Meow Meow crowd surfing at the Ringling International Arts Festival

I have seen several seasons worth of productions at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts. I have seen musicals, trilogies, Shakespeare, farce and all sorts of other performances. I never thought, however, that I would one day see a stage dive. Last night, at the late-night performance of Beyond Glamour: The Absinthe Tour by Meow Meow, was a night of the unexpected.

She was characterized as a post post-modern showgirl, a talented singer who drags cabaret “kicking and screaming into the 21st Century” (Time Out New York). There was nothing that could be said about Meow Meow which could prepare Sarasota audiences for the performance. Using audience volunteers(or forced recruits) as bizarre stagehands, co-performers and props, the show was dynamite. The highlight was the stage dive that required everyone in center of the orchestra section to carry the singer from the stage to the back of the house and then back again. I imagine that there were quite a few pacemakers working overtime last night.

As for her singing, here is what Susan Rife had to say: “Meow Meow has a spectacular, smoky voice that wraps its way sinuously around cabaret standards…”

In Love Is My Sin, a theatrical reading of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the internationally acclaimed director Peter Brook weaves together a collection of sonnets loosely tied to themes such as jealousy, separation and death. Even though there is no plot or character development, the sonnets work like short scenes. The actors, Michael Pennington and Natasha Parry, recite the poems like musicians playing their instruments. Pennington is especially adept at performing the work with his delicious baritone voice.

I went home and pulled out my Works of William Shakespeare to reread the poems just to marvel at how quickly Shakespeare could deliver emotion and character in poems only three stanzas and one couplet long.

Actors perform a scene from Ella Hickson's Eight

Wow. I don’t think that I was ready for Ella Hickson’s Eight. It is hard to conceive that a collection of mostly unrelated monologues which explore class, war, racism, sexuality and power could so effectively rip out my heart, toss me around like a toy and leave me for dead. I loved it. Audience members get to choose 4 of the monologues ahead of time, so I can’t even promise the same experience, but I can assure you that the experience will be explosive.

Here is what Jay Handelman of the Herald Tribune’s blog 24Seven had to say about it: “And Thursday’s performance of “Eight” made me wish there was time to see all eight monologues…”

Robert Spano

Florida State University Symphony Orchestra
Robert Spano, conductor
Pedja Muzijevic, piano

Wednesday, October 7  – 8:30 p.m.
Mertz Theater / FSU Center for the Performing Arts

Program:
F. Liszt,  Orpheus
L. Beethoven, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra no. 4, op. 58
F. Liszt,  Les Preludes

Robert Spano leads the Florida State University Symphony Orchestra and pianist Pedja Muzijevic in the inaugural concert for the Ringling International Arts Festival. Recognized as one of the most imaginative conductors of his generation, the Grammy Award-winning Spano is in his eighth season as Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony. He has conducted the greatest orchestras of the world including those in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, as well as the Royal Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Filarmonica della Scala (Milan) and BBC Symphony Orchestra. Pianist Pedja Muzijevic has performed to acclaim with the Milwaukee Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Residentie Orkest in The Hague.

“Robert Spano has that great skill in a conductor of making every performance radiate joy. You would think, each time, that he has been waiting all his life to make this music happen, and that he is darned well going to make it happen to the utmost.” – The New York Times

“Pedja Muzijevic is a virtuoso with formidable fingers and a musician with fiercely original ideas about the music he plays.” – Financial Times, London

COMPAÑIA MARÍA PAGÉS

Compañia María Pagés
Flamenco y Poesía

Thursday, Oct 8: 2:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct 9: 5:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct 10: 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, Oct 11: 2:00 p.m.
Mertz Theater
Tickets: $30, $25, $20, $10

María Pagés is one of Spain’s leading flamenco virtuosos and the recipient of her country’s highest honor, the National Dance Award. In her latest work, Flamenco y Poesía, she translates the cadences of poetry into dance, revealing a shared language between the words of José Saramago and Federico Garcia de Lorca and the rhythms of the human body. Performed by her company of nine extraordinary dancers and musicians, Flamenco y Poesía continues Pagés innovative journey into the depths of flamenco and beyond. 

“An artist of passionate force” - El Periódico de Catalunya

“María Pagés’s flamenco pulls tradition forward into her own ample creative territory using large doses of sensuality…She danced wrapped and tangled with her own body, broken into angles or filling up the vertical space that goes up to the sky; pulling us along with her and scorching us.” – El Mundo

“One of the most exceptional voices of flamenco dance…” – ABC

Meow Meow

Meow Meow
Beyond Glamour: The Absinthe Tour

Thursday, Oct 8: 5:30 p.m.
Friday, Oct 9: 10:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct 10: 2:00 & 10:30 p.m.
Sunday, Oct 11: 5:30 p.m.
Mertz Theater
Tickets: $30, $25, $20, $10

International singing sensation and post post-modern showgirl Meow Meow descends on The Ringling International Arts Festival in a wild journey of obsessive love songs, tired old tricks, and gorgeous cabaret ditties. Touring globally with the Spiegeltent and a guest at venues from the Sydney Opera House to New York’s Lincoln Center, Meow Meow navigates the uncharted territory between Weimar era wit, 1930’s Shanghai show tunes, 60’s French pop, and post-punk hilarity, creating a parody of glitz that defies categorization. 

“Meow Meow drags cabaret kicking and screaming into the 21st century.” – Time Out New York

“Meow Meow is a sequinned sex bomb waiting to detonate…” – Sydney Central

Mason Bates

Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
Jennifer Frautschi, violin
Edward Arron, cello
Eric Ruske, horn

Program A
C. Debussy,  Sonata for Violin and Piano
Mason Bates,  Horn Trio (world premiere);
F. Mendelssohn, Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 49

Thursday, Oct 8: 8:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct 9: 5:30 p.m.
Historic Asolo Theater
Tickets: $30, $25, $20, $10

Program B
Mason Bates,  Horn Trio
A. Dvořák,  Piano Trio in F Minor, op. 65

Saturday, Oct 10: 5:30 p.m.
Sunday, Oct 11: 11:00 a.m.
Historic Asolo Theater
Tickets: $30, $25, $20, $10

These hour-long programs of masterworks of chamber music include a new addition to the horn trio repertoire by the acclaimed composer Mason Bates.  These works are performed by an exceptional ensemble of internationally renowned musicians – pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinist Jennifer Frautschi, cellist Edward Arron, and French horn player Eric Ruske. Mason Bates music has been performed by The National Symphony Orchestra (both at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall), San Francisco Symphony, and the Atlanta and Phoenix Symphonies.

“At a time when symphony orchestras nationwide are trolling for audience magnets – the type of new material that can lure members of generations X and Y along with older subscribers – Bates just might have that bait.”  – The Los Angeles Times

Mason Bates’ new work is commissioned by the Ringling International Arts Festival.

Elevator Repair Service

Elevator Repair Service Theater
World Premiere

Thursday, Oct 8: 8:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct 9: 5:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct 10: 2:00 & 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, Oct 11: 2:00 p.m.
Cook Theatre
Tickets: $25, $20, $10

Internationally acclaimed theater company Elevator Repair Service (ERS) continues their compelling experiments in literary adaptation. Founded in 1991 by John Collins, a veteran of The Wooster Group, ERS is known for its intoxicatingly original work, tapping sources from film to novels to television, and combining slapstick comedy, hi-tech and lo-tech design, and its own style of choreography. Taking a collaborative approach to theater making, this radical ensemble delves into a new, multilayered narrative piece for its Festival premiere.

“…famously venturesome…” – The New York Times

“Elevator Repair Service works with intelligence and imagination…” – Variety

Elevator Repair Service Theater’s new work is commissioned by the Ringling International Arts Festival.

Ella Hickson

Ella Hickson
Eight

Thursday, Oct 8: 5:30 p.m.
Friday, Oct 9: 10:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct 10: 10:30 p.m.
Sunday, Oct 11: 2:00 p.m.
Historic Asolo Theater
Tickets: $30, 25, $20, $10

Ella Hickson’s debut play Eight swept the major awards at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, including a Fringe First and the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award. Eight delivers a rich portrait of modern Britain through a collection of incisive monologues from characters ranging from a single working mother to a young Iraq war veteran. Exquisitely tuned to the inner voices of her characters, Hickson balances biting humor with emotional honesty as she assesses what it means to be part of the current generation.  Eight’s cast will include young actors from the UK and students from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training.

“One of the most self-assured, startlingly well-written and moving pieces of theatre around.” – The Herald, Scotland

“[Ella Hickson] writes with a heightened sense of the rhythms and quirks of everyday speech and uses vivid, sensory details to create believable emotional states.” – The New York Times

Deganit Shemy

Deganit Shemy & Company
Arena

Thursday, Oct 8: 2:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct 9: 2:00 & 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, Oct 10: 5:30 p.m.
Cook Theater
Tickets: $25, $20, $10

One of the most intriguing choreographers to emerge in the last several years, Deganit Shemy has captured attention in her native Israel–where she was named “Young Choreographer of the Year” by the Israeli Ministry of Education (2004)–and also in New York, where she founded Deganit Shemy & Company in 2005. In Arena, Shemy constructs an emotionally-charged world that blurs the lines between the real and the imagined. Performed within a tight square of light and set to the insistent ticking of a metronome, five women enact an unsettling and intensely physical game governed by strict, but mysterious rules. 

“One of Israel’s most promising young choreographers…” – Dance Magazine

“A choreographer just beginning to unfurl her formidable talents.” – The New York Times