Ann Carlson's "Doggie Hamlet" / Photo by Kelly Fletcher
This Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 3 and 4, at 4 p.m., envelope-pushing choreographer Ann Carlson returns to the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA to unleash her “Doggie Hamlet.” A site-specific piece to be performed at Will Rogers State Historic Park near Pacific Palisades, this new full-length work includes a cast of two women, two men, one boy, three herding dogs and a flock of sheep. Both performances are already sold out!
The audience members sit on bales of hay as the human and animal ensemble interlace movement, stillness and theater aesthetics with competitive sheep herding trials. As the narrative suggests, landscape painting and a three-dimensional pastoral poem, impressions of instinct, empathy, attachment and loss are unearthed.
Multi-award winning Carlson was recently an artist-in-residence at UCLA where she created “The Symphonic Body,” a mostly silent orchestral gestural work for almost 100 university employees. Other dances have been presented in theaters, museums, forests and fields across the country.
Expect the unexpected.
—Benn Widdey, Culture Spot LA
LOCATION: Will Rogers State Historic Park is located off Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades at 1501 Will Rogers State Park Road. Please go to their website for directions and more information about the park: https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=626
INFORMATION: https://cap.ucla.edu/calendar/details/ann_carlson2