPower alumna Aszure Barton; Ocaso by Osnel Delgado; and Why You Follow by Ron K. Brown.
Malpaso Dance Company is an Associate Company of Joyce Theater Productions.
Compagnie Hervé Koubi
Recognized as one of Europe’s most distinctive choreographers, Hervé Koubi draws creative strength from his Algerian roots and Mediterranean culture. His company makes its San Diego debut with What the Day Owes to the Night (Ce Que le Jour Doit à la Nuit), a highly physical, stunningly fluid work for 12 French Algerian and African male dancers. The piece combines capoeira, martial arts, and urban contemporary dance, and is packed with backflips, head spins, and powerful imagery evocative of Eastern paintings and Islamic architecture. What the Day Owes to the Night is danced to an eclectic score that features Johann Sebastian Bach, Hamza El Din & the Kronos Quartet, and traditional Sufi music.