Peak Performances Sets 2016-17 Season

Peak Performances 2016-17 season is loaded with great new and classic theater, exciting and diverse dance and of some of the best musicians working today: Laurie Anderson, Third Coast Percussion, David T. Little, Peter Garland, Gavin Bryars, Julia Wolfe, Amy Beth Kirsten, William Bolcom and four of the world's most glorious string quartets: Arditti, Chiara, Harlem and Shanghai. There is so much to see, feel and hear from some of the best and bravest artists on the planet. And it's all available for $20 a ticket.

The Season, Fall 2016
Raphaëlle Boitel: The Forgotten/L'oublié(e)
September 29 - October 2 (US Premiere)
Fierce young Parisian Raphaëlle Boitel began her career as a contortionist and circus performer. She brings that body language and energy to theater in her directorial debut The Forgotten/L'oublié(e), a surrealist and very personal tribute to other fierce French women like George Sand and Camille Claudel who challenged the established order, and influenced by the very-much-with-us Pina Bausch. Six extraordinary performers fly, glide and dive in a new kind of thrilling theatrical landscape, as much circus as it is theater and dance. "Stunning....as much dance theater as it is aerial circus." Irish Independent

Deborah Hay/Laurie Anderson/Cullberg Ballet: Figure a Sea
October 6 - 9 (US Premiere)
Deborah Hay, a founding member of Judson Dance Theater, brings her first large-scale work in many years to Peak Performances, set to a score by Laurie Anderson and performed by 21 dancers of Sweden's adventurous Cullberg Ballet. Figure a Sea "is a suggestion for how to look at a stage," Deborah Hays says, "dancer and stage are considered a sea of endless possibilities." Legendary Laurie Anderson's haunting sound scape provides the spine for this gorgeous, minimalist mediation on seeing, which has been described as "magnificent, skillful and peaceful." Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm

Abbey Theatre: The Plough and the Stars, directed by Sean Holmes
October 20 - 23
"Th' time is rotten ripe for revolution." Set amidst the tumult of the Ireland's 1916 Easter rising, Sean O'Casey's searing The Plough and the Stars is the story of ordinary lives ripped apart by idealism and revolution. The play opens with the domestic hum of a Dublin tenement just before the uprising's violence sweeps through the streets and dramatically impacts its residents' lives. Once the smoke has cleared, what kind of Ireland awaits them?The Plough and the Stars was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1926 and caused riots by Nationalists who thought it defamed the patriots. Now considered a masterpiece, it has become essential in our understanding of the forces that rocked Ireland in 1916, one hundred years ago. Sean Holmes won the Olivier Award for Sarah Kane's Blasted and brings a new perspective to Sean O'Casey's timeless and absorbing play. "An appropriately irreverent handling of a legendarily irreverent script. This vigorous performance...convincingly reinforces the mettle of O'Casey's great play." Washington Post

Third Coast Percussion/Cryptic/Cathie Boyd:
See You Later -- Works by Gavin Bryars, Peter Garland and David T. Little
November 18 - 20 (World Premiere)
"History never really says goodbye. History says, see you later." Eduardo Galeano
Peak Performances never really says goodbye to artists it presents. Cathie Boyd and her art house, Cryptic, created the ravishing production of Virginia Woolf's Orlando at Peak Performances in 2014. David T. Little's Dog Days was commissioned by and had its World Premiere at Peak Performances in 2012. They return this season as part of See You Later in which Third Coast Percussion performs three new works by Little, Peter Garland and a commissioned World Premiere by Gavin Bryars, all directed by Boyd, who specializes in "music presented visually." Her previous sonic adventures include the heralded Sonica Festival, that toured six continents after its Glasgow launch, and the spectacular 2014 event,Sound To Sea, which took place on 14 ships on the River Clyde one luminous evening. Third Coast Percussion, the hot young American Percussion Chamber ensemble, has been called "vibrant and superb" by The New Yorker. Committed to expanding the sonic possibilities of the percussive repertoire, they will fill the acoustic splendor of Alexander Kasser Theater with three startling works perfectly suited to their mission. David T. Little's Haunt of Last Nightfall was, in part, inspired by the 1981 El Mozote massacre in El Salvador. Peak Performances commissioned Gavin Bryars to create The Other Side of the River which will make its World Premiere. Peter Garland's gorgeous, ephemeral 1972 classic, Apple Blossom, adds its timeless luster to the performance.

The Season, Spring 2017
Richard Alston Dance Company with Shanghai Quartet:
Chacony, Mazur, An Italian in Madrid and Stronghold
February 2 - 5 (World Premiere)
Richard Alston Dance Company returns to Peak Performances, this time with the commissioned World Premiere of Richard Alston's Chacony, set to Benjamin Britten's arrangement of Henry Purcell's Chacony in G Minor and the Chacony from Britten's own String Quartet No.2 and played by Montclair's home town heroes, The Shanghai Quartet. Alston also presents his new Scarlatti-inspired An Italian in Madridfeaturing classical Indian kathak dancer Vidya Patel, Mazur set to Chopin's lilting mazurkas and the Peak Performances choreographic debut of Company Associate Choreographer Martin Lawrance. His stunning new work Stronghold has music by popular New York composer Julia Wolfe. "It's a tonic to watch the Richard Alston Dance Company... The dancers are so good because the choreography shows them at full tilt." NY Times

Amy Beth Kirsten/Mark DeChiazza/HOWL: QUIXOTE
March 23 - 26 (World Premiere)
Commissioned by and developed for Peak Performances as part of its brand new extended residency program, From Scratch, QUIXOTE is a bold re-imagining of the Cervantes classic. With new music by Amy Beth Kirsten and direction by Mark DeChiazza, the team that created Columbine's Paradise Theater, QUIXOTE lets us experience the mad knight's hallucinations first hand. A mezzo-soprano, contralto and four singing percussionists provide the voices inside the old man's head. Because books figure so prominently in his lunacy, in this lively production books are played as instruments with a compelling sound of their own. Tuning forks, triangles, plain white paper and human breath also create a surprising chamber ensemble. This simple and gorgeous production is equal parts storefront theatre and new age opera.

Arditti Quartet, Chiara String Quartet, Harlem Quartet, and Shanghai Quartet:
All Terrain String Festival: Bolcom 4 x 4
March 31 - April 2 (World Premiere)
A three-day string quartet festival featuring four of the world's celebrated string quartets performing works by classic and modern composers and joined by some virtuoso guest artists. The festival's focus is on the compositions of prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer William Bolcom, whose work graces each show, culminating on Sunday, April 2nd with the world premiere of a new Bolcom piece commissioned by Peak Performances and performed by the Shanghai Quartet. This All Strings Fling begins on Friday, March 31st with the Harlem Quartet (just honored with a Chamber Music Award) performing Mozart, Hernandez, Valdes, William Bolcom's Rags and Osvaldo Golijov's Last Round, featuring the Shanghai Quartet.

On Saturday, April 1st, the radiant Chiara String Quartet, known for playing without sheet music, takes over with a program that includes William Bolcom's Octet: Double Quartet in which they will be joined by The Shanghai Quartet. The Saturday evening program concludes with the heralded Arditti Quartet performing Bolcom's Eighth Quartet and, with Eliot Fisk on guitar, the NY/NJ Premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Guitar Quartet and Elliott Carter's String Quartet No. 5, which was composed specifically for Arditti.

On Sunday, April 2nd, The Shanghai Quartet has its hometown stage to itself in a program that includes Pulitzer Prize winner Zhou Long's Poems From Tang and Dvorák's String Quartet No.14 (his last). The program ends with the World Premiere of a new work by Willam Bolcom, commissioned by Peak Performances.

Doug Elkins choreography, etc: Putting the Whores Before Descartes plusMo(or)town/Redux
and Doug Elkins' new film for Dance for Film, Stephen Hawking's 10 Minute Abs
April 20 - 23 (World Premiere)
Since his days as a break dancing B Boy, Doug Elkins has not only turned himself on his head but the dance world as well. His irreverent and provocative work often deconstructs classics (The Sound of Music was Elkinized into Fraulein Maria; Othello becameMo(or)town/Redux). He is putting the finishing touches on a brand new work for Peak Performances with the jaunty Working Title, Putting the Whores Before Descartes and is at work on a new film for Dance for Film on Location at Montclair State University. Elkins will create the third film in a three-year project which has featured acclaimed short films by choreographers Heidi Latsky and Nora Chipaumire. "Doug Elkins is one of the most witty, musical and inventive choreographers of his generation." NY Times

Astrid Hadad: Tierra Misteriosa
May 5 - 6 (US Premiere)
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Mexican cabaret artist Astrid Hadad's Tierra Misteriosa, a sassy and tuneful jaunt through Mexico's tumultuous history. Carried by slaves, Astrid takes us from the ancient Mexico of Tenochtitlan, through the forgotten women of history like Malinche, the beautiful woman who acted as Cortes' interpreter and later bore his children, to the Mexican heroine of the future. Part telenovela, part vaudeville and concert, Hadad shimmies in gorgeous, over the top costumes and soulfully sings us through the historical contradictions of her beloved homeland. We'll hear some of the great Mexican Bandaclassics and some of Astrid's own pungent music. The colors are rich, the music is hot and the drama is real, but it is Astrid's insightful and irreverent commentaries that really provide the oxygen. "Astrid Hadad's cabaret of colors will stop you in your tracks." The Miami Herald

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