Walker Art Center Performing Arts Events Continue Virtually with Two New Works on the Climate Change

The Walker Art Center’s Performing Arts season is typically announced every spring, showcasing a carefully curated, diverse mix of some of the most innovative and experimental local, national and international artists of the present moment. This year, due to COVID-19, we had to postpone a full 2020-21 season announcement. After months of planning and reimagining what in-person and virtual events could look like, we’re excited to announce the return of Performing Arts events through online presentations, starting with Kinetic Light: DESCENT this December and two more performance works announced today.

“We are so pleased to offer two major works by leading artists from different disciplines employing new tools and alternative platforms to create and present works that address the climate catastrophe that so threatens our world” says Philip Bither, Director and Senior Curator of Performing Arts.  “This two-part ‘Art+Climate’ program, copresented with The Great Northern, is the first of a range of additional digital, live and hybrid events that we’ll announce and premiere in the coming months. We hope that these programs, along with a wide range of new commissions we are making (to be premiered in 2021-22 and beyond) will offer strong new performance work for our audiences while helping to sustain some of our most innovative artists at such a critical time.”

ABOUT THE EVENTS
Artists everywhere are finding themselves drawn to confronting the monumental scale of the global climate catastrophe, employing human creativity to process and act on what is clearly in front of us. Linked under a theme of “Art+Climate,” the two new performance works—theater/filmmaker Josh Fox’s The Truth Has Changed (2021 Edition) and musician-composer supergroup performing The Meta Simulacrum Vol. 1—mourn futures already lost, insist on environmental justice, and reimagine new ways to live less destructively.

Josh Fox: The Truth Has Changed (2021 Edition)
World premiere
View the exclusive online world premiere on Friday, January 29, 7 pm CST, including a live post-show dialogue with the artist.

The virtual performance is available to view Friday, January 29, 7pm, through Monday, February 1, 11:59 pm CST.

Pay what you wish, suggested price $20

“One of the most adventurous impresarios of the New York avant-garde.” —New York Times

Tracing the arc of misinformation and propaganda in the United States from 9/11 to Trump and this year’s elections, theatermaker and Emmy Award–winning and Oscar-nominated filmmaker (Gasland) Josh Fox offers a riveting solo performance that confronts us with the truth about the climate crisis in a “post-truth” world. This special edition, prerecorded live from New Orleans and produced specifically for this presentation, is a complex, funny yet sobering rumination in the theatrical spirit of brilliant monologist and sly social commentator Spalding Gray. The Truth Has Changed (2021 Edition) offers both a warning and a way forward for our besieged democracy.

The Meta Simulacrum Vol. 1
World premiere
Online performance and postshow artist conversation
Friday, February 5, 7 pm
Pay what you wish, suggested price $20

Copresented and commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

“Brittelle has been drawing from his varied experiences in classical music, punk rock, and electronica to produce silo-bombing music that is at once free-ranging, formally adventurous, unconventionally beautiful, and a joyful thrill to experience.” —The Nation

Using the symbology of our shared past to look forward into an uncertain future of climate change, this supergroup concert debuts the first material generated through The Meta Simulacrum, an interdisciplinary, alternate-reality digital platform designed by composer William Brittelle. The performance features newly composed songs for an electro-acoustic ensemble of dynamic musical polymaths. This uniquely collaborative project draws from alternative classical, jazz, neo-soul, and experimental rock worlds with recontextualized elements of ’80s sound. Among the work’s inspirations are the writings of preeminent conservationist William deBuys. When asked how best to approach the irreversible effects of climate change, deBuys advocates for a deep sense of elegy—a sincere, heartfelt farewell anchored by a palpable sense of loss. Join us to experience this timely and provocative project that provides a sound look at a global crisis through music and communal introspection.

Featuring Holland Andrews (Like A Villain), Channy Leaneagh (Poliça), Will Johnson (WILLS), Immanuel Wilkins (sax), Ian Chang (percussion), Rafiq Bhatia (guitar), Erika Dohi (synthesizers), Chris Fishman (keys), Jackson Hill (bass), and members of the Cincinnati Symphony. A conversation with Brittelle and a number of the participating artists follows the presentation.