Sharon Disney Lund Dance Series Presents 'TRYING TIMES' 12/3

As part of REDCAT's Fall 2008 season and the Sharon Disney Lund Dance Series, David Gordon brings his contemporary reconstruction of Trying Times (remembered), originally commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop and David R. White in 1982, to the REDCAT stage, for five performances only, December 3 -7.

The performances will feature five of Gordon's Pick Up Performance Co(S.) members featuring Karen Graham, original cast member Valda Setterfield, who is Gordon's wife and longtime professional partner, and eight dancers from the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance. The REDCAT engagement of Trying Times (remembered) is immediately followed by a two-week run at Dance Theater Workshop in New York, with the same ensemble of performers. This marks the first time in Gordon's 40-plus year career that he has remounted one of his early works. 

Trying Times (remembered) will have five performances only -- Wednesday, December 3 – Saturday, December 6 at 8:30pm, and Sunday, December 7 at 3pm – at REDCAT, CalArts downtown center for innovative visual, performing and media arts in the Walt Disney Hall Complex. Tickets are $20 - $25 (general admission) and $16 - $20 (students). Tickets may be purchased at the REDCAT box office by calling 213.237.2800, or online at www.redcat.org. REDCAT is located 631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, 90012, at the corner of W. 2nd and S. Hope Streets.

Trying Times (remembered) is set to the complete score of Igor Stravinsky's Apollo, one of George Balanchine's signature ballets, with a new Gordon script based on the 1982 production, and design by original collaborators artist Power Boothe (Visual Devices) and Philip W. Sandstrom (Lighting).

In summer 2008, Gordon said of this reconstruction, "I'm trying to figure out how not to make 'Trying Times' a chore but a creative, investigative something without people dumping on me afterward for not being true to the original. I don't want to be true to the original. I want to be true to myself."

Gordon's original work Trying Times has been called his "anti-signature" piece, and it sprang from conversations he overheard in the New York subway. At the time, The New York Times described it as "Cool, witty, wry... Trying Times succeeds in being on the cusps between dance and pedestrian movement, between rehearsal and performance, between tentative experiment and fluent work of art."

Throughout his career, Gordon has continued to make works that critics and scholars say defy category. From his early days as one of the founding artists of the seminal Judson Dance Theater, He has proved to be an offbeat, original and unpredictable choreographer, director and writer. Over the last four decades, he has received an eclectic spectrum of commissions for Dance Theater Workshop, American Ballet Theater, WNET's Dance in America and the Mark Taper Forum, among many others.

Of Gordon's choice to work at CalArts on the recreation, Stephan Koplowitz, Dean of the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance and co-producer of Trying Times (remembered), said, "This collaboration reflects one of the key tenets of a CalArts education. Namely, we want our students to have the chance to work side-by-side with distinguished professionals in high-profile, challenging settings-the kind of opportunity that allows them to better prepare for their careers."

The reconstruction of Trying Times (remembered) is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: A Dance Initiative, which is administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with Dance/USA.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

David Gordon (director/choreographer)

Commissions for directing &/or choreographing include:

Actors Studio, American Ballet Theater, American Conservatory Theater, American Repertory Theater, Barbican (London), BBC Channel 4, UK. British Dance Umbrella, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dance Theater of Harlem, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace, Guthrie Theater, Joyce Theater, KTCA Alive TV, Mark Taper Forum, New York Theater Workshop, On The Boards (Seattle, WA), PBS Great Performances, Serious Fun @ Lincoln Center, Spoleto USA,Theater For a New Audience, White Oak Dance Project.

Awards include: two Obies, three Bessies, two Dramalogues, two Guggenheims, two Pew Charitable Trust Grants (in both Theater and Dance), two National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpiece grants.

Current member: Actors Studio, Center for Creative Research.

Previous panel/chair: NEA Dance Program.

Founding artist: Grand Union/Judson Church Performances.

Previous performer: Yvonne Rainer Co./James Waring Co.

David Gordon has been constructing dance and theater events for the Pick Up Performance Co(s) for thirty some, very odd years.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Pick Up Performance Co(S.) was founded in 1971 and incorporated in 1978 as the Pick Up Performance Co., Inc to facilitate projects by David Gordon. From his seminal beginnings as a founding artist in the Judson Church performances, Gordon has purposefully examined and expanded the line between theater and dance and pioneered the use of text and textual narrative in movement work. In this early work Gordon presaged his later writing and directing for the stage and predated the live theater form that became known as "performance art." Cementing his dual status as a dance and theater artist, Gordon was awarded a Pew Charitable Trust National Dance ResidenCy Grant and National Theater ResidenCy Grant in successive years. In 1992 the company was expanded when Ain Gordon, David Gordon's son, joined the company as Co-Director. Subsequently the organization was named was changed to the pluralized Pick Up Performance Co(S.)  Ain Gordon began writing/directing his own work with five productions at Dance Theatre Workshop in the mid-1980s, expanding into the New York dance and performance field with works at Performance Space 122, The Poetry Project, Dancing in the Streets, and touring to Dance Place (DC) and the Baltimore Museum of Art, etc.  In the early 90s, Gordon shifted his focus to playwriting with several productions at Soho Rep and his collaboration with David Gordon on the Obie-Award winning The Family Business which was presented at NY Theater Workshop and the Mark Taper Forum, etc.  Since then, Gordon continues to bridge the worlds of performance and theater garnering two more Obie Awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship in playwriting.

ABOUT REDCAT

As CalArts' (www.calarts.edu) downtown center for innovative visual, media and performing arts, REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in the Los Angeles region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT is a center for experimentation, discovery and charged civic discourse.

ABOUT THE SHARON DISNEY LUND SCHOOL OF DANCE

The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance is one of the nation's premier colleges for the professional training of contemporary dance artists. Technical excellence, innovative artistry, comprehensive dance production and intellectual understanding are the hallmarks of the undergraduate and graduate programs. Concentrated production seasons of aesthetically diverse work thrive in an atmosphere of creative exchange between professionally motivated students and a faculty of practicing artists. An exciting roster of guest artists provide master classes and residencies for CalArts students throughout the year. Personal creativity combined with mastery of traditional and contemporary styles prepare students for exciting careers in the field of dance.  Extensive coursework in ballet, contemporary techniques, composition, improvisation, choreography, dance production, dance for camera, music and dance, and a variety of critical studies courses, provide the breadth and depth necessary for a comprehensive education in the art of dance.  The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance offers an undergraduate program leading to the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree and a graduate program leading to the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree.