CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

A SOZO Production

An evening length concert experience with dance, poetry and music, CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS is an intentional response to the January 6 insurrection written and conceived by Marc Bamuthi Joseph. It navigates the reality of the political jungle by embodying shifting societal values and our relationship to democracy. Choreographed and directed by Francesca Harper and anchored in the words of Joseph and the transcendent movement of Wendy Whelan, CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS re-frames Camille Saint-Saëns’ classic work 100 years after its original publication. Composer Sugar Vendil is reworking Saint-Saëns’ zoological fantasy to create a composition that is both familiar and undeniably fresh, twisting, and quoting. The contemporary score depicts a visceral landscape of animalistic inspirations via the classical instrumentation consisting of two pianos, violin, cello and tape to represent a holistic experience of stark political unsteadiness. With Whelan and Joseph as soloists with the ensemble, the final work will feature 6 performers total on stage.

Developed and produced by SOZO, an arts agency and incubator with a two-decade history that intersects social impact, innovation and the arts, this contemporary expression features a primarily BIPOC and women core creative team:

Written and performed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, spoken word
Performed by Wendy Whelan, dance
Choreographed and directed by Francesca Harper
Chisa Yamaguchi, Associate Director
Sugar Vendil, Composer
John E. D. Bass, Lighting Designer
Elias Gurrola, Costume Designer
Michael John Garcés, Dramaturgical Consultant
Tim Stickney, Choreographic Assistant
Inon Barnatan, Music Consultant
Chisa Yamaguchi, Ichun Yeh, Producers
Rika Iino, Executive Producer
Developed and produced by SOZO

Commissioned by Meany Center for the Performing Arts, and co-commissioned by the La Jolla Music Society, Lincoln Center, Chicago Harris Theater, Stanford University, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Wharton Center for Performing Arts, with funding from the Harkness Foundation for Dance and The MAP Fund supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and Mellon Foundation. The poetry by Marc Bamuthi Joseph for Carnival of the Animals, in part, was originally commissioned by the National Gallery of Art.

ABOUT WENDY WHELAN

Wendy Whelan is widely considered one of the world’s leading dancers. She spent 30 years at New York City Ballet, performing virtually all the major Balanchine roles, working closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his ballets, and appearing internationally as a guest artist with The Royal Ballet and the Kirov Ballet among others.

Whelan has been nominated for an Olivier Award and a Critics Circle Award, and has received the Jerome Robbins Award, a Bessie for Sustained Achievement in Performance, the Dance Magazine Award, and a Doctorate of Arts, honoris causa, from Bellarmine University. She has performed on four continents and has worked with countless other dance legends including Christopher Wheeldon, William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Jorma Elo, Shen Wei, and Wayne MacGregor. 

Whelan has been teaching young female dancers and developing her own projects, including Hagoromo; Some Of a Thousand Words; and The Day. For the latter, Whelan has joined forces with cellist Maya Beiser and the seminal modern dance choreographer Lucinda Childs to create an evening-length work featuring music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang.  A documentary, Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan, recently won the Chita Rivera Award for Best Dance Documentary, and speaks to her commitment to nullifying the stigma of aging and to focus instead on empowering women. The film is available on Netflix.

Learn more about Wendy Whelan

ABOUT MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH 

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is also the winner of the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In the Spring of 2022, he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. An internationally renowned cultural strategist, Bamuthi is the co-creator of the paradigm-shifting allyship training HEALING FORWARD™. He has lectured in 25 different countries and his TED talk “You Have The Rite” has been viewed more than five million times.

Bamuthi has most recently completed commissions for Yale University, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, The Minnesota Orchestra, The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and the Washington National Opera. His new opera "Watch Night" with music by Tamar-kali and direction by Bill T. Jones premiered at PAC NYC in 2023, and his collaboration with NYC Ballet Associate Artistic Director Wendy Whelan "Carnival of the Animals" will premiere and tour in 2024 and 2025.

An emergent onscreen talent, he is among the featured performers in HBO’s screen adaptation of “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehesi Coates. He currently serves as the Vice President of Social Impact and Artistic Director of Cultural Strategy at The Kennedy Center. A proud alumnus of Morehouse College, Bamuthi received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the California College of Arts in the Spring of 2022 and was the recipient of a second Honorary Doctorate from Middlebury College in the Spring of 2023.

Learn more about Marc Bamuthi Joseph

ABOUT FRANCESCA HARPER

Francesca Harper has choreographed works for both of the Ailey professional companies, Dance Theater of Harlem, Hubbard Street II, and La Bale Da Cidade, among others. She has also choreographed works commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and her own company, The Francesca Harper Project. Ms. Harper has been a principal dancer with Frankfurt Ballet and a featured performer in Broadway shows. Sought after for her expertise and experience as a consultant for major film and stage productions, Ms. Harper is currently engaged as Executive Producer with Sony Pictures on a series in development. Francesca is the newly appointed artistic director of Ailey II.