2023-2024 Beyond Season

 

Are you ready to be moved? To feel joy? To be challenged? To push past the boundaries of a traditional arts experience?

The 2023–2024 ASU Gammage Beyond season is ready to take you beyond the normal arts experience to transport you with bold artists, powerful messages and talent like you have never seen before.

“The uniqueness of the 2023–2024 Beyond series is at its core about human resilience, inspirational women and celebrating the untold stories of richly diverse communities. Brilliant, eclectic and visceral dance and theater will play leading roles in ASU Gammage welcoming back an exciting full Beyond series spanning the human experience — from joy to the wisdom and strength of leaders throughout history and today." - Michael Reed, ASU Gammage Senior Director of Programs and Organizational Initiatives.

AN UNTITLED LOVE

A.I.M

Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023

Set to the music of the neo-soul, Grammy Award-winning R&B artist D’Angelo, AN UNTITLED LOVE serves as Kyle Abraham’s creative exaltation of Black love and unity. He dedicates this feel-good work — its visceral hope, solace, and joy — to family, culture, and community strengthened over generations and lifetimes. Nearly three decades after first befriending “Brown Sugar,” D’Angelo’s debut album, Abraham choreographs to the music of a singular artist for the first time in a work of this scale. Personifying love in all forms, this work shines through devotion to detail in the music and through movement.

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MOVEMENT

Meklit Hadero

Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023

MOVEMENT is a live show that tells stories of global migration through music and the lives of musicians. Hosted, co-created and co-developed by Ethiopian-American singer Meklit Hadero, the live show seamlessly mixes a live concert experience with scored storytelling and multimedia, in a visceral meditation on what it means to be a global citizen.

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FOOD

Geoff Sobelle

Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023

An intimate dinner party performance of smell, taste, and touch, this solo work offers a meditation on the ways and whys of eating. The audience gathers around a linen-covered dining table, engaging with each other and their empty plates in an immersive, constantly transforming performance. The performance features audience interaction.

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THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Paola Prestini/Beth Morrison Projects

Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA is a new multi-lingual opera from composer Paola Prestini, librettist Royce Vavrek and director Karmina Šilec based on and further inspired by the novel by Ernest Hemingway. The work tells the story of an old fisherman who desperately wants one last great catch, and whose obsession leads him to dangerous maritime territory off the Cuban coast. We follow the man as he encounters man-of-wars, sharks, and a giant marlin that he keeps on his fishing line for two long days and nights, until he finally returns to Havana exhausted with nothing but the skeletal remains of the fish he hoped to be a symbol of his strength and virility. The opera interpolates additional stories based on oral accounts of elders who look back on their lives and livelihoods through the prism of untaught life-lessons that allowed them to self-actualize. The dual tracks of the Hemingway story and portraits of quotidian life combine to create a look at aging, legacy and our relationship to oceans. The work is being created for a small principal cast of five older singers and one young child, a choir, Jeffrey Zeigler’s solo cello and small instrumental ensemble with electronics and foley.

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IN THE SAME TONGUE

Dianne McIntyre

Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024

IN THE SAME TONGUE is a full-length movement, sound and language-based work choreographed and directed by Dianne McIntyre which features poetry by Ntozake Shange, a composition by Olu Dara and original music by Diedre Murray. The work explores dance and music “speaking” to each other: Africans bound together with no common “tongue;” the sound of rage, endearment, suspicion; speech impeding victory; nature reacting to clashes of race; sacred traditions in harmony; silent speech. The company of five dancers and five musicians brings theatrical expression to every move, every note, every word.

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MANA WAHINE

Okareka Dance Company

Saturday, March 23, 2024

MANA WAHINE (Powerful Woman) bursts upon the stage in a multi-media collage of powerful imagery and dance. Inspired by the historic true story of a young Maori heroine and informed by women’s stories from the dancers’ families, the work incorporates bold projections, chant, original music, traditional implements, and costuming that draws from Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) cultural traditions and history.

The courage, determination and fearlessness of the heroine fuels the choreographic style explored in this vibrant piece, and the stories of the dancers’ matrilineal ancestors help create a thoroughly contemporary work, infused with traditional and historical motifs, that celebrates female endurance and strength.

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Malpaso

Malpaso Dance Company

March 30, 2024

In the seven short years since its establishment in 2012, Malpaso Dance Company has already become one of the most sought-after Cuban dance companies with a growing international profile. Emphasizing a collaborative creative process, Malpaso is committed to working with top international choreographers while also nurturing new voices in Cuban choreography. The company tours with 11 dancers and is led by its three original founders: resident choreographer and Artistic Director Osnel Delgado, Executive Director Fernando Sáez, and Associate Artistic Director Daileidys Carrazana.

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