Culture-rich 'Art of Rice' on tour
Advertiser Staff
| • | 'The Art of Rice Traveling Theater'
8 p.m. Saturday Leeward Community College Theatre $22 general; $15 for students, seniors, military 455-0385 Also: The show is on a statewide tour — 8 p.m. today at Kahilu Theatre, Big Island, $25, $30, $35; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Brigham Young University-La'ie campus, $2, $14, $15; 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20, Maui Arts & Cultural Center, $10, $18, $25 (half-price for children 12 and younger). |
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The production, playing Saturday at the Leeward Community College Theatre, integrates Chinese opera, Balinese gamelan, Japanese taiko, Balinese masks and puppetry, Burmese drum circle, South Indian Kathakali, and western dance, theater and multimedia elements.
The performance, which boasts cross-cultural collaboration, addresses themes intellectual yet accessible, showcasing rice as a complex metaphor representing the balance and imbalance of nature, spirit, ecology and humankind. Twelve international artists from China, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), the Dominican Republic, Japan, Hawai'i and the United States are involved.
Mounted by the Asia Pacific Performance Exchange, a project of the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, the show is directed by Judy Mitoma, a professor of dance at UCLA's Department of World Arts & Cultures.
The Hawai'i tour is under the auspices of the Performing Arts Presenters of Hawai'i, and involves Kenny Endo, a Hawai'i taiko master, and Emiko Saraswati Susilo, a specialist in gamelan. The O'ahu program has support from the Hawai'i Pacific Rim Society, the East-West Center Foundation and LCC Theatre.
