Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans Spring 2019 Brochure

IN THIS ISSUE

SPRING SEASON 2019

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Cover: Photo: Andrew Ondrejcak Inside flap: Adriana Varejão, Big Polvo Color Wheel I, 2015. Oil on canvas, 70 7/8 inches diameter (180 cm. diameter). ©Adriana Varejão.

Photo: Jaime Acioli. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian.

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CAC BOARD OF TRUSTEES

STAFF

Deborah Brockley President and Chair

MK Wegmann Interim Director and CEO

Bryan Bailey Vice Chair

Andrea Andersson The Helis Foundation Chief Curator of Visual Arts

Staci Rosenberg Secretary Carla D. Arriola David Thaddeus Baker Valerie Besthoff Anna Coleman Dunbar Jonathan Fawer Sayde F. Finkel, J.D. Nurhan Gokturk Kara Tucina Olidge, Ph.D. David Patron Gregg Porter Virginia Freeman Rowan Patrick Schindler Robyn Dunn Schwarz Nathalie G. Simon Gretchen Wheaton David Workman Leopoldo J. Yanez Emeritus Board Members Sydney J. Besthoff Patricia Chandler Thomas B. Coleman Sandra Garrard Barbara Motley Jeanne Nathan Michael J. Siegel MK Wegmann

Lori Atkinson Patron Services & Membership Manager Lindsay Barfield Exhibitions Manager and Chief Preparator Jennifer Francino Senior Curatorial Associate Michele Frentzos Controller Tiffany Hall Manager of Executive Affairs Emmeline Johnston Associate Director of Sales and Hospitality Sean Kendall Event Production Manager Ann Kerrin Development Manager Courtney Mouton Finance Associate Sean Mulligan Social Media Coordinator Jo Nazro Resident Technical Director Leah Oby External Affairs Manager Kaisas Peguero Education and Public Programs Manager Laura Tennyson Associate Director of External Affairs Laurie Uprichard Director of Performing Arts Germaine Williams Associate Director of Development Neil A. Barclay Executive Producer

Erin Shirreff, Lacquer, clips and stack, 2018, Dye sublimation and archival pigment print, 88.25 x 37.25 x 5.75 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York. Photo: Jason Wyche

Michael R. Schneider Treasurer

Erin Shirreff, Lacquer, clips and stack, 2018, Dye sublimation and archival pigment print, 88.25 x 37.25 x 5.75 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York. Photo: Jason Wyche

FROM THE INTERIM DIRECTOR In 1976 I was excited to be among the artists and community leaders whose enthusiasm and hard work founded the Contemporary Arts Center. Fueled by our thirst to join a movement that was sweeping the nation, we succeeded in creating an alternative space for artists working outside of the dominant cultural centers—a place where contemporary artists in all disciplines could be seen and supported.

Though perhaps not fully comprehended at the time, the momentum of this mission would propel the CAC into even greater significance as the anchor for a future New Orleans arts district. Today, the CAC remains a progressive force within the visual and performing arts, transforming itself through four decades to satisfy the demands of each new era of creative freedom and multidisciplinary expression.

One of the great privileges an organization like ours has is the ability to invest in and support an artist over time. Through programs such as the Distillery, our Performance Support program, and partnerships like the National Performance Network, we are able to engage in developmental residencies and co-commission artists whose work is later presented in our galleries and on our stages.

Continuing to explore the true depth of our organizational impact, we must ask, What does the CAC mean now to the New Orleans cultural community? Our answers come in the form of the season we present to you, curated by Andrea Andersson, Neil Barclay, and Laurie Uprichard. We are proud to offer a robust schedule, including a compelling selection of dance, theatre, musical performances, and thought-provoking exhibitions by world-renowned and local artists, all supported by educational activities that deepen opportunities for community engagement.

Leading the Spring season, we will explore the beauty of romance, fantasy, and magic with the dance and theatrical works of Rosie Herrera (Make Believe) and later, Andrew Ondrejcak (Landscape with Figures). Herrera examines religious spectacle and how its themes of paganism and celebrity worship affect our understanding of romance.

Ondrejcak draws his inspiration from the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder as he focuses on the interconnectivity and relationships in the lives of the unrelated—effectively blurring the lines between theater, dance, installation, painting, and literature.

Our ongoing Fall Exhibitions, Production, Labor Studies, and I—Object, will continue to elevate our insight into struggles for equity and justice until their closing in February, when they’ll give way to our Spring Exhibition, Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension. This work is a confrontation of the patrimony of European modernism, and its commitment to abstraction and demonstration of social liberation are revealed in practices that evolve from the flat plane of the wall to immersive sculptural environments.

The performing arts season re-emerges in March with three consecutive pieces that draw enthusiasm from the musical realm. Aurora Nealand returns to the CAC with her progressive and personal take on electronic pop, KindHumanKind. Nealand has emerged as an innovative, sensitive and daring music creator and performer in the New Orleans music scene since her arrival in 2004. Her work has been supported by the CAC over the last six years through our performance support program and the Distillery Project.

While Nealand’s work recognizes the sounds of a modern world, we’ll also be considering the work of an artist instrumental in creating arguably the most important body of work in American music history. In Halfway to Dawn, writer and choreographer David Roussève and his wildly diverse nine-member company, REALITY, invite us into the life of largely unknown jazz arranger and writer Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn, who led a private life as an out, gay man in Harlem from the 1940s through the ‘60s, was Duke Ellington’s main arranger, co-writing many of Ellington’s signature songs. In this abstract jazz and dance performance, Strayhorn’s notoriously private life takes center stage in explorations of fame, privacy, and creative authorship.

Closing the season will be the Argento New Music Project – New York’s premier virtuoso chamber ensemble. The ensemble champions contemporary cutting-edge composers who inspire musical inquiry through artistic collaboration and education.

Needless to say, we are proud and excited to present our audiences and community with ideas that both challenge your thinking and invigorate you to move, see, explore, and question. This season, prepare to see many wonderful examples of local creativity cocreating and collaborating with the global community.

MK Wegmann Interim Director and CEO

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Make Believe uses religious iconography to explore themes of love and romance.

It specifically investigates religious spectacle and how its themes of paganism, magic and celebrity worship affect our understanding of romance. With a unique original score influenced by both sacred and pop music, Make Believe will also incorporate film and other visual elements to create an immersive, sacred performance experience. Originally conceived at The American Dance Festival during 2013 choreographic residency, Make Believe continues to evidence Herrera’s interest in melding dance with theatrical devices and surreal staging.

Rosie Herrera is a Cuban-American dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater in Miami. She is a graduate from New World School with a BFA in Dance Performance. She has been commissioned by The Miami Light Project, The Adrienne Arscht Center for the Performing Arts, Dance Place, Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Ballet Hispanico, Moving Ground Dance Theater, Houston Met Dance and the American Dance Festival (ADF) in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2016. Rosie is also a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano and performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble as well as choreographs and stages operas independently throughout Miami. With over a decade of experience in both dance and cabaret, she has collaborated on productions with The South Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, New World School of the Arts, The University of Central Florida, Six Floor Ensemble, Zoetic Stage and the New World Symphony as well as with the interdisciplinary performance ensemble/avant-garde cabaret Circ X. She has also collaborated with filmmakers Adam Reign, Lucas Leyva, George Echevarria and Clyde Scott to create original short films and music videos.

Make Dates Friday, January 18, 2019, 7:30pm Saturday, January 19, 2019, 7:30pm Admission $25/$20 CAC Members Discounts and early seating Join at cacno.org

Make Believe was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; additional support from the National Dance Project’s Production Residency in Dance program, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Dance Project’s Community Engagement Fund, with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Major support for this new work also comes from the MAP Fund, primarily supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This work was co-commissioned by The Yard, an artist residency and performance center dedicated to contemporary dance and related arts, as part of the 2018 Off-Shore Creation Residency, The Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College, the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and the American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Works. It was developed, in part, during a creative residency at the

Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, The Yard, St. Catherine’s University; and a technical production residency at The Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College. Additional community engagement development for Make Believe was supported by the Alabama Dance Council as a grantee of Engaging Dance Audiences administered by Dance/USA and made possible with generous funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Photo: Adam Reign

Make Believe Rosie Herrera

JANUARY 18–19, 2019

Photo: Adam Reign

Photo: Adam Reign

Believe ROSIE HERRERA DANCE/THEATER

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Landscape with Figures by Andrew Ondrejcak focuses on the interconnectivity and relationship between the lives of the unrelated. Inspired by the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1559), Landscape with Figures blurs the lines between theater, dance, installation art, painting and literature.

The audience glimpses into the lives of 20 strangers. Each figure is silently enacting their own mini-drama—some of the stories are loud and bombastic, some are quiet and private.

Despite unremarkable existences, the characters layer into a portrait of the interconnectivity of all humans with each individual both the center of the world and part of something they cannot comprehend.

Each of the characters is inspired by an original short story written specifically for Landscape with Figures. After each performance, these stories will be distributed to the audience as they exit the theater, so that the audience will be able to watch a story live on-stage and read in detail about each character after the performance has ended.

Landscape with Figures Andrew Ondrejcak Dates Thursday, January 31, 2019, 7:30pm Friday, February 1, 2019, 7:30pm Saturday, February 2, 2019, 7:30pm Admission $30/$25

CAC Members Discounts and early seating Join at cacno.org This performance is made possible by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Innovation (I³), a three year pilot project of the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (CAC), supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, designed to provide both the context and content for the expanding aesthetic landscape of interdisciplinary performance as practiced by artists whose projects are drawn from or inspired by the rich cultural traditions of the South. The CAC’s I³ Southern Partners include Duke

Performances, Fusebox, The Nasher Museum of Art, Oz Nashville, and Speed Art Museum. Funded in part by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Photos: Andrew Ondrejcak

Landscape

All costumes are made by artists from New Orleans in combination with hand-crafted textiles and artisanal work from Haiti, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, Kenya, and Mali though the United Nations’ Ethical Fashion Initiative.

Conceived and directed by Andrew Ondrejcak, the work is created in close collaboration with: Katherine Helen Fisher, Ryan David O’Byrne, Kiyoko McCrae, Baille Younkman, Meg Harper, Natasha R. Brown, Perfect Pear Productions, Tharrison Boykin, Chanice Diante, Diana E. H. Shortes, Mahalia Abéo Tibbs, Leah Oby, Gregory Dorado, Sophie Arnold, Ryuta Iwashita, Enrique Labada, Ellen Bull, Hannah Lax, Joshua Smith, Mike Goetz, Abby Westman, Cecelia Pedescleaux and Denise Ondrejcak.

Based on original stories by Jessica Almasy, Adrian Nicole Leblanc, Trish Harnetiaux, Carmen Palaez and Andrew Ondrejcak.

Original music composed and performed by Nathan Parker Smith.

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DANCE/THEATER

Born and raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Andrew studied architecture and painting at Savannah College of Art and Design and, later, playwriting at Brooklyn College. His work with experimental theater led him to a career in art direction and production design in the fashion industry where he has become one of New York’s most sought-after creative directors, known for large-scale environmental installations. His original works have been presented at the Guggenheim Works & Process; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; BAM Harvey Theater, Brooklyn; The Public Theater, New York and Kampnagel, Hamburg.

Landscape with Figures is a re-conception of Elijah Green, presented at The Kitchen in 2016, produced by Tanya Selvaratnam and Tommy Kriegsmann and developed at the Park Avenue Armory and the Watermill Center.

ANDREW ONDREJCAK

JANUARY 31–FEBRUARY 2, 2019

Photos: Andrew Ondrejcak

with Figures

Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension is an exhibition in eight parts, a confrontation with the patrimony of European modernism in the practices of eight leading women artists: Sarah Crowner, Julia Dault, Leslie Hewitt, Tomashi Jackson, Erin Shirreff, Ulla von Brandenburg, Adriana Varejão, and Claudia Wieser. Across eight successive galleries, this exhibition presents practices that evolve from the flat plane of the wall to immersive sculptural environments. Staging a performance of material history, spatial occupation, and social positioning, Hinge Picture: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension resuscitates abstract modernist vocabularies, marked by patriarchal and colonial histories, for use in a new feminist formalism.

Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension takes its name from the writings of Marcel Duchamp in The Green Box, a companion piece to his masterwork The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (La Mariée mise a nu par ses célibataires, même, more commonly known as Le Grand Verre or The Large Glass). The Large Glass is a work in glass, paint, wire, and foil. In its most literal reading, it figures a nude woman, suspended above a host of ogling bachelors. In his writing about the work, Duchamp narrates social and physical constraint (“The Bride accepts this stripping...”) and formal liberation (“discover the true form... deveop the principle of the hinge...”). The artists of Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension use formal constraint—a commitment to abstraction—in a demonstration of social liberation; theirs is a knowing, deconstructed rehearsal of form and color, weight by the errors, limits and categorical proscriptions of transatlantic Modernism. The exhibition includes many large-scale new commissions.

Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension Dates March 14–June 16, 2019 Admission $10 (Free on Sundays for Louisiana residents) Courtesy of The Helis Foundation

CAC Members Free Join at cacno.org Support for this exhibition is provided by Anonymous, the Azby Fund, Sydney & Walda Besthoff, The Helis Foundation, the Visual Arts Exhibition Fund and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional funding is provided by Étant donnés Contemporary Art, a pro gram of the French American Cultural Exchange (FACE) Foundation. Étant donnés is developed in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, with lead funding from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Chanel

USA, the ADAGP, the French Ministry of Culture, and Institut Français. This exhibition is also supported in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans and administered by the Arts Council New Orleans, as well as by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.

Julia Dault, Black Widow, 2018. Powder coated, hand-rolled aluminum, 39 x 69 inches (99.1 x 175.3 cm)

Hinge Pictures:

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Julia Dault, Black Widow, 2018. Powder coated, hand-rolled aluminum, 39 x 69 inches (99.1 x 175.3 cm)

Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension

EXHIBITION

Additionally, a full-color publication by the same name, co-published by Siglio Press and the CAC, New Orleans, will be released in March 2019.

Eight artists’ books-withinthe-book, the publication will serve as a parallel platform to the exhibition, affording each artist another “hinge picture,” or three-dimensional field of presentation in response to Marcel Duchamp’s The Green Box.

ON VIEW MARCH 14–JUNE 16, 2019

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In coordination with the group exhibition, Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension, the CAC proudly presents two solo artist presentations, Bonnie Maygarden: Principle of the Hinge and Aimée Farnet Siegel: Principle of Uncertainty, that partner to stage a dialectic between the flat plane and three-dimensional space, between logic and chance, and between open and closed structures. If Maygarden applies the principle of a hinge (to bend; to pivot; to move into space) as proposition and provocation, Siegel moves into the third dimension following form over logic. Both artists explore the relationship between subjectivity and space, the occupation of and intervention into the shared environment. A doubling act, Principle of the Hinge and Principle of Uncertainty together invite the public into aesthetic doubt and determination.

Bonnie Maygarden (b. 1987, New Orleans) is a multimedia artist who received her MFA in Studio Arts from Tulane University. She attended Pratt Institute in New York, where she received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts.

Her work has been featured in exhibitions both nationally and internationally in various museum, galleries and alternative venues including: Université Lumière Lyon 2 (Lyon, France), Camden Art Center (London, England), Pratt Institute, Icosahedron Gallery (New York, NY), Callenwolde Fine Arts Center (Atlanta, GA), The Front (New Orleans, LA) and New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.

Aimée Farnet Siegel (b. 1963, New Orleans) received her BFA from Louisiana State University and later studied at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. She worked as a graphic designer from 1985 until 2005, when she began her studio practice of painting, collage, and workson-paper. She has shown at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). She has exhibited at Barristers Gallery, New Orleans; Blue Spiral Gallery, Asheville, NC; and at Spalding Nix Fine Art, Atlanta, GA. Siegel teaches at New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.

Principle of the Hinge Bonnie Maygarden

Admission Free

Louisiana State Arts Council as administered by the Arts Council New Orleans. Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works.

Principle of Uncertainty Aimée Farnet Siegel

Support for these exhibitions is provided by Sydney & Walda Besthoff, The Helis Foundation and the Visual Arts Exhibition Fund. This program is supported in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans as administered by the Arts Council New Orleans and by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the

Dates March 14–May 12, 2019

Aimée Farnet Siegel, Woven and spun, 2018. Found and painted paper, 4 x 3 x 4 in. @Mike Smith

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Bonnie Maygarden, De.Fragment II, 2013. Enamel on nylon. 48 x 32 in.

Aimée Farnet Siegel, Woven and spun, 2018. Found and painted paper, 4 x 3 x 4 in. @Mike Smith

Principle of the Hinge AIMÉE FARNET SIEGEL

Principle of Uncertainty

EXHIBITION

BONNIE MAYGARDEN

ON VIEW MARCH 14–MAY 12, 2019

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KindHumanKind 12

AURORA NEALAND

Dates Friday, March 29, 2019, 7:30pm Saturday, March 30, 2019, 7:30pm Sunday, March 31, 2019, 3pm Admission $25/$20

CAC Members Discounts and early seating Join at cacno.org This performance is made possible by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Innovation (I³), a three year pilot project of the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (CAC), supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, designed to provide both the context and content for the expanding aesthetic landscape of interdisciplinary performance as practiced by artists whose projects are drawn from or inspired by the rich cultural traditions of the South. The CAC’s I³ Southern Partners include Duke Performances, Fusebox, The Nasher Museum of Art, Oz Nashville, and Speed Art Museum.

Photo provided by Artist

KindHumanKind Aurora Nealand

A progressive and personal take on electronic pop, Aurora Nealand’s KindHumanKind started out as a solo album in which she utilizes voice, accordion, saxophones, loop-pedals, pre-recorded tapes, tin cans, drums, and contact mics on frozen fruit.

The work was developed into an ensemble piece for notable New Orleans musicians with choreography by Shannon Stewart and presented at Marigny Opera House and at Music Box Village in the spring of 2017. Nealand describes this work as a sonic means of examining the intersections between love, technology, community, government, mental health and sound in our modern world.

MUSIC/PERFORMANCE

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Working in collaboration with artists and designers from local theater company Goat In The Road, Nealand will develop her own performance persona to create a more theatrical and immersive version of the listening experience.

Photo provided by Artist

She is most recognized for her performance on saxophones, clarinet and vocals and has been at the forefront of the revival of New Orleans Traditional Jazz. She performs most notably as the band leader of The Royal Roses, and as the front person for the performance art rockabilly band Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers. Nealand grew up in a musical family in California. With a strong interest in interdisciplinary work and sound for theater and installation, she moved to Paris to study at the Jacques Lecoq School of Physical Theater. She has been based in New Orleans since 2005 where she has performed at numerous clubs and festivals, including Jazz Fest.

MARCH 29, 30, 31, 2019

Combining formal education—a music conservation degree from Oberlin—with the informal experience of playing music in the streets and clubs of New Orleans, Nealand has emerged as an innovative, sensitive and daring music creator and performer.

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DAVID ROUSSÈVE/REALITY

Halfway to Dawn Dates Friday, April 5, 2019, 7:30pm Saturday, April 6, 2019, 7:30pm Sunday, April 7, 2019, 2pm Admission $30/$25

CAC Members Discounts and early seating Join at cacno.org The presentation of Halfway to Dawn was made possible by the Wallace Foundation and the New England Foundation of the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This project is also supported in part by the National Performance Network (NPN). The CAC is a NPN Partner of the National Performance Network (NPN). This project is made possible in part by support from the NPN Performance Residency Program. Major contributors include the Doris

Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org. Halfway to Dawn is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by REDCAT in partnership with ARTPower at UC San Diego, Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans, the Kelly Strayhorn Theater and NPN. Photo: Rose Eichenbaum

Halfway to Dawn David Roussève/REALITY

Photo: Rose Eichenbaum

Issues of fame, privacy, and creative authorship have never been more resonant than now, when popular culture has redefined fame—not art—as the goal itself, when social media over-sharing has obliterated privacy, and when digital platforms have further blurred the line between composing and arranging. A committed civil rights worker, Strayhorn is a supreme example of artist as activist.

Informed by these undercurrents, Halfway to Dawn creates an abstract portrait by layering video-projected text conveying the biographical facts of Strayhorn’s life, projected abstract video art exploring the emotional undercurrents of his journey, and

expressionistic physical theater expanding the political urgency of his narrative into our own lives. Moveable screens are surfaces for the projection of historical footage that grounds the work in the Strayhorn era, even while lighting design moves the piece fluidly between past, present, and fantasy.

The core of Halfway is Strayhorn’s music as interpreted through a dynamic dance vocabulary melding jazz, modern/ postmodern, and social dance that is new to Roussève’s choreography. A score including recordings from the 1940s–50s of Strayhorn songs allows the famously private artist to emerge and “speak for himself” through his music. The songs are immersed within a larger sound design that–like the video element–references historical material, but ultimately creates a contemporary, abstract, and wholly original digital tapestry. This is Roussève’s third project with Cari Ann Shim Sham (video), Chris Kuhl (lighting), and Leah Piehl (costumes); and his second with Lucy Burns (dramaturgy), and d. Sabela Grimes (sound design).

Founded in 1988, David Roussève/REALITY creates evening-length expressionistic dance/theater works that combine the accessibility, grit and passion of African American traditional and pop cultures with the challenging compositional structures of avant-garde dance and theater to explore socially charged, relevant, and often spiritual themes. Steeped in the power of storytelling, the company’s works have been seen across the U.S. and around the world.

APRIL 5–7, 2019

Written/choreographed/directed by David Roussève and performed by the wildly diverse nine-member company REALITY, Halfway to Dawn redefines “biography” as the intersection of fact, conjecture, comment, abstraction, and fantasy. It also seeks to uncover the complicated emotional ‘truths’ of gay, African American jazz composer Billy Strayhorn’s life while creating a dialogue on urgent social ‘truths’ of our own. Though instrumental to the creation of the most important body of work in American music history, Strayhorn (1915–1967) remains largely unknown. As Duke Ellington’s main arranger/writing partner, he wrote/cowrote signatures like “Take the A Train”, “Satin Doll”, and “Lush Life”. But gay, out, and living in Harlem in the 1940s–60s, Strayhorn chose to lead a remarkably private life, allowing Ellington to take the spotlight and much of the credit for their joint oeuvre.

DANCE/THEATER

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16 Argento is New York City’s premier virtuoso chamber ensemble dedicated to innovative musical performance and the discovery of daring artistic paths.

Championing contemporary cutting-edge composers and framing classical repertoire in new contexts, Argento inspires musical inquiry through artistic collaboration and education.

Presented at the CAC in association with UNO School of the Arts’ Musical Excursions Series, Argento will perform Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum, written between 1994–96 and Alban Berg’s 1925 Chamber Concerto. Local New Orleans musicians will be incorporated into the Berg Concerto.

Argento has built an international reputation since its founding in 2000.

With a firm commitment to intellectually rigorous interpretations, the nine-member ensemble regularly expands to 30 musicians to deliver technically demanding performances. The ensemble collaborates with leading and emerging composers, produces internationally acclaimed recordings, and brings pressing concerns of contemporary music to the forefront.

Argento New Music Project Presented in association with UNO School of the Arts’ Musical Excursions Series

CAC Members Discounts and early seating Join at cacno.org

Dates Wednesday, April 24, 2019, 7:30pm

Argento will perform again on Wednesday, April 25 at the UNO Recital Hall. This performance will include works by UNO faculty and students.

Admission $25/$20

The CAC is supported in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans and administered by the Arts Council New Orleans, as well as by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts,

Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council. Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works.

Photo provided by New Music Argento Ensemble

Argento

Photo provided by New Music Argento Ensemble

Project

APRIL 24, 2019

New Music MUSIC

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MEMBERSHIP HAS ITS PRIVILEGES

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Discounted CAC performance tickets with priority seating

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Listing in quarterly digital CAC Members newsletter

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Free admission to CAC exhibitions and invitations to CAC Members-only tours

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15% discount at Revelator Coffee at the CAC

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ARTIST/STUDENT/EDUCATOR LEVELS $25

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Free admission to the Whitney White Linen Night Party After Dark, CAC’s Art for Arts’ Sake, and other special events

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Guest passes to CAC galleries and special events

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INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP $45

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FAMILY/COUPLE $80

FRIEND $150

COLLECTORS CLUB $250

PATRON NOW $500

JOIN AT CACNO.ORG/MEMBERSHIP, BY PHONE (504) 528-3805, OR IN PERSON AT THE FRONT DESK

MAKE A GIFT TODAY

The Contemporary Arts Center is committed to presenting, producing and promoting the art of our time and we rely on your support to make this possible.

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second thursdays free & open to all 6–9pm

Join us on the second thursday of each month for a robust evening of programs designed to enhance your appreciation of contemporary art and artists: Meet the Maker, Young Professional Happy Hour Meet-up, Gallery Tour & Conversation, Performances, Hands-On Activities, Live Music, Food Trucks and more!

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Photo: Scott Meyers

Photo: Scott Meyers

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Support for Second Thursdays is provided by Virginia Besthoff & Nancy Aronson; City of New Orleans | Edward Wisner Donation; The Hearst Foundations; The Helis Foundation; The J. Edgar Monroe Foundation; The Keller Family Foundation; Darryl Willis.

Photo: Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee

The CAC is supported in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans and administered by the Arts Council New Orleans, as well as by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.

Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works.

Curious about the arts? The CAC Teen Board and Teen Internship provide opportunities for high school students to explore different careers in the arts, meet working artists and art professionals, and share their own artwork in a rigorous and professional setting.

Apply for the Teen Board!

Teens @ CAC 21

Learn more about TEENS@CAC programs at cacteens.com or email teens@cacno.org.

Teen Exhibition Photo: Scott Meyers

Photo: Scott Meyers

Photo: Scott Meyers

Support for the CAC’s teen programming provided by Virginia Besthoff & Nancy Aronson; City of New Orleans | Edward Wisner Donation; The Hearst Foundations; The Helis Foundation; The J. Edgar Monroe Foundation; The Keller Family Foundation; Darryl Willis.

The CAC is supported in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans and administered by the Arts Council New Orleans, as well as by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.

Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works.

Artist Exchange Field Trips

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Grades K-12 10am–1pm | M, W-F 2 workshops for groups of 25–34 or 3 workshops for groups of 35–50 $8 per student Free for chaperones Schedule early and customize your trip!

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Bring your class of young artists to the CAC to learn from professional New Orleans artists—choose from classes in Theater, Dance, Music, Visual Arts, and Creative Writing!

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Summer Camp Photo: Scott Meyers

Photo: Scott Meyers

Igniting Imaginations, the CAC Summer Camp is an inclusive, safe-space that values each camper's unique experience and perspective.

Support for the CAC’s educational programming is provided by Virginia Besthoff & Nancy Aronson; City of New Orleans | Edward Wisner Donation; The Hearst Foundations; The Helis Foundation; The J. Edgar Monroe Foundation; The Keller Family Foundation; Darryl Willis.

The CAC is supported in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans and administered by the Arts Council New Orleans, as well as by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.

Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works.

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YOUR EVENT REIMAGINED As one of New Orleans' most unique spaces for private parties, corporate entertaining and film locations, the CAC offers 30,000 square feet of renovated turn-of-the-century warehouse space and the award-winning architecture of our Atrium, Galleries and the Theater.

For more information on Facility Rentals, Contact: Emmeline Johnston, Associate Director of Sales and Hospitality at ejohnston@cacno.org.

Photo: Arte de Vie Photography

Kaylynn Marie Photography, (504) 458-0085, www.kaylynnmarie.com

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