BlackRock Offers Diverse Line-up of Acclaimed Talent for 2016-2017 Season
BlackRock Center for the Arts is offering a diverse and acclaimed lineup of acts for the 2016-2017 season featuring top regional, national and international artists from the worlds of pop, jazz, folks/roots, blues, bluegrass and classical/contemporary chamber music, as well as theater, dance, comedy, and contemporary circus.
The 2016-17 Performance Season will open with a performance by the award-winning Nathan Williams and Zydeco Cha-Chas from Louisiana on Friday, September 23, at 8:00 pm to kick off its season and celebrate the fast and furious accordion-driven dance music known as of zydeco.
Tickets for BlackRock’s 2016-17 Performance Season are currently on sale and members enjoy benefits such as discounts on single tickets. BlackRock Membership starts at $65.
Inspired by Upper Montgomery County’s ever growing and diverse population, BlackRock’s Executive Director Krista Bradley has sought out acclaimed international music and dance artists that reflect many of the cultures in the region. A sampling of such offerings include Colombian jazz harpist Edmar Castaneda (who will perform at 8:00 pm on Saturday, November 5), Korean hipster indie music group, Coreyah, on Sunday, November 13, in their North American debut tour, Brazilian and hip-hop dance troupe Companhia Urbana de Dança (who will perform at 2:00 pm and 7:30 pm on Saturday, March 18, 2017), and India’s Raghu Dixit who will take BlackRock’s MainStage on Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 8:00 pm.
Other season highlights include the debut of country music star Kathy Mattea, folks/blues icon Tom Rush, electric R & B /Soul group The Suffers, and pop singer Joan Osborne on BlackRock’s Mainstage. Audience favorites such as bluesman Eric Bibb, The Seldom Scene, and Celtic super-group Lúnasa will return for encore performances.
For family shows, Vital Theatre Company (the creators of the sell-out shows Fancy Nancy and Fancy Nancy’s Splendiferous Christmas) will bring their musical Pinkalicious to BlackRock MainStage for two performances on Sunday, September 25, 2016 and BlackRock is pleased to bring back Hatched, an engaging theater production for the very young (children ages 0 -4), for two performances on Sunday, April 23, 2017.
BlackRock’s commitment to presenting contemporary circus continues in the 2016-17 season, with the return of “Audience Favorite” A Simple Space, created and performed by the electrifying Australian acrobatic ensemble Gravity & Other Myths’. In A Simple Space seven acrobats push their physical limits without reserve in a performance that’s simultaneously raw, frantic and delicate. The performance is supported by live percussion. A Simple Space will be performing at BlackRock on Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29 at 8:00 pm.
Additional contemporary circus performances in the 2016-17 season include Bromance, the debut show from Britain’s hottest young acrobats, Barely Methodical Troupe, on Saturday, March 4 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, March 5 at 3:00 pm and Water on Mars, a freshly-conceived juggling performance that highlights the form’s natural drama, humor, and airborne geometry. Water on Mars will be performing on Saturday, April 1 and Sunday, April 2, 2017 at 3:00 pm. BlackRock will also offer workshops in various circus arts with these visiting ensembles. For more information visit www.blackrockcenter.org.
BlackRock Center for the Arts is thrilled to continue its On Screen/In Person documentary film series for the fourth consecutive year. A program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, On Screen/In Person is designed to bring some of the best new independent American films and their respective filmmakers to communities across the mid-Atlantic region.
The 2016-17 selected films include: SWEET DREAMS with co-directors Lisa Fruchtman and Rob Fruchtman; YOU BELONG TO ME, Sex, Race and Murder in the South with producer Jude Hagi