MARK AUERBACH
Grupo Corpo Brings Sizzle to The Fine Arts Center
The electrifying Brazilian contemporary dance company Grupo Corpo comes to the UMass Fine Arts Center Concert Hall to perform two acclaimed works on Tuesday, February 24th. This modern company combines the sensuality of Afro-Brazilian dance forms, the liquid swing of jazz, and the technical prowess of ballet, with energy to burn. Grupo Corpo is renowned for its stunning physicality, dynamic ability, and rich visual finesse.
Grupo Corpo’s program for Amherst will include one of the company’s most celebrated works, ”Sem Mim”, inspired by the sea and the songs of medieval Galician-Portuguese troubadours. In all Grupo Corpo performances, sets, lighting and costumes are essential elements in the artistic production, and ”Sem Mim” is no exception. Mimicking the rhythmic rocking of waves, the piece explores the alternation between calm and fury in the ocean, and the dual role it plays in taking away and bringing back loved ones. ”Sem Mim” is danced to an original score written by composers Carlos Núñez and José Miguel Wisnik, inspired by the only surviving sheet music from the Galician-Portuguese medieval secular songbook.
Grupo Corpo performs at the UMass Fine Arts Center
After intermission, Grupo Corpo will perform “Onqotô”, a work written to celebrate 30 years since the company’s formation. “Onqotô”is a piece about human perplexity and pettiness in the vast landscape of the universe. The choreography by Rodrigo Pederneiras contrasts and juxtaposes verticality and horizontality, chaos and order, roughness and tenderness, volume and sparseness, moving along and sometimes going against the score, unveiling underlying meanings, melody, and rhythms. The original score was composed by Caetano Veloso and José Miguel Wisnik, and highlights the push-and-pull struggle within humanity, and its futility in the larger universe.
Grupo Corpo’s distinctive features and personality were chiefly molded by founder Paulo Pederneiras – the man responsible for sets, lighting, and artistic direction – and the dancer Rodrigo Pederneiras, who left the stage in 1981 to assume the role of full-time choreographer. In 1985 Grupo Corpo entered a new phase, establishing its own unique theatrical language and choreography. Starting with an erudite repertoire featuring the works of Richard Strauss, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Edward Elgar, among others, the company began combining classical technique with a contemporary re-reading of popular Brazilian dance forms. This would become the group’s trademark.
For tickets: 413-545-2511, 800-999-UMASS or www.fineartscenter.com.
Lisa Birnbaum is Lysistrata at Connecticut Repertory Theatre.
The First Comedic Battle of the Sexes
Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT) presents Aristophanes’ Greek comedy “Lysistrata” in the Nafe Katter Theatre on the UConn-Storrs campus from February 26th through March 8th.
The big hit of 411 BC, “Lysistrata” is the story of one woman’s crusade to end the Peloponnesian War, by coercing her fellow women to withold sex from their husnad warriors, until they stop fighting. The conflict of the sexes leads to laughter, bawdy puns, and both genders begging to “make love, not war”.
Set in the 1940s in a small northeastern town, this new adaptation by Jen Wineman places the heroines in Rosie the Riverter’s overalls and Donna Reed’s pearls. Director and playwright Wineman most recently directed “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL and “The 39 Steps” at Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC.
Ezra Barnes headlines the cast of “The Dining Room” at Playhouse on Park
Lisa Birnbaum will star as the title character, leading the women in their sexual boycott. Birnbaum makes her CRT debut, but is a regular on Connecticut stages, having received her MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and performing at Long Wharf Theatre and Yale Repertory Theatre.
For tickets: 860-486-2113 or www.crt.uconn.edu.
Opportunity
The UMass Arts Extension Service will offer two workshops for non-profit organizations, arts groups, artists, and other members of the creative industries, who want to bring interns into their programs. The programs will be held in Holyoke on February 26 and in Northampton on March 4. Admission is free, but advance reservations are required. For details: 413-545-2360 or
http://www.umass.edu/aes/newsandevents/interested-intern-your-studio-arts-based-business-or-non-profit
Keep in Mind…
***”The Music of Michael Jackson”, Hartford Symphony Pops’ salute to the four decades of hit music by the King of Pop, plays The Bushnell on February 28. Guest conductor is Brent Havens, and James Delisco is guest vocalist. For tickets: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.org
***The Dining Room, Connecticut playwright A.R. Gurneys portrait of the fading upper-crust New England WASP lifestyle in eighteen vignettes, plays West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park through March 8. Sasha Bratt directs. Ezra Barnes and Susan Haefner head the cast. For tickets: 860-523-5900 ext. 10 or www.playhouseonpark.org.
Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
