Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton Present Premiere of THE LUMINOUS EDGE This Weekend

Award-winning choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton will present the premiere of The Luminous Edge, a new evening-length dance theater work that explores themes of transcendence, hope and rebirth. The deeply expressive and theatrical work will feature six Garrett + Moulton dance soloists and an ensemble of 18 additional dancers who will serve as a "movement choir"-a theatrical form used by Garrett and Moulton in their 2009 and 2011 productions, The Illustrated Book of Invisible Stories and The Experience of Flight in Dreams. Performances of The Luminous Edge will be given Thursday-Saturday, today, September 18-20, at 8 PM and Sunday, September 21, at 3 PM and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater is located at 701 Mission Street. For more information, visit http://garrettmoulton.org/.

The Luminous Edge examines pivotal moments in life when darkness turns to light and luminous sparks ignite renewal and rejuvenation. Unfolding as a journey through shadow and light, the work celebrates the cycle of life with its full spectrum of emotions and experiences. Featured prominently in the work will be Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder (songs on the death of children)-a song cycle that explores the deepest forms of human loss. While using this work as a structural underpinning,The Luminous Edge maintains optimism at its core, challenging the expressive range of the performers and bringing the audience on a visceral journey.

In The Luminous Edge, Garrett and Moulton will expand their dedication to live music by incorporating a musical ensemble of seven musicians and one vocalist. The group will be led by musical director/composer Jonathan Russell-a longtime Garrett + Moulton collaborator who was nominated for an Izzie award for Outstanding Sound/Music Design for their 2011 production, The Experience of Flight in Dreams. Internationally renowned Bay Area contralto Karen Clark will singKindertotenlieder as well as additional material drawn from a variety of contemporary composers including Russell, Marc Mellits and avant-garde Finnish band Alamaailman Vasarat

Performers include Bay Area favorites Vivian Aragon, Carolina Czechowska, Dudley Flores, Michael Galloway, Tegan Schwab and Nol Simonse.

The creation and performance of The Luminous Edge was made possible through the support ofDance/USA and Dancers' Group New Stages for Dance II, Fleishhacker Foundation, W & F Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Weston Wear, Inc., and generous individual donors.

About the Artists

Janice Garrett is an internationally active choreographer and dance educator who began her career as a dancer with Dan Wagoner and Dancers. Honored in 2004 as one of Dance Magazine'stop "25 to Watch," she has received commissions from companies throughout the US and Europe. Her choreographic grants include awards from the James Irvine Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, and San Francisco Grants for the Arts. Honors include a 2010 Isadora Duncan Dance Award ("Izzie") for "Best Company Performance" for her collaboration with Charles Moulton on The Illustrated Book of Invisible Stories, three 2011 Izzie nominations for The Experience of Flight in Dreams and recognition by the San Francisco Chronicle for StringWreck as one of the "Top 10-Best Performances of 2008."

Guggenheim Award winner Charles Moulton began his career dancing with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1973-1976. He has created works for the Joffrey Ballet, Baryshnikov's White Oak Project and many other dance companies in the US and abroad. He is the winner of a 1989 Dorothy Chandler Arts Achievement Award and has received support for his work from the NEA, NYSCA, The Jerome Foundation, and Meet the Composer/Choreographer. Moulton has directed theater and opera and has created works for film and television including choreography for 1,000 dancers in the Matrix Reloaded. He is a founding co-director of Performance Space 122 in downtown Manhattan and is widely regarded for his signature work Precision Ball Passing in which large groups work together to solve a living puzzle. Moulton has been active as a visual artist for 12 years. His work has been featured at the Pro-Arts Gallery, Oakopolis, and Terminus Gallery in downtown Oakland.

Jonathan Russell is a composer, clarinetist, and conductor, whose work has been hailed as "incredibly virtuosic, rocking, and musical" (San Francisco Classical Voice). His compositions have been commissioned, performed, and recorded by orchestras, choirs, and chamber ensembles throughout the United States and around the world, including the San Francisco Symphony, Empyrean Ensemble, ADORNO Ensemble, and Imani Winds. Especially known for his innovative bass clarinet and clarinet ensemble compositions, Jonathan is a member of the heavy metal-inspired Edmund Welles bass clarinet quartet and the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo. He is a co-founder of the Switchboard Music Festival in San Francisco and currently lives in London.

Contralto, Karen Clark studied opera and early music at Indiana University and has performed and recorded with world leading early music groups, such as, Sequentia, Boston Camerata, New York Early Music, and Joshua Rifkin's Bach Ensemble. Since 2008, Karen has premiered numerous works by eminent composers, such as, Fred Frith, and Joseph Schwantner. Two recent recordings of new music feature Karen's singing: On Cold Mountain: Songs on Poems of Gary Snyder (Innova label) was called "mesmerizing" by the San Francisco Chronicle. And, her premiere of Ben Johnston's Parable-Poems of Rumi (Microfest label) was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "stunning."

Karen has taught in association with the music departments of Swarthmore College, Sonoma State, Princeton University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and in the Thornton School of Music at University of Southern California.

Tickets for The Luminous Edge are priced at $30-36 general admission; $25 YBCA members, students, teachers, and seniors.

Tickets for The Luminous Edge are priced at $30-36 general admission and go on sale July 15.

Benefit Reception following Saturday, September 20th 8 PM performance: $75/$150/$500 (includes concert admission) and may be purchased in person at the YBCA box office, by calling 415.978.ARTS (2787) or online at www.ybca.org/tickets.

Photo Credit: Photo: RJ Muna

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