Cultura Del Lobo's 16th Season!

MDC CULTURA DEL LOBO PERFORMANCE SERIES OPENS ITS 16th SEASON OF SPECTACULAR AND OUTSTANDING LIVE PEFORMANCES

The Cultura del Lobo Performance Series at Miami Dade College (MDC) is proud to announce its 16th season of original performing arts events and performances from around the world. Be it dance or jazz, theater or spoken word, Cultura del Lobo's 2006-2007 season will delight South Florida audiences with an offering of eclectic talent and bold premieres of new works.

The new season will open on Friday, September 22, 2006, with a concert by the internationally-acclaimed Kronos Quartet at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. The season continues with performance by the innovative Latin American musical ensemble Sol y Canto at the 73rd Street Bandshell on Miami Beach. The next event is the presentation of the new work Order My Steps by revolutionary choreographer Ronald K. Brown and his dance troupe Evidence. The daring season of song, dance and theater will continue in the spring of 2007 with Farber Foundry's tale of South African struggle and resilience, Amajuba: Like Doves We Rise and a performance by the Expressions Dance Company of Australia's dance theater piece Score!

The exciting 2006-2007 season closes on Friday, April 20, 2007, with a concert by NEA Jazz Master McCoy (Alfred) Tyner at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts.

"Cultura del Lobo will once again bring to South Florida thought-provoking performances that would normally not tour the region," said Dr. Michelle Heffner Hayes, Executive Director of MDC's Cultural Affairs Department. According to Hayes, "The 2006-2007
season will feature outstanding performers who are recognized worldwide for their bold artistic innovation and masterful performances."

The programs of the Cultura del Lobo series reflects the diversity of Miami's population and its interest in new and emerging artists and art forms. Hayes selects work by artists from around the world whose aesthetic concerns mirror the constantly shifting cultural borders of South Florida. Each program is preceded by a variety of residency activities that open new worlds to students and to members of the community. While Latin American and Caribbean artists are the focus of its programming, the Series explores far-reaching areas of the world. The history, culture, and art forms of Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the United States are all present in the truly diverse programming of the 2006-2007 season of Cultura del Lobo.

The 2006-2007 season Cultura del Lobo Performance Series includes:

Kronos Quartet
8:00 p.m., Friday, September 22, 2006, Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, 174 East Flagler Street, Miami.
In 1973, David Harrington was inspired to form Kronos Quartet after hearing George Crumb's Black Angels, a highly unorthodox, Vietnam War-inspired work featuring bowed water glasses, spoken word passages, and electronic effects. Kronos went on to build a compellingly eclectic repertoire for string quartet, performing and recording works by 20th-century masters (Bartók, Shostakovich, Webern), contemporary composers (Sofia Gubaidulina, Arvo P�rt, Alfred Schnittke), jazz legends (Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk), and artists from even further afield (rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, Pakistani vocal master Pandit Pran Nath, avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn). The performance will be preceded by a half-week of residency activities.

Sol y Canto
7:00 p.m., Saturday, October 14, 2006, 73rd Street Bandshell, Miami Beach.
Sol y Canto (sun and song) features Rosi Amador's crystalline voice and Brian Amador's lush Spanish guitar accompanied by outstanding Latin musicians from Cuba, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina. Sol y Canto has brought audiences to their feet, from the Kennedy Center and the White House to Puerto Rico's Conservatorio de Música and Museo de Arte. The group's intensive arts-in-education program prepares children's choirs from local schools to perform in a mixed program designed for parents and children together. The setting of Miami Beach's outdoor venue provides a perfect backdrop for this week of intensive residency activity, culminating in a multi-generational performance.

Ronald K. Brown, Evidence
8:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday, November 17 and 18, 2006, Colony Theater,1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach.

Praised as "one of the most profound choreographers of his modern dance generation" by the New York Times, Ronald K. Brown blends African, modern, ballet and hip-hop dance styles in Evidence. The piece, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, seamlessly fuses traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word to provide a unique view of human struggles, tragedies and triumphs. Prior to the two performances, the company will conduct a week-long residency offering master classes and lecture-demonstrations for teens at the African Heritage Cultural Center, and for students at Miami Dade College and New World School of the Arts.

Like Doves We Rise, Amajuba
8:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday, February 16 and 17, 2007, Colony Theater, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach.

Amajuba is the impacting dramatization of five young people's stories about growing up in the violent and impoverished world of apartheid era South Africa. Directed by Yael Farber and culled from the lives of the actors, its vivid and immediate account of struggle through hardship mixes story, song, and prayer in a show of resilience and spirited determination. Amajuba tells of putting an uneasy past to rest and embarking towards a future of possibility through the regeneration of the soul. The company will be in
residence for a week prior to the performance, offering master classes and lecture demonstrations.

Expressions Dance Company of Australia, Score!
8:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 30 and 31, 2007, Colony
Theater, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. (Performance time to be
announced.)
Innovation, originality and energy have been the trademark of this company since their 1985 debut. Founded under the Artistic Direction of Maggi Sietsma AM, Expressions is acclaimed for its high caliber, compelling brand of dance theatre. Score! brings together the story of the ballet Petrushka and the global obsession with TV talent shows like American Idol. The company will be in residence for a week prior to the performance, offering master classes and lecture demonstrations.

NEA Jazz Master McCoy Tyner
8:00 p.m. Friday, April 20, 2007 at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, 174 East Flagler Street, Miami. (Performance time to be announced.)
Best remembered from the John Coltrane Quartet, pianist McCoy (Alfred) Tyner has become one of the country's foremost pianists and composers. His lusty piano is richly percussive and hammering, full of cascading and romantic sounds. His unique and forceful style has inspired and influenced a whole new generation of musicians. Tyner will conduct a jazz clinic with students at the New World School of the Arts and Miami Dade College, prior to taking the stage with his trio. This presentation is part of the NEA Jazz Masters on Tour, a national jazz initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Projects commissioned by the Center for Cultural Collaborations International (CCCI) --
In addition to the performance series, the Center for Cultural Collaborations International (CCCI) generates human and financial resources that allow artists to create new work and/or make lasting meaningful ties to a community through extended residencies and special projects. CCCI commissions for the 2006-2007 season include:

Octavio Campos' The Bug Chasers
In partnership with the Miami Performing Arts Center, the CCCI provided support for dance theater artist Octavio Campos to create an evening-length work that deals with illness, sex and belonging. Based on Susan Sontag's collection of essays Illness as Metaphor, and AIDS and Its Metaphors, the work takes as its subject the extreme behaviors of those who cultivate life-threatening diseases like HIV and anorexia nervosa for a sense of connection in an increasingly alien world. Collaborating artists include Diana Lozano and Sha Sha Higby, costume designers; Dimitry Said Chamy, set and multimedia environment; and Michael Yawney, dramaturg.

Sekou Sundiata's 51st (dream) state
This is poet and composer Sundiata's contemplation of America's national identity, of its power in the world, and of its guiding mythologies. The work, which Sundiata imagines as his poetic and personal "state of the American Soul Address," explores how America defines itself in a new era characterized by unprecedented global influence and power. 51st (dream) state features a cycle of songs, poems and monologues supported by still and moving projected images. The creative team includes director Christopher McElroen, projections designer Sage Marie Carter, lighting designer Rick Murray, costume designer Liz Prince, set designer Troy Hourie, composers/ songwriters Valerie Naranjo, Graham Haynes and Ani DiFranco.

The Cultura del Lobo Performance Series is an initiative of Miami Dade College, through the Cultural Affairs Department. Cultura del Lobo (Culture of the Wolf), originally conceived as a play on the name of their downtown campus (Wolfson) and the adventurous spirit of their programs, has a celebrated history of featuring international and culturally specific work, both traditional and contemporary, which would not otherwise be seen in this region.

South Florida arts patrons can now purchase Cultura del Lobo tickets online at http://www.culture.mdc.edu . Low-cost group tickets and free tickets are available to selected organizations for every performance.

For more information contact: MDC Cultural Affairs Department at (305) 237-3010.

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