REDCAT presents the Los Angeles premiere of Gloria's Cause, a comedic re-imagining of the American Revolution and U.S. politics from Seattle-based choreographer and multidisciplinary artist Dayna Hanson. Performances in Los Angeles will be held at REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, Thursday, April 5 though Sunday, April 8, 2012.
Mixing rock music from an eight-piece band, incisive theatrical elements and virtuosic dancing, Hanson exhumes the colonies' complex players and offers warped replays of iconic moments like the signing of the Declaration of Independence in a layered, colorful and gritty look at the roots of America's inequities and ironies.
In Gloria's Cause, Hanson is joined by longtime collaborator Peggy Piacenza as well as her bandmates from Today!—Dave Proscia, Maggie Brown and Paul Moore—who, along with a multi-talented cast of Seattle-based performers including Wade Madsen, Jim Kent, Pol Rosenthal and Jessie Smith, move easily between music, dance and theater with an incongruous style that incorporates gestures from professional sports and '70s television.
Hanson's choreography was last seen in Los Angeles at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in October of 2011 during the run of the cowboy musical I've Never Been So Happy by Austin-based theater company Rude Mechs. She is a Guggenheim Fellow in Choreography and 2010 United Artists Oliver Fellow. From 1994 until 2006, she was co-artistic director of internationally touring dance theater company 33 Fainting Spells. With 33 Fainting Spells, Hanson helped champion the growth of dance film in the Pacific Northwest with screening at over 50 festivals worldwide, including at New York Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Los Angeles International Short Film Festival and Dance Camera Istanbul.
Her 2010 dance theater piece Gloria's Cause was co-commissioned by On the Boards and Under The Radar Festival and presented as a work-in-progress at the TBA Festival in Portland, Oregon in September 2010. It premiered at On the Boards in Seattle in December 2010 and was presented at the PuSh Festival in Vancouver, B.C. in January 2011. After the performances at REDCAT in April, Gloria's Cause will travel to Fusebox Festival in Austin, Miami Light Project and Carolina Performing Arts in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Seating is general admission and tickets are available for purchase in-person at REDCAT Box Office, by phone at 213-237-2800, or online at redcat.org.
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