MCLA Presents! announces 2009-2010 performances
Dancers, musicians, performance artists, and actors from around the globe come together at Massachusetts College of Liberal ArtsNORTH ADAMS, Mass. - Tickets for the MCLA Presents! 2009-2010 season are now on sale. From September 20 to April 28, 2010, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts will present a variety of artists from around the world in venues on and off campus.
Highlights of the season include the 115th Celebration of the College with a special performance by Broadway diva Donna McKechnie, the eclectic stylings of Marseille-based Watcha Clan, the gripping tale of the demise of Sylvia Plath in Edge, the music of Haiti with Emeline Michel, and multimedia presentations by Kinodance Company and Animalia. For additional information and a complete listing of the season, visit www.mcla.edu/presents. Tickets may be reserved over the phone at (413) 662-5204.
2009-2010 SEASON PERFORMANCES
Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra
MCLA Quad
Sunday, September 20, 2009; 3:00 p.m.
In a celebration co-sponsored by MCLA’s African, Latino, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) Student Clubs and Organizations, MCLA Presents! kicks off Hispanic Heritage Month and the 2009-2010 season with a free community concert featuring Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra. With their original blend of Afro-Caribbean rhythms such as salsa, merengue, cha-cha, bomba, plena and Latin jazz, they are a dancer’s delight and a listener’s indulgence captivating audiences of all ages and cultures. The Times Union calls them “…the perfect balance between rhythm and melody, adding some adventure, just slightly dissonant but always a delicious experimentation to the mix just to keep things interesting.” Tickets are FREE.
Kinodance Company The Refractive Kinescope
MCLA Gallery 51 Annex
Thursday, September 24, 2009; 6 p.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m.
Kinodance Company, an artist collaborative founded in Boston in 1999, creates stage performances, installations and films which make transparent the boundaries between dance, cinema and visual art. Commissioned by DownStreet Art, Kinodance Company will culminate their summer’s work in three special gallery performances in their installation The Refractive Kinescope at MCLA’s Gallery 51 Annex. Art, film and performance meld into one. The Boston Herald calls them “lush and sensual, mysterious and vivid”. Tickets: $7, $5 for MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
Watcha Clan
MCLA Venable Gymnasium
Wednesday, September 30, 2009; 7:30 p.m.
Watcha Clan creates a world music dance party at MCLA. True nomads in the world of music, and based in Marseilles, France, Watcha Clan searches for space and freedom. With a socially progressive agenda and a complex tapestry of musical styles, they combine Eastern European melodies with Algerian blues, cherifian grooves and hip-hop to form music that sings with the freedom of travelling people. NPR Music says, “Watcha Clan is one of the most exciting bands I’ve seen on the world music circuit.” This presentation is co-presented by MCLA’s Student Activities Council. Tickets: $12, $8 for MCLA alumni, $5 for MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
Emeline Michel
MCLA Church Street Center
Wednesday, October 28, 2009; 7:30 p.m.
Emeline Michel is a captivating performer, versatile vocalist and one of the premier Haitian songwriters of her generation. Singing both in French and Haitian Creole, her nine albums have catapulted her to international acclaim. The New York Times hails her as “the dancing ambassador with a voice serene and warm like a breeze.” Tickets: $12, $8 for MCLA alumni, $5 for MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
115th Anniversary Celebration featuring Donna McKechnie
Friday, November 13, 2009
5:30 p.m. Dinner – MCLA Church Street Center Social Hall
8:00 p.m. Concert – MCLA Church Street Center Auditorium
MCLA celebrates its 115th Anniversary with dinner and a show! The world of Broadway comes to the Berkshires in an intimate and dazzling evening with the incomparable Donna McKechnie. Donna is known to many as the Tony Award-winning Cassie in the original A Chorus Line and regarded internationally as one of Broadway’s foremost singing and dancing stars. Other Broadway credits include How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, On the Town, Promises-Promises, Company and State Fair. She recently published a memoir TIME STEPS, My Musical Comedy Life. Proceeds benefit scholarships at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Call (413) 662-5204 for pricing.
Animalia: Stories of Collapse, Calamity and Departure
Wednesday, November 18, 2009; 7:30 p.m.
MCLA Church Street Center
Presented in collaboration with the exhibition Nesting at MCLA Gallery 51, Animalia is an inter-species fairytale that combines live music on singing saw, accordion and strings with movement and projection.~ Performed within a landscape of mesmerizing video and archival film, Animalia invokes visions of secret bee societies and haunted circus scenes. A multimedia performance, Animalia offers metaphors of flight as departure points from environmental collapse and the hallucinatory effects of war. By appropriating the masculine power symbol of the buck 'rack' and reinserting it onto feminine characters, the narrative blurs the divisions between masculine/feminine identity and human/animal forms. This project was created by artist-musician C. Ryder Cooley.
Margaret A. Hart ’35 GospelFest
God’s Trombones
MCLA Church Street Center
Sunday, December 6, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
SPECIAL PRICE SHOW
After sell-out performances at the world-famous Apollo Theater, Craig Harris’s God’s Trombones returns to the Berkshires in a concert version at MCLA and co-presented by the Williams College Dance Department and MCLA’s African, Latino, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) Student Clubs and Organizations. God’s Trombones is based on James Weldon Johnson’s classic collection of poems that refigure inspirational sermons by itinerant African-American preachers. Craig Harris’ interpretation looks to transcend the sectarian roots of the sermons and focus on the spirituality that moves all religious experiences. Tickets: $20, free for MCLA students. All proceeds benefit the Margaret A. Hart ‘35 Scholarship.
Edge
MCLA Gallery 51
Wednesday, January 27, 2010; 7:30 p.m.
Edge is the critically acclaimed play about American poet Sylvia Plath, as played by Marcy J. Savastano and produced by Method Machine. Plath was a poet and author from the ’50s and ’60s, most famous for the novel The Bell Jar. Paul Alexander’s play is set in England on the last day of the prolific writer’s life as she reflects on her childhood, her husband poet Ted Hughes and her work. Join us for this intimate performance that is sure to sell out quickly. The LA Times calls it “Boldly dramatic and entertaining,” while the New Yorker calls it “troubling and powerful.” Tickets: $12, $8 for MCLA alumni, $5 for MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
5th Annual MCLA Blues & Funk Festival featuring Slavic Soul Party and Big Sam’s Funky Nation
Slavic Soul Party
Thursday, February 4, 2010; 7:30 p.m.
MCLA Venable Gymnasium
Slavic Soul Party plays fiery Balkan brass, hip-grinding American grooves, and ecstatic anthems both new and old. Brash and strong as slivovitz, these nine musicians have forged virtuosic new brass band music in the heart of New York City—melding Gypsy, East European, Mexican and Asian immigrant backgrounds with American jazz and soul. Barnes and Noble Online warns, “Prepare to be transported… a soulful, adventurously improvised blast from Party Central.” Tickets: $20 2-night special, $12 one night, $8 MCLA alumni, $5 MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA Students.
Big Sam’s Funky Nation
Friday, February 5, 2010; 7:30 p.m.
MCLA Venable Gymnasium
Presiding over his Funky Nation is Big Sam, formerly the trombonist for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who blows the funk out of his trombone and refuses to let the audience sit still. Between solos and trombone riffs, Big Sam second-lines (a uniquely New Orleans style of street-dance) and gets the crowd going both in movement and in replies to his call-and-response MC-style. The San Francisco Chronicle calls Big Sam “the top man on the slide trombone in the birthplace of jazz.” Tickets: $20 2-night special, $12 one night, $8 MCLA alumni, $5 MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
The Amazing Acoustaphotophonogrammitron
Music = Art
MCLA Gallery 51
Wednesday, February 17, 2010; 7:30 p.m.
Throughout the months of February and March, MCLA Gallery 51, in partnership with MCLA Presents!, will be exhibiting artists who find the muse both in the visual and performative worlds—in other words, artists who are musicians, musicians who are artists and all that falls between. Artists will include Nick Zammutto of The Books, who does all his own sample collecting, composing, writing, recording, mixing and mastering in his studio in North Adams using personal computers, running cheap software and piecing together ragtag equipment. Also included is Ven Voisey’s latest work “Cabinets,” which combines elements of folk, electronic minimalism, found sound and imagery, field recording and shadow puppetry. Tickets: $12, $8 MCLA alumni, $5 MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
Sekou Sundiata Evening of Poetry and Spoken Word with Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo
MCLA Gallery 51
Wednesday, March 10, 2010; 7:30 p.m.
Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo, of Nigerian decent, is one of the most sought after poetry slammers, a recipient of the 2008 National Performance Network/NCCC Artist of Color Residency Award and a two-time National Poetry Slam Individual Finalist. She has been asked to compose and perform for Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, and was commissioned by Discovery Channel for their 2008 brand campaign. Tickets: $12, $8 MCLA alumni, $5 for MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
A Night at the Cabaret with Katie Johnson ’07
Taylor’s Restaurant
Friday, April 16, 2010; 9:00 p.m.
A Night at the Cabaret returns to Taylor’s Restaurant with Katie Johnson. Katie was a huge hit at last year’s highly successful Cabaret Night. Katie’s credits include but are not limited to Urinetown, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Fame: The Musical, Chicago, Annie, Sound of Music, and Cinderella. The audience is encouraged to bring sheet music for their favorite Broadway musicals and take a turn at the mic. Tickets: $5, free for members and MCLA students.
PAM! Show
Location to be announced
Wednesday, April 28, 2010; 7:30 p.m.
The PAM! Show is fully programmed and produced by the students of MCLA’s Spring 2010 Performing Arts Management class, under the guidance of Jonathan Secor, instructor and director of special programs for the College. Performers and location will be determined during the spring semester. Look for updates on the website at www.mcla.edu/presents. Tickets: $12, $8 for MCLA alumni, $5 for MCLA faculty and staff, free for members and MCLA students.
For tickets, call (413) 662-5204. For more information, call (413) 664-8718, or go to www.mcla.edu/presents. For information about becoming a member of MCLA Presents! please contact MCLA’s Advancement Office at (413) 662-5220.
