REDCAT to Present Wooster Group's 'EARLY SHAKER SPIRITUALS', 1/21-2/1

REDCAT, Calarts' Downtown Center for Contemporary Arts, presents the newest Wooster Group work, Early Shaker Spirituals: A Record Album Interpretation January 21 to February 1, 2015. Tickets are available at www.redcat.org or by calling 213-237-2800.

Early Shaker Spirituals is a performance based on a 1976 LP of Shaker hymns, marches, anthems, and testimony recorded by Sister R. Mildred Barker and the sisters of the Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. It features live performances of all twenty tracks from side A of the album sung by Cynthia Hedstrom, Elizabeth LeCompte, Frances McDormand, and Suzzy Roche. The performers channel the voices of the Shaker singers to give a new live rendering of the songs.

Complementing the songs are dances created by the Group, composed of simple patterns inspired by the surviving fragments of the ecstatic dance that characterized the Shakers' worship services. For the dances, the singers are joined by Matthew Brown, Modesto Jimenez, Bobby McElver, Bebe Miller and Andrew Schneider. Jamie Poskin reads from the album liner notes.

Early Shaker Spirituals returns to an artistic practice that the Group has used throughout its history: working with record albums as source material for original productions, among them Hula (1981) and L.S.D. (...Just the High Points...) (1984). The piece also expresses the Group's long-standing interest in the Shakers, a millenarian, celibate, communitarian sect. In 1980, Elizabeth LeCompte, Kate Valk, and other members of the company visited the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community and met with Sister R. Mildred Barker. Around that time, the company first began listening to the record album that forms the basis for this new piece.

In addition to the performers, the full Early Shakers Spirituals ensemble includes Max Bernstein (sound), Enver Chakartash (costumes), Eric Dyer (tour technical director), Elizabeth LeCompte & Jim Clayburgh (set), Bobby McElver (sound), Erin Mullin (stage manager), Jamie Poskin (assistant director), Emily Rea (production manager), Ryan Seelig (assistant lighting), Jennifer Tipton (lighting) and Kate Valk (director).

The Wooster Group - Founded in 1975, The Wooster Group has made more than 30 works for theater, dance, film, and video under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte. These works include Rumstick Road (1977), L.S.D. (...Just the High Points...) (1984), Frank Dell's The Temptation of St. Antony (1988), Brace Up! (1991), The Emperor Jones (1993), House/Lights (1999), To You, The Birdie! (Phèdre) (2002), Hamlet (2007), There is Still Time . . Brother (2007), La Didone (2009), Vieux Carré (2011), and Cry, Trojans! (Troilus & Cressida) (2014). The founding and original members of the Group are Elizabeth LeCompte, Spalding Gray, Ron Vawter, Jim Clayburgh, Willem Dafoe, Kate Valk and Peyton Smith. The Performing Garage at 33 Wooster Street in lower Manhattan is the company's permanent home, which they own and operate as part of the Grand Street Artists Co-op, a 1960s project of the Fluxus art movement. The company regularly tours worldwide, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

The Wooster Group: Early Shaker Spirituals will run Wednesday, January 21-Saturday, February 1, 8:30 p.m. and
Sunday, January 25 & February 1, 3 p.m. Tickets: $25-$50. Location: REDCAT | 631 West 2nd St. Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more information, call the REDCAT Box Office at 213-237-2800 or visit www.redcat.org/event/wooster-group-early-shaker-spirituals.

ABOUT REDCAT | THE ROY AND EDNA DISNEY/CALARTS THEATER - REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for contemporary arts, presents a dynamic and international mix of innovative visual, performing and media arts year round. Located inside the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles, REDCAT houses a theater, a gallery space and a lounge. Through performances, exhibitions, screenings, and literary events, REDCAT introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT continues the tradition of the California Institute of the Arts, its parent organization, by encouraging experimentation, discovery and lively civic discourse. For current program and exhibition information call 213-237-2800 or visit www.redcat.org.

Pictured: Frances McDormand, center, in Early Shaker Spirituals. Photo by Paula Court.

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