Dancers Janice Garrett, Charles Moulton to Present SPEAK, ANGELS, Today

Taking their successful and groundbreaking dance-music-theater work to new levels, award-winning choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton will present the world premiere of Speak, Angels, a new evening-length work for 36 dancers, singers and instrumentalists, July 28-31 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. Following the sold-out success of their 2014-15 production of The Luminous Edge, Garrett and Moulton continue their work with large-scale, multi-genre performances, once again collaborating with Composer/Bass Clarinetist Jonathan Russell and contralto Karen Clark. Twenty-four dancers-including a "movement choir"-are joined by five singers and an ensemble of instrumental musicians in a work celebrating the providential voices that guide us through our lives.

Speak, Angels will be performed Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 28, 29 and 30 at 8 pm, and Sunday, July 31, at 3 pm. Tickets are priced $27-$40 with Special Gala Benefit Reception following the Saturday, July 30 8 pmperformance with tickets priced $75-$500. For tickets and information, visit www.garrettmoulton.org.

"Speak, Angels investigates the sudden, unforeseen moments of illumination that provide essential guidance and support at key moments of our lives. It celebrates our innate capacity to access reservoirs of spiritual strength when faced with hardship and suffering," say Garrett and Moulton.

A hallmark of Garrett and Moulton's work is their dedication to live music. In this production, they expand that commitment by adding five singers from the Bay Area vocal group Vajra Voices to their existing ensemble of seven musicians. Composer/Bass Clarinetist Jonathan Russell is assembling a full-length score featuring his own original compositions as well as music by other traditional and contemporary composers, including Gustav Mahler, Zoltán Kodály and Marc Mellits.

The innovative "movement choir" is a theatrical form that Garrett and Moulton have used to great acclaim in three previous productions: The Luminous Edge (2014), The Experience of Flight in Dreams (2011), and The Illustrated Book of Invisible Stories (2009). By its nature and size, the movement choir communicates a sense of collective human experience. Embodying the earthly and ethereal, it can convey both a grounded sense of community and represent the invisible forces that penetrate and move people's lives.

The creation and performance of Speak, Angels was made possible through the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, W & F Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Weston Wear, Inc. and generous individual donors.

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