![Cal Performances at Home: Beyond the Stage. Artist talks; interviews; lectures; Q&A sessions with artists, Cal Performances staff, and UC Berkeley faculty; and more! Cal Performances at Home: Beyond the Stage. Artist talks; interviews; lectures; Q&A sessions with artists, Cal Performances staff, and UC Berkeley faculty; and more!](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/beyond-the-screen_web-header_1920x900.jpg)
Cal Performances at Home is much more than a series of great streamed performances. Fascinating behind-the-scenes artist interviews. Informative and entertaining public forums. The Cal Performances Reading Room, featuring books with interesting connections to our Fall 2020 programs. For all this and much more, keep checking this page for frequent updates and to journey far, far Beyond the Stage!
Major support for Beyond the Stage is provided by Bank of America.
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Beyond the Stage
Conversation with Artist in Residence Mitsuko Uchida
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Conversation with Artist in Residence Mitsuko Uchida
Uchida residency: performances, conversation events, and unlimited opportunities for growth and inspiration.
Uchida, renowned internationally as a peerless interpreter of composers including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, will serve as Cal Performances’ Artist in Residence in March 2024. As part of her residency, Uchida will give two performances: with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra for two Mozart piano concertos as she directs from the piano; and with longtime collaborator, tenor Mark Padmore, in Schubert’s final song cycle, Winterreise. The residency will also include public discussions with UC Berkeley students and Cal Performances audience members. Jeremy Geffen sums up the organization’s excitement: “Uchida has been on a lifelong search for truth and beauty—one that has enriched audiences around the world. This cherished artist’s extensive experience and abundant artistic vision will undoubtedly catalyze moments of profound learning, understanding, and enjoyment on our campus and throughout our community.” In this video, the two discuss Uchida’s history with classical music, with Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and with Mark Padmore, as well as what she hopes to teach and to learn from Berkeley audiences, particularly young people.
Transcript
Jeremy Geffen:
It is with great pleasure that I introduce now our Artist in Residence next season, Mitsuko Uchida. Mitsuko, what a pleasure it is to have you with us now, and especially in March of 2024.
Mitsuko Uchida:
I look forward very much. And now I started thinking what else I could do for you.
Jeremy Geffen:
What an extraordinary honor it is to have you. Those who were in the audience for your recital back in 2014, as well as your performance with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Zellerbach Hall in March of ’21, will be extraordinarily excited, as will those who haven’t yet made it to either. But to be able to see two sides of you, especially in what have become very important artistic collaborations to you, is very meaningful, and extremely meaningful that you have chosen Berkeley as the place at which to display those. So, I wanted to ask you, first of all, about your partnership with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Mitsuko Uchida:
Well, it started one day slowly. But it sounds funny to say, “One day slowly.” I thought, I wanted to do some Mozart concerti with a chamber orchestra and I have heard good things about Mahler. And I heard some performance of, actually very good one. I thought, “Okay, I try to ask them.” And in my life, it has been very often that I ask somebody, and not that somebody asked me to do. So, this was one of them. And they said yes.
And we started quietly in Spain somewhere…we rehearsed for days on end which was very nice. And I realized their commitment and love of music, but also commitment of wanting to play together, with somebody who was—well, I just floated in—but who was a newcomer, was quite amazing. And I still think so, when I sit with them, I get together with them—and of course by now we are a family, I feel I came home. At the beginning it is a little bit edgy, and this is sticking out, and that edge is sticking out. But in no time, we are back to somewhere where we were and then we develop from there. Each time, every concert, we’d repeat concerts, but we play, and that, there is—All I can say is that it’s the commitment plus their love for the music. For example, yes, and I really feel that when we get together, and even if there are new people or not, but we say hello to each other, every single one—the one who hasn’t been there for four years, five years, of course, I remember how these people played, you see. So it is an event that, for everybody, it is so important to play this concert. This is the starting point, and that is the best starting point for any group.
Jeremy Geffen:
I’m always interested that you often come back to repertoire that means a great deal to you. And the fact that the Mozart concerti have been part of your, not just your repertoire, but your vocabulary for decades now.
Mitsuko Uchida:
Oh yes. And so long that I don’t even want to talk about it. But I mean, seriously, as real repertoire of my life as such, look, 40 years. But beforehand, I collected them one by one for quite a long time. So, it took me a long time for every music, but the one that stayed and stayed and stayed are Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven. And Bach, always hiding in the background, because I feel still so inferior towards Bach.
Jeremy Geffen:
Let’s talk for a moment about your other concert, which represents a different partnership. Also, I don’t wanna say a new partnership, because you and Mark Padmore have been working together for a while, but—
Mitsuko Uchida:
Quite a while, but it is newish compared to some people that were in the past that I worked with. But still, it’s sort of five, six years, something like that. But it was like, as I described, I walked after him and said, “Can I not work with you?” And he said, ah, but he didn’t say, “Why not?” That was somebody else. Well, he said, “oh,” but he was French, let’s put it that way. And it started like that. And then we probably ran through the Lacrimosa and then the Winterreise, and then something… So without much prospect of concerts, and we didn’t talk about concerts, we just work. And I adored him anyway from the start, for a long time before I approached him. And why I approached him is probably when I heard Heine Lieder of Schumann. Because I felt I never really understood them, and how he sounded, I felt as if I got it finally. So, the next concert he was playing in London—he was singing in London in the Wimbledon Hall—I just went and…they let me in at the end. So then I cornered him. And so it started.
Jeremy Geffen:
Well it definitely seems like that sort of partnership. You mentioned something a moment ago that has been a theme, something that I see when I come to visit you in Vermont every summer, but the role that young people, that young performers, that young thinkers play in your life. And here we are on the campus of UC Berkeley, one of the great public universities of the world, and I wondered if you could speak to what they give you.
Mitsuko Uchida:
Well they, the young people, give me a lot of things, but among them there are lots of misunderstandings—the same misunderstandings, or similar misunderstandings, as I was having. But when you are making music, somebody plays in a wrong way very beautifully. I love it and I want to try to make it into something that it is true. And for that, I sort of mix and give and push, and then they push back, I hope. But what makes it also so refreshing is that, well, carelessness in life. They haven’t done all of these awful things—they think, but they haven’t. Freshness of ideas that you have never thought of, or that you have forgotten to think, that confronts you all the time. And also having to live with the community, with the ideas of other people, and the young ones who have to still develop. But the point is, I am constantly developing. If you stop developing, that is the end, is what I think. So therefore, it is fantastic communication that you have, and that I really, really love. And I learned, probably in Marlboro, that by giving something, the giving actually gives me more than if I took from somebody. And that is such an enriching sort of situation. You have given, and it is not for, just that; you have given, and then something happens to you as well. So that’s all I can explain as relationships with people.
Jeremy Geffen:
Then something that you, a comment you actually just made a few minutes ago about what we as the audience perceive as empty space. Before a performance begins, there is silence from our perspective, but what does that, what’s going on with you?
Mitsuko Uchida:
I am catching that moment of silence, that I can step into. You don’t just step, boom, and play. I try to catch that, gather that silence. Sometimes it’s here, sometimes it’s somewhere else. Some music you have to just throw it out, but a lot of the time I’m waiting for that silent.
Jeremy Geffen:
Well, thank you for making the time for this interview. And most importantly, thank you for making the time to come spend so much time with us next March.
Mitsuko Uchida:
But I have to thank you for giving me that time, and for the invitation.
Explore More 2023–24 Season Features
Spotlight on 2023–24 Season Premieres
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Spotlight on 2023–24 Season Premieres
Update Feb 14, 2024: This story has been updated since its published date to reflect changes to the performance schedule.
New works set to inspire on the Bay Area, West Coast, and world stage.
Some of the greatest opportunities for personal transformation—as well as excitement and pure joy—lie in our exposure to new works. Who among us can’t recall a time (or a dozen) when our first encounter with a dance, song, or theatrical work left us feeling like we were leaving the auditorium a different version of ourselves than when we had entered only hours before? A favorite venue for many of the world’s leading artists—thanks to our audience’s reputation for being exceptionally welcoming, adventurous, and thoughtful—Cal Performances has continuously been able to secure key premieres for the Bay Area, California, West Coast, US, and world stage. This coming year of programming is no exception, featuring a host of highly anticipated premieres that include new works by nearly every visiting dance company and five world premieres in multiple genres. In this article, we provide a deeper dive into a few of the key works, and their performers/creators, set to inspire Bay Area audiences in 2023–24.
West Coast premiere of Nathalie Joachim’s Ki moun ou ye (Who are you?)
On March 7, Grammy-nominated composer, flutist, and vocalist Nathalie Joachim visits Cal Performances with the West Coast premiere of a new song cycle, Ki moun ou ye (Who are you?).
Created in 2022, Ki moun ou ye is an evening-length (approximately 65 minutes) work written for a chamber ensemble with vocal/flute soloist. The piece grapples with the overlapping ideas of individual, family, and cultural identity, and uses voice as a means of healing and personal discovery.
Ki moun ou ye draws heavily on Joachim’s experience and heritage as a Brooklyn-born, Haitian-American woman—a theme previously taken up in her first solo album, Fanm d’Ayiti (Women of Haiti), which was performed as part of the Cal Performances at Home streaming programming during the 2020–21 season. Fanm d’Ayiti was largely inspired by the passing of Joachim’s grandmother, which led the artist to excavate and elevate the voices that have shaped her and her ancestral homeland. Of her grandmother, Joachim said, “Her voice meant so much to me…. Our way of communicating with each other was through music, and I didn’t know it at the time, but so much of Haiti’s cultural practice of music has been an oral tradition. And so, for many years, I really thought, here I was, just singing songs with my grandmother—only later to come around to…understanding that she was really bringing me into a hundreds-of-years-old cultural practice that I now feel deeply connected to.”
![nathalie-joachim-2-700×525-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/nathalie-joachim-2-700x525-1.jpg)
In creating Fanm d’Ayiti, which celebrates underrecognized Haitian female voices, Joachim spent two years in Haiti’s countryside, connecting with local women artists and to her parents’ hometown of Dantan. In this, her second solo album, Joachim dives deeper into the work of connection—as well as individuation—that she explored in her earlier project. This new song cycle is set on the Caribbean farmland her family called home for generations and uses both music and elements of movement to bring her interior journey to life.
This work is part of Cal Performances’ 2023–24 Illuminations: “Individual & Community” programming and marks Joachim’s second Illuminations engagement, the first—Note to Self, performed by Sō Percussion—being part of the 2022–23 “Human & Machine” season.
World premieres of work by Peni Candra Rini, performed by Kronos Quartet
On March 2, Kronos Quartet performs a world premieres, composed by Peni Candra Rini as part of the KRONOS Five Decade 50th anniversary project.
In 1973, violinist David Harrington was inspired to form Kronos after hearing George Crumb’s Black Angels, a pioneering anti-war piece that utilizes “bowed water glasses, spoken-word passages, and electronic effects.” Fifty years later, the group—which still includes Harrington as well as longtime members violinist John Sherba and violist Hank Dutt, and recent member, cellist Paul Wiancko—has stayed true to its origins, keeping experimentation and social impact central to its vision and prolific output. Throughout its history, the San Francisco-based group has worked with innovative and genre-defying composers as well as legends of contemporary music, jazz, and rock, its expansive repertoire working to revolutionize the world’s understanding of what a modern string quartet can be.
In addition to having influenced the field through the power of its own expert playing and meticulously designed programs, the quartet has shaped the musical landscape of the future by commissioning new works and providing resources for other string quartets. Kronos’ landmark Kronos Fifty for the Future project produced 50 new compositions “designed to guide young amateur and early-career professional string quartets in developing and honing the skills required for the performance of 21st-century repertoire,” available online, completely free of charge. Over the course of this project (2015–2021), Kronos worked with preeminent composers from around the world, including Cal Performances favorites Angélique Kidjo, Wu Man, Angélica Negrón, and Zakir Hussain—and KRONOS Five Decades composer Peni Candra Rini, whose new work will be featured at Cal Performances this upcoming season.
![Peni-Candra-Rini-700×500-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/Peni-Candra-Rini-700x500-1.jpg)
Candra Rini is a Javanese composer, poet, educator, and one of few contemporary vocalists performing sindhen, a female soloist style of singing rooted in Indonesia’s rich musical culture. Deeply committed to preserving and celebrating the musical traditions of her homeland, her contribution to Kronos Fifty for the Future was her 2020 composition Maduswara, a work designed to bring attention to sindhen and to encourage this new generation of vocalists to “realize their duty as the conveyor of the universal values of life.” She has long admired the quartet (who performed Maduswara for their December 2021 concert at Cal Performances), and shared that their previous collaboration was a “dream.” Her newest piece will explore the precarity of the composer’s native Indonesia as one of the most volcanically and seismically active regions on earth—a region that is also increasingly vulnerable to climate change. In a nod to cultural preservation, the piece will include shadow puppets, original artwork, and field recordings inspired by various musical environments and cultures across the archipelago.
West Coast premiere of Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s Bark of Millions: A Parade Trance Extravaganza for the Living Library of the Deviant Theme
On February 23–25, Cal Performances presents a true season highlight: Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s Bark of Millions: A Parade Trance Extravaganza for the Living Library of the Deviant Theme.
Performed here in its West Coast premiere, Bark of Millions is a four-hour rock opera meditation on queerness. The production is made up of 54 songs, one for each year since the historic Stonewall uprising that catalyzed the gay rights movement in the US, with each song being dedicated to a queer figure in history.
MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist Taylor Mac is an international star with Bay Area roots, having been raised in Stockton and even briefly attending San Francisco State University. Mac is known for his expansive productions that celebrate queerness through an activist lens. He has worked on numerous projects with his Bark of Millions co-creator, composer and musical director Matt Ray, including A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, a 24-hour long performance-art concert that debuted in 2016 and went on to receive numerous accolades, including the 2017 Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. Mac and Ray have worked together for approximately 15 years, which Ray describes as a partnership rooted in their “shared vision of the world.”
![taylor-mac-bark-of-millions-700×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/taylor-mac-bark-of-millions-700x800-1.jpg)
Taylor Mac, Bark of Millions.
Bark of Millions recognizes the value of community not only through the substance of the production, but also through the collaboration involved in bringing the performance to life. In addition to Mac and Ray, the work relies on the artistry of costume designer Machine Dazzle, co-directors Niegel Smith and Faye Driscoll, a cast of 13 ensemble members, and a band of 11 musicians. Speaking about the creation and preparation of the work, Ray said, “As queer performers, we’re used to finding our spaces that allow for the genre-pushing that needs to happen for our art to flourish. It’s been a really gratifying process to create this work as a community and build ourselves, and build something special.”
A maximalist production in every sense, Mac has asserted that part of the activism of Bark of Millions is that it’s “taking over the big space,” centering queer history and expression to ask such poignant questions as: “What is the core of queerness and the various ways of its dissemination?,” “In the broken and often oppressive history we’ve inherited, how have queer people been our own creation?,” and “What are we unfurling from?” Bark of Millions will also shed light on Cal Performances’ season-long Illuminations theme, which is designed to explore the tensions that come into play while balancing the interests of the individual with the interest of the group.
Bay Area premiere of Brad Mehldau’s Fourteen Reveries
On February 10, internationally acclaimed pianist Brad Mehldau brings the Bay Area premiere of Fourteen Reveries, a solo work for piano composed by the performer and co-commissioned by Cal Performances.
While Mehldau is known principally as a jazz pianist, his influences and prolific output have ventured into rock, pop, electronic music, bebop, blues, and even spiritual music. (Interestingly, though in his early career he strayed from the classical works of his childhood, he reincorporated them into his artistic practice in his 20s as a way to develop his left hand.) In this, his second performance during the 2023–24 season, Mehldau offers an introspective recital that reflects both jazz and classical influences as well as pop music sensibilities.
![brad-mehldau-700×600-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/brad-mehldau-700x600-1.jpg)
Mehldau has written and performed music extensively since the 1990s. His first major record was released with the Brad Mehldau Trio (The Art of the Trio, 1996), and was comprised of about half original Mehldau compositions. Now roughly 30 years later, his latest major composition, Fourteen Reveries, contemplates “the interior experience that we create from our own consciousness, independently of others.” In a recent interview with NPR, Mehldau reflected on how he has used performance to process elements of his personal life, particularly in the context of the challenges and isolation he felt growing up. “I don’t like to analyze myself too much. But I think there’s something that I can get to, for instance, in playing a ballad, and sort of going in this interior zone that’s informed by experiences that I wouldn’t have asked for at the time,” he said.
His new work also takes up the idea of space between what a composer dictates and what the performer creates—or, perhaps more precisely, what the music organically reveals as it is being performed. This idea of what is written into a work’s musical architecture, competing with what is born naturally over the course of a performance, has been a long-time fascination of Mehldau. Though he considers himself foremost an improviser, Mehldau has a deep knowledge of and appreciation for the formal elements of a composition; as both a performer and writer of music, he is conscious of the balance between “the improviser and the formalist” and prioritizes allowing each work and each performance to dictate where those generative moments of spontaneity naturally lie.
Bay Area premiere of Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo’s common ground[s]
February 16–18 marks the Bay Area premiere of common ground[s], the first half of a double-bill production—created under the auspices of the Pina Bausch Foundation, École des Sables, and London’s Sadler’s Wells theater—that also features a fresh take on Pina Bausch’s choreography to The Rite of Spring. common ground[s] is a new duet choreographed and performed by Germaine Acogny, known as the “mother of African contemporary dance,” and Malou Airaudo, a longtime dancer with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. With both women now in their 70s, the piece contemplates their lived experiences, their relationship to dance, and their identities as mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and granddaughters.
The two artists began their collaboration on common ground[s] at École des Sables in November 2019, drawing on many years of profound dance mastery. For her part, Acogny is known for her success in developing and spreading modern African dance throughout the world. Strongly influenced by her studies of traditional African dances, Occidental dances, and her grandmother’s dance traditions as a Yoruba priest, Acogny founded her first studio in 1968 in Dakar. In the years following, she has served as artistic director for renowned institutions across multiple continents, hosted substantial dance workshops, and founded École des Sables (a co-producer of this piece) to serve as a meeting point for dancers throughout Africa to facilitate training in and exchange of various styles of African dance. Her partner in this piece, Airaudo, is a Marseille-born dancer who joined her first professional ballet at only 17 years old. In the 1970s, Airaudo was personally invited by Pina Bausch to join her company in Germany, Tanztheater Wuppertal, where Airaudo served as a foundational member and one of the principal dancers for many Bausch works. Airaudo, like Acogny, has been a longtime dance instructor and served as Director of Folkwang University of the Arts’ Institute for Contemporary Dance.
![common-grounds-2-700×500-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/common-grounds-2-700x500-1.jpg)
Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo, common ground[s].
Building on their rich personal histories, common ground[s] is a work of tenderness and connection in which its performers explore their shared space together and apart in distinct moments. The work reflects the dancers’ synergies not only with each other, but also with the natural world. When interviewed about the setting by Dance Magazine, Acogny noted that common ground[s] is danced on hard ground strewn with sticks and stones—as opposed to The Rite of Spring, which is performed on sand—as a means of portraying a distinct groundedness in the first work: “The essence, the energy, the connection to the earth is not the same.” The lighting, soundscape, and other set elements also harken back to nature. Acogny expressed that, in working with Airaudo, “We saw that we both liked nature. She likes going to the beach and I like wood, so we bring onto the stage the water, the wood, these elements. The lighting design is a continuation of that, to evoke the sunrise, the sky, the environment.”
The joy and weight of cultural exchange is underscored throughout, including by soft moments of dialogue that oscillate between English and French. A review by the Chicago Reader offers a poignant interpretation: “The relationship portrayed does not have the intimacy of those who have known each other long, but those who have moved through time long enough to have commonly experienced the loves and losses of being alive.”
The performances described in this article only scratch the surface of all the fresh energy and perspectives being shared onstage during the 2023–24 season. Additional highlights include world premieres performed by Mark Morris Dance Group and the San Francisco Symphony, as well as Bay Area premieres by The Joffrey Ballet in Anna Karenina, Elevator Repair Service in Baldwin and Buckely at Cambridge, and the Danish String Quartet in a new string quintet work by Thomas Adès.
Explore More 2023–24 Season Features
Rising Stars Share Their Musical Journey in Photos
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Rising Stars Share Their Musical Journey in Photos
Next Stop: Berkeley
Cal Performances has longstanding partnerships and close connections with many world-renowned performers. And while you may be most familiar with the names of those artists currently regarded as living legends, part of the joy in developing these relationships has come from watching these stars grow and evolve over time. Cal Performances is proud to support promising artists throughout their career, which simultaneously serves the performers, who benefit from the opportunity to share their passion and exceptional artistry; our audiences, who are introduced to inspiring artists they “don’t yet know they can’t live without”; and the broader field of performing arts, which is reinvigorated, elevated, and expanded by the fresh perspectives new artists contribute. On the topic of supporting rising stars, Cal Performances executive and artistic director Jeremy Geffen said, “One of the best things Cal Performances can do for the arts and arts lovers is to give opportunities to performers and creators early in their careers. I’ve found that, once you provide an opportunity and demonstrate faith, more often than not, your expectations are exceeded.”
Our 2023–24 season features a number of rising-star artists in dance and theater ensembles, in orchestras and chamber groups, and—most substantially in this year’s programming—as featured artists on our recital series. To celebrate their upward trajectory, we’re sharing snapshots of meaningful moments from a few of our rising-star artists’ careers thus far. We hope this scrapbook of sorts will pique your interest concerning the incredible performers making their Cal Performances musical debuts this season!
Tom Borrow, piano
Recently named a BBC New Generation Artist, 23-year-old Israeli pianist Tom Borrow performs Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Robert Schumann on October 1—the performance that opens Cal Performances’ 2023–24 season.
Tom with legendary pianist Murray Perahia (c.2017). Tom has received Perahia’s mentorship since his teenage years through the Jerusalem Music Centre’s program for Outstanding Young Musicians.
![tom-borrow-murray-perahia-700×454-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-murray-perahia-700x454-1.jpg)
![tom-borrow-andres-mustonen-900×1100-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-andres-mustonen-900x1100-1.jpg)
Tom, age 18, backstage on his first international orchestra tour, to Estonia and Lithuania with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (c. 2018). Tom is accompanied by the tour’s conductor, Andres Mustonen. (Later that same year, Tom followed up with a tour of South Korea with the Tel Aviv Soloists.)
Tom, age 19, in his first-ever major performance abroad with a non-Israeli orchestra, in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome under conductor Semyon Bychkov (c. 2020). What was expected to be three performances with orchestra became an audience-less live telecast on Rai Television due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a great success and Bychkov invited Tom to reunite with him for Tom’s US debut with the Cleveland Orchestra. (After an unfortunate series of events, Bychkov ended up getting injured ahead of the concerts, so Thierry Fischer stepped in to conduct—another three-concert run that was shortened to a single date due to COVID-19!).
![tom-borrow-feature-3-1200×758-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-feature-3-1200x758-1.jpg)
![tom-borrow-feature-4-1200×758-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-feature-4-1200x758-1.jpg)
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Tom performing at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall (summer 2022). For this, his Proms debut, he played the Ravel Piano Concerto in G major under conductor Martyn Brabbins to much acclaim.
Tom at the prestigious Ruhr Piano Festival (his Germany debut) in 2022, a performance that was received with a standing ovation.
Photo credit: Klavier-Festival Ruhr/Peter Wieler
![tom-borrow-ruhr-piano-festival-1200×650-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-ruhr-piano-festival-1200x650-1.jpg)
On his Berkeley debut: “I’m so thrilled and excited to come to Cal Performances, an institution with an incredible international reputation. I wanted to offer a program worthy of the occasion—it’s challenging for the pianist but also a real and profound journey, for me and for the audience. I can’t wait to go on that journey together!”
Tom Borrow, piano
Recently named a BBC New Generation Artist, 23-year-old Israeli pianist Tom Borrow performs Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Robert Schumann on October 1—the performance that opens Cal Performances’ 2023–24 season.
![tom-borrow-murray-perahia-700×454-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-murray-perahia-700x454-1.jpg)
Tom with legendary pianist Murray Perahia (c.2017). Tom has received Perahia’s mentorship since his teenage years through the Jerusalem Music Centre’s program for Outstanding Young Musicians.
![tom-borrow-andres-mustonen-900×1100-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-andres-mustonen-900x1100-1.jpg)
Tom, age 18, backstage on his first international orchestra tour, to Estonia and Lithuania with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (c. 2018). Tom is accompanied by the tour’s conductor, Andres Mustonen. (Later that same year, Tom followed up with a tour of South Korea with the Tel Aviv Soloists.)
![tom-borrow-feature-3-1200×758-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-feature-3-1200x758-1.jpg)
![tom-borrow-feature-4-1200×758-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/tom-borrow-feature-4-1200x758-1.jpg)
Tom, age 19, in his first-ever major performance abroad with a non-Israeli orchestra, in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome under conductor Semyon Bychkov (c. 2020). What was expected to be three performances with orchestra became an audience-less live telecast on Rai Television due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a great success and Bychkov invited Tom to reunite with him for Tom’s US debut with the Cleveland Orchestra. (After an unfortunate series of events, Bychkov ended up getting injured ahead of the concerts, so Thierry Fischer stepped in to conduct—another three-concert run that was shortened to a single date due to COVID-19!).
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Tom performing at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall (summer 2022). For this, his Proms debut, he played the Ravel Piano Concerto in G major under conductor Martyn Brabbins to much acclaim.
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Tom at the prestigious Ruhr Piano Festival (his Germany debut) in 2022, a performance that was received with a standing ovation.
Photo credit: Klavier-Festival Ruhr/Peter Wieler
On his Berkeley debut: “I’m so thrilled and excited to come to Cal Performances, an institution with an incredible international reputation. I wanted to offer a program worthy of the occasion—it’s challenging for the pianist but also a real and profound journey, for me and for the audience. I can’t wait to go on that journey together!”
Hanzhi Wang, accordion
The first accordionist to join the roster of Young Concert Artists over its more than 60-year history, Hanzhi Wang performs a program on October 15 exploring canonic repertoire by composers including Bach, Saint-Saëns, de Falla, Stravinsky, and Bartók, arranged for the unique instrumentation of Wang’s accordion and her collaborator Avi Avital’s mandolin.
![hanzhi-wang-young-accordian-700×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-young-accordian-700x800-1.jpg)
A young Hanzhi demonstrates her early affinity for music.
![hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competition-2-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competition-2-1200x800-1.jpg)
![hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competitionn-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competitionn-1200x800-1.jpg)
Hanzhi during the final round with the orchestra at the Castelfidardo International Accordion Competition in Italy, 2015, where she won the first prize in the top category.
Hanzhi joins the Young Concert Artists roster in 2017, becoming the first accordionist in YCA history.
![hanzhi-wang-YCA-1200×1333-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-YCA-1200x1333-1.jpg)
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Hanzhi’s debut recital presented by YCA at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall, c. 2018).
Hanzhi playing and reflecting on the path to her first solo album.
On her Berkeley debut: “I’m very excited and grateful for the opportunity to perform at UC Berkeley with Avi Avital this coming fall. The accordion and mandolin are unusual instruments in the classical music world—I hope this new sound will bring you a new and joyful experience!”
Hanzhi Wang, accordion
The first accordionist to join the roster of Young Concert Artists over its more than 60-year history, Hanzhi Wang performs a program on October 15 exploring canonic repertoire by composers including Bach, Saint-Saëns, de Falla, Stravinsky, and Bartók, arranged for the unique instrumentation of Wang’s accordion and her collaborator Avi Avital’s mandolin.
![hanzhi-wang-young-accordian-700×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-young-accordian-700x800-1.jpg)
A young Hanzhi demonstrates her early affinity for music.
![hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competition-2-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competition-2-1200x800-1.jpg)
![hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competitionn-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-castelfidardo-competitionn-1200x800-1.jpg)
Hanzhi during the final round with the orchestra at the Castelfidardo International Accordion Competition in Italy, 2015, where she won the first prize in the top category.
![hanzhi-wang-YCA-1200×1333-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-YCA-1200x1333-1.jpg)
Hanzhi joins the Young Concert Artists roster in 2017, becoming the first accordionist in YCA history.
![hanzhi-wang-carnegie-hall-2-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-carnegie-hall-2-1200x800-1.jpg)
![hanzhi-wang-carnegie-hall-1-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/hanzhi-wang-carnegie-hall-1-1200x800-1.jpg)
Hanzhi’s debut recital presented by YCA at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall, c. 2018).
Hanzhi playing and reflecting on the path to her first solo album.
On her Berkeley debut: “I’m very excited and grateful for the opportunity to perform at UC Berkeley with Avi Avital this coming fall. The accordion and mandolin are unusual instruments in the classical music world—I hope this new sound will bring you a new and joyful experience!”
Filippo Gorini, piano
The 27-year-old Italian pianist Filippo Gorini, winner of the Diapason d’Or Award and recent selection as a Borletti-Buitoni Trust artist, performs Bach’s The Art of Fugue during his January 28 concert.
Filippo winning First Prize in a competition in Italy at age 13 (c. 2008).
![filippo-gorini-2-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-2-1200x800-1.jpg)
Filippo playing a recital in the Czech Republic—his first recital outside of Italy—at age 16 (c. 2011).
![filippo-gorini-1-968×646-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-1-968x646-1.jpg)
Filippo here performing at the final round of the Telekom-Beethoven Competition 2015, where he received the First Prize that, in Filippo’s words, “launched my career.”
![filippo-gorini-4-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-4-1200x800-1.jpg)
Filippo’s debut with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome in 2022.
![filippo-gorini-3-1000×667-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-3-1000x667-1.jpg)
On his Berkeley debut: “I am honored and excited to be playing Bach’s The Art of Fugue at Cal Performances next season. This piece is a unique treasure in the history of music, the last masterpiece that Bach left unfinished at his death after more than 10 years of work. This long cycle is a triumph of intellect, craft, and emotional impact, and I have made it almost a personal mission in recent years to bring it to as many people as possible—in concerts and lectures, and through online media. There is nothing that brings me more fulfillment than sharing music that I love and care for, so I can’t wait to do so in Berkeley!”
Filippo Gorini, piano
The 27-year-old Italian pianist Filippo Gorini, winner of the Diapason d’Or Award and recent selection as a Borletti-Buitoni Trust artist, performs Bach’s The Art of Fugue during his January 28 concert.
![filippo-gorini-2-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-2-1200x800-1.jpg)
Filippo winning First Prize in a competition in Italy at age 13 (c. 2008).
![filippo-gorini-1-968×646-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-1-968x646-1.jpg)
Filippo playing a recital in the Czech Republic—his first recital outside of Italy—at age 16 (c. 2011).
![filippo-gorini-4-1200×800-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-4-1200x800-1.jpg)
Filippo here performing at the final round of the Telekom-Beethoven Competition 2015, where he received the First Prize that, in Filippo’s words, “launched my career.”
![filippo-gorini-3-1000×667-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/filippo-gorini-3-1000x667-1.jpg)
Filippo’s debut with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome in 2022.
On his Berkeley debut: “I am honored and excited to be playing Bach’s The Art of Fugue at Cal Performances next season. This piece is a unique treasure in the history of music, the last masterpiece that Bach left unfinished at his death after more than 10 years of work. This long cycle is a triumph of intellect, craft, and emotional impact, and I have made it almost a personal mission in recent years to bring it to as many people as possible—in concerts and lectures, and through online media. There is nothing that brings me more fulfillment than sharing music that I love and care for, so I can’t wait to do so in Berkeley!”
Isidore String Quartet
The Isidore String Quartet, laureates of the Banff International String Quartet Competition as well as recent winners of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, bring an eclectic program featuring music by Haydn, Beethoven, and Billy Childs on March 5. Assembled in 2019, the group consists of violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon.
![isidore-string-quartet-1-900×1000-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/isidore-string-quartet-1-900x1000-1.jpg)
The quartet after their first public performance, in Morse Hall at the Juilliard School (November 2019).
The quartet moments after their performance of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1 at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in August 2021. Per Isidore, “After this performance, we decided to reconvene post-pandemic and pursue a serious career together.”
![isidore-string-quartet-2-1200×1000-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/isidore-string-quartet-2-1200x1000-1.jpg)
Isidore taking a quick selfie at the quartet’s musical home, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, circa July 2022.
Captured in September 2022: “What better way to celebrate an incredible week at Banff International String Quartet Competition 2022 than a shot of whiskey?!”
![isidore-string-quartet-4-800×900-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/isidore-string-quartet-4-800x900-1.jpg)
On their Berkeley debut: “We are so excited and honored to be performing at Cal Performances next season! This remarkable institution has a history of presenting the highest-caliber artists and exploring interesting, boundary-pushing programs that strive to dig deep into the human condition through artistic expression. As a quartet, we are so excited to explore and share our own artistic voice with the wonderful audience in Berkeley.”
Isidore String Quartet
The Isidore String Quartet, laureates of the Banff International String Quartet Competition as well as recent winners of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, bring an eclectic program featuring music by Haydn, Beethoven, and Billy Childs on March 5. Assembled in 2019, the group consists of violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon.
![isidore-string-quartet-1-900×1000-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/isidore-string-quartet-1-900x1000-1.jpg)
The quartet after their first public performance, in Morse Hall at the Juilliard School (November 2019).
![isidore-string-quartet-2-1200×1000-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/isidore-string-quartet-2-1200x1000-1.jpg)
The quartet moments after their performance of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1 at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in August 2021. Per Isidore, “After this performance, we decided to reconvene post-pandemic and pursue a serious career together.”
![isidore-string-quartet-3-400×762-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/isidore-string-quartet-3-400x762-1-e1681497998733.jpg)
Isidore taking a quick selfie at the quartet’s musical home, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, circa July 2022.
![isidore-string-quartet-4-800×900-1](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/isidore-string-quartet-4-800x900-1.jpg)
Captured in September 2022: “What better way to celebrate an incredible week at Banff International String Quartet Competition 2022 than a shot of whiskey?!”
On their Berkeley debut: “We are so excited and honored to be performing at Cal Performances next season! This remarkable institution has a history of presenting the highest-caliber artists and exploring interesting, boundary-pushing programs that strive to dig deep into the human condition through artistic expression. As a quartet, we are so excited to explore and share our own artistic voice with the wonderful audience in Berkeley.”
Explore More 2023–24 Season Features
2023–24 Dance Season
![](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2023-24/dance-season-feature-hero-1920x900-2.jpg)
2023–24 Dance Season
Exciting premieres, strengthened partnerships, anticipated company debuts.
Cal Performances is known for the breadth of our dance seasons. In 2023–24, we’re proud to present seven world-renowned companies, each with something different and profound to offer our Bay Area audiences. In this video, Cal Performances executive and artistic director Jeremy Geffen walks through all the performances on our season, including return visits by Cal Performances favorites The Joffrey Ballet, which embarks on a new Berkeley residency that includes its first narrative ballets with Cal Performances; Mark Morris Dance Group, bringing its 14th Mark Morris world premiere in Cal Performances’ history; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which will be celebrated by the Cal Performances 2024 gala; and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The season also features company debuts—and Bay Area premieres—by Batsheva Dance Company and Urban Bush Women; plus a double-bill production of Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo’s common ground[s] paired with Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring, performed by dancers from more than a dozen African countries brought together by Bausch Foundation, École des Sables, and Sadler’s Wells.
Transcript
Jeremy Geffen:
Cal Performances is known for the breadth of our dance season. In 2023–24, we’re proud to feature seven companies representing the finest the world has to offer in contemporary dance, jazz, ballet, and drag ballet. These performances are enhanced by exciting premieres, strengthened partnerships, and highly anticipated company debuts.
We’re elated to welcome The Joffrey Ballet in March for the Bay Area premiere of Yuri Possokhov’s Anna Karenina, accompanied by the Berkeley Symphony to kick off the company’s renewed Berkeley residency. Cal Performances and The Joffrey Ballet have engaged in a series of fruitful partnerships over the years, the first of which took place in the 1970s. This season, we’re embarking on a new partnership that will bring this world-renowned company to Berkeley for four residencies over eight years, providing new perspectives on their extraordinary work. This first year marks a major milestone, as the company’s performance of Anna Karenina is the first evening-length story ballet the company will perform for Berkeley audiences.
Ashley Wheater:
I think that this time coming to Berkeley, I think we have the ability to show the audiences there a very different side of The Joffrey, which is the side of storytelling. I think we’ve always taken a very eclectic repertoire to Berkeley, which is all, in a way, abstract, although there’s always a story when you have people on stage. But this is definitely the story of Anna Karenina, so it has a very clear narrative and a through line, and I think that what it does is it showcases the company at every single level of the story. I think it is a feast for the ears, for the eyes. I think that Tom Pye gave us the most beautiful production. So to bring all of that to Berkeley and to have Berkeley, really Cal Performances really make such a commitment to The Joffrey, I applaud them for that, and of course we’re incredibly grateful for that.
Jeremy Geffen:
Mark Morris Dance Group made its Cal Performances debut in 1987, and this season marks 30 years of annual visits by this beloved company. Decades into our partnership, they are still bringing fresh works that are both innovative and exhilarating. In April, they’ll bring the world premiere of a new work by Mark Morris, marking their 14th world premiere at Cal Performances. Morris is known for developing choreography that demonstrates a deep sensitivity to music and a company that resembles his audience. Mark Morris Dance Group has created joyous and life-altering experiences for Cal Performances audiences, and this season is sure to offer no exception.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater first performed in Berkeley in 1968. Their history with us even predates that of our very own home at Zellerbach Hall, which opened later that year. It was love at first sight, and they’ve been performing with us every year since that visit 55 years ago. With Ailey Week a long-established tradition, the company has performed more often in Berkeley than they have anywhere outside of their home city of New York. We are so proud of the relationship we’ve built together, which includes not only a deeply rooted performance history, but also Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp, a free dance and personal development program for middle school students, which celebrated 20 years last season. In all of contemporary dance, there is perhaps no other company so beloved and so respected, and it is an honor to be such an integral part of their journey. While Ailey’s program, as is customary, will be revealed later in the season, we can reveal that Ailey’s visit will be celebrated as the centerpiece of Cal Performances’ 2024 gala, which will benefit our core artistic and educational activities like AileyCamp.
Robert Battle:
I think what’s been wonderful about working with Cal Performances, first of all, is the longevity. Since 1968, Cal Performances have been bringing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to Berkeley. I think that says something about that strong relationship and also being there at the university, seeing young students, particularly seeing dancers, always outdoors, rehearsing these routines, and all of that so when we leave the stage door, we also see dancers just doing whatever they do. I think there’s something important about having that experience and having it on a campus that has to do with the future.
One of my most special memories from Cal Performances, of course, was when I did my first work after becoming artistic director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and that work is called Awakening. It also had commissioning funds from Cal Performances, so for that world premiere there at the Zellerbach was thrilling. And, of course, I have to mention our audiences there, which are so enthusiastic about our performances, but they were also enthusiastic about my work, Awakening, which meant so much to me because it had so much to do with my awakening when I first saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, like those students that we performed for when we were there in Berkeley. What a thrill that was, what a ride!
Jeremy Geffen:
Treasured by Cal Performances audiences for decades, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo return to Berkeley in January to celebrate their 50th anniversary. This troupe has set themselves apart with their ingenuity, talent, and charisma since their founding in the 1970s. Their masterful execution of ballet technique combined with drag performance, playful energy, and satire leaves audiences in awe and in stitches. Their program this season will include classic Trocks gems that unlock pure, unbridled joy for everyone in attendance.
While we continue to celebrate those artists with whom we’ve already developed a strong bond, we are also programming new voices. In early March, we welcome Batsheva Dance Company in their Cal Performances debut. This innovative Tel Aviv-based company is an international titan of modern dance and, quite plainly, one of the most important dance companies in the world today. They’re bringing with them the Bay Area premiere of Ohad Naharin’s MOMO, an ingenious work that explores extremes of movement through the tension between a wild, energetic group and those who are slow and deliberate, weighed down by hypermasculine dogma.
In February, a collaboration by Pina Bausch Foundation, École des Sables, and Sadler’s Wells results in a double-bill program featuring young dancers from across the African continent. This program, which will contribute to our Illuminations: “Individual & Community” theme this season, features two distinct halves. The first, common ground[s], is an emotional and personal reflection by two seasoned dancers who share a duet about their lives as dancers, as mothers, as grandmothers, and as granddaughters. In the second half of the program, Pina Bausch’s iconic staging and choreography of The Rite of Spring is brought to life by more than 30 dancers from 14 African countries, offering a new lens through which to consider this distinctive Bausch masterpiece.
Urban Bush Women’s Hair & Other Stories, another core Illuminations performance, comes to the intimate Zellerbach Playhouse in early December. This Brooklyn-based performance ensemble is driven by the desire to catalyze social change and reflect provocative experiences and viewpoints. In their Cal Performances debut, the company brings a dance theater work that centers race, identity, and beauty through the lens of Black women’s hair.
Mame Diarra Speis:
Hair & Other Stories is a dance theater work that uses hair as a frame to really take a deeper dive into conversations around systemic racism. Also, we’re using, inside of that, our Entering, Building, and Exiting Workshop that allows us to examine our values, our assumptions, using that module of entering together, building, and then transitioning, evolving, whatever ways that make sense.
Courtney J. Cook:
And the work also engages with those communities, so it’s not just about performing but also about what kind of conversations, what kind of relationships we are building with the folks whose stories are reflected in the work. Hair & Other Stories intentionally bridges both performance and community engagement.
Jeremy Geffen:
Across all of these performances, there are countless opportunities to be moved, enchanted, and awakened. I look forward to welcoming so many talented individuals to Berkeley this season alongside all of you.
Explore More 2023–24 Season Features
Students Share Experiences (and Dance Moves!) With SchoolTime
![](https://calperformances.org/wp-content/uploads/blog/2022-23/Step-Afrika-SchoolTime-blog-1290x900-2.jpg)
Students Share Experiences (and Dance Moves!) With SchoolTime
Stepping into the World of Dance
Interview of students Derrick, Faith, Kamarii, Kayden, and Naive by Rica Anderson, Cal Performances’ Manager of Education and Community Programs. Video filming and editing by Tiffany Valvo, Cal Performances’ Social Media and Digital Content Specialist.
For decades, Cal Performances has offered our community SchoolTime field trips as a way to engage K-12 students and broaden their understanding of all the performing arts can be. Through this program, thousands of local K-12 students each season have the opportunity to see a selection of special one-hour performances at free or highly discounted rates. These immersive, multi-layered performances connect easily to classroom curricula and are designed to offer a window into different cultures and perspectives, and to hopefully inspire a lifelong love of the performing arts. The energy and excitement that fills our auditorium anytime a SchoolTime performance is gearing up is unlike anything else. To give our patrons a peek into the program, as well as the eager and insightful students who make these performances such a joy, our Manager of Education and Community Programs, Rica Anderson, sat down with five children following a SchoolTime performance of Step Afrika! (a dance company based around African American traditions of stepping) earlier this spring.
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Storytelling and Connection with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Standout James Gilmer
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Storytelling and Connection with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Standout James Gilmer
“There’s something special that you feel energetically, bodily, that confirms you’re all telling a story that’s coming from the same book.”
By Krista Thomas, Cal Performances’ Associate Director of Communications
This April, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater conducts its annual visit to the UC Berkeley campus, continuing a tradition that dates back to 1968. And while the company has stayed true to its roots, its evolving cast of dancers continues to breathe new life and energy into beloved repertoire.
One dancer who will return to Berkeley this month is four-year Ailey veteran James Gilmer, hailed as “Alvin Ailey’s new secret weapon” by the New York Times in December 2021. Not only does Gilmer stand out for his unique personal story and distinct movement style, but also because of the power and purpose that underpin his work on stage.
Gilmer was steeped in a rich musical tradition from a young age. “I was born in 1993, so I was at the tail end of the ‘let’s put a record on’ period,” Gilmer said. “The record collections my parents had, though varied, resembled one another—I remember we had a lot of duplicates in the house because they had similar tastes.”
From those records, Gilmer absorbed spirituals, classical music, and Motown music, with additional exposure to hymnals through attending his local church in Pittsburgh. His sister, too, was a percussionist, which introduced an entirely new subset of sound. “I vividly remember traveling to Uganda when I was 12, and listening to my sister, who was a drummer, experiment with hand drums and other percussion instruments there,” he said.
While this prevalence of music encouraged many in his family to pursue playing various instruments, James expressed his connection to music through dance. “With so much variety, I was always moved in a different way.”
Showing early signs of a love for dance, Gilmer was enrolled in classes by his parents around age 5. He started with ballet and tap, then began absorbing jazz, African, and modern dance in smaller doses as he got older.
Between the ages of 14 and 16, Gilmer experienced a growth spurt that made him much taller than most of his classmates and challenged him to cultivate his own style of movement. “It was around that time that I started gravitating toward adagio movements that are slower, more sustained. These movements allowed me to show everything to the audience in a very meaningful, intentional manner,” he said. “Today, most of the movements I enjoy are to more melodic music that plays out at a slower pace because it’s easier to shade the movements with lots of textures.”
Gilmer’s graceful control made him an exceptional performer. Soon after graduating high school, he joined Cincinnati Ballet, where he danced for six seasons and was ultimately promoted to soloist. During his time with the company, he made his first visit to San Francisco, where he was introduced to Amy Seiwer’s Imagery and was given the opportunity to perform with the group during summers. In 2017, Gilmer made an official move to San Francisco when he accepted a position at ODC/Dance, which allowed him to continue working in ballet but also broaden his artistry—a bridge that would eventually support his transition to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
“I spent two seasons at ODC living in Soma [South of Market district] and had a wonderful time—I was reluctant to move. Being in San Francisco expanded my perception of the dance world. I saw some dynamic art there that I haven’t seen anywhere else, and it really broadened my understanding of what it means to dance, far beyond more traditional concert dance,” he said. “It was a great time of development for me career-wise when I wasn’t sure how dance would look for me in the future or if I would ultimately achieve my goal of getting into Ailey.”
Since his early days dancing, Gilmer had been moved by dance’s ability to tell stories. And while he spent much time doing story ballets, he felt limited in his ability to make them his own. Growing up, Ailey was one of the first companies where he saw a deeper level of personal storytelling playing out on stage.
“When I focused solely on ballet—and particularly on narrative ballet—I was often performing whimsical characters or characters that were pure fantasy; I don’t think I was able to evoke much of an emotional connection because it didn’t make sense to draw on my own experience as a Black man in America. But now, as I’ve gotten older, and especially being in Ailey,” he said, “I think making those connections is vital to our stage performances, where so much of what we perform invites us to draw from our personal experience.”
Gilmer auditioned twice for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and, in 2019, saw his dreams realized when he was invited to move to New York and join the renowned company. Gilmer’s distinctive stage presence and grace made a strong impression on Artistic Director Robert Battle, who explained to the New York Times, “He’s really nimble in all senses of the word… He’s very much about the work and about giving himself over to the work in such a wonderful and beautiful way.”
Though Battle praised Gilmer for his outstanding ability to “meet the challenges of different choreographers,” the transition from primarily ballet to Ailey’s wider repertoire has been both exciting and challenging.
“One thing that is unique about dancing here is the hybrid of techniques we are aiming to perform at such a high level on stage. With Cincinnati Ballet, we did both contemporary dance and classic ballet. But at Ailey, we have to be able to do ballet steps, plus modern, plus African dance, plus jazz… There are times when I’ve hardly left the stage and am already transitioning between styles,” he said. “To be expected to dance a style I’ve never trained in and to be proficient enough to perform is a really exciting and difficult challenge, but having the knowledge of what the movement is trying to say and get across does make the demands less daunting.”
For Gilmer, who finds inspiration in a broad spectrum of people—from his coworkers, to the stories of Black figures in America, and especially from driven young people—being able to channel the human aspect of dance, its capacity for sharing and connecting, is what makes him feel he has been successful on stage.
When asked what makes him proud of a particular performance, Gilmer responded, “Different layers of connectedness. There’s a level of connectedness in moving from one side of the stage to another within your own movements; a connectedness in the different dynamic choices you can make regarding how the moves connect and flow out of your body. Also in ensemble work, there’s a desired level of connectedness to those people with whom I’m dancing. Feeling authentic and present in those aspects of performance allows me to leave the stage satisfied,” he said.
Dancing with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater specifically has allowed Gilmer access to another element of connection—one he has prized and sought out throughout his career: “Storytelling is an especially important element of our choreography here, I think,” Gilmer said. “Feeling the vibe of those movements within yourself or within the ensemble— there’s something special that you feel energetically, bodily, that confirms you’re all telling a story that’s coming from the same book.”
In their visit to Cal Performances, Gilmer and his fellow Ailey dancers will bring a number of impactful works to life, including a few of Gilmer’s personal favorites: Twyla Tharp’s Roy’s Joys in its company West Coast premiere; Jamar Roberts’ In a Sentimental Mood, danced to the music of Duke Ellington and Rafiq Bhatia; Alvin Ailey’s signature work Revelations, which draws on much of the music from Gilmer’s childhood and was one of the reasons he joined the company; and Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings. The latter work is particularly important to Gilmer, since the contemporary mixtape of breakup music it is danced to “may draw in audiences, particularly a younger crowd, who may not have felt as connected to dance yet.”
Regarding the audiences awaiting him in Berkeley, Gilmer says, “While I feel like the East Coast tends to be more vocally responsive and is easier to read in that regard, the West Coast seems to really know what they’re getting themselves into and has a deep appreciation of what they’re seeing. Perhaps because of the different demographics or the wide range of art that’s available here, Bay Area audiences, in particular, are always very generous with their time and attention.”
The company’s return to the Bay Area also happens to coincide with Gilmer’s 30th birthday, and he’s “really excited” at the opportunity to spend some time in his old home of San Francisco, doing “anything outside that allows for a little bit of sun.”
As he approaches a new decade of life, Gilmer looks forward to more seasons performing with Ailey, the opportunity to support a future generation of dancers through expanding his work as an instructor, and harnessing his artistry to tell stories with a “looser narrative” that make it easy for new audiences to access and reflect on their own experiences.
Cal Performances is elated to welcome Gilmer, Robert Battle, and the rest of the Ailey dancers and crew back into Zellerbach for a week of pure delight and inspiration. We thank James Gilmer for sharing his experience, insights, and, soon, his singular talent with our Bay Area audiences.
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