LUMBERYARD Announces Grand Opening And Fall-Winter Programming

LUMBERYARD today announces the September 1 grand opening of its $8.2 million, state-of-the-art center for performing arts and film in Catskill, NY, and the fall season programming that will inaugurate the new facility. LUMBERYARD's heralded Hudson Valley campus will make transformative contributions both to the cultural landscape and economic health of the region and to the field of contemporary performance in New York City and the U.S. by bringing a wide range of renowned and emerging artists to Catskill for out-of-town premieres, often incubated through LUMBERYARD's signature technical residencies.

LUMBERYARD will celebrate its opening with a September 1 event hosted by Golden Globe Award-nominee and social activist Alan Cumming, following a performance that pairs Savion Glover, whom The New Yorker has deemed "the greatest tap virtuoso of our time, perhaps of all time," with Marcus Gilmore, one of the most in-demand drummers in jazz, for an exploration of rhythm, the foundation of both artists' work.

In addition, on August 31, Glover and Gilmore will perform for the incarcerated teenagers at Hudson Correctional Facility and their families, as the conclusion to LUMBERYARD's Fresh Start pilot, a groundbreaking performing-arts education and self-expression program that complements the "Raise the Age" initiative in New York State.

"It is exhilarating to finally welcome the public into our artistic home," says LUMBERYARD Artistic and Executive Director Adrienne Willis. "LUMBERYARD's ambitious and innovative vision is inexorably linked to this space-as well as to the communities and economic resurgence of the Hudson Valley-and we are thrilled to be able to host and celebrate artists as diverse as dance icons Lucinda Childs and Wendy Whelan and theater makers Kaneza Schaal and Andrew Schneider here this fall, as well as to present live concerts and film screenings."

A women-led 501(c)(3) non-profit headquartered in New York City, LUMBERYARD is leveraging a generous seed gift from prominent American arts patron Solange MacArthur to provide crucial support to artists across the spectrum of the performing arts. The Catskill campus is the first facility in the United States designed for artists to test, try and experiment with design and technology immediately before the New York City or national premiere of their work. The organization's acclaimed technical residency program-which has benefitted over 65 leading American performing arts companies to date since its creation in 2011-provides artists and their companies with at least one week of unrestricted theater access, a substantial fee, dedicated use of LUMBERYARD's production staff, equipment, and production materials as well as photo/video documentation, housing and meals during the residency. The Catskill campus includes a column-free, 5,500-square-foot performance space that can be reconfigured to replicate a variety of New York City stages, in addition to artist housing, a 5,000-square-foot studio and event space, and the only purpose-built soundstage in the region, which will establish Greene County as a premier destination for film production.

In addition to embodying a bold new model for developing and funding the performing arts in the United States, LUMBERYARD is spurring unprecedented levels of economic development in Greene County and the Hudson Valley-an area in urgent need of growth. LUMBERYARD's opening is projected to bring up to $13 million, 150 new jobs, and 10,000 new visitors to the Hudson Valley each year, in part through the center's artistic programming, film and TV production soundstage rentals, and conference and wedding rentals.

As the only Qualified Production Facility (QPF) in Greene County, film and TV productions that use the its soundstage are eligible for the highest tax credits offered by New York State, enabling Greene County to compete with New York City studios. In turn, this will bring new jobs and new opportunities for skills development to a county that has markedly higher unemployment rate than its neighbors. LUMBERYARD is collaborating with Greene County Tourism on an innovative marketing initiative to attract the film and television industry to the area.

During a recent visit to LUMBERYARD, Senator Chuck Schumer said, "Any way we can help upstate-with jobs and growth-it's exciting. But this is one of the most exciting projects I have seen." Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul predicts that LUMBERYARD "will be a major catalyst to bring back the downtown community in Catskill."

In addition to its artistic programming and rental offerings, LUMBERYARD provides three youth programs in Columbia and Greene Counties. Fresh Start was created at the invitation of the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to support teenagers incarcerated at the Hudson Correctional Facility. Savion Glover and Kaneza Schaal will perform and work with the inmates as part of their LUMBERYARD engagements. LUMBERYARD also runs Young Performers, a free after-school arts and meditation program, and Junior Crew, a summer employment initiative for local youth in partnership for with Columbia-Greene Workforce NY.

LUMBERYARD's inaugural fall season features three projects for which LUMBERYARD is providing technical residencies, culminating in out-of-town tryouts, in advance of their premieres in the 2018 BAM Next Wave Festival-as part of the first partnership BAM has had with a residency facility in the prestigious institution's more than 150-year history. These begin with theater-maker Kaneza Schaal's JACK &, created in collaboration with Cornell Alston and Christopher Myers. The artists will work with inmates at the nearby Hudson Correctional Facility, before showings at LUMBERYARD on September 28 & 29. Also part of the BAM partnership are I hunger for you, from choreographer Kimberly Bartosik and daela, at LUMBERYARD on October 12 & 13; and Andrew Schneider's theater production NERVOUS/SYSTEM, at LUMBERYARD November 2 & 3.

For more information on the fall season, please visit https://www.lumberyard.org/fall/.

LUMBERYARD FALL AND WINTER 2018 PROGRAMMING

LUMBERYARD Grand Opening Party
Hosted by Alan Cumming
With a performance by Savion Glover featuring Marcus Gilmore
September 1, 2018
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)
Tickets: $240, includes performance and VIP reception
Performance only, $40 and up

Following the first performance of Savion Glover Featuring Marcus Gilmore, the inspired duet of rhythm masters that closes LUMBERYARD's acclaimed Under Construction summer festival, the public is invited to LUMBERYARD's Grand Opening Party, hosted by Alan Cumming.

Kaneza Schaal
JACK &
In collaboration with Cornell Alston and Christopher Myers, to be followed by a panel discussion
Sep 29
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)
Tickets $25 and up

Theater artist Kaneza Schaal explores re-entry into society after prison and how internal life is rebuilt after trauma. JACK & stars Cornell Alston, whom Schaal first saw perform in August Wilson's

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the all-male Fishkill Correctional Facility, while he was serving 33 years. In considering the toll of time in prison, the production focuses on the measure of inner life and dreaming annexed by the state. Schaal weaves together wide-ranging material including the aspirational class stories of 1950s sitcoms like The Honeymooners and Amos & Andy, minimalist paintings by artists such as Agnes Martin and Ellen Gallagher, and entering-society ceremonies like Cotillion Balls to create the portrait of a dream interrupted and resumed.

Kaneza Schaal is a New York City-based artist rooted in the downtown experimental theater community. Her recent work GO FORTH premiered at Performance Space 122, then showed at the Genocide Memorial Amphitheater in Kigali, Rwanda; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's River-to-River Festival; Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans; Cairo International Contemporary Theater Festival in Egypt; and Wesleyan University. Schaal's work with The Wooster Group, Elevator Repair Service, Richard Maxwell/New York City Players, New York City Opera, and others has brought her to venues around the globe. This spring Schaal will workshop a new production, CARTOGRAPHY.

Cornell Alston is a long-time member of Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a non-profit organization that uses the arts to teach life skills to men and women both inside and outside of state correctional facilities. Alston is currently the community outreach coordinator for RTA and leads its Youth Empowerment Through the Arts Initiative, launched in Queens, NY in 2014. Alston has been a theater artist for over 20 years and was a performer and collaborator with Kaneza Schaal on Please, Bury Me at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and GO FORTH during a Performance Space 122 RAMP residency.

Christopher Myers is an artist and writer who lives in New York. Widely acclaimed for his work with literature for young people, he is also an accomplished fine artist who has exhibited widely, including at PS1/MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Prospect Biennial in New Orleans, and Contrasts Gallery in Shanghai.

Columbus Day weekend live music and film events (Oct 6 & 7)

The Hunts
Oct 6 at 7pm
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)
Tickets $30 and up

The Hunts are an indie-alternative-folk band comprising seven brothers and sisters. Born and raised in Chesapeake, Virginia, the siblings grew up in a musical home and began composing their own music at an early age. Josh (guitar, lead vocals), Jenni (violin, lead vocals), Jonathan (keys, vocals), Jordan (drums, vocals), Justin (bass, vocals), Jamison (mandolin, vocals), and Jessi (viola, banjo, vocals) have been performing together ever since. They were highlighted by Paste magazine as "The Best of What's Next" on the occasion of their 2015 English-folk-flavored debut, Those Younger Days, which wistfully recalls the members' childhood. No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music called the The Hunts "an undiscovered gem" in a recent concert review following the release of their new album, Darlin' Oh Darlin'.

Jon Bowermaster presents Hudson River Stories
Oct 7 at 5pm
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)
Tickets $15 and up

Writer, filmmaker, and adventurer Jon Bowermaster is a six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council. One of the Society's "Ocean Heroes," his first assignment for National Geographic Magazine was documenting a 3,741 mile crossing of Antarctica by dogsled. Bowermaster has written a dozen books, produced/directed more than fifteen documentary films and is the executive producer of Hudson River Stories and founder of Oceans 8 Films. On Oct 7, he will present Hudson River Stories, three short films about the Hudson River: City on the Water, Restoring the Clearwater and Seeds of Hope.

Additional Fall-Winter Presentations

Kimberly Bartosik/daela
I hunger for you
Oct 13 at 7pm, Oct 14 at 2pm
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)
Tickets $25 and up

A new evening-length work for five dancers, Kimberly Bartosik's I hunger for you focuses on the need for faith and the desire for transformation. Set in an environment defined by light and its absence (created by Bartosik's longtime lighting designer Roderick Murray), the piece looks deeply into the impulse to lose oneself in ecstasy, ritual, and desire; its choreography balances on the brink between barely controlled abandon and vibrating stillness. I hunger for you speaks to Bartosik's own examination of radical collective practices, in which compassion and brutality co-exist. The cast of I hunger for you includes Christian Allen, Dylan Crossman, Burr Johnson, Lindsey Jones, and Joanna Kotze.

Kimberly Bartosik's work has been commissioned and presented by Abrons Art Center, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Festival Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint, French Institute Alliance Française's Crossing the Line Festival, New York Live Arts, among many others.She is a 2017-19 New York Live Arts Live Feed Residency Artist, and-along with Kaneza Schaal and Andrew Schneider-one of three artists selected for the inaugural year of the BAM/LUMBERYARD production residency partnership. Bartosik received a Bessie Award for exceptional artistry for her work a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1987-1996. In 2005, she founded the organization daela to facilitate the development of her artistic work.

Andrew Schneider
NERVOUS/SYSTEM
Nov 3 at 7pm, Nov 4 at 2pm
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)
Tickets $25 and up

Obie Award-winner Andrew Schneider's NERVOUS/SYSTEM is a live theater performance that integrates video mapping, innovative lighting, and 3D sound spatialization to reveal everyday human narratives hidden in plain sight. The third project in a triptych following YOUARENOWHERE (2016 Coil Festival) and AFTER (2018 Under the Radar festival), NERVOUS/SYSTEM showcases Schneider's signature rapid-fire existential meditations on subjects ranging from quantum mechanics and parallel universes to missed connections and twelve step recovery programs. Using an array of complex visual and aural effects the work produces a fluid, shifting landscape of sensory overload.

Andrew Schneider creates and performs original works, builds interactive electronic art and installations, and was a Wooster Group company member from 2007-14. Rooted at the intersection of performance and technology, his work critically investigates our need for perpetual connection in a wired world. Schneider creates wearable, interactive electronic art works that have been featured in Artforum and Wired and is a frequent collaborator with The TEAM, Heather Christian, Fischerspooner, Lars Jan/Early Morning Opera, and Kalela.

Maya Beiser & Wendy Whelan, choreographed by Lucinda Childs
the day (work-in-progress)
Dec 8 & 9
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)

Dancer Wendy Whelan and cellist Maya Beiser join forces with the seminal modern dance choreographer Lucinda Childs to create an evening-length work with evocative music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. Featuring both women onstage for the duration of the performance, the day is a meditation on two journeys: the mortal passage, followed by the eternal, post-mortal voyage of the soul. This bold, highly collaborative work explores universal themes not easily grappled with-memory, aging, death, the survival of the soul-through the shared language of music and dance. This piece is presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Israel in New York and is part of Lumberyard's International Artist Residency program.

Cellist Maya Beiser defies categories. Passionately forging a career path through uncharted territories, she has captivated audiences worldwide with her virtuosity, eclectic repertoire, and relentless quest to redefine her instrument's boundaries. The Financial Times describes Maya as "a musician with stunning technical resources and intense musical instincts," while The Boston Globe characterizes her as "a force of nature," and Rolling Stone calls her a "cello rock star."

Wendy Whelan began dance lessons at the age of three in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. At the age of 15, she moved to New York to continue her studies full time at the School of American Ballet. In 1984, she became an apprentice with New York City Ballet, joined the corps de ballet a year later, and was promoted to principal dancer in 1991.

Lucinda Childs began her career at the Judson Dance Theater In New York in 1963. Since forming her dance company ten years later, she has created over fifty works, both solo and ensemble. In 1976 she was featured in the landmark avant-garde opera Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, for which she won an Obie Award. She subsequently appeared in a number of Wilson's productions, including I Was Sitting on My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating, Quartett by Heiner Muller, Wilson and Glass's opera White Raven, Wilson's video project Video 50, and Maladie de la Mort by Marguerite Duras (opposite Michel Piccoli). Most recently, she appeared in Wilson's production of Arvo Part's Adam's Passion and also recorded spoken text and collaborated on the choreography for Letter to a Man, which was based on Nijinsky's diaries and performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov.

David Lang is one of the most highly esteemed and performed American composers writing today. His works have been performed around the world in most of the great concert halls. The New Yorker reports, "With his winning of the Pulitzer Prize for the little match girl passion (one of the most original and moving scores of recent years), Lang, once a post-minimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master."

Zvi Gotheiner/ZviDance
LIKE and MAIM
Jan 26 at 7pm & Jan 27 at 2pm
LUMBERYARD (62 Water Street, Catskill, NY)
Tickets $30 and up

LIKE is the third piece in a trilogy of Zvi Gotheiner's technology-based works. Throughout the evening, dance performers collide with live and recorded video while the audience, utilizing their own cellphones, votes on which dancer and movement elements they "like" the most. Votes are projected on a screen, thereby determining how the the piece advances. A choreographic deconstruction of a televised reality show competition, LIKE selects its "winner" through the process of elimination.

MAIM (water in Hebrew) is a new evening-length work(-in-progress?) which will be incubated during a LUMBERYARD International Artist residency in the month leading up to the engagement, related to Lumberyard's partnership with the Consulate General of Israel in New York. Part of a series-including GLACIER, GREEN MAP, and DANCING THE BEAR'S EARS-reflecting on the current collision between humankind and the natural world, the work seeks to raise awareness about diminishing global water resources due to climate change. MAIM is anchored in the choreographer's personal experience growing up in Israel under a strict government water conservation policy, while its improvisation-based movement vocabulary takes inspiration from the concept of moving "liquid" from one location in the body to another.

ZviDance exists to share with audiences the choreographic vision and movement vocabulary of Israeli-born Artistic Director Zvi Gotheiner. Each piece defines a unique set of relationships and experiences, boldly addressing the depths of the human experience. The company is shaped by a collaborative model of creation, involving the ensemble and designers from the initial research phase, so as to constantly push the methodology and ethics of a creation process within an interdisciplinary format. ZviDance also exists to engage students in enriching their appreciation of the art form.

About LUMBERYARD
LUMBERYARD, based in New York City and led by Executive and Artistic Director Adrienne Willis, is a national non-profit organization that serves the performing arts community and its audiences by providing multi-faceted opportunities for artists to develop new work. Unwavering in its commitment to assisting artists throughout the creative process, LUMBERYARD operates with a collaborative and generous spirit, one driven by this support for artists and appreciation for the audiences who value their work.

In addition to providing critical support to a wide range of artists, LUMBERYARD welcomes audiences of all experience levels into the inner world of the contemporary performing arts, giving them opportunities to witness the creation, as well as the performance, of new work. Among LUMBERYARD's varied and ever-expanding offerings are its acclaimed residency program; its LUMBERYARD in the City Winter Festival; and the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography.

LUMBERYARD's four-building facility on the Hudson River waterfront will make a significant contribution to the revitalization of Catskill, New York. The campus consists of a main Lumberyard building in Catskill and three large adjacent barns along Catskill Creek. Phase I, opening in September, includes a column-free, 5,500-square-foot theater that can be reconfigured to realize the visions of America's most exciting performing artists, and to replicate a variety of New York City stages, as well as a lobby, artist housing, a 5,000-square-foot studio and event space, and the only purpose-built soundstage in the region.

Phase II will encompass the three adjacent structures, which LUMBERYARD will develop in collaboration with the Village of Catskill and in line with the Village's Downtown and Waterfront Revitalization Strategy.

Each year, LUMBERYARD will present a premieres and works-in-progress by celebrated professional artists and companies, serving local residents and attracting tourists from across New York and beyond. Year-round, the facility will be available for collaborative residencies, subsidized and commercial rentals and community programming.

Connect with LUMBERYARD Contemporary Performing Arts
Web: lumberyard.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LumberyardArts/
Twitter: @Lumberyard_
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lumberyard_catskill/

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