Title: Fall Festival of Music & Dance
Location: The Alwun House, 1204 E. Roosevelt Street, Phoenix
Description: The Fall Festival of Music & Dance features a main stage with continuous performances from 12:30 to 9:00pm by dancers and musicians from throughout Arizona and beyond. There will also be a “Sultan’s Garden” with live acoustic soloists and duets to be enjoyed while you sip Arabic coffee or tea, enjoy Middle Eastern delicacies, indulge in a hookah or the pampering of a henna artist .Guests can also shop for treasures in the Bazaar!
Last year’s Fall Festival of Music and dance featured over 120 performers, including 5 live bands. This was the largest locally produce bellydance event in Arizona in 2009.

Some of this year’s featured artists are the band, Cosmos, Jenevieve Serpentine Sorceress from Los Angeles and Zahr Jamil Middle Eastern Dance Co, and Troupe Safar from Tucson and many, many more! Memo’s Café will be serving their premium hookahs, and authentic Arabic coffee and tea. Joanna 23 will be available for custom henna body art.

SOURCE INFORMATION:

Levant al Sonora, Arizona’s MECDA chapter www.levantalsonora.com 480-233-0022
Contact: Mahin Sciacca, president

Middle Eastern Culture & Dance Association (MECDA) www.mecda.org
Contact: Blume Bauer

The Alwun House www.alwunhouse.org
Contact: Kim Moody

Jenevieve Serpentine Sorceress http://serpentinesorceress.com/

Cosmos Greek Band http://cosmosmusic.net/

Mahin Sciacca
President, Levant al Sonora

Arizona’s Chapter of the Middle Eastern Culture & Dance Association

Time: 12:00pm-9:00pm
Date: November 14, 2009

Cost: $10 General, $5 MECDA Members

Title: Nick Cave Lecture with Special ‘Soundsuit’ Dancer Interludes
Location: Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 East Second Street Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Description: WHAT:
Lecture by Artist Nick Cave
with Special ‘Soundsuit’ Dancer Interludes

WHERE:
Virginia G. Piper Theater
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
7380 East Second Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85251

WHEN:
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
7:00 pm
*Visitors are encouraged to stop by early at 6:00 pm to visit Nick Cave at SMoCA before the event

TICKETS: $15 ($12 SMOCA & ADC members) Free to all students with I.D. at the door
480-994-ARTS (2787)
Tickets online at: http://www.scottsdaleperformingarts.org/event.php?id=645

After-party at cream stereo lounge with DJs Joe DiPadova, dk.strickler & Tranzit. Live performance by Porangui of Grupo Liberdade with party hosts Brazilia, Baron Gordon, Jonny Rogers and Seven.

CHICAGO ARTIST NICK CAVE’S SOUNDSUITS COME TO LIFE IN A JOYOUS EVENT FEATURING A LECTURE WITH THE ARTIST AND DANCERS

I see this work—especially at this particular time—as a catalyst for change and I hope that the people who see it will be fueled by their experience with it. I want people of every age, race and interest to be transported for a few minutes with me, to another place at the center of the earth. And I hope we will dream together. –Nick Cave

(Scottsdale, AZ) The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) and the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts have come together to present a completely unique, collaborative event full of dance, fine art, sculpture, fiber arts and sound fueled by the hybrid work of Chicago-based artist and former Alvin Ailey dancer Nick Cave. For one night only, on Wednesday, November 4th at 7:00 p.m., patrons will have the chance to experience dancers as they perform in Cave’s dazzling ‘Soundsuits’ – multi-layered mixed-media, wearable sculptures named for the sounds made when worn – along with Nick Cave’s special visit to Arizona to present his visionary work at the newly renovated Virginia Piper Theater. The event will incorporate a discussion with Cave, some of his featured video work on a large scrim and interludes showcasing eight dancers demonstrating some of his raffia, hair and crochet hat Soundsuits against live, experimental sounds by artist Joe Willie Smith. Claire Schneider, SMoCA Senior Curator says, “The amazing thing about Cave’s work is that it is truly multidisciplinary. It is informed by both visual and performing arts. It comes full circle when it is transformed from static sculpture into magical, fluid performance, one that invites the community into a whole new experience combining sight, sound and movement. These Soundsuits touch on classic human concerns that are centuries old—costuming, masquerading, and identity-altering power—in a contemporary way.”

ABOUT NICK CAVE’S SOUNDSUITS:
Soundsuits allow identities to be lost or hidden and new ones to be claimed. —Nick Cave

As the powerful traveling exhibition Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth (now on view at SMoCA) demonstrates, Cave erects sculptures that can be worn and costumes that can change the nature of the performer and the dance. His art asks viewers to let go of preexisting or fixed notions and others’ personas to come to a new, reinvented place. Cave creates vehicles in which identity is never fixed. By serving as disguise, camouflage and inspiration for dreaming, his costumes are liberating.

Nick Cave has been called a “shaman” or “one who knows.” The traditional role of the shaman is to communicate with spirits on behalf of the entire community through rituals that involve some sort of transformation. Often a shaman invokes a ceremony represented by exaggerated theatrical performances. In this tradition, art becomes a catalyst for transformation rather than an end in itself—which is how Cave views his own practice. Cave’s Soundsuit figures suggest that our identities are continually shifting and subject to alteration. They represent his attempt to reconstruct not just individual identity, but our shared common purpose as well.

ABOUT NICK CAVE:
Artist Nick Cave is currently a tenured professor and Director of the Graduate Program in the Fashion Department at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He has led numerous workshops on topics such as Extending the Body: Experiments in Clothing and has designed, manufactured, and marketed his own line of men’s and women’s clothing and ran a successful clothing company in Chicago. He has received numerous awards including the United States Artist Fellow Award (2006), Joyce Award (2006), Creative Capital Grant (2005, 2004, 2001), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2001), and National Endowment for the Arts (1991).
Cave’s art is also held in many highly regarded public collections such as the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Seattle Art Museum, Washington; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washinton D.C.; and the Rubell Collection in Miami, Florida.Nick Cave has performed around the world—and, with this most recent exhibition, is looking forward to watching others perform in his Soundsuits.

Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth is organized by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Sponsored by Janis Leonard Design Associates; Alice and David Olsan; and the SMoCA Salon.

Nick Cave’s lecture and Soundsuit event is presented by SMoCA in collaboration with the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts with contributing support from John Michael Capaldi and the School of Art in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University.

The Scottsdale Cultural Council, a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, is contracted by the City of Scottsdale, Arizona, to administer certain city arts and cultural projects and to manage the City-owned Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, and the Scottsdale Public Art Program. The programs of the Scottsdale Cultural Council are made possible, in part, by the support of members and donors and grants received from the Arizona Commission on the Arts through appropriations from the Arizona State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Start Time: 7:00pm
Date: November 4, 2009

Title: Monthly Coffee Series
Location: Civic Space Park, 424 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix
Description: Monthly Coffee Series! Please make plans to attend our Community Coffee Series, which will be held on the second Sunday of every month. This series will highlight specific community dance practitioners and encourage dialogue to share ideas and ways of working. These meetings will begin in November and be held from 3:30-5:00pm at 424 N. Central Ave. in downtown Phoenix (Civic Space Park), near the Fair Trade Café. Please mark your calendar with the first three Community Coffee Series dates: November 15th, December 13th & January 10th. More details will be included in the November email.

Date: November 15, 2009
Time: 3:30pm-5:00pm

Title: Knowing Place 2010
Location: TBA
Description: Save the Date! We invite you to participate in the second installment of our yearly community dance professional development workshop, “Knowing Place 2010,” which will take place on May 15th and 16th. Open to all artists interested in developing community dance practices, this workshop aims to provide new knowledge and skills in the field, new experience to draw from for future projects, and an opportunity to connect with and learn from community dance practitioners throughout Arizona. More information about Knowing Place 2010 will follow in subsequent emails.
Dates: May 15-16, 2010

Title: Shared Fabric Movement Project
Location: Civic Space Park, 424 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix
Description: ASU Herberger Department of Dance sponsors Shared Fabric

An opportunity for folks of all sorts to collaborate on making a performance project to take place at Civic Space Park in spring, 2010.

Using dance as a medium for the investigation and expression of individual experience, Shared Fabric endeavors to provide an opportunity for people of all ages and abilities to embody creativity and work together to find commonalities and share differences among a variety of ideas.

Although movement will be a primary activity, Shared Fabric welcomes all people with some or no previous performance or arts-based experience as well as artists of all disciplines who would like to join this open project.

Shared Fabric will meet at Civic Space Park, 424 N. Central Avenue, Downtown Phoenix, every Sunday from 5:00-7:00 pm, beginning October 25, 2009. This project is free to participants.

Please wear comfortable clothing and shoes that are easy to move in. Our gathering will commence at the Splash Pad.

For more information, contact Ashlee Ramsey at ajramsey@asu.edu

Time: 5:00pm-7:00pm
Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009 (Every Sunday)

Title: Winter Fairy Tales

Location: Herberger Theater Center, Stage West
222 East Monroe, Phoenix
Description: “Winter Fairy Tales”

a first time performance collaboration by the students of
Arizona School of Classical Ballet in “Winter Fairy Tales,”
The School of Ballet Arizona in “The Nutcracker,”
and Dance Theater West, the studio of Center Dance Ensemble, in “Coppelia.”

Sunday, November 15, 2 p.m. & 6 p.m.
at the Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe St.

Tickets: $20 + box office service fees
at 602-252-8497 or www.herbergertheater.org

Date: November 15, 2009

Times: 2:00pm & 6:00pm

Photo by Tom Caravaglia

Title: Paul Taylor Dance Company
Location: Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 E. Second St. Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Description: PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY TO PERFORM
TWO EVENINGS OF NEW AND CLASSIC WORKS

Paul Taylor Dance Company
Nov. 18–19, 2009
Wednesday and Thursday @ 7:30 p.m.
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
The NEW Virginia G. Piper Theater

SPECIAL DISCOUNT: HALF PRICE TICKETS at $23.50 (+service fees) Reg. $47.00

Just mention Arizona Dance Coalition when purchasing tickets by phone or in person.

(SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.) – Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts will present the Paul Taylor Dance Company on Nov. 18–19 in its newly renovated Virginia G. Piper Theater.

Single tickets are available for $47 through the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts’ patron services box office at (480) 994-ARTS (2787) or online at www.scottsdaleperformingarts.org.

A living legend, dance maker Paul Taylor first presented his choreography with five other dancers in New York City in 1954. That modest performance marked the beginning of a half-century of unrivaled creativity, and in the decades that followed, Taylor became a cultural icon and one of history’s most celebrated artists, hailed as part of the pantheon that created American modern dance.

Now in his 80th year – an age when most artists’ best work is behind them – Taylor is acclaimed for the vibrancy, relevance and power of his dances. As prolific as ever, he has amassed a growing collection of 130 dances and continues to explore some of society’s thorniest issues. While known for creating many revolutionary and controversial works, since the very start of his career, Taylor also has made some of the most purely romantic, astonishingly athletic and downright funniest dances ever performed on stage.

Known for its daring innovation, Taylor’s choreography often combines the grace of ballet with the spontaneity of modern dance. With uncommon musicality and wide-ranging taste, Taylor has set dances to everything from ragtime, reggae and rock to masterpieces by Bach and Handel, and he has collaborated with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and Alex Katz.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company will offer two different programs of classic and new works on separate nights. On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the company will perform Syzygy, 1987; Brief Encounters, 2009; and Esplanade, 1975. On Thursday, Nov. 19, it will perform Arden Court, 1981; Scudorama, 1963; and Offenbach Overtures, 1995.

These performances are part of the Art in Motion Series sponsored by the Daron and Ron Barness Family Foundation.

Dates: November 18-19, 2009
Time: 7:30pm

Amber Robins as the Snow Queen (Photo by Tim Fuller)

Title: Center Dance Ensemble’s SNOW QUEEN
Location: Herberger Theater Center, 222 East Monroe, Phoenix
Description: Center Dance Ensemble presents Frances Smith Cohen’s “The Snow Queen.” The Valley’s holiday favorite for the entire family, Snow Queen is the magical retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen classic set to music by Sergei Prokofiev. The Arizona Republic says: “Snow Queen is civic treasure (that) belongs only to Phoenix and can be seen nowhere else …a jewel of theatrical flourish that can inspire children for the rest of their lives.”

Dec 5 to 20: Saturdays 2 & 7 p.m., Sundays 2 & 5 p.m.

Tickets $21 adults, $17 seniors, $9 students, each plus box office fees for tickets call 602-252-8497 or on-line at www.herbergertheater.org more information at www.centerdance.com

Times: Saturdays 2:00pm & 7:00pm, Sundays 2:00pm & 5:00pm
Dates: Dec 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 2009

Title: EPIK Dance Company’s Thriller Workshop
Location: Washington High School, 2217 W. Glendale Avenue, Phoenix 85021
Description: EPIK Thriller Workshop!

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

Washington High School

Classes from 11am until 4pm with a performance at 4:45!

Come be part of an “EPIK” performance of Michael Jackson’s THRILLER! Each class will learn a section of the song, with the last class learning the actual choreography from the THRILLER music video. At the end of the workshop, there will be a short rehearsal, putting all the pieces together, and will finish with a performance by all workshop attendees for family and friends! Bring your own THRILLER– inspired costume!

epikdanceco@gmail.com
www.epikdanceco.org

Date: Saturday, October 24, 2009

Time: 11:00am-5:00pm

Title: EPIK Dance Co presents COMMON GROUND
Location: Herberger Theater
Link out: Click here
Description: EPIK Dance Company, Arizona’s premier street-fusion dance company, is partnering with 92.7/99.3FM The BEAT to take their infectious passion for music and dance to the stage, presenting their first annual performance concert! “Common Ground” will treat audiences to over 90 minutes of original choreography developed and presented by members of the company that features contemporary, jazz, hip hop, b-boying, punking, and a variety of other dance styles. Each piece will showcase a different side of the multi-faceted dance troupe, while each story ties together with the presence of the show’s focal point –

Time: 7:30pm
Date: November 20, 2009

Time: 2:00pm & 7:30pm
Date: November 21, 2009