Expanding the Downtown Arts Scene
Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA (CAP UCLA) is dedicated to the advancement of contemporary performing arts: dance, music, spoken word, and theater; as well as emerging digital, collaborative, and cross-art platforms inspired by today's leading artists and creators. CAP supports the creation, presentation, and critical dialogues vital to the innovation and expressive potential of artists who inform the dynamic and evolving heritage of contemporary performance. Through an annual season of performing arts and extensive community-engagement initiatives and events, CAP UCLA advances the importance of art in society by celebrating and deepening the connection between artist and audience.
"UCLA is intrinsically linked to the Westside. Its Westwood campus is both an anchor and a pretty landmark.
Now the university is venturing east, not for classes, but for the arts. For its current season, the CAP (short for Center of the Art of Performance) UCLA program is producing a number of shows in Downtown Los Angeles. The variety of musical acts and avant-garde theatrical presentations landing in the Central City include one by a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient.
CAP UCLA continues to stage the majority of its shows at the university’s Royce Hall. Increasingly, however, it is utilizing the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Broadway. This week there is both a one-off concert there, and a collaboration with REDCAT in the latter’s venue in the back of Walt Disney Concert Hall.
CAP UCLA Artistic Director Kristy Edmunds said the programming is coming Downtown because so much of the artistic and creative community — both performers and audience — now resides in the area. She said the operators of the Ace Hotel, who refurbished the former United Artists Theatre when the project opened in 2014, expressed interest in working with CAP UCLA on shows.
“It was great opportunity to collaborate with a great collaborator,” Edmunds said. “Hopefully it brings different forces together in the service of contemporary performance. Those forces are resurgent in Downtown. It gives UCLA a reach into those civic areas, and gives us the capacity to have more mobility.”
Approximately one-third of CAP UCLA’s current season is taking place at the Theatre at Ace Hotel. That includes a Feb. 17 date with Birdman composer and jazz musician Antonio Sanchez. Last week, singer Meow Meow performed with Pink Martini founder Thomas Lauderdale.
Edmunds said that for the most part, theater and dance works are mounted at Royce Hall because of the space’s scale and acoustics. The 1,600-seat Theatre at Ace Hotel, she added, is a fit for music-focused events, or shows that require greater production needs."— Nicholas Slayton, Feb. 6, 2018
This post is an excerpt, read the full article at the Los Angeles Downtown News website.
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