FirstWorks Festival Comes To Providence

Celebrating FirstWorks' biggest season ever, Festival 2011 transforms Providence into a multistage spectacle of tour de force performances. Enter a world of illusion and movement through the deep green lens of MOMIX' Botanica. Be mesmerized by the Caravanserai, a pageant of master drummers and musicians from Karachi. Turn Mozart on his ear with the soulful strings of Brooklyn Rider. Blur the lines between the real and the imagined with performance artist Laurie Anderson.

Brooklyn Rider

10/01/2011 8pm
Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts
This adventurous, genre-defying string quartet combines a wildly eclectic repertoire with a gripping performance style that draws critical acclaim from classical, world and rock critics alike. For FirstWorks, the unparalleled musicianship of these four virtuosos (handpicked for Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble) showcases a brilliant new original work and illuminates new renditions of scores by master composers Beethoven, Mozart, John Zorn and Phillip Glass.

Brooklyn Rider
10/02/2011 4pm
Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts
Join the virtuoso musicians of Brooklyn Rider string quartet and FirstWorks for an informal opportunity to connect musical dots between Beethoven & Roma (gypsy) music, Brazil & Roumania, and the genesis of a "first work".

Delusion by Laurie Anderson
10/22/2011 8pm
The Vets
One of America's most renowned and daring creative pioneers,
Laurie Anderson returns to FirstWorks with a multimedia performance combining violin,electronic puppetry, music and visuals. At the heart of "Delusion" is the belief that words can create the world, as well as make it disappear. Laurie Anderson's meditation on life, language and memory will sweep you away in a stunning collage of imagery, electronic soundscape and spoken vignette.

Balla Kouyaté and World Vision

10/28/2011 8pm
Roots Café
Move your feet to the beat with the West African rhythms of one of the world's greatest balafon players. This renowned storyteller and his ensemble fuse the rich music of Mali with jazz, blues and Caribbean sounds. Balla has been featured on Yo-Yo Ma's latest release as well as Angelique Kidjo's "Oyo". The signature ancestral sounds of World Vision are at once exotic and universal.

Momix - Botanica
10/29/2011 8pm
Providence Performing Arts Center
Lose yourself in a forest of fantasy as the shape shifting dancers of MOMIX celebrate Mother Nature like never before. Welcome to Botanica, an artful extravaganza of movement, circus, athleticism and magical effects. Creatures real and mythical materialize through dazzling projections and larger-than-life puppets designed by Michael Curry, the Award-winning designer of The Lion King. This primeval world forms a magical tableau where MOMIX's impossibly nimble dancer-illusionists redefine gravity. Experience Botanica and take leave of your senses in a garden of blooms.

Caravanserai

11/06/2011 4pm
RISD Auditorium
The visceral sounds of the tabla signal a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience ancient Sufi music played by masters acclaimed in their own country, but unfamiliar to most Americans. Joyful devotion and improvisatory freedom drive the music of the Qawwalis, torch-bearers for a 700-year old form of Sufi music; the kinetic virtuosity of Tari Khan throbs with passionate volatility.

LOSTWAX Multimedia Dance Theater

11/10/2011 to 11/13/2011
Perishable Theater
Voted Rhode Island's best dance company, LOSTWAX and Jamie Jewett weave a new fantasy in SEVEN VEILS, a multimedia dance based on Thalia Field's adaptation of "Salome". Video by Luke DuBois and choral music by Alexander deVaron provide an often humorous score for Jewett's quirky contemporary dance. It's all there: the dungeon, the palace, the dance, the seductions and betrayals - interweaving voices, dancer, and projections - the re-imagined "veils" of Salome's story.

More Info: http://www.first-works.org

Pixilerations [v.8]
Now in its eighth year, Pixilerations continues to amaze Providence audiences with groundbreaking multimedia installations, performances and film/video screenings. In an era of Twitter-inflamed revolutions, biotech ethics wars and YouTube-generated museum exhibitions, this year's festival explores new territory with the provocative question, "Where, and what, is New Media Art today?"

Exhibition

Sept. 22-Oct. 2
Sol Koffler Gallery @ RISD
+ Granoff Center for the Creative Arts @ Brown University
Opening Receptions: Sept. 22, 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Daily, 12-8pm

Artist Talk
Friday, Sept. 23, 3pm with Paul Myoda (Providence, RI)
Granoff Center for the Creative Arts

Concerts
Friday, Sept. 23 & Saturday, Sept. 24, 8pm:
Grant Recital Hall @ Brown University
Hope St. & Young Orchard Ave.

Sunday, Sept. 25, 3pm:
Granoff Center for the Creative Arts @ Brown University
154 Angell St.

Video Screening
Tuesday, Sept. 27, 9pm: Cable Car Cinema & Café
204 South Main St.

Club Pixil
Friday, Sept. 30, 9pm: Firehouse 13

More Info: http://pixilerations.org/