The Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series Announces Season of Dance, Music and Theater

The Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series announces an exciting season of dance, music and theater.

"This season's all about expression. We're excited to consider the voice, from the classical to the most experimental, in three of our shows. And the dance and theater offerings become a lens on the expression of transformative experiences through the body," said Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series Coordinator Lisa Kraus.

2016-17 Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series Performance Schedule

All performances take place on Bryn Mawr's campus, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19086

PHILADANCO

Friday, September 23, 8 p.m.

McPherson Auditorium, Goodhart Hall

Ms. Lisa Fischer & Grand Baton

Saturday, December 3, 8 p.m.

McPherson Auditorium, Goodhart Hall

Wintry Mix/Performance Festival

Friday, January 27, and Saturday, January 28, 8 p.m.

Hepburn Teaching Theater, Goodhart Hall

David Neumann / Advanced Beginner Group-I Understand Everything Better

Thursday, February 23, Friday, February 24, and Saturday, February 25, 8 p.m.

Hepburn Teaching Theater, Goodhart Hall

Dolce Suono Ensemble with Sarah Shafer, soprano

Friday, March 17, 8 p.m.

Thomas Great Hall

Regular and flex subscriptions to the five-program series are $90 each, $75 for seniors. Tickets to individual events are $20, $18 for seniors, $10 for students and Dance Pass holders or members of dancephiladelphia.org, and $5 for children under 12. Tickets, subscriptions and more information are available online through Brown Paper Tickets, at brynmawr.edu/arts/series.html or by calling 610-526-5210.

INDIVIDUAL EVENT INFO

PHILADANCO

The virtuosic, miraculously versatile and blazingly energetic dancers of PHILADANCO return to Bryn Mawr for a program that includes Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's infectiously rhythmic Hands Singing Song and the company's most beloved work, Enemy Behind the Gates, by Christopher Huggins. A Philadelphia cultural treasure for more than 46 years, Philadanco is celebrated for its continued innovation, creativity, and fierce advocacy of African-American dance.

Ms. Lisa Fischer & Grand Baton

A part of rock-n-roll history for her legendary live duets with Mick Jagger on "Gimme Shelter," Lisa Fischer was featured in the Oscar® Award-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, showcasing her superstar talent as backup singer extraordinaire for Tina Turner, Sting, Chaka Kahn and many others. Now the two-time GRAMMY® Award winner takes center-stage with her band Grand Baton. With her astonishing range and powerhouse vocals, Fischer makes her own definitive versions of classic rock, pop and jazz songs.

Wintry Mix/Performance Festival

The first time was such a blast we're doing a new Wintry Mix/Performance Festival -and upping the fun factor. Two different programs of 12-minutes-max showings will bring a wild bevy of work that crosses boundaries between theater, dance, video and music. Smaller scale, scruffier, and more adventurous than the usual Series headliners, each show includes free snacks and drinks, and ends with an extended musical set for everyone to groove to.

David Neumann / Advanced Beginner Group-I Understand Everything Better

Bessie-Award winning choreographer/performer David Neumann brings his Advanced Beginner Group to the intimate Hepburn Teaching Theater for three performances of I Understand Everything Better. Neumann explores our impulse to report on calamity in this multidisciplinary dance-based performance inspired by the death of his father. I Understand Everything Better is a deeply felt and moving work that intersperses elements of Kabuki, video, music, and text, and blurs the lines between truth and fiction. Topics merge-the private and public, internal and external, the known and unknown-resulting in a mysteriously beautiful mix of indelible images that dance upon the contradictions of human life.

Dolce Suono Ensemble with Sarah Shafer, soprano

The season concludes with the mastery of Dolce Suono Ensemble with Sarah Shafer, soprano. From Bach's magnificent cantatas to songs by Debussy, this special program takes in a wide range of classical repertoire for voice and chamber ensemble. Selections from operas and fantasies by Donizetti, Bizet/Borne, and Delibes, and commissioned arrangements of Mozart songs complete the evening. Dolce Suono is Mimi Stillman, flute, Gabriel Cabezas, cello, and Charles Abramovic, piano, here joined by soprano Sarah Shafer, whose "beautiful crystalline sound and glowing warmth" has been hailed by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The 2016-17 Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

The presentation of David Neumann / Advanced Beginner Group-I Understand Everything Better is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Ms. Lisa Fischer and Grand Baton are presented in partnership with the Office of the Provost, Bryn Mawr College.

Since 1984 the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has presented great artists and performances to audiences in the Philadelphia area, creating an environment in which the value of the arts is recognized and celebrated. Providing talks and workshops free to the public to help develop arts awareness and literacy, the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has partnered in recent seasons with such organizations as the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Bryn Mawr Film Institute, and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. The Series has presented performances by such diverse luminaries and visionaries as Meredith Monk, John Waters, Il Fondamento, the Khmer Arts Ensemble of Cambodia, and Urban Bush Women.

For further information, please contact the Office for the Arts at artsadmin@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-5210, or visit www.brynmawr.edu/arts/.

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