Experimental Choreographer Jérôme Bel Debuts Bessie Award-Winning The show must go on at the Kimmel Center, September 11-13
August 21, 2008
Photo by Steve Belkowitz
Kimmel Center Presents 2008-09 Season Sponsored by Citi
"[Bel is] an endearingly rumpled, brilliant enfant terrible and master of wry, sly minimalism."—New York Times
Controversy at its finest, experimental Paris-based choreographer Jérôme Bel makes his Kimmel Center debut with the witty, cerebral presentation of The show must go on, presented in association with the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival on Thursday-Saturday, September 11-13, 2008 at 8pm in Perelman Theater. Representative of Bel’s minimalist work, The show must go on is full of humor and surprises, provoking audiences to question the boundaries of dance with a focus on the ordinary rather than the virtuosic. The 2005 Bessie Award-winning dance presentation includes the catchy tunes of 19 pop songs from David Bowie, Tina Turner, Paul Simon, Edith Piaf, Queen and others, with one DJ on stage.
The 21-member ensemble is the first cast of American dancers to perform Bel’s work, comprised of graduates of the University of the Arts and former members of the Pennsylvania Ballet, Philadanco and Rennie Harris Puremovement, among others. This performance may contain nudity.
An Artist Chat with Nick Stuccio, Producing Director of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, and some of the evening’s performers will take place in Perelman Theater following the performance on Thursday, September 11, 2008.
Tickets for Jérôme Bel’s The show must go on are $25 and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at www.kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center box office open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings. (Additional fees may apply.) For group sales call 215-790-5883.
A limited number of $10 tickets are available for every Kimmel Center Presents performance at the Kimmel Center. Tickets go on sale the day of the event and can be purchased at the Kimmel Center box office beginning 2.5 hours prior to evening curtain time and 11:30am for matinees. Limit one ticket per person.
Paris-based artist Jérôme Bel studied at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine of Angers, France. From 1985 to 1991, he danced for various choreographers in France and Italy, including Angelin Preljocaj, Daniel Larrieu, Joëlle Bouvier and Régis Obadia. In 1992, Bel assisted the director and choreographer Philippe Decouflé in staging the opening ceremony of the XVI Winter Olympics in Albertville and Savoy, France. His first piece, a choreography of objects, was nom donne par l’auteur (1994); followed by Jérôme Bel (1995), based on the identity and the total nudity of four performers; Shirtology (1997), featuring an actor wearing many shop-bought T-shirts, also produced in a Japanese version in Kyoto and Tokyo in 2000; and The last performance (1998), which, in quoting several times a solo by the German choreographer Susanne Linke, and also Hamlet or André Agassi, tries to define an ontology of the performance.
In 2004, Bel created Veronique Doisneau for the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet. Isabel Torres (2005), created for the ballet of the Teatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro, is the Brazilian version of the production for the Paris Opera. Invited to work in Bangkok by the curator Tang Fu Kuen, Bel produced Pichet Klunchun and Myself (2005) with the Thai traditional dancer Pichet Klunchun.
Kimmel Center Presents’ 2008/2009 Season is sponsored by Citi. The Great Orchestras Series is supported by ARCWheeler. Additional support is provided by the University of Pennsylvania Health System, American Express, and Interpark. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Kimmel Center Presents. In-kind support is generously provided by Deloitte. NBC-10 is a media partner for Kimmel Center Presents.
Free in the Plaza programming and subsidized tickets offered to the community and social service groups for $10 are made possible through the Wachovia Gateway to the Arts Community Access Program, supported by a generous grant from the Wachovia Foundation.
The Kimmel Center is the recipient of partnership funding through the nationally recognized PNC "Grow Up Great" initiative, a ten-year, $100 million investment in preparing children for success in school and life. Funding gives support to the Kimmel Center’s early childhood program "Bop and Swing", an arts program for children 1-5 years old, designed to promote an appreciation for American culture.
KIMMEL CENTER PRESENTS SPONSORED BY CITI
Thursday- Saturday, September 11-13, 2008 | 8pm
Perelman Theater
Movers & Shakers Series
The show must go on
Jérôme Bel, choreographer
Featuring Brandon "Peace" Albright, Elrey Starchild Belmonti, Meredith Bove, Megan Bridge, Kevin Cammarota, Montray Cherry, Devynn Emory, Clyde Evans, Clifford Greer, Brigitta Herrmann, Roko Kawai, Ky Mettler, Les Rivera, T Lawrence-Simon, Wendy Staton, Jonathan Stein, Emiko Sugiyama, Kathryn TeBordo, Lois Welk, Anne White and Martin Lautz
FREE AT THE KIMMEL:
Thursday, September 11, 2008 | Post-show
Perelman Theater
Artist Chat
An Artist Chat with Nick Stuccio, Producing Director of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, and some of the evening’s performers will take place in Perelman Theater following the performance on Thursday, September 11, 2008.
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