One of the major operas of the 20th century by American music composer John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman, directed by Peter Sellars and choreography by Mark Morris, Nixon in China is considered one of the cornerstones of American minimalist music. Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Houston Grand Opera and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the opera highlights the visit of the United States President Richard M. Nixon to China in 1972, where he met with China’s Chairman Mao Zedong and other Chinese officials. The Metropolitan performance features composer John Adams as conductor, James Maddalena- baritone as Richard Nixon, Janis Kelly -soprano as Pat Nixon, Robert Brubaker as Mao Tse-tung, Kathleen Kim as Mao’s wife Chiang Ch”ing, Russell Braun portrays Chou En-lai and Richard Paul Fink as Henry Kissinger.
Clean Slate: New Paintings by Anne LaPrade Seuthe
The paintings in this exhibition started out as, what LaPrade Seuthe calls, clean slates. Beginning with discarded maps, she carefully color matches the hues in the existing maps and applies these opaque paint mixtures to eradicate names, symbols and other location identifiers. Once the clean slate has been established, she adds drawings of images culled from encyclopedias, dictionaries, travel guides and assorted manuals. The images are separated by layers of grid lines – a device suggesting there is a connection between all that exists in the natural world. Translucent layers of paint are built up in a process that unifies the surface while modifying the imagery in various ways. Some images become obscured while others become more pronounced. For her, this process seems to parallel an internal process of creating a clean slate or starting over. Some experiences remain vivid in our minds and can easily be recalled, while others exist as vestiges. Her painting is complete when connections between seemingly random images are revealed.
Since her first solo show in 1994, Massachusetts-born LaPrade Seuthe has participated in numerous group exhibitions including most recently the London Biennale, and the Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. She is Director of Hampden and Central Galleries at the University of Massachusetts. More Information
Pilobolus
This collaborative dance company is acclaimed for its mix of humor, invention, and drama. Drawing inspiration from biology, Pilobolus has created a dance vocabulary all its own. Their smooth, organic choreography often blurs the lines between individual performers, creating a sense of dance-troupe-as-organism.
About Pilobolus, The New York Times writes, “the continuity of changing imagery, the easy sensuousness and the wonderful push-me-pull-you surprises of the physicality: These still seem to come right out of their makers” dreams and into ours.” More Information
Charles Lloyd New Quartet
A towering musical figure, Charles Lloyd carries on the unifying mission of such truth seekers as Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. During the late 60s, Lloyd led one of the most popular groups in jazz that went on to produce Forest Flower, one of the best-selling jazz albums ever.
All About Jazz writes, “There was plenty to admire in the Charles Lloyd New Quartet’s San Francisco concert: Lloyd pushed his young rhythm section to a new plane of sensitivity; the compositions were elegant and flexible, allowing for both hard-driving rhythms and feathery melodic exploration; and the band played ballads with a beauty intolerant of sap.” More Information