Welcome,
Each year, the Walkers performing arts program seeks out and presents the freshest and most significant developments in contemporary dance, theater, and new music from around the world. With four world premieres, seven major commissions, nine artists on their U.S. debut tours, and companies coming from 17 countries spanning five continents, our 2009-2010 season continues this tradition with gusto, offering an outstanding spectrum of new work.
Our dance program is perhaps our most globally minded ever, offering movement innovators from Japan, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, India, China, England, Brazil, New Zealand, Germany, and the United States who combine traditional and experimental influences to dramatically move the art form forward in myriad intriguing ways. In music, we embrace the continuing explosion of new sounds coming from the edges of the rock and pop arenas, along with our ongoing commitment to contemporary jazz, world, and alternative classical forms. In both dance and music, we have commissioned pairs of artists, such as Bill Frisell (U.S.) and Rahim AlHaj (Iraq/U.S.), Ranee Ramaswamy (India/U.S.) and I Dewa Putu Berata (Bali), and Reggie Wilson (U.S.) and Andrya Ouamba (Senegal/Congo), to cross cultural/ national boundaries to make new works together.
Adventurous theater and performance works range from the large-scale, internationally acclaimed tour de force by provocateur/playwright Enda Walsh (realized by Irelands acclaimed Druid Theatre and copresented with the Guthrie Theater) to the intensely intimate and interactive one-on-one conceptual work of Germanys Rimini Protokoll, part of our annual Out There festival of alternative theater.
We pride ourselves on shaping experiences that are unexpected (in both content and style of presentation), affordable, highly produced, and often great fun, with a range of supplemental informative, social, and interactive activities that we hope will make your experience that much more meaningful. This year, for instance, we launch our Balcony Bar, a new bar/lounge on the balcony level of the McGuire Theater that will be open after each performance (and sometimes before)a place where you can meet the artists, grab a cheap drink, and just hang out.
We kick things off on September 10 when Ill present a free preview of our season, showing clips, playing music, and telling you why I think each of these projects is amazing. I’ll also feature some surprise guests, live and digital, to help me celebrate the beginning of this remarkable season. I hope to see you at the preview and many times throughout the year.
Philip Bither
William and Nadine McGuire Senior Curator, Performing Arts
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