CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP) was established to provide a unique artist- and project-driven framework for the development and realization of original theater, music, dance, media, and interdisciplinary projects.
CNP has sought to bring forth and nurture the vague, the opaque, the inchoate, the anarchic—the impulses that are barely manifest to things that whisper within, that can be barely heard. Based on the conviction that the great idea, the important idea, will often not shout itself—but is present to us only as a murmur. We ask artists to listen to themselves. We see our role as to assist in that process of listening. WE MISTRUST THE RATIONAL. WE MISTRUST THE PRESCRIBED, THE FORMULAIC, THE MODELS OF PROVEN SUCCESS. There are other places designed to support these. We don’t have a “season.” We present work when it is done. Some work is done and doesn’t need presentation. Some of the most profound work an artist can do never needs an audience. That said, we are proud of the legacy of production that we have generated over the last 20 years. We hope that artists have been deeply nurtured in the process.
Text adapted from the introduction of the Center for New Performance 20th Anniversary book. Written by Travis Preston, Executive Artistic Director, CalArts Center for New Performance and Dean, School of Theater.
Prometheus Bound: A new translation by Joel Agee, directed by Travis Preston, world premiere at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa.
The Carolyn Bryant Project, created by Nataki Garrett and Andrea LeBlanc, directed by Nataki Garrett, world premiere at REDCAT.
King Lear, directed by Travis Preston, world premiere at the Brewery Arts Complex in Los Angeles, Frictions Festival, Théâtre Dijon Bourgogne.
What to Wear, directed by Richard Foreman, composed by Michael Gordon, world premiere at REDCAT.
Shelter: Una obra sobre travesías (A play about journeys), conceived and written by Marissa Chibas, directed by Martin Acosta, world premiere at the Plaza de la Raza in Los Angeles.
Nightwalk in the Chinese Garden, a collaboration between CalArts Center for New Performance and The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, written and directed by Stan Lai, world premiere at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Garden of Flowing Fragrance.
All images courtesy of the CalArts Center for New Performance.
