Winter Season at '62 Center in Williamstown

Performance Programming at William College

By: Williams - Sep 06, 2024

 

The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance kicks off its 20th anniversary season. Although the world may have changed many times over since our first season in 2005, our core vision has remained the same: how can theatre and dance amplify a relentless curiosity for scholarly inquiry, community connection, and, most importantly, help us imagine new worlds? Anton Chekhov reminds us that the work of all the artists on our stages, studios, shops, and even hallways, “is to ask questions, not answer them.” We each get to create answers that are most resonant.

 Kicking off our visiting artist series, the CenterSeries, is Vuyani Dance Theatre performing Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro on Thursday, September 26th. Physically charged and visually striking,?the work?is choreographed by South African native and internationally-known choreographer Gregory Vuyani Maqoma.?Cion?draws inspiration from author Zakes Mda’s novel, Cion?, and Ravel’s Boléro. It is, in?Maqoma’s?words, “a lament, a requiem required to awaken a part of us, the connection to the departed souls.” 

 On November 1st & 2nd, sister sylvester performs The Eagle and The Tortoise. sister sylvester makes visual essays across live-performance, film and new media. Her work has been presented at festivals and venues including the Venice Film Festival, Onassis Stegi, Public Theater NYC, Internationaal Theater of Amsterdam, IDFA, CPH:DOX and Museum of the Moving Image. The Eagle and The Tortoise invites the audience into a live sound and video installation where they collectively read a hand-made book. The book tells the story of a young student from Turkey who became an icon of leftist resistance, an armed militant, a political prisoner, and finally, a proxy soldier in an American war. This visual essay traces the history of the aerial view—in art, mythology, journalism, and warfare—to make the case for other ways of looking.

 Cliff Cardinal brings his production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It, A Radical Retelling, on February 21st and 22nd. The title of As You Like It holds a double meaning that teasingly suggests this is a play to please all tastes. Is it possible? With his subversive updating of the Bard’s classic, cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal seeks to find out. The show exults in dark humor, difficult subject matter, and raw emotion. Cliff Cardinal is a polarizing writer and performer known for his black humor and compassionate poeticism. His As You Like It, a Radical Retelling has been performed across Canada, was shortlisted for the Ontario Trillium Book Award, and was the recipient of the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama.

 James Allister Sprang comes to the '62 Center from April 17th to 19th with Rest Within the Wake. It?is an orchestral jazz composition that anchors a session of somatic listening. This work invites you to turn away from the frantic pace of the modern world and slow down. Intimately tethered to the seminal text In the Wake by Africana Studies scholar Christina Sharpe, Rest Within the Wake celebrates the sensory experience of black life: welcoming visitors to bring something comfortable to lie on/with while tuning into your bodies, your ancestors, your traumas, pain, longings, visions, and dreams.

 In addition to our headline artists, the '62 Center renews its commitment to developing new artists with extended residencies with Third Space Performance Lab and Nicolas Noreña / The Million Underscores.

Third Space is developing To the Academy. Inspired by Kafka’s Short Story, “A Report for an Academy,” and the ancient Sanskrit treatise on performance, the Natyashastra, To the Academy explores the limits of identity politics and the business model of education. There will be an open rehearsal on March 14th.

Nicolas Noreña's Seconds is an intermedia exploration of suspension of disbelief and a study of staged death through the lenses of comedy, horror, the grotesque, tragedy, ritual, and dance. Deconstructing performative language from sportscasters, Noh theater, Tennessee Williams, and masked funerary rituals, the performance moves through the eight tibetan stages of death, and invites the audience to join in a contemplation of the delicate line between life and death, connecting us with the ancient roots of theater as a spiritual act of collective unbecoming. There will be showings on April 11th and 12th.

The Theatre Department has two headline productions along with a number of workshops and visiting artist lectures. On November 14th to 16th the department will present William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, directed By Erica Terpening–Romeo. We all know that lies exist on a spectrum: there are lies of politeness or expediency, playful lies we call pranks, unnecessary lies that cause confusion, and malicious lies that can ruin, or even end, lives. Much Ado About Nothing is about all of these.

In the spring, from April 24th to 26th, Samer Al–Saber will direct Branden Jacobs–Jenkins' Everybody. What is life for? Why do we die, or live? How is being alive kind of like being in a play? Inspired by a fifteenth-century English morality drama, Everybody tells the allegorical tale of an average person— selected by lottery from members of the cast at each performance—on life’s comic journey towards the inevitable. 

The Department's first visiting artist is the incomparable Brooklyn-based composer, playwright, and vocalist Truth Future Bachman. Bachman deftly interweaves three of the most compelling cultural threads of our moment: musical theater, gender fluidity, and superhero/sci-fi parables. Join Truth, and collaborators Z Infante and Steven Tran as they workshop pieces from the third act in a series of queer and trans superhero musicals called Shapeshifters. This works-in-progress showing on September 19th  is a special sneak-peek  Catch it here before this brand new musical, SECOND SIGHT, debuts at Lincoln Center on October 3rd.

The Dance Department also has two mainstage productions and visiting artists. On November 22nd and 23rd, they will present Pachedu (F)All Ensembles Performance. Always a crowd-pleaser, this production spotlights the creative works of the Department's resident ensembles, Kusika, CoDa (Contemporary Dance), Sankofa, and the Zambezi Marimba Band. Artistic Program Directors Sandra L. Burton, Erica Dankmeyer, Tendai Muparutsa, and Janine Parker along with Sankofa Drill Sergeant Maymouna Bah ’25, and co-Presidents, Laura Chamon ’25 and Aashi Mittal ’26 will present the Spring edition of Pachedu on May 9th and 10th. This edition celebrates the ensembles' creative work over the winter and spring.

The Department's first visiting artist, H.T. Chen & Dancers, will be on October 31st. The NYC-based company is noted for its contemporary works addressing Chinese American history and culture. This residency will be part of the company’s much celebrated work, Opening The Gate. The work is choreographed by H.T. Chen and using a commissioned score by Bradley Kaus with live drumming by dancers and musicians, the work speaks of the struggle to one’s fulfillment through a progression or evolution.

Last but never least, Club Zambezi Dance Party! lights up the winter on February 14th & 15th. Inspired by traditional Zimbabwean music as well as contemporary African styles, their pop arrangements will get you dancing in the aisles for Valentine's Day.

All tickets at the '62 Center are deeply discounted to make our performances accessible. All are welcome. We hope you will join us on this exciting journey this season!