Carolina Performing Arts of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill today announced the roster of performances in its 2008-2009 season.
Featured performances include the regional debut of Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet in its only U.S. performances of “Swan Lake” and “Don Quixote,” both the Kirov Orchestra with conductor Valery Gergiev and the New York Philharmonic with music director and conductor Lorin Maazel, jazz legend Ornette Coleman and the 50th anniversary celebration of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, with special guest Sweet Honey in the Rock.
The season also includes pianist András Schiff, viola da gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall with Hesperion XXI, the Druid Theatre Company performing two of the classic works of Irish playwright J.M. Synge; violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter with Camerata Salzburg, and zydeco legend Buckwheat Zydeco.
Thirty-one programs will be presented in 42 performances in the largest and most varied season yet offered. Seven themed series within the season will present classical, jazz and roots music; experimental and global theater and performance art; and dance.
“This season is in many ways our most ambitious yet, in the depth of the programs, the scale of the companies we’re presenting and the number of new works,” said Emil Kang, UNC’s executive director for the arts. “In four years, we have grown and matured as a program. We’re able to present things now that we never could have a year or two ago.”
Carolina Performing Arts’ season also includes five major new works resulting from its commissioning program, including the world premiere of the theater work “Vivien and The Shadows,” a post-modern take on Vivien Leigh’s performance as Blanche DuBois by Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen; and “I went to the house but did not enter,” an experimental music theater work by German composer-director Heiner Goebbels, in partnership with the English vocal quartet The Hilliard Ensemble, in its U.S. premiere.
Carolina Performing Arts has also co-commissioned “To Be Straight With You,” a dance-theater exploration of sexuality and hate by DV8, a company from the United Kingdom; “Orpheus and Eurydice,” an avant-garde dance by French-Canadian choreographer Marie Chouinard; and “Continuous City,” an experimental multimedia performance work by The Builders Association with director Marianne Weems.
Focus on Global Theater
In keeping with UNC Chancellor James Moeser’s emphasis on globalization as a major academic priority, Carolina Performing Arts has included works, companies and artists from around the world in the upcoming season. Nations represented will include Benin, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Mali, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain and the United Kingdom.
“Our presentation of global theater gives us the opportunity to bring the world to Chapel Hill in a new way,” Kang said. “And the University’s recent focus on internationalization and a global mission challenges us to present work that engages our students in the broadest possible artistic explorations.”
Carolina Creative Campus
Carolina Performing Arts will continue its Carolina Creative Campus Initiative, which employs the arts to engage the entire campus community by stimulating discussion of important topics. Begun during the current season with “Criminal/Justice: The Death Penalty Examined,” the initiative in 2008-2009 will be “The Gender Project,” a year-long, in-depth look at questions of gender in society, how gender influences our identities and how we negotiate the idea of gender in our lives.
Six of the season performances in Memorial Hall – “Orpheus and Eurydice;” Compagnie Heddy Maalem’s “The Rite of Spring,” a modern interpretation of the 1913 Stravinsky/Nijinsky ballet; two classic works of Irish playwright J.M. Synge, performed by the Druid Theatre Company of Galway, Ireland; “Monsters and Prodigies: The History of the Castrati” a theatrical work by Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes of Mexico; “To Be Straight With You;”; and “Vivien and The Shadows” – form the core of the project. Programs and departments across campus will partner with CPA to create and present a wide variety of associated activities.
Carolina Performing Arts presented its inaugural performances in September 2005, and in its first three seasons has added significantly and positively to the performing arts landscape in North Carolina.
Kang credits the growth of Carolina Performing Arts’ offerings to several factors. “In some ways, it is because of relationships we’ve built with artists and visiting companies,” he said. “But it also has a lot to do with our dedicated and engaged audience, who’ve learned to trust us – both on campus and in the larger community. We present artists who will entertain, challenge, provoke and inspire, and our audiences are willing to take that ride with us.”
At least one of those audience members has kept an especially keen eye on Carolina Performing Arts’ efforts.
“Over the past three years, Carolina Performing Arts’ roster of extraordinary artists has helped to elevate our state to another level of artistic opportunities,” said Vicki Vitiello, senior program director for arts participation and learning at the North Carolina Arts Council.
Ticket Information
Subscriptions to the Carolina Performing Arts Series will be available beginning May 19, 2008, and tickets to individual performances will be available beginning July 1, 2008. Both subscriptions and individual tickets can be purchased online at carolinaperformingarts.org, by phone through the Memorial Hall Box Office at (919) 843-3333, or by mail to the Memorial Hall Box Office, UNC-Chapel Hill, Campus Box 3276, Chapel Hill, N.C., 27599-3276.
Web site: www.carolinaperformingarts.org
Note: For season deails, visit http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/arts/
carolina-performing-arts-announces-2008-2009-season—det.html
Carolina Performing Arts contact: Kara Larson, (919) 966-3834, kara.larson@unc.edu
News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589