[NEohioPAL] Groundworks Collaborating with Cleveland Orchestra, Play House

[Nancy Pierce]

GROUNDWORKS DANCETHEATER TO PERFORM WITH CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA AND CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE


 
A Soldier’s Tale by Igor Stravinsky, Kurt Vonnegut

Catch and Release by Esa-Pekka Salonen 


 
April 22-25, 2010 

The Cleveland Play House, Baxter Stage

8500 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH  44196

www.clevelandplayhouse.com  440-795-7000


 
GroundWorks DanceTheater is pleased to announce that it will partner with the Cleveland Play House and members of the Cleveland Orchestra for the creation of a new production of Igor Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale  with libretto re-imagined by Kurt Vonnegut.  The Cleveland Play House will produce this exciting program as part of their 2010 FusionFest, April 22-25, 2010.

GroundWorks artistic director David Shimotakahara willcollaborate with Play House associate artistic director Seth Gordon and Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor Tito Munoz on this new adaptation of Stravinsky’s well-known classic.

GroundWorks also welcomes a new collaboration with renowned video artist and Cleveland Institute of Art faculty member Kasumi on a featured companion work, Catch and Release by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Known as a spoken opera with dance, A Soldier’s Tale is a theatrical work set to music composed by Stravinsky in 1918.  It was created “to be read, played, and danced,” with a libretto based on a Russian folk tale written by Swiss author C.F. Ramuz.  Originally written in French (L'histoire du soldat), this intriguing story of a soldier who loses his soul by trading his violin to the devil has inspired many dramatic translations. In 1993, Vonnegut, an American novelist and WWII POW, was commissioned to recreate the text, at the urging of journalist, writer, editor and actor George Plimpton. Vonnegut agreed, scrapping Ramuz's original narration for a newtale about Eddie Slovik, who in 1945 became the last American soldier to be shot for desertion. The out-of-print 1954 book, The Execution of Private Slovik, was the inspiration for Vonnegut's libretto, which, in true Vonnegut style, pulls no punches.     

Catch and Release is a 22-minute composition by Salonen (former Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic). Written specifically as a companion piece for A Soldier’s Tale, the two pieces were presented together at the 2006 debut of Catch and Release in Finland. Salonen’s intent was to complement Stravinsky’s piece by using the same instrumentation in new ways and the piece features identical scoring to A Soldier’s Tale. 

Choreographed by Shimotakahara and conducted by Munoz, this new interpretation features video art by Kasumi and lighting design by Dennis Dugan.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20100324/29534d0c/attachment-0003.htm>