Jennifer Tipton's Light Installation "Our Days and Night" with Choreographer Liz Gerring, Theater Artist Ain Gordon, and More
Company:
Jennifer Tipton
BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER PRESENTS:
JENNIFER TIPTON OUR DAYS AND NIGHT
Illustrious lighting designer Jennifer Tipton will share an exhibit of light November 17-19, Thursday-Saturday in BAC’s Jerome Robbins Theater. Our Days and Night is designed to show the relationship of the earth to the sun, tracing the origin and precarity of the sun’s support of life, and exploring the visual archetypes of the seasons.
Well known by performing arts audiences, Tipton’s designs have illuminated operas, Broadway, Off-Broadway, and experimental productions during her celebrated career, earning numerous Tony and Drama Desk awards and nominations. As told to The New York Times, Tipton "…feels that light is like music. In some abstract, emotional, noncerebral, nonliterary way, it makes us feel, it makes us see, it makes us think, all without knowing exactly how and why. I certainly feel it's the glue of a production. If the scenery and costumes don't exactly go together, light can marry them."
Theater artist Ain Gordon and choreographer and dancer Liz Gerring will activate the installation. Our Days and Night features space design by Michael Yeargan and sound design by Scott Lehrer.
Jennifer Tipton was the recipient of the 2019-20 Cage Cunningham Fellowship, an award established in 2015 for artists who demonstrate John Cage and Merce Cunningham’s commitment to artistic innovation.
PROGRAM CREDITS
Jennifer Tipton
Our Days and Night (World Premiere)
November 17-19 at 7:30PM
BAC Jerome Robbins Theater
Tickets: $25 at bacnyc.org
Running time: 60 minutes
Light and Text by Jennifer Tipton
Dance Conceived by Jennifer Tipton
Created and Performed by Liz Gerring and Ain Gordon
Space Design by Michael Yeargan
Sound Design by Scott Lehrman
Associate to Jennifer Tipton: Krista Smith
Technical Assistant to Jennifer Tipton: Nicolas Vincent
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Jennifer Tipton is well known for her lighting for theater, opera and dance. Her recent work in theater includes TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRDfor Broadway, Beckett’s FIRST LOVE for ZOOM and all of Richard Nelson’s Rhinebeck plays. Her recent work in opera includes Ricky Ian Gordon’s INTIMATE APPAREL with libretto by Lynn Nottage, based on her play by the same name, at the Lincoln Center Mitzi Newhouse Theater; her recent work in dance includes Lauren Lovette’s PENTIMENTO for the Paul Taylor Company and Balanchine’s MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM for the Paris Opera Ballet. Among many awards she has received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2001, the Jerome Robbins Prize in 2003 and in 2008 she was awarded the USA “Gracie” Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. She has lit Paul Taylor dances since her beginning in light.
Liz Gerring Radke was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Los Angeles area. She began studying dance when she was thirteen. In high school she studied at the Cornish Institute in Seattle. In 1987, she was awarded a BFA from the Juilliard School. From 1988-1992 Liz competed as a professional bicycle racer. With Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown having an ever-evolving and profound influence on her own frank aesthetic, she formed the Liz Gerring Dance Company in 1998. Liz was awarded the Jacob’s Pillow Prize in June 2015, and a Joyce Theater Residency and Creation award in the same year. In collaboration with composer Michael Schumacher, Liz has been commissioned for three works at Peak Performances @ the Kasser Theater in Montclair, New Jersey. In 2016/17 she was awarded a New York City Center Choreographic Fellowship. In 2019 Gerring was one of five artists to receive the Cage-Cunningham Fellowship from the Baryshnikov Arts Center.
Ain Gordon is a three-time Obie Award-winning writer/director/actor, two-time NYFA recipient and Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting. Gordon’s work often draws on marginalized or forgotten histories. Upcoming projects include Relics And Their Humans: framing a real-life couple from Dover, OH, developed at Krannert Center (IL), Wexner Center (OH) and Arizona Arts Live. Recent projects: These Don’t Easily Scatter narrating the early years of the AIDS crisis in Philadelphia, commissioned by the William Way LGBT Center with support from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage; Radicals In Miniature: collected requiems to personal icons, premiering in 2017 at BAC, with touring in 2018/19 to Arts & Ideas, Quick Center, Connecticut College (all CT), Williams College and The Yard (both MA); 217 Boxes Of Dr. Henry Anonymous: culminating a two-year residency at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania focused on Dr. Fryer who, in 1972, disguised as Dr. Anonymous opposed the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of homosexuality as a disease, premiering in 2016 at the Painted Bride (PA), plus 2018 performances at BAC and 2019 performances at Transylvania University (KY) and Center For The Art of Performance/UCLA. Gordon’s work has also been seen at BAM Next Wave, PS 122/PSNY, and Mark Taper Forum, among many others. Director of Pick Up Performance Co.
Scott Lehrer has been creating work with Jennifer Tipton for over 40 years from Richard Nelson’s musical James Joyce’s’ The Dead and his Rhinebeck Panorama plays, to Robert Wilson’s production of Hamletmachine, the dance, light, sound improvisation Suspect Terrain at the Pepsico Festival, and the recent To Kill a Mockingbird directed by Bartlett Sher. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, he has taught sound design and music production at Bennington College, Hunter College, and NYU. Resident sound designer of the inaugural Fall for Dance Festival, his other work for dance includes scoring Bridgeman/Packer’s Bessie-winning Voyeur. He received the first Tony Award for sound for Bartlett Sher’s production of South Pacific and has been nominated for six others since. Theater work includes the Broadway productions of Angels in America, The Heidi Chronicles, King Lear starring Glenda Jackson with music by Philip Glass, Hello Dolly with Bette Midler and currently The Music Man with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. As a music engineer/producer his projects include the original cast recording of An American in Paris, Loudon Wainwright’s Grammy-winning High Wide & Handsome (StorySound), Last Forever (Nonesuch), Nana Vasconcelos’ Storytelling (EMI) and Meredith Monk’s mercy (ECM).
Michael Yeargan has designed for theatres in America, and internationally. Broadway credits include The Light in the Piazza, Cymbeline, Seascape, Awake and Sing, Lincoln Center Theater revivals of South Pacific, The King and I and My Fair Lady; and The Bridges of Madison County among others. He is the recipient of two Tony Awards, three Drama Desk Awards, and two Henry Hewes Awards. Opera credits in America and abroad are extensive, including 13 new productions at The Met, the World Premieres of A Streetcar Named Desireand Dead Man Walking (San Francisco Opera), The Great Gatsby and Nico Muhly’s Two Boys for the Met. He recently designed Wagner’sRing Cycle for Washington National Opera and San Francisco Opera, as well as the recent new production of Rigoletto at the Met. He is a Professor in the Practice of Design at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University and Yale Repertory Theatre Resident Set Designer.
About Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC)
BAC is the realization of a long-held vision by artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov who sought to build an arts center in Manhattan that would serve as a gathering place for artists from all disciplines. BAC’s opening in 2005 heralded the launch of this mission, establishing a thriving creative laboratory and performance space for artists from around the world. BAC’s activities encompass a robust residency program augmented by a range of professional services, including commissions of new work, as well as the presentation of performances by artists at varying stages of their careers. In tandem with its commitment to supporting artists, BAC is dedicated to building audiences for the arts by presenting contemporary, innovative work at affordable ticket prices. For more information, visit bacnyc.org.
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