CAP UCLA Announces 2018-19 Season Honoring Legacy Artists, Exploring Global Perspectives

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) today unveiled its 2018-19 season lineup honoring heritage artists and featuring pioneering champions for social justice and diverse world views in bold programs by leading innovators and acknowledged masters in contemporary dance, music, theater and spoken word.

Executive and Artistic Director Kristy Edmunds, in her seventh season leading UCLA's performing arts presenter, also announced collaborations with Center Theatre Group, Ford Theatres, Music Center, Ucross Foundation, and The Theatre at Ace Hotel, following last season's inaugural success. The new season runs from September 22, 2018 to May 10, 2019 and offers 41 events and 58 performances, with one U.S. and seven West Coast premieres, plus two exclusive programs.

"Our programs are designed to bring you closer to the artists who offer us their creative intelligence and deeply considered perspectives," said Edmunds. "Each performance is distinct, frequently surprising and potentially alive. Through their projects they offer us a creative lens to imagine or reimagine our place in the world, our connectivity across cultures and the experience of thinking our different thoughts while finding points of resonance and meaning together."

Legendary artists long recognized in their fight for social justice, folk icon and activist Joan Baez in her final farewell tour (sold out) and strong voices for civil rights Sweet Honey In The Rock will be showcased with legacy artists such as Merce Cunningham's centennial event Night of 100 Solos, Oscar-nominee Sam Green and Kronos Quartet, 14-time Grammy winner Emmylou Harris, NEA National Heritage Fellowship honoree Zakir Hussain, National Medal of Arts recipient Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, 2018 NEA Jazz Master Pat Metheny, and MacArthur Fellow Meredith Monk.

Exploring different social and cultural perspectives, artists from a diverse array of global communities will share their unique voices: Ukrainian quartet DakhaBrakha, Nigerian playwright and poet Inua Ella, Cuban keyboardist Roberto Fonseca and Malian vocalist Fatoumata Diawara, American MacArthur Fellow Jesmyn Ward and Mitchell Jackson, Toronto-based Quote Unquote Collective, Israel's Ohad Naharin/Batsheva Dance Company, Pulitzer Prize nominee Taylor Mac, Vietnam-born Viet Nguyen and Dominican Republic-born Junot Díaz, MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Solnit, and Chilean singer-songwriter Nano Stern.

Additional highlights include Vijay Iyer and Teju Cole's collaboration Blind Spot, based on Cole's new work of the same name, that investigates humanity's blindness to injustice throughout history. Carrie Mae Weems' Past Tense, a new performance-based work, takes on themes of social justice, escalating violence, gender relations, politics and personal identity within the context of contemporary history. Using Joan Didion's seminal essay, The White Album is a multimedia performance created by Los Angeles-based director, writer and visual artist Lars Jan, a former CAP UCLA artist-in-residence.

The U.S. premiere of Dimitris Papaioannou's visually stunning The Great Tamer, which grapples with the meaning of life and mystery of death, will be presented by CAP UCLA in association with Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. West Coast premieres will be made by Ella's Barber Shop Chronicles in its first U.S. tour, Meredith Monk's Cellular Songs, Jérôme Bel's Gala presented by CAP UCLA in association with Ford Theatres, Bill T. Jones' Anthology Trilogy presented as a full seven-hour marathon, Mon Élue Noire's Sacre #2 choreographed by Olivier Dubois and performed by Germaine Acogny, Weem's Past Tense, and Jan's The White Album.

Two exclusive programs were created especially for CAP UCLA's new season. Nadia Sirota will perform in a live podcast event with wild UP featuring Andrew Norman and Pulitzer-winner Caroline Shaw. Composer Nico Muhly will present Archives, Friends, Patterns, a performance in three parts: a collaboration with composer Thomas Bartlett, gems from 40+ years of Philip Glass's catalog and a cycle of his own drone-based compositions.

Over the season, 21 productions will take place at Royce Hall and 13 will be staged at The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Performances will also take place in venues across UCLA's campus including Freud Theater, Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater and Royce Rehearsal Hall. CAP will again team up with UCLA Special Collections to help make deeper connections to the artists and ideas from the season by offering insights into UCLA's vast library collections.

The CAP UCLA Jazz programs feature:

• Vijay Iyer & Teju Cole
• Tigran Hamasyan
• Pat Metheny
• Terri Lyne Carrington
• Luciana Souza

Among the Global Music artists:

• DakhaBrakha
• Zakir Hussain & Masters of Percussion
• Nano Stern
• The Gloaming
• Roberto Fonseca & Fatoumata Diawara
• Anoushka Shankar

American Roots series highlights:

• Emmylou Harris
• Sweet Honey In The Rock
• Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn
• The Soul Rebels
• Lettuce with John Scofield

Contemporary Classical offerings:

• Estonian Philharmonic
• Chamber Choir & Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
• Sam Green & Kronos Quartet
• Nadia Sirota & wild UP
• Meredith Monk
• Nico Muhly

Dance programs showcase:

• Mon E?lue Noire -
• Sacre #2
• Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company
• Jérôme Bel
• Ohad Naharin/Batsheva Dance Company
• Night of 100 Solos

Highlights of the Theater series:

• Barber Shop Chronicles
• Dimitris Papaioannou
• Quote Unquote Collective
• Andrew Dawson
• Carrie Mae Weems
• Lars Jan

Words and Ideas programs include:

• Fran Lebowitz
• Rebecca Solnit & Jon Christensen
• Elizabeth Gilbert & Cheryl Strayed
• Viet Nguyen & Junot Díaz
• Jesmyn Ward & Mitchell Jackson

Programs, price and performers subject to change.
Current CAP UCLA Artist Fellows awarded a three-year creative development platform include internationally celebrated visual artist Ann Hamilton, influential contemporary music ensemble Kronos Quartet, renowned pianist-composer and MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran, and acclaimed American theater and opera director Anne Bogart and New York-based Siti Company. Actively supporting new work by artists along with fully staged productions and performances, CAP UCLA facilitates artistic development by engaging behind-the-scenes through fellowships, residencies, commissions and community collaborations.

Free programs offered by CAP UCLA continuing this season are the public engagement program Art in Action and K-12 arts education program Design for Sharing, founded in 1969, that engages 15,000 students each year from more than 150 public schools in Los Angeles County.

Subscription and Ticket On-sale Dates;Subscriptions are now available to CAP UCLA members and subscribers. Series subscriptions are on sale now for all 2018-19 events. Choose from our pre-selected Series Subscriptions and save 15% or Create Your Own series of five or more events and save 10%. CAP UCLA Members receive 25% off series subscriptions and 15% off Create-Your-Own packages and additional single tickets for all CAP UCLA 2018-19 performances.

Single tickets for Jason Moran and The Bandwagon at the Ford Theatres are on sale now at fordtheatres.org. Subscribers may also add single tickets for this performance to their CAP UCLA subscription order.

Single tickets at all price levels for Taylor Mac's Holiday Sauce are available now to current CAP UCLA members.

Individual ticket on-sale dates:

• CAP Members: Friday, July 13
• CAP Enews presale: Saturday, July 14
• General public: Monday, July 16
• UCLA faculty and staff: Monday, July 16
• UCLA students: Monday, Sept. 24

Purchase online at cap.ucla.edu, via Ticketmaster, by phone 310-825-2101 and at the UCLA Central Ticket Office. Single tickets to all CAP UCLA performances at The Theatre at Ace Hotel are sold online at theatre.acehotel.com, via AXS by phone at 888-929-7849 and in person at The Theatre at Ace Hotel box office.
The CAP UCLA 2018-19 Season Teaser and Season Calendar are online, and more information on all upcoming programs is available at cap.ucla.edu.

Part of UCLA's School of the Arts and Architecture, CAP UCLA curates and facilitates direct exposure to artists who are creating extraordinary works of art and fosters a vibrant learning community both on and off the UCLA campus. Watch Kristy Edmunds speak about what it means to be a curator in the context of the university.

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is dedicated to the advancement of the contemporary performing arts in all disciplines - dance, music, spoken word and theater as well as emerging digital and collaborative platforms - by leading artists from around the globe. Part of UCLA's School of the Arts and Architecture, CAP UCLA curates and facilitates exposure to artists who are creating extraordinary works of art and fosters a vibrant learning community both on and off the UCLA campus. The organization invests in the creative process by providing artists with financial backing and time to experiment and expand their practices through strategic partnerships and collaborations. As an influential voice within the local, national and global arts communities, CAP UCLA connects this generation to the next in order to preserve a living archive of our culture. CAP UCLA is also a safe harbor for cultural expression and artistic exploration, giving audiences the opportunity to experience real life through characters and stories on stage, and giving artists an avenue to challenge assumptions and advance new ways of seeing and understanding the world in which we live.

To post a comment, you must register and login.