The biggest performance coming to Dartmouth this summer is unmistakably the Big Apple Circus, but the Hopkins Center is also introducing an annual series of visiting artists, the Summer Arts Initiative, which will bring an intriguing mix of performers to the College.
The Big Apple Circus, founded by Paul Binder '77, is touring in its 24th season. This year's theme, "Big Top Doo-Wop," features '50s parody and music, and will have acrobats, trained dogs, an equestrian act, quite a lot of '50s references that are probably better for the over-40s crowd and, of course, several of the most famous clowns in America.
The show will be taking place in mid-July on Fullington Farm, a few miles north of Dartmouth.
Clowns aside, the most interesting group of artists to come to Dartmouth since Guillermo Gmez-Pea's "Mexotica" last term will be giving performances, screenings and seminars throughout the term as part of the Hop's new Summer Arts Initiative.
The first to come will be Laurie Anderson -- a musician, a performing artist and the author of the "New York" entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The book decided to use artists' impressionistic essays for large American cities along with their standard, tamer entries.
Anderson is known for her multimedia performances, but also as a pop musician -- she is a long-time fiddler and has eight albums of music. The work she will bring, "Happiness," reflects on the events of Sept. 11.
Other artists coming to the Hop include Allan Kaprow, who coined the phrase "Happening" in the late '50s for his complex, interactive events; Clyde Evans, a hip-hop dancer; an abstract digital filmmaker, Peter Rose; and Lisa D'Amour, who creates performances that are often specific to the space she works in and always involve the audience, but never against their will.
All four performers will lead workshops, with prices from $30 for a video workshop -- though only $12 for Dartmouth students -- to a pricey $60 for a series of six hip-hop lessons.
Other performances at Dartmouth this term include Momix's Opus Cactus, a highly visual movement and dance piece based on interpretations of the Arizona desert and directed by Moses Pendleton '71.
Probably the most visually captivating theater piece that will come to Dartmouth this term, the show features a large Gila monster performed by four members of the Momix company, an opening piece in which a performer swings dangerously in a hammock between two cactuses and a solo in which a performer hotfoots around the stage with real fire coming out of his feet.
Cuban band Los Fakires will also perform at Dartmouth, giving an outdoor concert in the BEMA. Unlike the Buena Vista Social Club, Los Fakires come not from Havana but from Cuba's interior. They speak with a different accent and play "son," a musical tradition from western and central Cuba that combines Spanish and African musical traditions from centuries ago.
These five musicians -- ranging from 51 to 72 years old -- have played together as early as the 1950s, and their music has a '40s Cuban feel, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and a lyricism that should get students dancing.
The New York Theatre Workshop will bring a series of full-length plays to the Bentley.
Also, Ping Chong will bring his show, Undesirable Elements. The piece will take local performers, all of whom are from a different culture than the one in which they find themselves currently, and enable them to present their often-powerful stories to an audience.
