Redcat Presents HOW CAN YOU STAY IN A HOUSE ALL DAY..., 11/10-14

In The New York Times' Sunday Fall Arts Preview earlier this year, dance critic Claudia LaRocca proclaimed, "If I had to see only one show you simply must see this fall, it would be Ralph Lemon's," and on September 16, 2010 at the Krannert Center in Urbana, Illinois , the choregrapher and visual artist premiered his first major work in six years to audience and critical acclaim. During its multi-city U.S. tour, REDCAT is proud to present the Los Angeles premiere of Ralph Lemon/Cross Performance's How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater with performances beginning on Wednesday, November 10, 2010 and running through Sunday, November 14, 2010.

A homemade spaceship built from scrap metal and wood serves as a poignant metaphor in the latest work by Alpert Award-winning choreographer and artist Ralph Lemon, who commissioned the craft as part of his eight-year friendship and creative collaboration with Walter Carter, a former Mississippi Delta sharecropper born at the turn of the 20th century. Lemon's multimedia work How Can You Stay... juxtaposes images and memories of Walter and his family with fearless dancing by Lemon's six-member company and sophisticated video imagery, including references to Andrei Tarkovsky's landmark 1972 sci-fi film Solaris.

Described by Lemon as a "speculative fiction epic," the production bridges the personal and the universal, draws from myths and realities, and reminds us, as Lemon says, of "the special, ordinary, and inspiring human commonality of how one lives a life." In last Sunday's feature, The New York Times wrote, "the production... explores, in part, the ambiguous line between art and life and heralds the first major piece from Mr. Lemon, an important experimenter whose work has continually grown more probing and exacting, after a six-year absence." (Click to read The New York Times feature )

How Can You Stay... consists of live performance, film and visual art. Lemon employs these multiple and intertwined media to approach themes of human connection, loss, and the elusive but ever-compelling possibility of grace. His ensemble of performers include Djédjé Djédjé Gervais, Darrell Jones, Gesel Mason, Okwui Okpokwasili, Omagbitse Omagbemi, and David Thomson. Other collaborators on How Can You Stay... include longtime dramaturg Katherine Profeta and lighting designer RodeRick Murray.

How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? makes its Los Angeles premiere at REDCAT on Wednesday, November 10, 2010 and runs through Sunday, November 14, 2010. Curtain for performances on Thursday-Saturday is 8:30 pm with a Sunday performance at 7:00 pm. Tickets are $25-30 ($20-25 for students with current I.D.) and are available at www.redcat.org or by calling 213 237-2800. REDCAT is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

The U.S. tour of How Can You Stay... included performances at the Krannert Center in Urbana, IL and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN with upcoming performances October 7-9 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA; October 13-16 at BAM's Harvey Theater in Brooklyn, NY; November 5-6 at Duke University in Durham, NC; November 10-14 at REDCAT in Los Angeles, CA; and November 18-21 at On the Boards' Merrill Wright Mainstage Theater in Seattle, WA.

How Can You Stay In The House All Day And Not Go Anywhere? is co-produced by Cross Performance Inc and MAPP International Productions. The performances at REDCAT are funded in part with generous support from The Herb Alpert Foundation. The Alpert Award in the Arts, a fellowship program that supports innovative practitioners in the fields of dance, film/video, music, theater and visual arts, is administered by CalArts on behalf of The Herb Alpert Foundation.

Funded in part with generous support from The National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts. NDP is supported by lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.

For high resolution and web resolution images, additional information, media and interview requests, please contact Diana Wyenn at 213 237-2873 or dwyenn@calarts.edu.

 

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