Past Performances
Wild Dancing West 2008
JourneysAFRICA Presents
Mawungira Enharira
Traditional Mbira Music from Zimbabwe
Sunday, June 8 , 2PM
Recognized in their own country as mbira masters, this award-winning group of African musicians is touring the U.S. and will perform in N4th Theater after sharing their talents through a weeklong series of workshops in the Albuquerque community. The seven members of Mawungira perform on instruments that are thought to have originated one thousand years ago. Together with drums and shakers, the audience will experience a performance of unique sounds that are deeply rooted in Zimbabwean culture, performed by artists who live there today.
Tickets: $15 general; $12 students/seniors
Reservations and Information (505) 344-4542
Mawungira
In Strange Company Presents
Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls
Photo: Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls, by Rebeca Mayorga
by Naomi Iizuka; directed by Rebeca Mayorga
Friday and Saturday, May 9-10, 8pm
Sunday May 11, 2pm
Friday and Saturday, May 16-17, 8pm
Sunday May 18, 2pm
New Mexico premiere of Naomi Iizuka’s wild ride through New York City, Alaska, Hawaii, and Inner Borneo. Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls by Naomi Iizuka follows the lives of eleven ensemble characters played by seven actors from Albuquerque’s In Strange Company. These characters collide as strangers and friends; lovers and acquaintances in diverse areas of the globe including Alaska, Hawaii, New York City, and Inner Borneo. Iizuka describes our world as “chaotic and a little bit random, and at times downright unfriendly.” This play explores the idea of our world when it meets Saturn Returns, a period of astrology, between the ages of 28 and 30, when the planet Saturn completes its cycle through one’s birth chart and returns to the spot it occupied when the person was born—a time characterized by endings and new beginnings.
Tickets: $15 general; $10 students/seniors
Reservations and Information (505) 344-4542
VSA Resident Performing Arts Companies
The Jeweled Eye and Kinosphere
by Equilibrium Theater and Buen Viaje Dance
Friday and Saturday, May 23-24, 7pm
A jewel disappears from a golden statue. Seems like a cut-and-dry case, but nothing is as it seems in The Jeweled Eye, a 1940’s Noir mystery by Equilibrium, VSA’s mixed ability theater company. Resident mixed ability dance company Buen Viaje performs Kinosphere, a 2007-2008 repertory of new work and past favorites, such as For Roger, The Love Beneath, Going Bananas, and Maybe It Is.
Admission: $5 suggested donation
Reservations and Information (505) 344-4542
The Jeweled Eye; photo by Luke Olson
Photo: Blythe Eden Dance Company, by Pat Berrett
Blythe Eden Dance Company
Ein Soph Or
Thursday –Saturday, May 1-3, 8PM
A Kabalistic adventure into the vast universe, “Ein Soph Or” indulges the senses. The company, known for its racy topics and dynamic performers, takes on the Big Bang Theory, Creationism, rave dance and meditation, stirs it up and serves it as an evening length dance performance. Collaborations include choreography by Jennifer Predock-Linnell and premiering musical compositions by Ruffalo and Roth. Sacred geometry artist, Evan Small will create the mediation space. An all-ages performance.
Tickets: $15 at the door; $12 if pre-ordered through (505) 270-7751.
Heather Woodbury’s
The Last Days of Desmond ‘Nani’ Reese: A Stripper’s History of the World
Photo: Heather Woodbury, photographer Scott Groller
Saturday, April 26, 8PM
Award-winning playwright and solo performer Heather Woodbury (winner of the first Spalding Gray Award, and a 2007 OBIE-Outstanding Achievement in Off-Broadway Theatre recipient), performs for the first time in Albuquerque in a special one-night-only presentation of her new one-woman play, directed by Abigail Deser. It's the year 2014 and a young “ethno-femino-dance anthropologist” travels to a post-quake, post-drought afflicted Los Angeles to research her 10,000 page dissertation on “The History of the World, as Told by Loose Women.” Her final subject: the half-mad, 108-year old legendary stripper Desmond “Nani” Reese, who is holed up in a shack on an Echo Park hillside overlooking the five freeway. These two unlikely heroines puzzle out the history of the 20th century and the future of our planet, and what that has to do with outlaw females throughout human kind’s history—from high priestess oracles in the caves of ancient Greece to forgotten “show-girls” in bramble covered shacks.
Tickets: $15 general admission
Reservations (505) 344-4542
Information www.heatherwoodbury.com
NewChild Productions Presents
Harriet’s Return: Based Upon the Legendary Life of Harriet Tubman
Saturday April 5, 3pm and 7pm
Sunday April 6, 3pm
Saturday April 12, 3pm and 7pm
Sunday April 13, 3pm
This award-winning and critically acclaimed theatrical event, chronicles the private and public life of famed Underground Railroad conductor, spiritual icon, and revolutionary, Harriet Tubman, whose life spanned nine decades and still influences the consciousness of people around the world. Journey with Harriet as she weaves her story through a unique style that engages and empowers people of all ages and cultures. Directed by Jake Walker, playwright and actress Karen Jones Meadows portrays more than thirty colorful characters who take the audience from contemporary America into the depths of Ms. Tubman's soul, the psyche of a nation, and a call to action. This benefit for New Child Productions’ Youth Theater Program features a special performance by the youth company during intermissions.
Tickets: $15 general admission; $10 students/seniors
Reservations and Information: (505) 344-4542
Journeys…Africa
Global DanceFest 2008
March 7 – 30, 2008
The North Fourth Art Center welcomes dancers and artists that will open our eyes to the world that is contemporary Africa. Beginning March 7, 2008 Albuquerque will become the host of a unique, eclectic, and richly informative festival that explores the culture and society of contemporary Africa through dance, photography, film, and discussion.
From March 7 – 30, 2008, the North Fourth Art Center will feature provocative dance by leading international performers and companies that pull inspiration from the modern continent of Africa. The performances will be in conjunction with an ongoing photography exhibit featuring the dance portraits of international photographer Antoine Tempe. And to pull all of the work together, we will be hosting an IN CONTEXT session from 10am – 2pm each festival Saturday. IN CONTEXT will include a film and discussion with the featured artist(s) of the respective weekend, and there will be free food for all who attend.
For more information about Global DanceFest, including a detailed schedule of events, please visit the Global DanceFest Festival page
Working Classroom
Friday February 22 & Saturday February 23, 7pm
Friday February 29 & Saturday March 1, 7pm
A Hole in the Wall
A slapstick comedy written and directed by Robert Madrid about immigrants pitting the Bush administration against a group of determined immigrants led by Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow and the Lion. Performed by Working Classroom Ensemble Company.
Tickets: General $10; Students/Seniors $8 (Group rates available)
Tickets/Info: At the door or (505)242-9267
Benefit Dance Party
Saturday, February 2, 7:30-10pm
A benefit for Tariro Organization, featuring live music by Kubatana Marimba Ensemble and Wagogo Banda playing hits and songs inspired by traditional and contemporary music of Zimbabwe.
Founded in 2003, Tariro’s work with orphaned Zimbabwean girls emphasizes the importance of women’s education as an effective response to the AIDS epidemic. Jennifer Kyker, founder of Tariro, will be present with information on how to help support the education of young women in Zimbabwe who have been orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. For more information, visit www.tariro.org
Tickets available at the door: General $10; Students/Seniors $5; Kid $3 (Please note: no advanced ticket sales.)
Stephanie Lynn Burch
Saturday February 9 & Sunday February 10, 7pm
How to Mend a Broken Heart
“One woman’s journey of healing as told through the magic and spectacle that only musical theatre can provide!” An original production conceived, produced, directed, choreographed and starring Stephanie Lynn Burch. Musical direction by Matthew Naegeli. For more information call Stephanie Burch (505-720-5992).
Tickets available at the door: Suggested General $10 (Please note: due to adult language and themes this show is not suitable for young children.)
Basement Films on 4th Street
Friday February 15, 7pm
Experiments in Cinema selections from V1.0 & V2.0
Third annual film/video festival designed to celebrate cinematic experimentation by bringing contemporary, international experimental media to Albuquerque, as a way of expanding the ways in which New Mexico is currently thinking about moving image art (i.e., the plethora of Hollywood-style, narrative cinema that is currently being produced in our state). This 81 minute program features selections from the first two years of Experiments in Cinema including The Bats by Jim Trainor, HTTP/ICT by Ip Yuk Yui, Uso Justo by Coleman Miller and Her Heart is Washed in Water and Then Weighed by Sasha Waters.
Saturday February 16, 7pm
The Personality of the Personnel followed by Fellah, Can You Amass?
The Personality of the Personnel features short works by various members & volunteers of Basement Films during its past 16 years. This highly eclectic selection will include Liquid Memory by Maximillian Godino, Stalker by Charla Barker, I Yam What I Yam by Bryan Konefsky, Tales of Film Revenge by Saul Rodgar, Tales of the Sea’s Dream by Ben Popp, TSIF by Tyrrell Cummings, 4th Street by David Nelson, Barbershop by Sarah Wentzel-Fisher, Sensory Deprivation by Martin R. Wilson, The Freddy Baker Story by Matt Cowan, Dooda Desert Rock! by Marcos Ramirez, plus several others to be announced. Saturday night concludes with a special projectionist art collaboration, Fellah, Can You Amass? featuring a variety of film & video projectors tangling & wrestling their thrown images in a “going for broke” collage/montage.
Tickets:
General $7, cash only, available 6:30pm at the door or call Basement Films
Tickets/Info:
Basement Films (505) 842-9977; basefilm@swcp.com, www.basementfilms.org