Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater (SPDT) will perform four works from its nationally-acclaimed repertory Saturday, Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 12 at 2 p.m. at Gustavus Adolphus College’s Anderson Theatre.
SPDT’s presentation is the inaugural event for the 2010-11 Gustavus Artist Series and will feature the return of alumnus Brian Evans ’07. Gustavus audiences will remember Evans as a gifted actor, dancer, and singer as well as an outstanding defensive back for the Golden Gusties football team.
Now in his third season with Pimsler, Evans joins the other members of the Pimsler Company in this first of a year-long series of residency activities that will be presented at Gustavus. Tickets are available online at gustavustickets.com or by calling the Gustavus Ticket Center at 507-933-7590.
These performances will include two of SPDT’s signature works, Ways to Be Hold and Total Surrender, which were specifically chosen for this program because of their connection to September 11.
Ways to Be Hold, honored with a 2008 Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Choreography, explores the dynamic of holding and being held filtered through a series of personal and global inquiries. The entire company is caught between moments of tenderness and assault as they decide how to respond in dangerous times. Spoken word artist Tiyo Siyolo narrates this compelling work with courage, grace and a ferocious spirit.
Total Surrender takes its title from a poem by Rumi while considering the possibility of a “mighty peace” rather than conflict. The first rehearsal for Total Surrender began on Sept. 11, 2001 and evolved as a daily journal, chronicling Mr. Pimsler’s responses to a changed world. The accompanying musical score, Peaceable Kingdom, was created by national composer Ingram Marshall.
The program will also include artistic co-director, Suzanne Costello’s work, The Marys, a witty, nostalgic journey through the backyard lives of four, suburban women. The final work, The Men from the Boys poses questions regarding the boundaries of male intimacy through a duet of male interplay.
During its January 2011 residency in the Gustavus Department of Theatre & Dance, SPDT has been commissioned to create a new work for students while presenting an array of its nationally recognized Community Connections workshops on campus as well as in the St. Peter community.
This season SPDT celebrates 29 years of creating physical theater for the heart and mind. SPDT was founded in 1978 in New York City and has been located in the Twin Cities since 1999. The company is co-directed by Suzanne Costello and Stuart Pimsler who have choreographed, written, and directed over seventy works for the company’s repertory as well as for other performance companies in the U.S. and abroad. The company’s work has been presented throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Europe, Israel, Taiwan, St. Petersburg, Russia and The Bermuda Ministry of Culture. SPDT’s work for the stage and community-specific sites continues to illuminate the ordinary, often forgotten, moments of the everyday.
SPDT’s Minnesota touring activity is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4, 2008.
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