Welcome Perseverance Theatre

We join Perseverance Theatre (PT), our newest resident company, in celebrating their season premiere, “The Blue Bear,” at The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. The play, based on the book by Lynn Schooler, follows the intertwined lives of Schooler and famed photographer Michio Hoshino. The script was co-adapted by Luan Schooler and Leon Ingulsrud; it is directed by Leon Ingulsrud.

Ryan Conarro rehearses "The Blue Bear" in the Sydney Laurence Theatre.

“The launch of Perseverance Theatre’s first season at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts is very exciting. Adding PT to our resident companies is something we’ve looked forward to for many years. They bring professional regional theatre to Anchorage for Alaskans by Alaskans,” says ACPA President Nancy Harbour.

Art Rotch during rehearsal of "The Blue Bear."

Perseverance Theatre was founded in 1979 in Juneau, Alaska. It has long been a mainstay of cultural and artistic life in our State capitol. Perseverance is branching out of their Juneau home in their growth as a company, and hope to continue to reach even more Alaskans in the Anchorage area. Art Rotch, Artistic and Executive Director, cast and crew have been in Anchorage teching and rehearsing “The Blue Bear” for the past week. Rotch says, “Being a resident company means a lot: a home that we can count on for the long haul, as we hope to be here for some time; a first-class facility to work in, and as a resident company, the capacity to coordinate dates and schedules in advance which we need to in order to plan. We really appreciate the Center.”

“The Blue Bear” shows from February 10 – 18. – CenterTix

Don’t miss Perseverance Theatre’s next production “A Raisin in theSun,” April 13-22.

An Amazing Collaboration that is “Out of this World”!

The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, the Anchorage School District, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and the incredibly talented astronomer and visual artist Jose Francisco Salgado, PhD came together on Wednesday night to provide a three hour Partners in Education (PIE) training at the Center. Enthralled teachers interacted with the nationally renowned Dr. Salgado as he instructed them on ways to use photography to teach science, math, history, music and art.

PIE Director Julie Millington said, “Dr. Salgado loves to spread his knowledge and enthusiasm of science with teachers through one-on-one hands-on sessions. Teachers learned a step-by-step method of time-lapse photography using simple objects.  He shared his technique of matching classical music works with NASA photographs. The hours went by in a flash.”

We are extremely grateful to the ASO for sponsoring Dr. Salgado’s training at the January PIE program. The ASO is proudly collaborating with Emmy-nominated astronomer/visual artist Dr. Jose Francisco Salgado from the Adler Planetarium in Chicago as they present his awe-inspiring video accompaniment to "The Planets." Salgado is Executive Director of KV 265, a non-profit organization whose mission is the communication of science through art.

Don’t miss “Out of this World” Saturday at 8:00pm (sold out) and Sunday at 4pm at the Atwood Concert Hall.

TubaChristmas at the Center

TubaChristmas at the Center

All are invited to participate in TubaChristmas 2011, Saturday, December 10th, 12:00 noon. Christmas cheer will boom inside the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts Lorene Harrison Lobby as baritone instruments wrap their deep, mellifluous sounds around the carols of the holiday season. 

TubaChristmas scarves, stocking caps, CD’s and pins from TubaChristmas past will all be available for purchase. Registration for players is $5 and entitles participant to a souvenir button.  Returning musicians can bring music books from previous years; new musicians need to purchase a music book for $15 (Large Print Books are $20).  Participants are encouraged to decorate their tubas – recognition will be given to the youngest player, the most mature player, and the best decorated tuba!

All skill levels welcome!  If you used to play, “way back when,” now is the time to pick up your instrument, start again, and get into the holiday spirit!  Several instruments will be available for loan during the concert.  For more information on borrowing an instrument, call Neal Haglund at 742-0176.   

TubaChristmas 2011, Saturday, December 10

Registration for players 10:00am, 

Rehearsal for players 10:30am

Public Performance 12:00pm (noon)

All activities will be in the Lorene Harrison Lobby of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.  Building may be entered from 5^th or 6^th Avenue.

TubaChristmas 2011 is presented by the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.

Atwood Pit Lift Party

The official ribbon cutting ceremony to unveil the new Atwood Pit Lift!

Last Monday (August 1, 2011), many came to celebrate the unveiling of the new pit lift on the Atwood Concert Hall Stage.  Many thanks to the following people who helped make this dream a reality:

• Kurt Steinert - MOA Capital Projects
• Debra Fitzgerald - MOA Contract Manager
• Jeff Muckey - Bales Construction
• Dylan Bales - Bales Construction
• Larry Lander - GDM Architect
• Raj Bhargava - RBA Engineering & ACPA Board Member
• Jenny Herzog - Coffman Engineers
• Will Veelman - Coffman Engineers
• Daniel St. Germain - GalaSystems
• Dave Dorlan - 3-Way Electric
• Martin Hebert - GalaSystems
• Matt Lund - RBA Engineering 

The pit lift installation project began in late May, was completed a couple weeks earlier than planned.  As a result, the Atwood Concert Hall has been put back into inventory for our clients and users to utilize for the 2011-2012 performance season and beyond!  In addition to the pit lift, new stage flooring was also installed.

Check out the video below where you'll see ACPA Board Members, ACPA Staff and the group of folks mentioned above who helped bring the pit lift installation into fruition taking a ride on the new pit lift!

 

Want to see more from the pit lift party?  Visit the Center's Facebook page to see photographs from the evening.  

Anchorage Arts Pioneer: Ruth Hart

ACPA President Nancy Harbour & ACPA donor, Ruth Hart

Part of what makes the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts so special is our family of donors.  Today, I had the privilege of meeting with Center donor, Ruth Hart and was joined by ACPA President, Nancy Harbour.

Ruth has been invested in the local arts community for many years and shared with us some wonderful stories about her involvement both past and present.  We plan on sharing her stories through short video vignettes on our website and through the Center's Facebook this fall, so stay tuned!


-Amanda Hutchins, Development & Communications Associate
 

Working on a New Look!

The Center is working on recreating the look and functionality of http://www.myalaskacenter.com/! We hope you will check back mid-August to see our new, improved website!

The Ultimate Dance Party

by Cazoshay Ward - University of Alaska Anchorage

As reviewers, we are supposed to remain neutral in relaying the details of performances and avoid extreme vocabulary such as “awesome,” “incredible,” and “edge-of-your-seat-fantastic!”However, this review is going to be the exception.

According to the event’s program, “longtime friends Chris Wink, Philip Stanton and Matt Goldman founded Blue Man Group as a way to celebrate the human spirit through music, science, art, and theater.” The show that took place on the night of May 10^th certainly embodied that celebration to the fullest. The show was created, written and directed by Wink, Stanton, and Goldman, however it took a host of musicians, designers, and production staff to make the show the success that is was.

After a brief video narrating the evolution of art (complete with English accent) displayed on the screen, an audience member was selected and brought up to the stage at which point he was assisted by the Blue Men in putting on a protective suit with a helmet. He was then escorted backstage where he became a “human paintbrush” as the narrator called it where he was suspended from his feet, covered in paint, and thrust against a giant canvas; thereby creating a unique, one-of-a-kind piece of artwork.

And as if that wasn’t “awesome” enough. Blue Man Group’s performance also included an explanation, demonstration, and subsequent audience participation of the seven quintessential “Rock Concert Movements,” including the “fist pump,” “raising the roof,” and the “behind the head leg stretch.” During the show the group also created “The Ultimate Dance Party” where we, the audience, were instructed to shake our “rumps” our “moneymakers,” our “Elvis Aaron Presleys” (the list continued for approximately four minutes) to the techno beat while passing giant colored air balls through the auditorium and being sprayed with long streams of paper confetti.

To say that Blue Man Group thoroughly rocked the Atwood Concert Hall for an audience that spanned several generations (I won’t give too much away, but the song “Free Bird” was involved) would be an understatement. They took us on a visual and auditory journey unlike anything that could be fully described, only experienced. I would thoroughly recommend taking the opportunity to see the show and find out for yourself, or viewing the production of a new IMAX 3-D film due to be released in 2011.

Blue Man Group

Anchorage Concert Association

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Atwood Concert Hall