Art

The Music Center Celebrates Ailey’s 60th Anniversary

PRECINCT REPORTER GROUP NEWS — Each of the four programs will feature Alvin Ailey’s American masterpiece Revelations. Since its creation in 1960, Revelations has been seen by more audiences around the world than any other modern work, inspiring generations through its powerful storytelling and soul-stirring spirituals.

Published

5 years ago

April 9, 2019

Oakland Post

By The Precinct Reporter News

The Music Center welcomes one of America’s most popular dance companies, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater , back to Los Angeles with the dance company’s 60^th anniversary celebration tour at The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion through April 7. Led by Artistic Director Robert Battle, Ailey’s remarkable dancers – including Danica Paulos of Huntington Beach and Rehearsal Director and Guest Artist Matthew Rushing of Los Angeles, who has been with the Company for more than 25 years – will perform four different programs of diverse repertory featuring West Coast premieres, new productions and returning classics. Part of the 2018/2019 season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center, which is curated by The Music Center’s artistic division The Music Center Arts (TMC Arts), the engagement includes four special programs: Trailblazers, featuring the West Coast premiere of Lazarus by Rennie Harris – the company’s first two-act ballet; Bold Visions, featuring West Coast premiere of Wayne McGregor’s Kairos and the Los Angeles premiere of The Call by Ronald K. Brown, alongside Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter; a Timeless Ailey program with rarely seen gems by one of America’s greatest cultural leaders; and a Musical Inspirations program featuring the Los Angeles premiere of Ailey star Jamar Roberts’ Members Don’t Get Weary, a new production of Robert Battle’s Juba, and his tour-de-force duet Ella.

Each of the four programs will feature Alvin Ailey’s American masterpiece Revelations. Since its creation in 1960, Revelations has been seen by more audiences around the world than any other modern work, inspiring generations through its powerful storytelling and soul-stirring spirituals. Springing from Ailey’s childhood memories of growing up in the South and attending services at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Texas, Revelations pays homage to the rich African-American cultural heritage and explores the emotional spectrum of the human condition.

“Alvin Ailey forever changed the American landscape by raising up the lives and cultural heritage of African Americans for all to see, opening the hearts and minds of people of every background and elevating the world of the performing arts,” said Robert Battle. “During this milestone season, we are thrilled to return to Los Angeles, the city that was home to Mr. Ailey for many years, and where he fell in love with dance and launched his career. We honor Alvin Ailey’s storied legacy with performances across North America, educational programs that enlighten young people and develop the next generation of performing artists. What Mr. Ailey gave us is more than a repertory and a tradition. It is a movement, a direction, a desire, a conviction that if the spirit is to live it must rise. We dedicate our 60^th anniversary to the next ascent.”

Audiences will experience Ailey’s first ever two-act work with the West Coast premiere of Rennie Harris’ Lazarus. Inspired by the life and legacy of Alvin Ailey, and addressing the racial inequities America faced in 1958 when the company was founded and which continue to challenge today, Lazarus is an ensemble work featuring a soundtrack that melds Nina Simone, Terrence Trent D’Arby, Michael Kiwanuka, Odetta, original music by Darrin Ross, and the voice of Alvin Ailey. The New York Times said, “… Mr. Harris gives us something like heaven,” and “… the style has a spiritual force that’s uplifting, and the pleasure of it is mixed with a revelation of the past in the present, of black history in the body language.”

Wayne McGregor’s Kairos, the second piece the choreographer set on the company following

Chroma in 2013, is performed to a reimagined Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons by experimental composer Max Richter in the Bold Visions program. The Dance Enthusiast described the company’s performance of Kairos as “the dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater stay true to Wayne McGregor’s intellectual brilliance without sacrificing the trademark spirituality of Ailey.” The Music Center opened its current season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center with Company Wayne McGregor/Autobiography and will again present McGregor’s work during its upcoming presentation of Adès & McGregor: A Dance Collaboration this coming July. Richter was at the helm of another Music Center presentation, The Music Center Presents Max Richter’s SLEEP, this past summer in Grand Park.

Ronald K. Brown’s seventh work for Ailey, The Call, will make its Los Angeles premiere at The Music Center and is included in the Bold Visions program. Brown, a 2018 Dance Magazine Award recipient, describes the work, which seamlessly blends modern and West African dance idioms, as “a love letter to Mr.

Ailey.” The music includes Johann Sebastian Bach (recorded by Chris Thile, Edgar Meyere & Yo-Yo Ma), Mary Lou Williams Trio, and Asase Yaa. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter, a passionate statement about the physical, is also featured on the Bold Visions program.

Honoring Ailey’s 60^th anniversary, the company will showcase Timeless Ailey, a program that brings treasures by the company’s iconic founder back to the stage. Excerpts from rarely seen gems, including Blues Suite, Streams, Mary Lou’s Mass, The Lark Ascending, Hidden Rites, Phases, Opus McShann, Pas de Duke, and For “Bird” – With Love, will be joined by perennial favorites such as Memoria, Night Creature, and Cry.

The Musical Inspirations program includes Robert Battle’s first work for the company, Juba (2003), a quartet with a score by frequent collaborator John Mackey; Ailey dancer and 2016 “Bessie” Award recipient Jamar Roberts’ first work for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Members Don’t Get Weary, set to the powerful music of the legendary American jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane; and Ella, a highenergy comical dance originally created as a solo and reinvented as a duet in anticipation of the legendary singer Ella Fitzgerald’s centennial in April 2017.

One hour prior to each performance, The Music Center will host DANCETALKS featuring interviews with Ailey company members. Ticketed guests can join this fascinating behind-the-scenes pre-performance discussion and also have the opportunity to learn a segment from the famed Ailey masterpiece Revelations.

This article originally appeared in the Precinct Reporter Group News.

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Art

Marin County: A Snapshot of California’s Black History Is on Display

The Marin County Office of Education, located at 1111 Las Gallinas Ave in San Rafael, will host the extraordinary exhibit, “The Legacy of Marin City: A California Black History Story (1942-1960),” from Feb. 1 to May 31, 2024. The interactive, historical, and immersive exhibit featuring memorabilia from Black shipyard workers who migrated from the South to the West Coast to work at the Marinship shipyard will provide an enriching experience for students and school staff. Community organizations will also be invited to tour the exhibit.

Published

1 week ago

April 16, 2024

Oakland Post

Early photo of Marin City in the exhibit showing the first department store, barber shop, and liquor store. (Photo by Godfrey Lee)

By Post Staff

The interactive, historical, and immersive exhibit featuring memorabilia from Black shipyard workers who migrated from the South to the West Coast to work at the Marinship shipyard will provide an enriching experience for students and school staff. Community organizations will also be invited to tour the exhibit.

All will have the opportunity to visit and be guided by its curator Felecia Gaston.

The exhibit will include photographs, articles and artifacts about the Black experience in Marin City from 1942 to 1960 from the Felecia Gaston Collection, the Anne T. Kent California Room Collection, The Ruth Marion and Pirkle Jones Collection, The Bancroft Library, and the Daniel Ruark Collection.

It also features contemporary original artwork by Chuck D of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group Public Enemy, clay sculptures by San Francisco-based artist Kaytea Petro, and art pieces made by Marin City youth in collaboration with Lynn Sondag, Associate Professor of Art at Dominican University of California.

The exhibit explores how Marin City residents endured housing inequities over the years and captures the history of plans to remove Black residents from the area after World War II. Throughout, it embodies the spirit of survival and endurance that emboldened the people who made Marin City home.

Felecia Gaston is the author of the commemorative book, ‘A Brand New Start…This is Home: The Story of World War II Marinship and the Legacy of Marin City.’ Thanks to the generous contribution of benefactors, a set of Felecia’s book will be placed in every public elementary, middle, and high school library in Marin.

In addition, educators and librarians at each school will have the opportunity to engage with Felecia in a review of best practices for utilizing the valuable primary sources within the book.

“Our goal is to provide students with the opportunity to learn from these significant and historical contributions to Marin County, California, and the United States,” said John Carroll, Marin County Superintendent of Schools.

“By engaging with Felecia’s book and then visiting the exhibit, students will be able to further connect their knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of this significant historical period,” Carroll continued.

Felecia Gaston adds, “The Marin County Office of Education’s decision to bring the Marin City Historical Traveling Exhibit and publication, ‘A Brand New Start…This is Home’ to young students is intentional and plays a substantial role in the educational world. It is imperative that our community knows the contributions of Marin City Black residents to Marin County. Our youth are best placed to lead this transformation.”

The Marin County Office of Education will host an Open House Reception of the exhibit’s debut on Feb. 1 from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.. All school staff, educators, librarians, and community members are encouraged to attend to preview the exhibit and connect with Felecia Gaston. To contact Gaston, email MarinCityLegacy@marinschools.org

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Activism

Alternative Outcome to Slayings by Police Explored in One-Man Play

BLACK MEN EVERYWHERE! is the explosive new one man play written, directed, and performed by Jinho “Piper” Ferreira. Set against the backdrop of a presidential election, the play explores how political and cultural leaders wield the myth of the dangerous Black man to manipulate the masses for personal gain. Piper penned the follow-up to his ground-breaking solo play, “Cops and Robbers,” after an impromptu cross-country Black history tour.

Published

2 months ago

February 16, 2024

Oakland Post

BLACK MEN EVERYWHERE! is the explosive new one man play written, directed, and performed by Jinho “Piper” Ferreira.

Special to The Post

What would happen if police officers who have gotten off for killing unarmed Black people started turning up dead?

Piper penned the follow-up to his ground-breaking solo play, “Cops and Robbers,” after an impromptu cross-country Black history tour.

“My wife and I had been talking about it for years,” Ferreira said. They had taken their three children to Brazil several times and West Africa but had yet to explore their history as Black people in this country. “It was Juneteenth last year and I realized we had a few weeks to make it happen, so we just jumped in the car and left” Piper said.

Three weeks later the family had seen everything from the African American Museum of History and Culture in Wash., D.C., to the phenomenally preserved Whitney Plantation in Louisiana. They’d stood outside of the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., and paid their respects at the Africa Town cemetery – where the passengers of the Clotilda (the last known U.S. slave ship to smuggle captured Africans into this country) were buried near Mobile, Ala.

“We had the kids keep a journal of the trip and my wife and I took notes, but once we got back home, I knew I had to make the pen move,” he said.

Ferreira plays 21 characters in the 60-minute emotional roller coaster ride; personalities we all know. While brilliantly weaving in themes of revolution, treachery, and revenge, “Black Men Everywhere!” is surprisingly — more than anything else — a love story.

“I wrote the play for Black men and everyone who loves us,” Ferreira said. “The play is narrated by a sistah and performed in front of the deeply spiritual artwork of Nedra T. Williams, an Oakland priestess of Olokun. It’s called ‘Black Men Everywhere!’ but we don’t exist without the Black woman.”

For tickets, please go to: http://tinyurl.com/5dm3mhra

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Art

City of Stockton Seeks Applications for Public Art Murals

The City of Stockton Arts Commission (SAC) has announced the opportunity for artist(s) and/or artist teams to apply to design and paint original artwork on City-owned property through a Public Art Mural Program. The deadline for applications is Friday, March 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. Applications and additional information are available online at www.stocktonca.gov/publicart.

Published

3 months ago

January 24, 2024

Oakland Post

The Public Art Mural Program incentivizes mural installations by providing city funding and the means of curating the City’s collection of murals.

City of Stockton

The deadline for applications is Friday, March 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. Applications and additional information are available online at www.stocktonca.gov/publicart.

The Public Art Mural Program incentivizes mural installations by providing city funding and the means of curating the City’s collection of murals.

This program has $50,000 in available funds for artist(s) and is also available for those who have already identified funds and would like to complete a mural project on city-owned property. Applications will be reviewed on a competitive basis and selected by the SAC.

To learn more about the Stockton Arts Commission (SAC) or qualifications and eligibility for Public Art Mural Program, please visit www.stocktonca.gov/publicart or call the Community Services Department at (209) 937-8206.