Category: Performing
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High-tech, Hybrid, Hyper-experimental
Opera — that all-encompassing genre of performance — both skews and skewers reality. J. Ashley Miller intends to do both with his first full-length opera, Echosis. Echosis is the retelling of Ovid’s classic Greek story of Echo and Narcissus through the lens of the cyber gaming world.
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Artist to Watch: Michael Kirkendoll
A grotto in a 13th-century Tuscan monastery. A mechanic’s garage. A floating barge under the Brooklyn Bridge. A haunted Gothic chapel in downtown Kansas City. Wherever he goes, pianist Michael Kirkendoll brings his passion for the music of living composers. Considering that he studied his whole life — well into his doctorate — basically despising new music, the turnabout has been completed.
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Wylliams/Henry Celebrates a Quarter-Century of Excellence in Dance
For any arts organization to reach its 25th anniversary is cause for applause. But such an achievement is perhaps even more notable for a dance company. Dance, one of the most revered art forms, is also among the least understood. But Kansas City’s Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company, founded by the late Leni Wylliams and Mary Pat Henry in 1991, has clearly found an appreciative audience.
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So Many Choices
As Kansas City theater companies open their 2016-2017 seasons, here’s what subscribers and prospective theatergoers can expect: Drama. Comedy. Dramedy (or, if you prefer, tragicomedy). Classics (or, if you prefer, old chestnuts). Musicals, new and old. And no shortage of local, regional and world premieres.