SKIRBALL CULTURAL CENTER
presents

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's
HALLELUJAH

Saturday, February 10, 2001, 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 11,2001,4:00 p.m.

Conceived and Directed by
Liz Lerman, Artistic Director and Founder

Peter DiMuro, Associate Artistic Director
Jane Hirshberg, Producing Director

Los Angeles Project Director: Celeste Miller
Nobuko Miyamoto, Guest Collaborator/Composer

Los Angeles Project Team:
Liz Lerman, Celeste Miller, Nobuko Miyamoto, Kazu Nakamura, Martha Wittman

Music Director: Robert Een
Music composed by Andy Teirstein and Robert Een
Lighting Designed by Michael Mazzola
Production Manager: Chloe Brown
Final Editing: Liz Lerman

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Company :
Peter DiMuro, Thomas Dwyer, Margot Greenlee, Elizabeth Johnson, Liz Lerman, Pene McCourty*, Kazu Nakamura, Vincent E. Thomas, Marvin Webb, Martha Wittman
*not performing in Los Angeles

Also Performing: Celeste Miller (Resident Artist), Quincy Northrup (Understudy)

The Los Angeles development and presentation of The Hallelujah Project received major funding from The California Presenters Initiative, which is funded by The James Irvine Foundation and managed by Arts International. Additional funding provided by The National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Phillip Morris Companies, Inc. The collaboration with Nobuko Miyamoto and the development of a Hallelujah Obon is supported by The Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN Program. Further support was provided by the TourWest program of the Western States Arts Foundation (WESTAF) with support from the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

From 1999 to 2002, a wide range of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange activities center on Hallelujah, a national initiative in praise, participation and performance. In a spirit of celebration and recognition of hard times endured, this project conducts a series of residencies in which community members contribute to a series of dances "In Praise Of..." topics vital to them.

This work combines layers of dance and song with personal and spiritual stories of the community and spiritual leaders. A "little opera" within is an homage to two grandmothers that Nobuko has never met: Misao Oga, a picture bride from Japan, and Lucy Harrison, a Morman from Parker, Idaho, who crossed a multitude of boundaries in their short lives. A binding thread for the piece is the Japanese Buddhist traditional dance of Obon, a summer celebration in which people in Japan go home to dance together to remember their ancestors. This tradition was brought to America and has continually evolved over the past 100 years.

Liz Lerman would like to acknowledge that the dances on this program are possible because of the artistic contributions of former and current company members. Both movement and text are developed through a collaborative process that draws upon personal experience, research and experimentation.

These performances are dedicated to the memory of Duane Ebata.

PROGRAM

Act I

HALLELUJAH
A new arrangement from the following work:

Original Lighting Design by Michael Mazzola

HALLELUJAH: GATES OF PRAISE (1999)
Choreography by Liz Lerman, in collaboration with the Dance Exchange Company
Music by Andy Teirstein
Set Design by Lewis Folden
Costume Design by Jane Schloss Phelan
Performed by: Peter DiMuro, Thomas Dwyer, Margot Greenlee, Elizabeth Johnson, Kazu Nakamura, Quincy Northrup, Vincent Thomas, Marvin Webb, Martha Wittman
"Gates of Praise" forms a prologue, anchoring Hallelujah at each of its performance sites. It is inspired by the idea that even in our darkest moments we might discover - or be pushed through - a gateway leading toward praise or celebration.

BLESSINGS AND DEDICATIONS:

BLESSED (excerpts)
Choreography by Bebe Miller
Music by Café at the Gate of Salvation
Costume Design by Jane Schloss Phelan
Performed by Peter DiMuro, Thomas Dwyer, Margot Greenlee, Elizabeth Johnson, Kazu Nakamura, Vincent Thomas, Marvin Webb, Martha Wittman

The Gwen Wyatt Chorale
"Plenty Good Room"

HARD WORK (Premiere)
Choreography by Liz Lerman and the L.A. Project Team in collaboration with the Performers
Music composed and performed by Robert Een
Performed by the Los Angeles Dancers

IN PRAISE OF FERTILE FIELDS (2000; excerpts)
Choreography by Liz Lerman in collaboration with the Dance Exchange Company
Music by Robert Een
Costume Design by Naoko Nagato
Performed by the Company
Commissioned by Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival, In Praise of Fertile Fields is based in part on materials in the Festival's archives, including the 1942 diary of Jacob's Pillow cook Esther Miller and the choreographic notes by dance pioneer Ted Shawn describing his dance Jacob's Ladder: A Negro Spiritual.

LET'S GET STARTED (1999)
Choreography by Liz Lerman
Music by Kenny Endo
Performed by the Company

Intermission (15 minutes)

Act II:

HALLELUJAH:
STONES WILL FLOAT, LEAVES WILL SINK, PATHS WILL CROSS (Premiere)

A collaboration between Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and Nobuko Miyamoto of Great Leap

Directed by Liz Lerman
Assisted by Peter DiMuro
Choreography by Liz Lerman, Martha Wittman, Kazu Nakamura, Celeste Miller, Nobuko Miyamoto,
Dance Exchange Company members and guests
Text by Nobuko Miyamoto and Liz Lerman, with contributions from Celeste Miller and Kazu Nakamura
Spiritual Leaders' text based on interviews with Dance Exchange

Music: Nobuko Miyamoto
Music arranger and composer: Derek Nakamoto
Additional music composed and performed by Robert Een
"Ishi Ga Nagarete" (Stones Float, Leaves Sink) by Rev. Masao Kodani

Original Lighting Design by Michael Mazzola

Costume design for Celeste Miller, Kazu Nakamura and Nobuko Miyamoto by Mary Rose

Performed by Nobuko Miyamoto and Liz Lerman
The Dance Exchange Company with Celeste Miller as Lucy and Kazu Nakamura as Misao

Spiritual Leaders: Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom, Rabbi Judith Halevy of Malibu Jewish Center, Rev. Masao Kodani of Senshin Buddhist Temple, Rev. Noriaki Ito of Higashi Hongwanji Temple, Rev. Jim Price of Diamond Canyon Christian Church, and Gwen Wyatt of Gwen Wyatt Chorale

Musicians: Derek Nakamoto (piano), Kenny Endo (Taiko, percussion), Lillian Nakano (shadiness), Tarabu Betserai (percussion), and Robert Een (cello and voice), Ross Levinson (violin), Bill "Elk Whistle" Neal (Native American Flutes)

Community performers
Los Angeles Dancers
Members of Valley Beth Shalom Temple
Members of the Los Angeles Buddhist community
Gwen Wyatt Chorale

PROJECT PARTICIPANTS

Los Angeles Spiritual Community
Cindy Paley Aboody, Daniella Aboody, Richard Churchwell, Doris Dyer, Katie Eastburn, Raphael S. Feinstein, Rabbi Nina Bieber Feinstein, Susan North Gilboa, Talia Gilboa, Aviv Gilboa, Emily J. Hodos, Janet Ito, Kisa Ito, Denise Kodani, Richard Kodani, Sharon Koga, Miriam Kramer, Sarah Leddy, Anita Muñoz, Tiky Paley, Harry Sawada, Laura Sturza

Spiritual Leaders
Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom, Rabbi Judith Halevy of Malibu Jewish Center, Rev. Masao Kodani of Senshin Buddhist Temple, Rev. Noriaki Ito of Higashi Hongwanji Temple, Rev. Jim Price of Diamond Canyon Christian Church, and Gwendolyn Wyatt of Gwen Wyatt Chorale

Los Angeles Dancers
Byron Au Yong, Michele Bloom, Elizabeth Cazenave, Sandra Chatterjee, Susan B. Goldberg, Stephany Mendzela, Shyamala Moorty, Cid Pearlman, Kristen Smiarowski, Carrie Sturts

Gwen Wyatt Chorale
Arlene May Day, Marian Flowers, Jacquelynn Hawthorne, Geraldine Hayes, Loviland Howzell, Rebecca Jackson, Teresa Pitts, Miriam White, Doris Dyer, Cynthia Johnson, Danellen Joseph, Lori Moore, Marilyn Washington, Diana White, Binnie Wilkin, Barbara Bolton-Jones, Richard Churchwell, Joel Graham, Marie Rhinehardt, Harold Marshall Sr., John Mayes, Calvin Singleton, Tyrone Bennett, Jesse Hamilton, Ted Slaughter, Gwendolyn Wyatt

Lighting Technicians: Concert Theatrical Services
Sound Technicians: Mr. Cat Productions

A PROGRAM NOTE FROM LIZ LERMAN

Welcome to the Los Angeles chapter of the Dance Exchange's Hallelujah project. We have had amazing experiences here over the past eighteen months as we have made short visits, met extraordinary people, then settled in for the longer residency that has led up to today. Our thanks to our partners at Great Leap, and to the staff, administration, and crew of the Skirball Cultural Center for making us feel so welcome, and especially to Jordan Peimer for his belief in our process and in our work.

Depending on how you count - and our Buddhist friends here have taught us to be comfortable with this ambiguity - this is either our fourth, fifth, or sixth stop on the Hallelujah trail. Each one has been delightful and exasperating, each one marking its success as much by the questions it raises as by the answers it finds. In the first half of this evening, you'll get a sense of some of these other Hallelujahs as we include our Gates of Praise prologue and material from In Praise of Fertile Fields (a Jacob's Pillow commission). Act I concludes with Let's Get Started, the first among a group of short celebratory dances we are making for the project. Among one of the many gifts that our Los Angeles collaborator Nobuko Miyamoto has brought to us has been the introduction to taiko drummer Kenny Endo. So taken were we with his drumming that we invited him to join us on stage to provide a new score for this dance.

Here is a little insight into how we worked to build the second half of the program, Stones Will Float, Leaves Will Sink, Paths Will Cross. After preliminary visits to Los Angeles, several people suggested I meet Nobuko. She and I talked of our mutual interest in the intersection of artmaking, community participation, and the spirituality of our respective worlds. We agreed to make something together which would include the Dance Exchange company and the Hallelujah process we are evolving in communities around the country.

At first I thought we were making two different dances; one about Nobuko's grandmothers and one based on stories we heard in our visits. Because I hoped to pick up a thread begun in our Tucson project about a year ago, I was especially interested in meeting with religious leaders of different faiths in hopes that they might join the performance in some way. Several rehearsals into the process we decided to make one piece centered around her original story, but also engaging local dancers, spiritual leaders and various people we met along the way who wanted to connect to the project.

The best way I can describe this now is that Nobuko's autobiographical story and her original script and music have evolved inside the Dance Exchange process. I am deeply grateful for her willingness to come along for the ride through this evolution. Although I retain control of the final editing, many other people have given generously to the project. Celeste Miller helped enormously with story ideas and text, as well as lending a directorial eye. Martha Wittman focused on the large group scenes; the rivers flowed from her imagination. Kazu Nakamura was a constant bridge between our cultures and brought insight and subtlety to the characters. Vincent Thomas worked alongside our community performers to shape their performance. I am always indebted to the complementary talents of Peter DiMuro and his ability to provide an outside eye. And as always, Robert Een provided a gentle but persuasive voice about the role of music in theatrical settings. I thank them all for their generous and willing spirits.

—Liz Lerman