Stanford Live plans 2022-’23 season around issues of climate change and social justice
Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University. Courtesy: Jeff Goldberg.
Stanford Live on Wednesday announced its 2022-’23 season schedule, which will kick off on Sept. 30 and run through the following spring.
The theme of the expansive season is healing and sense of place in a world changed by the pandemic and the performances are meant to spotlight work by artists focused on climate change and social justice.
“During these moments of reflection and change, artists have historically been central to telling the stories of our time, offering both perspective and insight into the complex issues that we as humans grapple with,” Stanford Live Executive Director Chris Lorway said in a written statement. “As we were putting together this season, it became clear that many of the artists we’ve invited to campus wanted to contribute to this conversation, using their respective mediums to invite deeper community engagement and participation.”
There will be numerous commissioned and coproduced work by local, national and international artists.
Contemporary circus company Circa will begin the season with its production Leviathan at Memorial Auditorium (Sept. 30 and Oct, 1). This show includes 36 performers hanging from a grid suspended in the air and propelling themselves across the stage, tumbling and balancing. Stanford students are among a cast who will join the performance.
The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist (Oct. 14 and 15) is a an opera-theater piece, directed by Niegel Smith, by Stanford faculty composer Jonathan Berger, librettist Vievee Francis and visual artist Enrico Riley that reflects on the murder of Eric Garner and explores the power of healing through communal experience.
Portland-based Ghanaian composer Okaidja Afroso’s Jaku Mumor (Nov. 11) draws from the ecological knowledge of the Indigenous Gadangme fishermen of Ghana’s Atlantic Gulf of Guinea and grapples with what it means to commune with the spirits of the sea in the face of climate change and modernization.
Soprano Joyce DiDonato and the period-instrument ensemble Il Pomo D’Oro will make a return visit with EDEN (Jan. 20), a celebration of the wonders of the natural world through a selection of Baroque and contemporary works.
Broken Chord (Feb. 16) by South Africa director-choreographer Gregory Maqoma merges theater, dance and music to tell the story of a South African chorus whose tour through England and North America in the late 19th century was marred by racism. This performance will include a chorus of local singers.
Bay Area singer Meklit returns to Stanford Live with The Movement LIVE (April 13), a live version of her podcast. It will tell stories of migration of artists across the world.
The season also includes The Lost Birds by Stanford alumna and two-time Grammy-winning composer Christopher Tin (Feb. 25), a requiem for species driven to extinction that will be performed by the award-winning vocal ensemble VOCES8; composer and multi-instrumentalist Vanessa Vân-Ánh Võ’s multimedia production Mekong: LIFE (April 23), about the impact of climate change on communities from Vietnam to Laos to Burma through the sights and sounds of life along the Mekong River; jazz concerts by three-time Grammy winner Cécile McLorin Salvant (Jan. 28) and Regina Carter (April 21); orchestra performances by Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (Nov. 7), Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Jan. 26) and Australian Chamber Orchestra (April 16); and numerous recitals by the likes of acclaimed artists Hélène Grimaud (Nov. 6), Randall Goosby (Nov. 30), Lang Lang (Feb. 17), Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott (April 3).
International artists include Mexican singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada (Oct. 22), Ukrainian quartet DakhaBrakha (March 8) and Brazilian icon Caetano Veloso (May 11). Theater performances include Why Not Theatre’s Prince Hamlet (Oct. 27 and 28) and Broadway star Patti LuPone (Feb. 11).
Two dance performances originally scheduled for the 2020-’21 and 2021-’22 seasons will be presented at Memorial Auditorium: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan’s 13 Tongues (Oct. 6) and Dimitris Papaioannou’s Transverse Orientation (Dec. 9 and 10).
Tickets go on sale to Stanford Live members on June and to the public on June 29 at the Stanford Live website.