Thursday, Oct. 4, 8:30 pm
Friday, Oct. 5, 8:30 pm
Saturday, Oct. 6, 8:30 pm
Sunday, Oct. 7, 3 pm
World Premiere
Alpert Award-winning choreographer David Roussève mixes luscious movement for nine exquisite performers with bold video imagery to invoke the life and spirit of composer and arranger Billy “Sweet Pea” Strayhorn, who wrote such famous hits as A Train, Chelsea Bridge and Lush Life for Duke Ellington’s orchestra, but was a relatively unknown African-American gay man living in Harlem of the '40s to the '60s. The arranger and writer or co-writer of some of Ellington’s greatest works was also an activist who was out as gay, and active in civil rights causes (and a committed friend of Dr. Martin Luther King). The core of Halfway to Dawn is Strayhorn’s music as interpreted through a dynamic dance vocabulary melding jazz, modern/postmodern, and social dance forms. A surreal sonic design by d. Sabela grimes mixes a contemporary soundscore that is juxtaposed with vintage recordings of Strayhorn’s songs, while video design by Cari Ann Shim Sham gives the production a rich visual dynamic.
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