The Music Center's Moves After Dark Site-Specific Dance Series Returns

The Music Center's Moves After Dark™ (Moves After Dark) returns for a third season on July 24, 25 and 31 and August 1, 2018, with world premieres of choreography performed by three Los Angeles-based dance companies, all of which are led by female artistic directors. Moves After Dark asks audiences to travel to where the dancers are performing and select their own vantage point for a personal create-your-own experience. Each company will perform an original piece created specifically for a non-traditional performance space around The Music Center's Walt Disney Concert Hall. The companies include Strange & Elegant Dance with Artistic Director Holly Rothschild;Clairobscur Dance with Artistic Director Laurie Sefton; and Mixed eMotion Theatrix with Artistic Director Janet Roston. The Music Center'sMoves After Dark™ is made possible by Center Dance Arts.

Moves After Dark will be held at 8:30 p.m. each night as audiences gather in groups and follow three different paths around Walt Disney Concert Hall that lead to each of the three performances. This non-traditional dance experience complements The Music Center's highly acclaimed series, Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center, which brings distinctive dance companies from around the world to The Music Center's stages. Moves After Dark offers audiences a new way to experience dance in an up-close-and personal setting with virtually no boundaries between them and the dancers.

"Moves After Dark is an opportunity for both artists and audiences to forgo the formalities of a traditional performance by breaking down the walls of a conventional stage and experiencing contemporary dance on a more intimate, highly engaging level," said Rachel Moore, president and CEO of The Music Center. "We are particularly excited to support L.A.'s dance community this summer by showcasing three of the region's companies and highlighting the talent and leadership of their artistic directors and company members."

"Moves After Dark connects physical space, performance and the audience for an unfiltered experience," said Michael Solomon, vice president of presentations and education for The Music Center. "Audiences have the freedom to choose their pace and viewpoint as they explore Walt Disney Concert Hall; choreographers have the freedom to create compelling works in non-traditional locations; and dancers have the freedom to push the limits. Together, this creates an inspiring communal artistic experience like no other."

Moves After Dark will feature:

Strange & Elegant Dance/Under/Current
The Walt Disney Concert Hall's Grand Avenue stairs

Applying the way energy moves through space both physically and architecturally, Strange & Elegant Dance will explore spatial relationships, fluidity and the expectation of time. The choreography will incorporate and complement the architecture of Walt Disney Concert Hall's Grand Avenue stairway entrance, including the juxtaposition between linear and curvilinear space. The group will perform to an electronic soundscape score by Luke Rothschild, designed to co-exist with the ambient noises found on the streets of Downtown Los Angeles.

As artistic director of Strange & Elegant Dance, Holly Rothschild's expansive career explores a canvas of artistic expression spanning dance, music, film, traditional proscenium, site-specific shows and installation work. From Macbeth to Lady Gaga, from a Van Nuys bus terminal to the Sundance Film Festival, her work exists in a variety of contexts. Holly has received numerous grants and commissions for her choreography, and is also co-director of Los Angeles' String Theory.

Under/Current

Choreography: Holly Rothschild

Music: Luke Rothschild

Clairobscur Dance/Concert Walls
Walt Disney Concert Hall Carson Amphitheater and surrounding staircases

Concert Walls responds to Los Angeles, its visible and invisible energy, and reflects the now-ness of this vibrant city and its intrinsic inequities and inequalities. Choreographed by Laurie Sefton with original live music composed by Bryan Curt Kostors, Concert Walls will strive to bestow each audience member with a unique perspective and view of the work. Sefton's choreography will react to the dynamic space created by the stainless steel planes of the Walt Disney Concert Hall's soaring contours, convex and concave with movement. It becomes more than a backdrop, but a context, a barrier, a frame and a partner for the dancers, musicians and the audience.

Clairobscur Dance is a vehicle for transmitting Laurie Sefton's issued-based choreography. Collaborating with Los Angeles-based artists, composers, spoken word artists, costume designers, lighting designers and architects, her work conveys complex ideas and themes that impact our daily lives, emotionally and intellectually. Sefton presents dance as art, with a unique movement vocabulary and a style marked by a high ratio of movement to time. Addressing such varied topics as loss, surveillance, bullying, sexual identity, climate change and dependency, Clairobscur Dance struggles, confronts and inspires.

Concert Walls
Choreography: Laurie Sefton
Music: Bryan Curt Kostors

Mixed eMotion Theatrix/Gatsby Redux

Walt Disney Concert Hall's Blue Ribbon Garden

Inspired by the gorgeous Blue Ribbon Garden at The Music Center's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Mixed eMotion Theatrix's Artistic Director/Choreographer Janet Roston will transport the audience to a 1920s evening garden party, creating choreography filled with love triangles, intimate dance among the trees and waves of movement from a large ensemble. Using The Great Gatsby as a theatrical departure point, Roston will explore the spatial relationships found in the formality of the Keck Amphitheater, the tight intimacy of the gardens and the vast plaza, which provides open space to challenge the dancers and offers a wide perspective for the audience. Roston's piece will present men in white linen, flowing 20s dresses and a vintage yet contemporary dance experience.

Mixed eMotion Theatrix combines contemporary dance, theatre and multimedia to create hybrid performance experiences. The company is dedicated to telling stories in movement of the human condition through the use of folk tales, myths, classic literature, new histories and biographies. Mixed eMotion Theatrix aims to create performances that generate wonderment, insight and the rush of human motion and emotion. Their work has been performed in Avignon, Paris and Casablanca, as well as nationally. Among the awards for her choreography, Artistic Director Janet Roston has received two Ovation Awards (L.A.'s top theatre award), a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, an LA Weekly Award and an NAACP Award.

Gatsby Redux

Choreographer: Janet Roston

Music and Sound Design: Mark Governor

General admission tickets for Moves After Dark are $30. There is no seating available. Ticket buyers should wear comfortable shoes and note any ADA requirements during their ticket purchase. Tickets are available online at musiccenter.org/moves, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Box Office, 135 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90012, or by calling (213) 972-0711.

Photo courtesy of Barry Weiss

musiccenter.org/moves

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