Fall Guide: Theater: The sky’s the limit (and the backdrop) as Great Performances at Vanderbilt kicks off its 2009-10 season
by Martin Brady
GREAT PERFORMANCES AT VANDERBILT
Langford Auditorium and other venues
Now 35 years old, Great Performances at Vanderbilt is on the verge of entering middle age. Yet its programming remains consistently youthful and energetic, while fulfilling its mission to bring rare cultural events to Music City. After presenting an all-time low of seven events last year—the economic downturn hit everyone, didn't it?—program director Bridgette Kohnhorst has managed to boost the schedule count to eight, with the help of Vanderbilt's student representatives.
The series starts with Strange Fruit, the Australian ensemble that performs a comical yet dizzyingly captivating brand of outdoor performance art while swaying atop 15-foot poles. See and believe when the group concludes its free Nashville performances at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17 on Vanderbilt's Alumni Lawn. As always, ethnic and modern dance selections form the bedrock of Great Performances' most valued contribution to the local arts scene, mainly because Music City only intermittently produces such fare on its own. Kidd Pivot, a cutting-edge Canadian dance troupe founded by Crystal Pite, performs its internationally acclaimed Lost Action Sept. 24 in Ingram Hall. This program features an otherworldly soundscape, with an athletic troupe of seven executing classically based moves that strive for humor, wittiness and "structured improvisation."
The season's big theatrical offering is a double bill of radio dramas, War of the Worlds and The Lost World (Oct. 8, Langford Auditorium), performed by L.A. Theatre Works, a 35-year-old company dedicated to the audio preservation of significant works of dramatic literature. Earlier that same day, a related seminar, "Censorship in the Arts," co-sponsored by the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, will be presented on campus. The first musical program of the season, on Oct. 17, is a major event, as Vanderbilt alum and innovative composer/violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain brings his multi-textured quartet concerto Darwin's Meditation for the People of Lincoln to Ingram Hall. Roumain incorporates original video and a stirring text into his imagining of a musical conversation between the 19th century giants, both of whom were born Feb. 12, 1809. Blair School of Music faculty and students collaborate in the presentation. Great Performances resumes its schedule in the spring semester. Musical events continue on Jan. 28, when violinist Aaron Brown comes to Blair's Turner Hall with "Guido's Ear," an evening of early baroque compositions, including works by Bach, Couperin and Correlli. Then, on Feb. 25 at Langford Auditorium, Brazil's Grupo Cultural AfroReggae arrives with a blend of reggae, soul and hip-hop, its aggressively rhythmic stylings inspired in the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro, where the group's music has played a key role as an instrument of social change. Related weeklong events, co-sponsored by Vanderbilt's Center for Latin American Studies, include a screening of the 2005 documentary Favela Rising, which concerns the group and its music. Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, Bangalore-based and one of the world's foremost purveyors of the ancient form of Odissi (classical Indian dance), comes to Ingram Hall on March 25, projecting a compelling sensuality heightened by gorgeous costumes and exotic music. The series' third dance event is the Trey McIntyre Project (Apr. 7, Ingram Hall). TMP is a relatively new, Boise, Idaho-based touring ensemble, but they've gained national popularity quickly, not least of all because their frenetic, quirky repertoire is driven by music that ranges from The Beatles, Beck and Beethoven to jazz, bluegrass and folk. For updates on times and locations, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/greatperformances.Sept. 24-26: Shades of Black Theatre Festival concludes at the Darkhorse with Dennis McIntire's gritty drama Split Second, in which an off-duty black cop (Val Johnson) has a life-changing encounter with a white car thief in 1980s New York.
Oct. 15-Nov. 14: Hear the title See How They Run, and you can almost taste the dinner-theater buffet. Chaffin's Barn gives Phillip King's oft-performed slamming-door farce about a trouble-prone vicarage an all-pro workout.
Oct. 16-Nov. 1: Noises Off, Michael Frayn's indestructible comedy of offstage destruction, gets a dusting-off from Circle Players at the Looby Theatre. Watch out for that cactus....
Nov. 13-14: Nashville Ballet hosts its Emergence program at its studios, offering new choreographed works set to live performances by Nashville musicians.
Nov. 21-Dec. 19: You could put an eye out! Sam Whited plays pint-size Ralphie, still longing for his Red Ryder BB gun, in Tennessee Rep's stage adaptation of the evergreen A Christmas Story at TPAC's Johnson Theater. Rene D. Copeland directs.
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