September 13, 1999
Pappa TARAHUMARA to Performat the Middlebury College
Center for the Arts on Sept. 26-27
Praise for Pappa TARAHUMARA:
“Pappa TARAHUMARA liberates theatre from
the bonds of word and meaning that trapped it for so long.”—Dance
Magazine
“Blending voice, dance and insight: powerful,
striking
it is art in its most basic form.” —Tokyo
Today
Combining visual art, dance, film, and music, Pappa
TARAHUMARA will perform its newest dance theatre piece, “Spring
Day,” in the Dance Theatre of the Middlebury College Center
for the Arts at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 26 and Monday, Sept. 27.
The performance is directed and choreographed by
Hiroshi Koike, founder of the company. Noted for his creativity
and artistic innovation, he is revered by Japanese critics as
one of the country’s leading contemporary artists. These performances
are part of Pappa TARAHUMARA’s first U.S. tour.
Since its inception in 1982, the company has aimed
to blend diverse activities using different mediums, creating
a performance that is both striking and soothing with an Asian
sense of time and motion. Pappa TARAHUMARA has performed more
than 20 different pieces of “stage poetry.” The group
began touring overseas in the United Kingdom in 1991, and has
since traveled throughout Europe.
“Spring Day” is loosely based on “Shunchu”
(Spring Day) and “Shunchu Gokoku” (Spring Day Late Hour),
novels written in the 1930s by Japanese author Izumi Kyoka. The
dance explores how images created in spring and summer are ephemeral
and are connected to the darker seasons to come. Other recent
performances include “AO-Blue-” and “No Wing Bird
in the Island.”
Koike was born in 1956 and began his career as a
television director. All the performances are original works and
are characterized by mixed media used to express a questioning
and critical attitude toward civilization.
Tickets for the performances are $9.00 general admission
and $7.00 for senior citizens. Reservations for a pre-performance
dinner Monday, at 6:30 p.m. at the Rehearsals Cafe in the Center
for the Arts, are required. To order tickets or make dinner reservations,
please call the College box office at 802-443-6433.