We're excited to announce the nearly complete lineup of the 2023 GreenStage Guilford Live Arts festival, scheduled for a full week this year. We'll have at least 25 live performances, demonstrations, workshops and participatory events in music, dance and movement, drama and spoken word—plus visual arts for the first time. It all gets underway Sunday evening, September 17, and wraps up on Sunday evening, the 24th, so plan to be on the Connecticut Shoreline for as much as you can take in!
Highlights of the festival include premieres of new works by three 2022 Artists' Awards recipients: Black and Silver Productions (Jennifer Munro and Denise Page), presenting a program of all women storytellers, relating tales of meaningful "firsts" in their lives; Ilana Zaks, performing a six-movement work on solo violin and electronics ("Sounds of New England") based on visits to low-income and under-resourced communities in the Northeast; and playwright Peter Sonenstein, presenting a multimedia staged reading of a new play ("The End of Empire") that explores the impact of digital technology on society.
A Shared Abilities Dance residency, led by arts consultant and movement artist Kerry Kincy, features three workshops and a performance for people of various physical, emotional and mental abilities. Collaborations with the Guilford Art Center (GAC), the Guilford Art League and Madison Art Society will produce a weekend of plein air painting, art sales and a performance at GAC by Zaks and poet, author and spoken-word artist Alexa Patrick.
There will be jazz by Jonathan Barber and Vision Ahead, as well as by the Jeff Beal Trio; Beal, composer of the soundtrack to House of Cards and other TV shows and films, will also perform a collection of original solo piano etudes. Sir Charles Productions, led by tenor Thomas Heilman, will perform 12th-century vocal music. The folk duo Goodnight Moonshine, featuring Molly Venter of the band Red Molly, will perform; as will the eclectic brass ensemble Dingonek Street Band.
Laura Thoma, a trauma-informed, queer playwright, will present a staged reading of a new work ("Yours in Words") that tells a tale about women, love, friendship and power. Actor and singer Schulyer Beeman will perform a cabaret ("Home Again"), recounting his journey home and life as a gay man and sheep farmer in a small New England town. Oompa Possum Puppets will perform a puppet show that teaches audiences about the animals that grace our forests, skies and seas. New England Ballet Theatre will perform three original works of ballet and contemporary dance; and Beecher (Taylor) and Joe Gerics will headline a night of standup comedy.
Air Temple Arts will lead a performance/workshop in circus skills; Kelvia along with the staff and students of the Middle Eastern Dance Academy will perform, demonstrate and teach raqs sharqi, or belly, dance; Movimiento Cultural will perform and teach Bomba music and dance of Puerto Rico; Oghlan Bakhshi, a master singer and virtuoso player of the two-stringed lute known as the dutar, will perform mystical music and tell stories from the Turkmens region of Central Asia; Natyamandala will perform and teach the Indian classical dance form called Bharanatyam; Ukrainian-American choral master and conductor Marika Kuzma will lead a program of Ukrainian choral singing; and a DIY StoryCorps booth will be available for festival-goers who want to record their own stories and have them archived at the American Folklife Center at the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
We still have a couple shows to confirm, so stay tuned for more news soon! Some of the above artists will be teaching workshops or master classes in the Guilford public schools; we'll know more in the fall.
For details on dates and times, check out our festival flyer below, hot off the presses!
