The Martha Graham Dance Company, Chick Corea Akoustic Band and Dublin`s Gate Theater will be among the performers at the Spoleto `90 Festival, running May 25-June 10 in Charleston, S.C.
The annual arts extravaganza, which had suffered major building damages during Hurricane Hugo last year, nevertheless will offer 114 performances.
”I think we should make this festival as challenging to the heart and the mind as in the past,” said Spoleto founder and artistic director Gian Carlo Menotti.
”We must show the world that the festival, like the phoenix, rises from the ashes as beautiful as before, flying just as high.”
That has been made possible by a recent fund-raiser at Lincoln Center, which provided $350,000 for the festival.
The highlights for this year`s event will include:
– World premiere of a new opera by Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg, ”The Hydrogen Jukebox.”
– World premiere of ”Pioneer,” an experimental music-theater piece performed by the Paul Dresher Ensemble.
– Revival of Menotti`s widely praised production of Mozart`s ”The Marriage of Figaro.”
For details, write the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., P.O. Box 157, Charleston, S.C. 29402, or phone 1-803-722-2764.
SHAKEUP AT THE WHITNEY
The Whitney Museum of American Art has dismissed Thomas N. Armstrong 3d as director.
The reasons reportedly included ”dissatisfaction over his handling of the curatorial program, disappointment with his declining leadership initiative and frustration with delays in the Whitney`s expansion project to which he was heavily committed,” according to The New York Times.
No successor has been named.
