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SOLD OUT! Welcome in 2017 with fellow supporters of the arts at the New Year’s Eve Bubbly Bash, which promises once again to be the valley’s most festive holiday celebration. The annual sold-out event benefits the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and is co-hosted by Sun Valley Resort and The Center’s Junior Patrons Circle.
For the 6th annual event, revelers will gather at Sun Valley’s iconic River Run Lodge to enjoy free champagne from 9 to 10pm and a midnight toast, compliments of event sponsor Barefoot Bubbly. Attendees can snap a memory in the customized Bubby Bash photo booth and dance the night away with the evening’s music and vibe driven by DJ Lady Sinclair. New this year at the Bubbly Bash, Los Angeles-based DJ Lady Sinclair has played at major clubs and celebrity events around the world, spinning mashup juxtaposing tracks that keep people hanging onto the next mix.
“The Center’s Bubbly Bash has become one of the most anticipated events of the winter season in Sun Valley,” said Callan Miranda, Special Events Fundraising Manager at The Center. “It’s the perfect way to ring in the new year, celebrating with good friends, great music and, of course, a glass of bubbly, all while supporting the arts in our community.”
Tickets will go on sale to the public on Tuesday, November 1, at 10am. Tickets are $85 per person through November 14 and will increase to $100 per person on Monday, November 15. Ticket prices include tax, but applicable ticketing fees apply. This popular event tends to sell out quickly, so patrons are encouraged to buy tickets early!
Purchase tickets online at sunvalleycenter.org or in person at The Center’s box office in Ketchum. All attendees must be 21 and over. For more information, call 208.726.9491.
The Junior Patrons Circle (JPC) is a group of young adults dedicated to furthering the mission and goals of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts. The JPC seeks to involve the next generation in its programs and develop future volunteer leaders for the arts in the community.
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts invites the community to celebrate the installation of two public sculptures commissioned by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts for its recent Craters of the Moon project—John Grade’s Spur and Jason Middlebrook’s Homage to the Limber Pine. A ribbon-cutting ceremony at the reinstallation site of Grade’s sculpture will take place at 4pm, Saturday, October 15, along the Wood River Trail in Ketchum.
Grade and Middlebrook’s sculptures were installed earlier this year at Craters of the Moon National Monument as part of a larger exhibition presented by The Center during the centennial year of the National Park Service. The two artists took inspiration for their works from the rugged, lunar-like landscape of Craters of the Moon in Arco, Idaho, but they were also aware that their pieces would reside in Ketchum over the long term.
In creating Spur, John Grade was keenly aware of the community’s long history with the railroad, and he designed his artwork to reflect that past. The horizontal elements that link Spur’s cedar arches are reminiscent of a train’s rail lines, and the stacattoed light that occurs as viewers pass through the sculpture is similar in feeling to the broken motion of a train moving through a landscape.
For Middlebrook, it was important that his slate tree sculpture be placed in an environment where people could discover it in the context of other natural vegetation. The week of September 26, Middlebrook’s Homage to the Limber Pine will be reinstalled in Ketchum’s Little Park (east of the Ore Wagon Museum on 5th Street East), where the scale of the park perfectly complements the size of the tree.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the reinstallation of John Grade’s Spur sculpture will take place in Ketchum at the fork in the Wood River Trail just south of Serenade Lane. Guests should park in the Lower River Run parking lot and walk approximately one-third of a mile south along the bike path.
“We hope everyone will come out to celebrate these tremendous additions to the cultural landscape and all of the partners who have come together to realize this special gift to the community,” said Kristin Poole, Artistic Director of The Center.
Artist John Grade will be present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside Ketchum mayor Nina Jonas, members of the Ketchum Arts Commission, the Blaine County Recreation District, the Idaho Foundation for Parks and Lands as well as patrons and friends of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts. The October 15 event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.
For more information about the ribbon-cutting ceremony and other upcoming events at The Center call 208.726.9491.
Project Sponsors:
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts has received support for Craters of the Moon from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the City of Ketchum and numerous private donors. The project was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts under the “Imagine Your Parks” initiative, a grant established in recognition of the NPS Centennial. In addition to financial support, numerous partners have helped make this project possible, including the National Park Service (and their staff at Craters of the Moon National Monument), the City of Ketchum, Idaho Foundation for Parks and Lands, the Blaine County Recreation District and other public and private partners.
Sun Valley Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the lineup for the 2016–2017 Lecture Series and Performing Arts Series. Every year, these highly-anticipated performances, presentations and lectures bring noted thought leaders, authors, artists and musicians to the Wood River Valley.
“This year’s Lecture Series highlights individuals who are responding to contemporary issues through their work and leadership,” said Katelyn Foley, The Center’s Director of Education and Humanities. “The series opens by introducing a truly groundbreaking artist—Miranda July—and then teases out important perspectives from our BIG IDEA projects on technology and contemplation.”
The 2016–2017 Performing Arts Series features an eclectic variety of performers. From as far away as India and Italy to a Twin Falls native who now calls Nashville home, The Center has invited engaging, compelling artists—and even a fun, laugh-out-loud performer—to the valley. “For the very first time, we’ve asked an award-winning cabaret performer to visit the valley this September,” said Kristine Bretall, The Center’s Director of Performing Arts. “The Center has never hosted someone quite like Sharron Matthews—she’s funny, irreverent and heartfelt. She’ll work with Wood River Middle School students on singing and, through her ‘Cabaret for Kids’ program, she’ll share how confidence can be gained through performance. Every performer on this season’s lineup will be working with students in local schools as part of The Center’s commitment to arts education.”
Tickets for the Lecture Series and the Performing Arts Series will first be made available to members of The Center. On Friday, August 5, series tickets will be on sale to members only; on Friday, August 19, individual tickets will be on sale to members only. On Friday August 26, any remaining tickets will be on sale to the general public. For information about Sun Valley Center for the Arts membership, visit http://sunvalleycenter.org/get-involved/membership/.
Click here to learn more.
Miranda July in conversation with Marcia Franklin
Thu, Sep 22, 2016
Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum, 6:30pm
Miranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Her videos, performances, and web-based projects have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and two Whitney Biennials. July wrote, directed and starred in her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Camera d’Or. Miranda July’s most recent film is The Future (2011), which she wrote, directed and stars in. Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The New Yorker, and her novel The First Bad Man (2015) became an immediate New York Times bestseller. Her artwork is in the collection of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and was presented in the 2009 Venice Biennale, in Union Square in New York, and at MOCA in Los Angeles. David Byrne says, “Miranda July’s is a beautiful, odd, original voice—seductive, sometimes erotic, and a little creepy, too.”
Marcia Franklin is the host and producer of Dialogue, a discussion program on Idaho Public Television. Franklin’s programs have won numerous awards, including a George Foster Peabody Award, an ABA Silver Gavel Award and several regional Emmy awards.
P.W. Singer
Thu, Feb 9, 2017
Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum, 6:30pm
P.W. Singer is the author of multiple award-winning books, and is a contributing editor at Popular Science. Described in the Wall Street Journal as “the premier futurist in the national security environment,” Dr. Singer is considered one of the world’s leading experts on changes in 21st-century warfare. Singer’s book Wired for War examined the implications of robotics and other new technologies for war, politics, ethics and law in the 21st century. Described as “awesome” by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, Wired for War made the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in its first week of release. Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War (2015) is Singer’s debut novel. It melds nonfiction-style research on emerging trends and technology with a fictional exploration of the future of war at sea, on land, in the air, space and cyberspace.
Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project Rayguns, Robots, Drones.
Arianna Huffington
Fri, May 26, 2017
in partnership with Sun Valley Wellness Festival
Sun Valley Pavilion, Sun Valley, 6:30pm
Individual tickets will ONLY be available through the Sun Valley Wellness Festival starting Oct 1, 2016
Lecture Series and Sun Valley Wellness Festival keynote speaker Arianna Huffington is the co-founder, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, and author of 15 books. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. She has been named to Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. Her 15th book, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time, on the science, history and mystery of sleep, was published in April 2016 and became an instant New York Times bestseller.
Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project Contemplative Practice.
Season Sponsors
The 2016–2017 Lecture Series is sponsored in part by Jennifer and Peter Roberts, with generous support from Richard Carr and Jeanne Meyers. Free Student Humanities Club tickets are provided through the generous support of Robin Leavitt and Terry Friedlander for lecture series, performing arts events and play readings.
Click here to learn more.
A cabaret evening with Sharron Matthews*
Fri, Sep 16, 2016
NexStage Theater, Ketchum, 7pm
Sharron Matthews is an award-winning cabaret performer. Her performance of “Full Dark” was named by broadwayworld.com as Best Cabaret Performance of 2015, and she’s won “Best of the Fest” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her performances include storytelling and mash-up pop songs—think Shirley Bassey meets Madonna. She has created a “Cabaret for Kids” for the Young People’s Theatre of Toronto and will bring her experience as an actor, performer, and singer to students while she is in the valley.
Korby Lenker*
Fri, Dec 9, 2016
Sun Valley Opera House, 7pm
Growing up in Twin Falls as the son of a mortician, Korby Lenker is a singer, songwriter, author, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. Lenker began work on a new album, Thousand Springs, in early 2016 and spent weeks traveling and recording outdoors in various locations in southern Idaho. He then spent the early summer laying more tracks with some of his favorite musicians around the country. Lenker’s visit is part of the BIG IDEA project Idaho Stories; while here, he will be working with students at Wood River High School.
Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project Idaho Stories.
International Guitar Night*
Tue, Feb 14, 2017
Sun Valley Opera House, 7pm
International Guitar Night (IGN) is North America’s premier mobile guitar festival. Since its inception, IGN has brought together the world’s foremost acoustic guitarist composers to perform their latest original compositions and exchange musical ideas in a public concert setting. Each tour, IGN founder Brian Gore invites a new cast of guitar luminaries to join him for these special evenings. For the January/February 2017 North American tour, Brian will be joined by three incredibly dynamic musicians: Italy’s innovative contemporary guitarist Luca Stricagnoli; brilliant young Brazilian composer/performer Chrystian Dozza; and India’s ground-breaking slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya.
Las Cafeteras*
Fri, Apr 7, 2017
Wood River High School Performing Arts Theater, Hailey, 7pm
In 2005, rooted in community and tradition, a group of students learning Son Jarocho music became known as “Los Cafeteros,” named after the Eastside Cafe community center in East Los Angeles that they helped found. They soon changed their name to Las Cafeteras to honor the feminine spirit of the group. Over the years, Las Cafeteras has developed a genre-bending sound and electric live performance with the purpose of sharing the hidden stories of migrant life in Los Angeles. Las Cafeteras were inspired not only by Mexican music, but by rock, reggae, hip-hop and Motown. Through music, Las Cafeteras is trying to help build “a world where many worlds fit.” While in the Wood River Valley, Las Cafeteras will spend four days visiting over 2,000 students with musical performances, sharing their music and their message of inclusivity.
Season Sponsors
The 2016–2017 Performing Arts Series is sponsored by Wood River Inn.
* Every performer in the 2016–2017 Performing Arts Series will be performing in local schools as a part of The Center’s ongoing commitment to arts education. Artist Residencies are supported by Gayle Marie with additional funds for International Guitar Night and Las Cafeteras provided by the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF).
TICKETS
Tickets for The Center’s Lecture Series and Performing Arts Series will go on sale on the following dates:
Tickets can be purchased online, by calling 208.726.9491, or at The Center box office at 191 Fifth Street East in Ketchum.
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts opens its new visual arts exhibition, Dazzle Camouflage: Hiding in Plain Sight, on Friday, August 5, at The Center in Ketchum. The Center will host a opening celebration on Aug 5 from 5-7pm, is free to the community and coincides with a free gallery walk on the same evening.
First developed by the British during World War I in response to the introduction of submarine warfare, dazzle camouflage was an innovative marriage of military technology and visual art devised to protect British and American ships from German aggression on the high seas. Dazzle camouflage (often called “razzle dazzle” in the United States) was a system of high-contrast geometric patterning applied to ships as disruptive camouflage. Unlike most camouflage, dazzle was not meant to conceal ships from view through enemy periscopes. Instead, it was intended to create visual confusion that could mask a ship’s direction, speed or size, making it difficult to accurately fire a torpedo.
At a time when artists working in modernist styles were experimenting with sophisticated compositions based on geometric planes of color, many dazzle-camouflaged ships resembled enormous works of modernist art.
“The different roles artists have played during wartime, whether building models of battlefields or designing camouflage, is fascinating and not very well known, said Dr. Courtney Gilbert, Curator of Visual Arts at The Center. “This exhibition offers a glimpse into a moment when artists were really helping shape military technology. And it gives visitors a chance to understand that moment through historical documents as well as contemporary artwork made in response to dazzle.”
The Center’s exhibition features original dazzle diagrams from the collection of the Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design, and a variety of dazzle-camouflage interpretations by contemporary artists including:
On Thursday, September 1, the exhibition will be enhanced by the opening of Safety Zone: Dazzle Works by Angela Tsai at The Center’s Hailey location. The opening celebration will take place that evening from 5–7pm and is open to the public. Tsai’s dazzle-inspired works will be on view Thursdays, 2–5pm, and by appointment through September 29.
The following events are all associated with the Dazzle Camouflage: Hiding in Plain Sight exhibition:
Gallery Exhibition (Ketchum) Aug 5–Oct 14
Opening Celebration (Ketchum) Fri, Aug 5, 5–7pm
Gallery Walks Fri, Aug 5 and Fri, Sep 2, 5–7pm
Evening Exhibition Tours (Ketchum) Thu, Aug 25 and Thu, Sep 15, 5:30pm
Opening Celebration for Safety Zone: Dazzle Works by Angela Tsai (Hailey) Sep 1, 5–7pm
Gallery Exhibition (Hailey) Sep 1–29
Dazzle Camouflage: Hiding in Plain Sight will be on view through October 14, 2016, at The Center in Ketchum. Evening Exhibition Tours are free and open to the public.
A Project of The Sun Valley Center for the Arts
May 20–July 30, 2016: Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, Idaho
May 20–late September, 2016: Craters of the Moon National Monument, Arco, Idaho
CRATERS OF THE MOON is an exhibition in two parts, one at Craters of the Moon National Monument near Arco, Idaho, and one at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum, Idaho. The project celebrates a uniquely Western environment. Located in Idaho about an hour’s drive from Sun Valley, Craters of the Moon National Monument is “a weird and scenic” landscape that evolved over eight volcanic eruptions that occurred 15,000 to 2,000 years ago. (The hot spot underneath Yellowstone National Park is the same one that created Craters’ lava fields.) Craters is a vast sea of black lava flows, tubes, caves and cones, dotted with sagebrush and other vegetation and punctuated by wind-sculpted limber pines. The area first gained attention when Robert Limbert walked the 50-mile length of its Great Rift in 1920 and then began lobbying for National Park designation.
Coinciding with the National Park Service Centennial, the exhibition at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts features work by five artists, each considering Craters of the Moon from different points of view. The Sun Valley Center for the Arts has commissioned two of these artists to create large-scale, site-specific sculptures that will be located at Craters of the Moon National Monument during the summer of 2016 be-fore being relocated to sites in the city of Ketchum in the fall.
OUTDOOR SCULPTURES AT CRATERS OF THE MOON NATIONAL MONUMENT
JOHN GRADE visited Craters with The Center’s curators in January 2015, camping overnight at the park. Struck by its extraordinary geology, he returned in September 2015 to digitally scan the interior of a lava tube that is the basis for a 75-foot long sculpture that he is currently constructing. Large enough for visitors to pass through, the sculpture is constructed of standing deadwood cedar from Alaska. The journey through Grade’s sculpture will mimic the experience of exploring caves within the park. During the summer of 2016, the sculpture will be sited at Craters of the Moon’s East Overlook, a scenic pullout along U.S. Highway 20/26/93 located approximately one mile east of the entrance to the park’s Visitor Center.
In the fall of 2016, after its tenure at Craters of the Moon, the sculpture will be re-installed on a long-term site adjacent to a 20-mile long bike path that links the cities of the Wood River Valley (Sun Valley, Ketchum, Hailey and Bellevue). The path was built along tracks the Union Pacific Railroad once traveled, and the site Grade has chosen still holds a small section of track. The sculpture’s charred black surface and the horizontal spines running the length of the sculpture evoke railroad tracks and allude to the bike path’s history, as does the sculpture’s title, Spur.
Grade has executed numerous large-scale projects at museums in the United States and Europe. Most recently, he received national attention for Middle-fork, commissioned for the inaugural exhibition at the newly reopened Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. To create Middlefork, Grade cast a 100-foot section of an old-growth hemlock tree in Washington State and then worked with hundreds of volunteers to build a new tree out of a half-million segments of reclaimed cedar.
JASON MIDDLEBROOK also spent time at Craters with The Center’s curators last winter. While Grade is focused on the park’s geological history, Middlebrook was struck by its ecology. He is currently at work on a steel sculpture modeled on the dramatic form of one of the many dead limber pines that dot the lava flow. Its skeleton will be tiled with slate, giving it the appearance of lava. It will be installed in the park’s Old Man Picnic Area, which visitors can access from the park’s Loop Road. Middlebrook’s sculpture will then be installed long-term in downtown Ketchum’s Little Park in the fall of 2016. Middlebrook has executed several site-specific public art projects, including Underlife, at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, and Brooklyn Seeds, a mosaic installation commissioned by the MTA for a subway stop along New York’s Q line.
EXHIBITION AT THE SUN VALLEY CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Photographer BINH DANH is well known for his experimental work with photographic techniques. Growing up in a family that fled Vietnam for the United States when he was 2, Danh never felt a particular connection to America’s natural landscape; camping in the wilderness didn’t appeal to his parents, who had lived in camps before leaving Vietnam. Danh, though, had always wanted to see Yosemite, which he knew only through famous photographs. Several years ago he finally visited the park, documenting it in a series of daguerreotypes. The experience made him feel a sense of ownership of the park itself; he quotes Carl Pope in the PBS series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea: “My sense is that our special connection with the National Parks comes from the fact that we’re a nation of immigrants. We’re a nation of people for whom this is not home, and the National Parks are what anchor and root us on this continent. They are the meaning of home for many of us.”
The Center invited Danh to continue his consideration of national parks, immigration and citizenship with a project at Craters of the Moon. Danh has visited the park twice to make work for the exhibition: daguerreotype landscapes as well as images of different types of volcanic specimens, and portraits of rangers at the park as custodians of the landscape on behalf of all American citizens.
Painter CINDY TOWER has twice spent extended periods of time making work at Craters, once as its Artist in Residence. She was drawn to the park in response to the 2011 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which was about the same size as the lava flow at Craters, covering 750,000 acres. Mixing tar with oil paint, she produced a series of dense, heavy paintings that are meditations on our human relationship to the landscape (as something to be enjoyed or exploited), and on the physicality of Craters itself, which has a textural and tactile quality like few other places.
CHARLES LINDSAY has visited Craters of the Moon regularly over the past two decades to record sounds, take video and photograph. The exhibition features two new sculptural devices and a composite photograph from his se-ries Mining the Moon. A multi-disciplinary artist interested in technology and eco-systems, he has made art at NASA Ames and here references NASA’s use of Craters of the Moon as a location for space science research and training since 1969.
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is located at 191 Fifth Street East in Ketchum, Idaho, and is open to the public from 9am–5pm, Monday through Friday, and from 11am–5pm on Saturdays in July. Admission is always free.
SPONSORS
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts has received support for Craters of the Moon from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the City of Ketchum and numerous private donors. The Center has also been recommended for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts under the “Imagine Your Parks” initiative, a grant established in recognition of the NPS Centennial. In addition to financial support, numerous partners have helped make this project possible, including the National Park Service (and their staff at Craters of the Moon National Monument), the City of Ketchum, Idaho Foundation for Parks and Lands, the Blaine County Recreation District and other public and private partners.
OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION
SHEEP HERDING has been an important part of Idaho’s economy for more than a century. Every spring, sheep leave their winter pastures along the Snake River Plain and head north into the mountains of the Wood River and Sawtooth Valleys for summer grazing. Craters of the Moon is itself a site for sheep grazing, which takes place in parts of the monument managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Located very near Craters of the Moon is Lava Lake Lamb, a family-owned ranch producing 100% grass-fed, wild range lamb. Lava Lake is a generous partner in the project and will be hosting a party honoring the project’s patrons at their ranch in late June.
As sheep move north and south through the Wood River Valley, they travel along a stock driveway adjacent to the valley’s bike path. Once John Grade’s Spur is sited in Ketchum, thousands of sheep will pass by (and even through) the sculpture each spring and fall.
SOUTHERN IDAHO IS HOME TO OTHER UNIQUE SITES that are part of the National Park Service system.
These include:
Minidoka National Historic Site
Minidoka NHS preserves one of the relocation Centers where Japanese people were imprisoned
during World War II.
Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument
Hagerman Fossil Beds contain the remains of plants and animals from the late Pliocene epoch. Located along the Snake River 30 miles from Twin Falls, the Fossil Beds are little known and not often visited.
City of Rocks National Reserve
City of Rocks is located in remote, far southern Idaho in the Albion Mountains. The park takes its name from its dramatic granite formations: towers, spires, cliffs and arches created through millions of years of erosion.
Craters of the Moon has a long-standing TRADITION OF SPACE SCIENCE:
Collaboration with NASA began in 1969 when Apollo astronauts trained at Craters to gain in-depth knowledge of volcanic features and processes. Thirty years after training here, in 1999, astronauts Eugene Cernan, Joe Engle, and Edgar Mitchell returned to Craters of the Moon to participate in the park’s 75th year anniversary celebrations. Staff at Craters of the Moon captured the astronauts’ experiences and testimonials in a video for school groups entitled “Return to the Moon.” This short film is still used for educational outreach and for the park’s Junior Ranger program (aka “Lunar Rangers”). Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is also an active affiliate of the Idaho Space Grant Consortium, perhaps the only national park unit that is a space grant affiliate. Beginning in 2014, two research projects, FINESSE and BASALT, continued that tradition with new scientific missions here at the park.
• FINESSE (Field Investigations to Enable Solar System Science and Exploration)
• BASALT (Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava)
Both teams of researchers are examining the lava landscape of Craters of the Moon as analogs for features found on Mars and other cosmic features.
Sun Valley Center for the Arts is pleased to announce their 2016 Summer Concert Series and Company of Fools’ 21st Season of award-winning theatre.
Artistic Director Kristin Poole commented, “As always, we are tremendously excited for the summer and the year ahead. This season is a compelling mix of programs that promise to stimulate both our hearts and our heads.”
2016 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES
“This summer you can take advantage of 4 concerts on 2 nights! We’ve got two evenings of double bills, featuring out-of-this-world musicians. Mavis Staples is simply a not-to-be missed classic and James Hunter will wow you with his retro soul steeped in his English roots. Lake Street Dive and Gregory Alan Isakov will be sharing one stage on one night—though later in the summer they are each individually headlining at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado! You won’t want to miss a minute of either of these shows,” said Kristine Bretall, Director of Performing Arts at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.
Mavis Staples & The James Hunter Six
July 29, 2016, 7pm
River Run Lodge, Ketchum
Mavis Staples is living, breathing history. She is an alchemist of American music, having continuously crossed genre lines like no musician since Ray Charles. Weaving herself into the very fabric of gospel, soul, folk, pop, R&B, blues, rock, and hip hop over the last 60 years, this iconic singer has seen and sung through so many changes, always rising up to meet every road. Englishman James Hunter has a reputation as a soul powerhouse, heralded for his talents both as a live performer and, perhaps even more so, as a songwriter. The New Yorker described his “tight, taut compositions” as “rooted in American soul music without being bound to it.” Famed Daptone Records released his fourth album, Hold On!, featuring the 5 piece band that he’ll be bringing to River Run Lodge.
Lake Street Dive & Gregory Alan Isakov
August 17, 2016, 7pm
River Run Lodge, Ketchum
Founded by 4 students at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 2004, the members of Lake Street Dive have evolved, moved to Brooklyn and now tour nationally and internationally in support of their 4 studio albums and wildly popular YouTube videos. With trumpet, guitar, upright bass, drums and a killer lead vocalist—Rachael Price—the group wants “it to sound like the Beatles and Motown had a party together” and critics say it’s like “Motown meets the Brill Building in jazzy, soulful, woulda-been Sixties chart toppers.”
Gregory Alan Isakov is a singer-songwriter who began touring with a band at the age of 16. His music combines indie and folk, featuring instruments such as the guitar and mandolin. Some of his most popular songs include “The Stable Song,” “Big Black Car,” and “Raising Cain.”
2016 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES MEMBER PRICING
TICKET TYPE SINGLE CONCERT TWO CONCERT SERIES
(Purchase both concerts together 10% discount—only available for Center members)
Regular Entry $40* $72*
Early Entry $70* $126*
VIP seating $125* $225*
Prices shown are for members – nonmember prices are $10 more per ticket. (*Prices do not reflect taxes or fees.) As always, series tickets go on sale to members first! Members save extra by buying the series and guarantee that they’ll be at the shows they want to see!
VIP seating is new this year! VIP ticket holders will have a reserved section in front of the sound board with chairs provided. VIP ticket holders may enter the venue any time starting at 6pm and will have access to the special seating area all evening. The seats will be held for entirety of the concerts so that VIPs can arrive at any time and be guaranteed their space!
ON-SALE DATES:
For 2016 Summer Concert Series
SERIES TICKETS on sale to members only: Friday, April 8, 10am
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS on sale to members only: Friday, April 22, 10am
ALL TICKETS on sale to the general public: Monday, May 2, 10am
COMPANY OF FOOLS 21st SEASON
Company of Fools proudly announces its 21st season featuring five main stage productions, two play readings and a newly commissioned performance piece on contemplation that will be a part of one of The Center’s BIG IDEA projects. The five main stage productions in the Company’s 2016-2017 lineup include Grey Gardens, Art, Grounded, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine and Constellations.
“Our 21st season truly reminds us that everything has a story in it and each story is constantly sliding from the past to the present to the future,” says Core Company Artist Denise Simone. “This season we will transport our audiences from the Grey Gardens mansion to a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to parallel universes. Simply put, it is a season you have to see.”
Grey Gardens
June 28–July 20, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
Book by Doug Wright
Music by Scott Frankel
Lyrics by Michael Korie
Direction by John Glenn
Musical Direction by R.L. Rowsey
Grey Gardens is based on the 1975 Albert and David Maysles film about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s eccentric aunt and cousin. The touching and sometimes heart-wrenching musical adaptation explores the dysfunctional relationship between former socialite, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie, as they languish in a derelict East Hampton manor, Grey Gardens. Propelled by a fascinating story, a gorgeous score and intricate lyrics, this musical has garnered much critical praise.
“An experience no passionate theatergoer should miss.” Ben Brantley, The New York Times
Art
August 9–13, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By Yasmina Reza
Direction by Denise Simone
How much would you pay for a white painting? Would it matter who the painter was? Would it be art? One of Marc’s best friends, Serge, has just bought a very expensive painting. It measures about five feet by four, all white with white diagonal lines. To Marc, the painting is a joke, but Serge insists Marc doesn’t have the proper knowledge to judge the work. Another friend, Ivan, though burdened by his own problems, allows himself to be pulled into this disagreement. Lines are drawn and old friends square off over the canvas, using it as an excuse to relentlessly batter one another over various failures. As their arguments become less theoretical and more personal, they border on destroying their friendships. At the breaking point, Serge hands Marc a felt tip pen and dares him: “Go on.” This is when the friendship is finally tested. The aftermath of action, and its reaction, affirms the power of those bonds.
“…wildly funny, naughtily provocative…” —NY Post
Grounded
September 28–October 15, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By George Brant
Direction by John Glenn
From the award-winning playwright of Elephant’s Graveyard, George Brant, comes the story of an ace fighter pilot whose career in the sky ends early due to an unexpected pregnancy. Reassigned to operate military drones from a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas, she hunts terrorists by day and returns to her family each night. As the pressure to track a high-profile target mounts, the boundaries begin to blur between the desert in which she lives and the one she patrols half a world away.
“Critic’s Pick. A scorching sharp-eyed, timely script…lets no one off easy…clap all you want at the end of the play—and you’ll want to clap a lot—but the game stays with you.” —Time Out New York
A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine
December 14–30, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By Dick Vosburgh & Frank Lazarus
Direction by John Glenn
Musical direction by R.L. Rowsey
Two one-act plays provide a double feature more hilarious than any presented in Hollywood’s heyday: the first, a salute to the Golden Age of film musicals; the second, a rambunctious Marx Bros. farce. Winner of two Tony Awards and a hit Broadway production.
“A night of magic.” —The New York Post
Constellations
February 15–March 4, 2017
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By Nick Payne
Direction by Denise Simone
One relationship. Infinite possibilities. In the beginning, Marianne and Roland meet at a party. They go for a drink, or perhaps they don’t. They fall madly in love and start dating, but eventually they break up. After a chance encounter in a supermarket they get back together, or maybe they run into each other and Marianne reveals that she’s now engaged to someone else and that’s that. Or perhaps Roland is engaged. Maybe they get married, or maybe their time together will be tragically short. Nick Payne’s Constellations is a play about free will and friendship; it’s also about quantum multiverse theory, love and honey.
“A singular astonishment.” —John Lahr, The New Yorker
“SEXY. SOPHISTICATED. GORGEOUS.” —The New York Times
COMPANY OF FOOLS 21st SEASON MAIN STAGE PRICING
$30 Center members & seniors (62 and over)
$35 nonmembers
$15 students (18 and younger)
Groups of 8 or more $30
COMPANY OF FOOLS 2016-2017 PLAY READINGS/SPECIAL PROJECTS
White Rabbit/Red Rabbit (reading)
October 27–29, 2016
By Nassim Soleimanpour
Liberty Theatre, Hailey / The Center, Ketchum
$30 Center members & seniors (62 and over), $35 nonmembers, $15 students (18 and younger)
Groups of 8 or more $30 per person. General Admission.
Imagine being 29 and unable to leave your country. Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour dissects the experience of a whole generation in a wild, utterly original play. He turns his isolation to his advantage with a play that requires no director, no set, and a different actor for each performance. The New York off-Broadway run just opened featuring Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Cumming, Brian Dennehy and many other well-known actors.
Bright New Boise (reading)
November 15, 2016
By Samuel D. Hunter
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
FREE ($10 suggested donation)
In the bleak corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby not only for employment but also to rekindle a relationship with Alex, his brooding teenage son, whom he gave up for adoption several years ago. Alex works there along with Leroy, his adopted brother and protector, and Anna, a hapless young woman who reads bland fiction but hopes for dramatic endings. As their manager, foul-mouthed Pauline, tries ceaselessly to find order (and profit) in the chaos of small business, these lost souls of the Hobby Lobby confront an unyielding world through the beige-tinted impossibility of modern faith.
Commissioned Performance Piece on contemplation
April/May 2017
Company of Fools will commission a new performance piece exploring creativity and contemplation to be performed throughout The Center’s BIG IDEA project on Contemplation.
ON-SALE DATES:
For Company of Fools 21st Season
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS on sale to members only: Friday, April 8, 10am
ALL TICKETS on sale to the general public: Monday, May 2, 10am
As always, tickets go on sale to members first!
For more information about the 2016 Summer Concert Series, Company of Fools 21st Season, membership information or to purchase tickets, please visit sunvalleycenter.org or call 208.726.9491.
Company of Fools is holding auditions on Thursday, April 14 and Friday April 15 from 4pm -6pm for their June/July production of the musical Grey Gardens. Those auditioning must be available to rehearse and perform from June 6, 2016 – July 20, 2016. Auditions are by appointment only. The logistics are as follows:
DATE OF AUDITION:
Thursday, April 14
Friday, April 15
AUDITION LOCATION:
The Liberty Theatre
AUDITION TIMES:
4:00-6:00pm
By appointment only
CONTRACT:
Rehearsals begin June 6, 2016
Show runs June 28 – July 20, 2016
This is a paid role
SEEKING THE FOLLOWING ROLES:
Jacqueline “Jackie” Bouvier – must appear 12 years old to portray the young lovely, poised, and well-mannered, Jackie Bouvier (who later, in real life, becomes Jackie Kennedy). Singing and dancing for this role is required.
Lee Bouvier – must appear 8 years old to portray the young tomboyish, energetic, and joyful Lee Bouvier. Singing and dancing for this role is required.
AUDITION PREPARATION:
One headshot or photo & resume
Those auditioning will be asked to read from a monologue that will be provided (when making the audition appointment monologue will be emailed in advance of the audition as well as the full script of Grey Gardens)
Please prepare a short song – Piano accompaniment will be provided (please provide sheet music) – should be a simple musical theatre song of your choosing.
APPOINTMENTS:
Contact Core Company Artist Denise Simone at: dsimone@sunvalleycenter.org to schedule an audition or call Denise at 208.788.6520.
On Friday, April 1, 2016, The Sun Valley Center for the Arts (The Center) and Company of Fools (COF) invites the community to its annual Fools Day Celebration at the Liberty Theatre in Hailey. This free community event will feature announcements of the dynamic summer season programming at The Center and of COF’s 21st Season. It also is an opportunity for The Center to acknowledge and celebrate their members and sponsors.
The Fools Day Celebration will take place from 5:30pm to 7:00pm at the Liberty Theatre in Hailey. The public is invited to this free celebration (one need not be a member to attend!) that will feature homemade desserts, an opportunity to win COF 21st season tickets, music, wine, great company and festivities. At 6:15pm, The Center and COF will announce highlights of their upcoming seasons in true Fools Day style.
“Fools Day began in 2005 as a way to thank our community and to share our upcoming work.” Core Company Artist Denise Simone explained, “It’s also a fun way to raise awareness of and celebrate our membership program—to emphasize how important membership is to the vitality of the organization and it’s year-round programing. In addition, membership allows for the first crack at some of the Valley’s most dynamic arts programming and you save money right away!”
Thanks to our members’ commitment and generosity, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts continues to present world-class artists, actors, writers and thinkers of our time and bring arts education to children in the Blaine County schools. Becoming a member makes the strong statement that the arts are essential in our lives and community.
“From BIG IDEA projects that explore the promise of technological advances to a project on meditation and wellness that will involve a broad range of community partners, this year’s Center programs will educate, elucidate and entertain.” said Sun Valley Center for the Arts Artistic Director Kristin Poole. “Company of Fools’ diverse season will take us from laughter to tears and from the living room of a fading dowager to the desk of a drone pilot. Concerts, lectures, classes and film will bring us together to celebrate the talent and minds of accomplished artists who offer a new perspective on our world. As always, we are excited to share it with this enthusiastic and engaged community.”
Last year’s Fools Day celebration drew a packed house to the Liberty. The Center and COF anticipates the same enthusiasm—if not more—for the upcoming season announcements. No one will want to miss out on this year’s festivities!
No tickets or registration are necessary for this free community event. For more information call 208.726.9491.
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is proud to announce that it has been recommended for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) under the “Imagine Your Parks” initiative. In the initial steps of the awards process, which will be finalized in early 2016, the NEA has named The Center as a planned recipient of $15,000 in support of their project, Craters of the Moon, which celebrates Craters of the Moon National Monument and the National Park Service (NPS) Centennial.
“This project [Craters of the Moon] is an exciting and ambitious undertaking for The Center,” said Kristin Poole, Artistic Director. “We are thrilled to receive this grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which strengthens the partners and private donors who have come together to realize the project.”
The Craters of the Moon exhibition, which opens May 20, 2016, at Craters of the Moon and The Center in Ketchum, will feature contemporary works by photographer Binh Danh, painter Cindy Tower, multi-media artist Charles Lindsay and sculptors John Grade and Jason Middlebrook. Grade and Middlebrook will create large-scale, site-specific sculptures that will be installed at Craters of the Moon, with related materials presented in the exhibition at The Center.
Grade’s sculpture, fabricated from reclaimed cedar, will take its form and inspiration from a volcanic feature at the park. Its scale will allow visitors to move through it, much like entering a lava tube. Middlebrook will use slate to recreate the dramatic sculptural form of one of the park’s limber pine trees.
“In addition to the celebrated artists, the National Park Service, The City of Ketchum, the Blaine County Recreational District and the Andy Warhol Foundation are working together to offer the public an innovative way to experience the amazing landscape that is Craters,” Poole explained. To that end, community outreach will include a study guide, exhibition tours, artist talks, videos, field trips to the park and a day of activities in the gallery geared towards families.
“We couldn’t be more pleased!” said Poole of the scope of the Craters of the Moon project, which the NEA grant in addition to support from partners and private donors makes possible.
“Imagine Your Parks” is a joint effort between the NPS and NEA that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the NEA in 2015 and the centennial anniversary of the NPS in 2016. Under the Imagine Your Parks initiative, the two agencies are uniting in their missions to promote and protect the nation’s cultural and natural treasures. Grants are awarded to art projects that celebrate NPS lands and encourage public engagement with the nation’s parks.
Binh Danh, Untitled from Craters of the Moon, 2013, daguerreotype, courtesy the artist and Haines Gallery, San Francisco
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is pleased to announce that it has promoted Christine Davis-Jeffers to the position of Chief Operating Officer.
Ms. Davis-Jeffers has served for the past three years as the Center’s Special Events Fundraising Manager and Wine Auction Director.
“Christine has been an integral part of our staff and has provided key leadership in fundraising and managing our major annual events,” said Tim Wolff, President of the Board of Directors. “We are very pleased that she will now assume the role of Chief Operating Officer.”
As part of her new duties, Ms. Davis-Jeffers will work to identify candidates to replace her as Wine Auction Director and hire a Development Director for the Center.
“I am excited to take on these new responsibilities,” Ms. Davis-Jeffers said. “2016 will be a pivotal year for the Center as we build operational strength within the organization while we continue to offer exciting programming for our community and schools.”
The Center’s Board will be undertaking a search for a new Executive Director in the next six months. In the interim, Ms. Davis-Jeffers will lead the organization through the final stages of a strategic plan in conjunction with Artistic Director, Kristin Poole, the Board and Staff.