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Redfern Arts Center Season Celebrates KSC Centennial

Keene, 7/28/08 - For 100 years the arts have played an important role in the life of Keene State College, its students, and the community. In announcing its 2008-09 Presenting Series, KSC’s Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond honors that tradition with a season that builds on the past, looks to the future, and celebrates KSC’s centennial.

This year, three visiting artists return to perform at the Redfern. In keeping with the theme of building on the past to celebrate the future, they will bring their latest creations. In March the chamber theatre group, Core Ensemble, will perform Ain’t I a Woman, celebrating the life and times of four remarkable African-American women.

Also in March, one of New York’s hottest dance companies, Keigwin + Company, will perform Elements, an evening-length work that premiered this summer at the Bates Dance Festival. April will find I Musici de Montréal in its 25th anniversary tour, performing Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with large-screen projections of paintings inspired by the original paintings that in turn inspired Moussorgsky’s timeless music.

The 2008-09 season will open October 4 with the dynamic Georgia Guitar Quartet in a program they will borrow from the past and the present with works by such composers as Bach, Bartók, Cage, and Led Zeppelin. This will be followed by the award-winning Shakespeare and Company, in its first-ever national tour and New Hampshire debut, in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Also in October, Montréal’s Rubberbandance, a world-class company from contemporary, classical, ballet, hip-hop, and break-dance backgrounds, will premiere its latest creation, Phase II. The fall season concludes with The New York City trio GrooveLily. With backgrounds in classical music, musical theater, jazz, and rock, they make new music that is all their own, creating the most unique sounds in the New York cabaret scene.

The spring season will begin in February with the thrilling sounds of the Afro-Latin songs and rhythms of Sol y Canto, New England’s foremost Latin- American band. This will be followed by New Orleans’ own Hot 8 Brass Band. Their concerts are the epitome of New Orleans street music, which they perform at the traditional Sunday Second Line parades. February will conclude with “Off the Beaten Path: A Jazz & Tap Odyssey.” Under the artistic direction of award-winning tap dancer, Drika Overton, the performance features an original score and choreography, improvisations, and restaging of some classic tap works.

March will find Philadelphia’s White Box Theatre in the haunting “Sea of Birds.” Reminiscent of The Little Prince, it parallels one child’s memories of an Eastern European displacement camp in wartime with fantasy characters from an American child’s imagination. The season will conclude with the American Place Theatre’s verbatim adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s award- winning novel, “The Kite Runner.”

No season at the Redfern would be complete without the many productions by the Departments of Music and Theatre and Dance. Among highlights in the fall is “Inspired by Kaddish.” Using the stunning debut performance of composer Lawrence Siegel’s Kaddish as their inspiration, the departments of theatre and dance, music, art, and film will unite their talents to create a total celebration of the arts at Keene State College.

Also in the fall the KSC Music Department will present a Faculty Artist’s Recital featuring the work of Igor Stravinsky. The Department of Theatre and Dance will revive the ever popular “The Matchmaker” by Thornton Wilder.

In the spring KSC Music will host Keith Brion, who is considered the foremost authority on the music of John Philip Sousa. Brion will lead the KSC Concert Band in an evening of music by America’s March King. And Keene State Theatre and Dance will present the 35th “An Evening of Dance,” a celebration of choreography and performance.

Tickets are now on sale at the Redfern for these and other performances. Tickets may be ordered by calling 603-358-2168 or visiting www.keene.edu/racbp. Memberships that offer 20 percent discounts on all Presenting Series performances are also available. Priority seating will be given to those who enroll as members.

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Keene, New Hampshire 03435