Tag Archives: Cooper Series

Cooper presents Pig Iron’s TWELFTH NIGHT (3/1 – 3/2)

12th NightThe Swarthmore College Department of Theater and the William J. Cooper Foundation will present Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will. Start with a shipwreck, take one part mistaken identity, add in a comedic love triangle and mix with excessive drinking, melodramatic breakdowns and a live, Balkan-inspired musical score, and you’ve got a raucous take on one of Shakespeare’s most wicked comedies. Alternately absurd and heartfelt, Twelfth Night, or What You Will is replete with practical jokes, gender confusion, and thwarted love. This event is free and open to the public without reservation, but seating will be limited.

Director Dan Rothenberg ‘95 says that, “After 15 years of making original performance experiments, the next hurdle was to see if [Pig Iron] could apply our physical ensemble approach to a classic script and let everything we care about live within a very set form. Experimental theater is about opening up new ways of seeing; could we sneak this into a Shakespeare play without deconstructing the thing? All our experiments with clown theater, with cabaret, and with dance theater inform the way people speak and move in this production, resulting in a rough, wholly American Twelfth Night.”

With their signature verve, Pig Iron turns Shakespeare’s text into a clear, funny, and vibrant performance in this award-winning and music-soaked crowd-pleaser. There are dueling musicians, depressive noblemen, idiots and veteran jesters, religious zealots, and erotic misunderstandings. With its highly physical performance style, Pig Iron brings a news spark to one of Shakespeare’s most celebrated plays.

Pig Iron’s production features company regulars James Sugg (OBIE Award winner for Chekhov Lizardbrain), Dito van Reigersberg ‘94, and Alex Torra, Birgit Huppuch (Pig Iron’s Isabella, OBIE Award winner for Telephone) as Olivia, and Kirsten Sieh (GATZ) as Viola. Barrymore Award-winning New Zealand composer Rosie Langabeer has provided a musical score performed live by members of the West Philadelphia Orchestra. Twelfth Night premiered at the 2011 Philadelphia LiveArts Festival,  was recently revived for Philadelphia’s 2013 FringeArts Festival, and recently experienced outstanding success at the Abron Arts Center in New York.

These events are free and open to the public without reservation, but space is limited.

Where: LPAC Pearson-Hall Theatre

When: Saturday, March 1st at 7PM and Sunday, March 2nd at 2PM and 7PM

Additional events:

Join Director, Dan Rothenberg ’95, Professor Allen Kuharski, and members of the TWELFTH NIGHT cast for a post-show discussion on Sunday, March 2nd at 5:15pM in the LPAC CINEMA.

Join Alumni Sarah Sanford ’99, Dito van Reigersberg, and Asst. Professor Alex Torra for Workshops on Pig Iron’s performance technique: Tuesday through Thursday, March 4th – 6th, 7:30-10:30PM.  Attendance all three nights not required, but space is limited. Contact Jean Tierno (jtierno1) or Allen Kuharski (akuhars1) for more information.

 

Post-show discussion and workshops with Pig Iron (3/2, 3/4-3/6)

In addition to TWELFTH NIGHT, Pig Iron will be joining us for some other events.  Check it out!  PigFlyer

Join Director, Dan Rothenberg ’95, Professor Allen Kuharski, and members of the TWELFTH NIGHT cast for a post-show discussion on Sunday, March 2nd at 5:15pM in the LPAC CINEMA.

Join Alumni Sarah Sanford ’99, Dito van Reigersberg ’94, and Asst. Professor Alex Torra for Workshops on Pig Iron’s performance technique: Tuesday through Thursday, March 4th – 6th, 7:30-10:30PM.  Attendance at all three workshops not required, but space is limited. Contact Jean Tierno (jtierno1) or Allen Kuharski (akuhars1) for more information.

Susan Marshall & Company brings PLAY/PAUSE (2/14 @ 8PM)

Susan Marshall brings one of her new and exciting dance-theater pieces to Swarthmore this February.

Play/Pause

LPAC Pearson-Hall Theater (Mainstage)

8PM, Friday, February 14, 2014
Free and Open to the Public

About
In an electric guitar-fueled evening of postmodern dance-theater, Susan Marshall couples her intimate, structured choreography with the seductiveness of pop culture to explore our complex relationship to the media we consume. This evening-length piece for six dancers features a commissioned score by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang, performed live by members of electric guitar quartet Dither and Mantra Percussion. Play/Pause premiered in Chicago in September 2013.

Here’s a little preview: www.vimeo.com/sumac/stop

The company will offer a Master Class with the dancers on Thursday 2/13 in the Troy Dance Lab at 4:30PM.

Jane Comfort and Company 2/14-16/2013

The Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College and the William J. Cooper Foundation will present JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY on Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 8PM in the Swarthmore College Lang Performing Arts Center Pearson Hall Theatre. Here at Swarthmore her company presents two works:  Beauty and Underground River.  Beauty is a provocative dance theater piece that explores the American notion of female beauty through the lens of Barbie. The performance includes a Barbie beauty contest and an intimate encounter between Barbie and Ken. Underground River, described as a “risk-taking and profound theatrical tour de force,” is an exploration of the rich fantasy life of a girl who appears to be unconscious. Singing a cappella songs by Toshi Reagon and interacting with the magical visual creations of master puppeteer Basil Twist, the dancers dwell in a world of magic realism and eccentric beauty unseen by those who wish to make her “well.”

For the last 25 years, JANE COMFORT has created critically acclaimed, socially conscious dance theater. She has been on the front lines of dissent against the loss of gains for social justice since the Reagan revolution. JANE COMFORT is a choreographer, writer, and director based in New York City. She began creating her own interdisciplinary work in 1978, and has since created more than 45 original dance theatre works for Jane Comfort and Company. She has been produced throughout the United States, and in Europe and Latin America, and has been cited as “one of the most original choreographers on the downtown scene” by The Village Voice. Noted for her use of language, Comfort has been described as “far ahead of the curve” in experimenting with the intersection of text and movement.

JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY creates dance theater works that push the intersection of movement and language to a new form of theater. Called by the New York Times “a postmodernist pioneer in the use of verbal material in dance,” artistic director Jane Comfort addresses contemporary social and cultural issues with compassion and wit. The company is an extraordinary group of dancers, actors and singers whose multiple talents allow Jane Comfort to create deeply layered works utilizing a wide range of theatrical elements, from pure dance to chanted texts, a capella singing, film, lip-syncing, cross dressing, acted scenes and puppetry. The company creates theater in which transformation occurs through many voices.

JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY will also host a Master Class in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio (LPAC 002) on Thursday, February 14th from 4:30 – 6:00PM and a Workshop on Saturday, February 16th from 1:00 – 4:00 PM in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio (LPAC 002). These events are free and open to interested students, but please contact Professor Kim Arrow (karrow1@swarthmore.edu) at x8670 or email our administrative office at dance@swarthmore.edu.