Eugene, Ore. – Oregon Performance Lab hosts a residency presentation of Predator Songstress by Seattle based multi-disciplinary group Degenerate Art Ensemble, August 28 and 29 at 7:00pm in the Ragozzino Performance Hall on the main campus at Lane Community College. Degenerate Art Ensemble explores surveillance and hidden truth in Predator Songstress, an intensely visual music-driven theatrical event that tells the tale of a totalitarian world in which the technological tools of oppression are re-invented to divine the secrets of the human voice. Tickets $16 general public; $12 seniors; $8 members/students. Tickets available online at www.brownpapertickets.com or by calling 1-800-838-3006. Oregon Performance Lab is a creative residency dedicated to artists developing new live performance works. For more information, visit www.oregonperformancelab.com.
Lane Community College
Ragozzino Performance Hall
Building 6, Main Campus
4000 E 30th Ave, Eugene, OR 97405.
Performances
Predator Songstress, Friday, August 28 @ 7:00pm, and Saturday, August 29 @ 7:00pm
Tickets:
- General Admission $16
- Seniors $12
- Oregon Performance Lab Members/Students: $8
Press and Interviews
To schedule an interview, receive additional materials or to make a press reservation, please contact Willow Norton at nortonwillow@gmail.com.
PREDATOR SONGSTRESS
By Degenerate Art Ensemble. Predator Songstress is a world that appears on the surface to be a classic realm of a totalitarian state, but beneath this facade Degenerate Art Ensemble is re-appropriating the technological tools of oppression and control such as surveillance, interrogation and data mining and using them to create an environment designed to divine the secrets of the human voice. This work deals with personal power - taking our own action in the face of the reality around us and investigating personal power in our particular time and place.
The world premiere of Predator Songstress will take place at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in November followed by its Northwest premiere at On The Boards in Seattle this December.
Predator Songstress is being created with the support of Creative Capital, MAP Fund and New Music USA.
DEGENERATE ART ENSEMBLE
Degenerate Art Ensemble makes performance inspired by punk, comics, cinema, nightmares and fairy tales driven by live music and their own style of visceral movement theater and dance. These are not dance pieces, or concerts or gallery installations, but immersive meditations that use light, sound, music, movement and space as tools to strip away the waking world to reveal an alternate reality inhabited by constantly transforming characters. Their work is an exorcism through collision and conflict challenging how we see audience, architecture, music, story, myth and reality. It comes out of a deep desire for communion and soul-exchange and transformation and a discovery of how art can find a deeper meaning in the larger society. The company's work has been presented in venues across the US and Europe and has been commissioned, supported and awarded by noteworthy organizations such as Robert Wilson's Watermill Center, Arts International, the International Theatre Institute, Guggenheim Foundation and many others.
Degenerate Art Ensemble has been presented by On The Boards (Seattle), REDCAT (L.A.), New Museum (N.Y.), Festival Alternativa (Prague), T.F.F. Festival (Germany), the Baryshnikov Center (N.Y.) and many others in ten countries of Europe and North America.
Visit www.degenerateartensemble.com for more information.
OREGON PERFORMANCE LAB
Oregon Performance Lab is a creative residency dedicated to artists developing new live performance works. Lane Community College in Eugene will host the inaugural residency August 10 - 30.
The program provides playwrights, directors, composers, choreographers and ensembles rehearsal space in large well-equipped facilities for intensive creative development and production work. Project residencies are 1 - 2 weeks long culminating in reading and workshop presentations.
For Lane county audiences this is a chance to see new contemporary work bound for venues across the United States in the coming year. SPILL and Predator Songstress, our two mainstage projects will have runs in Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and New York. Before they do.... these pieces will take to the stage as works in development at Lane Community College.
In the Lab, our audience serves a vital function, acting as the focus group for these artists who making their final major rewrites or completing the only fully realized staging of the piece ahead of a major professional presentation.
Visit www.oregonperformancelab.com
CREATIVE TEAM
Haruko "Crow" Nishimura (Co-Director Degenerate Art Ensemble)
Haruko Crow Nishimura is a Guggenheim Fellow and co-artistic director of Degenerate Art Ensemble along with music director Joshua Kohl since its formation in 1999 which is her primary creative outlet. The company creates performance work infused with the energy of live music and driven by her own style of visceral movement theater and dance. The group's work has been featured in 10 countries presenting large scale experimental dance and theater projects, concerts, site-transforming spectacles and ongoing public experimentation. The group was the subject of a major exhibition at the Frye Art Museum in 2011, was commissioned by director Robert Wilson to interpret his work Einstein on the Beach and undertook a massive site specific collaboration with Olson Kundig Architects in 2012 and collaborated with the Kronos Quartet in 2013 and 2015. DAE directors Nishimura and Kohl have been selected to be featured in the Museum of History and Industry's Center for Innovation in a video featuring 12 Northwest innovators including Jeff Bezos, Dale Chihuly and others. In addition to her work with DAE, Haruko is constantly collaborating with both local and international artists to push the boundaries of her medium dancing in the street, creating rituals for strangers in cemeteries and performing and directing small experimental ensembles.
JOSHUA KOHL (Co-Director Degenerate Art Ensemble)
Joshua Kohl is co-founder, conductor, composer and co-artistic director of the Seattle based multi-art group Degenerate Art Ensemble (DAE). Under his co-direction, DAE has become a leading entity on the cutting edge of contemporary art in our region as well as an expanding presence internationally. His work with Degenerate Art Ensemble is an intensely collaborative work that sees no boundaries between the visual and performing arts. The work is presented in major dance and music venues as well as shown in galleries, and most recently exhibited in a large scale Museum exhibition at Seattle's Frye Art Museum. Along with DAE, he was invited in 2012 by legendary theater Director Robert Wilson to create an interpretation of his and Phillip Glass' epic work Einstein On The Beach and presented it under Wilson's guidance at the Baryshnikov Center in New York. In February of 2012 he conducted the music of fellow DAE composer Jherek Bischoff with the Wordless Music Orchestra in New York at Lincoln Center with vocalists David Byrne, Mirah and several rising stars of creative popular music. DAE's newest work, The Predator's Songstress has been awarded major funding from Creative Capital and the Seattle Center Foundation. His and DAE's work Red Shoes was awarded a Music Theatre Now award from the International Theatre Institute in and was part of a presentation at the Swedish Bienalen of Performing Arts in 2013. Joshua's work "Warrior" which is part of DAE's Predator's Songstress will be performed by Kronos Quartet in late 2013. Kohl was selected along with co-director of DAE Haruko Nishimura to be featured in Seattle's Museum of History and Industry's Center for Innovation in a video featuring 12 Northwest innovators including Jeff Bezos, Dale Chihuly and others.
Corey PEARLSTEIN (Creative Producer Oregon Performance Lab)
In the Pacific Northwest, Corey Pearlstein has served as Managing Artistic Director for The Lord Leebrick Theatre in Eugene, Producing Artistic Director for Consolidated Works in Seattle and Executive Director at the The Majestic Theatre in Corvallis. In Pennsylvania, he worked as Managing Director for InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia and Producing Artistic Director at Theatre Outlet. In New York, Pearlstein has worked as a General Manager for The Pearl Theatre Company, Clement Arts and 300 Bags of Rice and as Business Manager for The Builders Association. He currently works in business administration at Electronic Arts Intermix, as General Manager for Clement Arts and is Producer for Seattle based Degenerate Art Ensemble. Recent works include the jazz musical FOR THE LAST TIME with Clement Arts and Epic Theatre, the stage adaptation of DELIVERANCE by Godlight Theatre, the Korean tour production of SUNFISH to Daegu International Music Festival and The Pearl Theatre Company 2013-2014 Season. Pearlstein is a multidisciplinary producer and programmer with an established record presenting visual arts, music, theater, dance and film. He has programmed a wide variety of music events spanning every genre from classical to heavy metal, jazz to jug band, electronic and hip hop. Social justice, diversity and inclusion have been a leading aspects of his work through his career. Pearlstein, who grew up in a small town, is also dedicated to the idea that great art and new work can flourish outside of larger cities. As a director, Pearlstein has staged more than 50 productions, including And My Name Ain't Peaches, Trigger Kids, Smile You're Part Of The Problem and Reality Is A Knife. In Eugene while Artistic Director at Lord Leebrick Pearlstein directed Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, Escape From Happiness, How I Learned To Drive, and Cloud 9.
WILLOW NORTON (Artistic Director Oregon Performance Lab)
Willow Norton is a Director and Teacher focused on new work development. Recent directing projects include; Goodbye Avis at 4th Street Theatre; In The Next Room Or The Vibrator Play for Lane Community College; ¡Bocon!, Rent, and A Thousand Cranes for The Majestic Theatre; S.H.A.V.E.D. at HERE Arts Center and The Philly Fringe; Instructions Included for The Midtown International Festival; Reach for At Hand Theatre Company; In The Way for Philadelphia Young Playwrights; and Pop In The Night for At Hand Theatre Company. She has worked as an assistant director with The Builders Association and The Wilma Theatre. Norton is a 2012 Director's Lab West Alumni. Mrs. Norton received her BFA in Theater; Original Works from Cornish College of Arts in Seattle, WA. She also works for The Shubert Organization.
For more information about Lane Community College:
- Newsroom – www.lanecc.edu/newsroom
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Lane Community College is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.
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