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  2019-2020 Season Brochure

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

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  Richard Alston Dance Company: Three American Premieres

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Boasting a “rich, pliant, full-bodied” style that transports audiences “to the heart of dance itself” (The New York Times), Richard Alston Dance Company returns to Peak Performances for its final American engagement before the company closes its doors after more than 25 years. A selection of recent works highlights the unflagging invention of this beloved group, led by Richard Alston, one of the world’s finest choreographers currently celebrating his 50th year of making dances. Performed to live music, Alston’s witty Brahms Hungarian is presented alongside Shine On, the last piece the choreographer will create for the company. The fast-paced Detour, created by associate choreographer Martin Lawrance, rounds out a thrilling program that celebrates a troupe still in top form, even as the curtain closes.

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  Grand Band

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Grand Band is a six-piano musical ensemble composed of the finest contemporary-classical pianists. The sextet envelopes the audience in the sonic euphoria of contemporary compositions by Kate Moore, Julia Wolfe, Missy Mazzoli, and Julius Eastman, in a tour de force combination of sight and sound. Three Fragile Systems is complemented by the debut of an animated film by Joshua Frankel.

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  Spring : Gandini Juggling and Alexander Whitley

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  The seismic juggling virtuoso Sean Gandini collaborates with visionary choreographer Alexander Whitley to create Spring. This production mixes mind-bending juggling and dance into a kaleidoscopic dreamscape propelled by an immersive score by Gabriel Prokofiev. This performance is a refreshing and entertaining production at the vanguard of contemporary circus.

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  Martha Graham Dance Company : Appalachian Spring, The Auditions

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  APPALACHIAN SPRING (1944) tells the story of a young frontier couple on their wedding day.Created as the war in Europe was drawing to end, the ballet captured the imagination of Americans who were beginning to believe in a more prosperous future, a future in which men and women would be united again. Themes from American folk culture can be found throughout the dance. Aaron Copland weaves a Shaker tune, “Simple Gifts,” throughout his luminous score, while Martha Graham’s choreography includes square dance patterns, skips and paddle turns and curtsies, even a grand right and left.The spare set by Isamu Noguchi features a Shaker rocking chair. With its tale of a new life in a new land, the dance embodies hope.Critics called Appalachian Spring“shining and joyous,” “a testimony to the simple fineness of the human spirit.” THE AUDITIONS (2019) takes place in two worlds -one ethereal, one grounded. It follows its musical framework closely, which, in a cyclical nature, pulses between two very distinct, imaginative sonic and dramatic worlds: “theethereal landscape”and“the audition room.” Designed in seven arcs:slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, the work has a duration of 26 minutes and is performed without a pause.

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  Lena Herzog : Last Whispers

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Trained in linguistics and philosophy, Lena Herzog is a multimedia artist whose work has been exhibited around the world. Last Whispers, an immersive cinematic experience dedicated to vanishing languages, is the result of Herzog’s ongoing interest in indigenous dialects, which are disappearing at an astonishing rate. By 2050, half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken around the world will fall silent. In Herzog’s oratorio, the historical recordings of more than 40 endangered or lost languages come alive among the echoes of collapsing stars in a work The New Yorker critic Alex Ross calls “haunting and singular.” Multiple panels and open discussions are planned to provide deeper understanding of the languages and what is being done worldwide to protect indigenous voices from fading away.

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  Sphinx Virtuosi : For Justice and Peace

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  One of the nation’s most dynamic chamber orchestras, the Detroit-based Sphinx Virtuosi makes its Peak Performances debut with a program driven by issues of social justice. Comprising 18 prizewinning Black and Latinx soloists, the performance includes a new composition and inspiration for the title of the program by Xavier Foley, Philip Herbert‘s requiem for a life lost to violence, Jessie Montgomery‘s homage to African-American artists in the Civil Rights era, Michael Abels‘ ode to the well-being of earth, and more. With “immeasurable power, unwavering command, and soulful beauty” (The Washington Post), these talented young artists address our current moment with a sensitivity and clarity that points toward peace.

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  Shanghai Quartet featuring Simone Dinnerstein

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Shanghai Quartet: Renowned for its passionate musicality, impressive technique, and distinctive blend of styles, the Shanghai Quartet has become one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. The “utterly sublime” (The New York Times) ensemble returns for two enchanting engagements. The Shanghai Quartet is the quartet-in-residence at Montclair State University’s Cali School of Music.

  Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is known for her “majestic originality of vision” (The Independent) and her “lean, knowing and unpretentious elegance” (The New Yorker). 2018 was a banner year for Dinnerstein, including a highly lauded recital at the Kennedy Center, her debut with the London Symphony Orchestra, a live recital for BBC’s Radio Three, and an ambitious season as the first artist-in-residence for Music Worcester, encompassing performances, school outreach, master classes, and lectures.

  See the program for more information about the artists.

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  Falling & Loving

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Two titans of avant-garde performance—director Anne Bogart and choreographer Elizabeth Streb—join forces for the first time to take on works by Obie Award–winning rebel playwright Charles Mee in an original production co-produced by Peak Performances. In FALLING & LOVING six actors from SITI Company and six dancers from STREB Extreme Action storm the stage and launch into the air with the aid of a Guck Machine, an enormous contraption conceived by Streb that features rings and buckets armed to continually release materials into the stratosphere. Artists, ideas, and objects collide in this radical new production.