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| Artists In Residence
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Twirl: Dances by Karl Schaffer & Friends
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Friday, February 18, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, February 19, 7:30 p.m.
Admission: $15 adults
$9 seniors/students
$9 children 12 and under
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Tickets: PVPAA 831-763-4047
Karl Schaffer, co-artistic director of Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern Dance Ensemble, presents a concert of new work on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 18 and 19, at the Mello Theatre, at 8 PM. Twirl: Dances by Karl Schaffer and Friends is his first solo show without artistic collaborator Erik Stern, and highlights the creative efforts of a newly formed group of local dancers and performers. Schaffer is part of the Mello Center's Artist in Residence (AIR) Program for 2004 and 2005.
Twirl features new dances illuminated with the magical and the mathematical. Performances incorporate play with a variety of props: loops of rope, vaudevillian hats, five-gallon water bottles, and giant mathematical puzzle pieces known as tangrams. Dancers and creative collaborators include Saki, Rock Lerum, Gina Garcia, Shelly Adams, Lalu Simcik, and Fabricio Olsson. Musical scores include work by Berkeley composer Victor Spiegel. The concert also features performances by children from the Watsonville Charter School for the Arts.
Karl Schaffer has co-directed the Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern Dance Ensemble for the past 17 years. He and co-director Erik Stern spent two months touring the U.S. and Canada in 2003, performing at such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, the Mondavi Center in Davis, and at two international Children's Festivals in Canada. In 2004 they were named to the artist roster of the Kennedy Center's Partners in Education, which sponsors arts workshops at many of the largest performing arts centers in the United States.
Schaffer and Stern's workshops, and many of their dance works, focus on integrating math and dance. Their work led them to publish a 132-page book of class activities, MathDance, with fellow artist Scott Kim in 2001. Schaffer and Stern received a National Endowment for the Arts Access to the Arts award for 2004-05 (their fourth such grant in the past five years) for their cross-disciplinary performance work. This grant will fund residencies by Schaffer and Stern in Hawaii and a number of other communities. Schaffer taught at the American Ballet Theatre's Summer Dance Intensive in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in July of 2004, and he teaches Mathematics at De Anza College. He also directs two touring shows about dance and math, which play to Bay Area schools and is part of the Spectra Arts in the Schools program.
Additional information about the performers:
Saki makes her living dancing and teaching with a variety of artists including Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern, Tandy Beal and Company, Starstuff Productions Circus and Dance, Mir and a Company, Moving and Storage Dance Company, Spectra, and Pisces Moon Educational Theatre.
Rock Lerum has entertained audiences worldwide with his madcap style of physical comedy; he has performed recently with Sovoso, Clowns Without Borders, Tandy Beal and Company, and Teatro Pachuco. He teaches circus arts, drama, and gardening at the Orchard School in Aptos.
Fabricio Olsson was Brazilian National Champion in gymnastics. He has performed at Sea World and Legoland as well as with Tandy Beal and Company and Moving and Storage Dance Company; he teaches gymnastics to children of all ages in Hawaii and Santa Cruz.
Lalu Simcik teaches Frey Faust's Axis movement technique, has studied locally and abroad, and creates work with Karin Moriarty at Dance Visions. He also teaches mathematics at Cabrillo College.
Gina Garcia is a bilingual teacher, Spectra artist, and social worker who has worked extensively in Santa Cruz County teaching Visual Arts, Capoiera, Contemporary Dance and Improv, West African, Afro-Haitian, and Afro-Brazilian dance.
Shelly Adams-Stryker performs with Mir and a Company and Janlyn Dance Company, works in the Spectra program, and teaches body-mind movement classes (Nia) and yoga.
Composer Victor Spiegel has composed for TV, radio, film (the score for Dolls), multimedia, industry, dance, and theater. He lives in Berkeley.
Other performers include Kristin Hoffman and Kirsten Livingston. Kristen Hoffman also dances with Mir And A Company and has performed with Area 51 and Urban
Renaissance. She has studied at the Ailey School of Dance in New York, UCSC, Motion Pacific, and Cabrillo College."
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Past Performances by other Artists in Residence |
Primordial Winds
Watsonville Taiko's 13th Anniversary Performance
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Saturday, October 9, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 10, 2:00 p.m.
Admission: $15 adults
$12 seniors and children under 12
Tickets: PVPAA 831-763-4047
When you hear the pounding sound of Taiko, you are absorbed into a magical harmony of rhythm and sensation. This performance will take you back in time through the universal language of the Taiko.
This event sponsored by: The Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County and the PVPAA's Artists in Residence Program.
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Tandy Beal's Mixed Nutz!
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Friday, November 26, 2:00 p.m. (Preview)
Friday, November 26, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 27, 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 27, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 28, 2:00 p.m.
Admission: $30 Adult 'Gold Circle' Center Orchestra
$27 Child 'Gold Circle' Center Orchestra
$25 Adult Main Floor Orchestra
$22 Child Main Floor Orchestra
$25 Adult Balcony
$22 Child Balcony
$20 Adult Balcony Rear
$17 Child Balcony Rear
Tickets: PVPAA 831-763-4047
Tandy Beal and SoVoSó crack open MIXED NUTZ! - The Nutcracker REmixed
MIXED NUTZ! - The Nutcracker REmixed is a performance treat with a creative new twist on a treasured holiday favorite, directed by California's circus and dance maestro, Tandy Beal. Tchaikovsky's glorious music is sung a cappella by California's stellar vocal group, SoVoSó. Live onstage with Beal's cast of 30 dancers and circus artists, SoVoSó makes vocal magic as they sing the delicious musical bon-bons of Candyland.
Opening with original songs, seasonal favorites and audience participation, we're instantly wrapped up in Beal's multicolored vision, tied with a ribbon of zaniness. These are followed by SoVoSó's re-scoring of the second act of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Tandy Beal first worked with SoVoSó members in Bobby McFerrin's famed Voicestra. Their most recent collaboration, Song Circus, toured nationally. In 2003, the artists teamed to present The New Nut, Mixed Nutz!'s predecessor. Beal says, 'This splendid show mixes genres, mixes cultures, mixes ages and mixes up expectations. It's joyous!'
Additional artists include: aerialist and hand-balancer Svetlana Gololobova from Moscow Circus; U.S. national champion roller skating pair, Edrick Stewart and Meghan Burt (coached by Jim Pringle); jugglers extraordinaire Rock Lerum and Iman Lizarazu, and The Flying Karamazov Brothers' Tim Furst. Rounding out the cast are Folklorico dancers Esperanza del Valle, rhythmic gymnast Saki Sakamoto, a team of local child gymnasts and talented hip-hop, ballroom and contemporary dancers.
Celebrate this Thanksgiving weekend, when MIXED NUTZ! -The Nutcracker REmixed! brings Tandy Beal's dazzling performers, Tchaikovsky's gorgeous music and the brilliant vocal talents of SoVoSó to your family.
Tandy Beal is an Artist in Residence at the Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts, a program of the Pajaro Valley Performing Arts Association
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About the Artists in Residence Program
With support from the Community Foundation of Santa
Cruz County and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Artists In Residence program
brings distinguished regional artists onto the Mello stage and into
the Pajaro Valley community for a year-long cycle of classes, workshops,
lectures, performances, public rehearsals and other special outreach
programs.
PVPAA Receives Major Grant from the Community Foundation
Scheduled Events
We have terrific news. The Pajaro Valley Performing Arts Association has just received a grant of $20,000 from the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. Proceeds from this grant will be used to broaden the Artist in Residence Program at the Mello Center.
The Artist in Residence Program was established two years ago when we brought four artists into the theatre and the community. Tandy Beal (Dancer/Choreographer), Ikuyo Conant (Composer/Artistic Director of the Watsonville Taiko), Janet Johns (Founder and Director of Esperanza Del Valle), and George Kahumoku (Flat Key Guitarist/Singer) were the four original artists who performed at the Mello Center, taught classes, and participated in other community events. George has returned to his native Hawaii, but, Tandy, Ikuyo, and Janet are still participating in the program with newcomers Karl Schaffer (Dancer/Co-Founder of Dr. Schaffer & Mr. Stern) and Mesut Ozgen (Classical Guitarist).
With the support of the Community Foundation, the PVPAA will work with consultants Chris Esparza and Nga Trin-Halperin of Giant Creative Services to conduct community focus groups to enhance the current Artist in Residence Program. Our immediate goals are to identify new ways to involve artists in the various Watsonville communities through demonstrations, classes and workshops and to involve local artists in the program more effectively. Through community discussions about the ways artists are integrated into community life, we will also be looking for ways to bring artists of national stature into our community for shorter periods of time, especially artists whose lives and work were inspired by connections with this region
-By Pamela Mason
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