Patten Performances
Information & Tickets

Political humor opens Patten Performances

Celebrating its 25th season, the Patten Performances for 2004-2005 are sure to entertain. Order your tickets online or call (423)425-4269.

Capitol Steps at the Tivoli Theatre
Monday, September 20th, 7:30 p.m.

Capitol Steps began in December, 1981 when staffers for Senator Charles Percy were planning entertainment for a Christmas party. The group’s first idea was to stage a nativity play, but in the whole Congress they couldn't find three wise men or a virgin! So they dug into the headlines of the day and created song parodies and skits conveying a special brand of satirical humor that was as popular in Peoria as it was on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Most cast members have worked on Capitol Hill: some for Democrats, some for Republicans and others for politicians who firmly straddle the fence. No matter who holds office, there's never a shortage of material. Says founding company member Elaina Newport, "Typically the Republicans goof up, and the Democrats party. Then the Democrats goof up, and the Republicans party. That's what we call the two-party system."

The Capitol Steps have recorded 24 albums, including the latest, Papa's Got a Brand New Baghdad. Featured on NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS, Capitol Steps can be heard 4 times a year on NPR stations nationwide during "Politics Takes a Holiday" radio specials.

Maximum Dance
October 17- 18, 7:30 p.m.

Founded in 1997, Maximum Dance Company is driven to present dance performances of high energy, passion and drama by bringing audiences the best in contemporary ballet from around the world. With a Company comprised of principal-caliber dancers from seven nations, Maximum Dance is a leading contemporary ballet company of international stature and acclaim.

On Sunday evening, October 17th, Maximum Dance will perform Igor Stravinski’s ballet, The Rite of Spring.

Igor Stravinsky, Vaslav Nijinsky and their collaborators set the dance world on its ear when they premiered Le Sacre du Printemps in 1913. Parisians rioted, Camille Saint-Saens walked out of the theatre. This ballet broke all of the rules of dance in the day. Instead of creating flowing, classical movements, Nijinsky choreographed each percussive moment
individually, creating a jarring event never before experienced by a formal dance audience. Now, after more than 90 years, we look at this work as a dance classic.

Maximum Dances’ co-artistic directors David Palmer and Yanis Pikieris have created their own vision of Stravinsky‚s ballet. The extraordinary leaps and turns of this Rite of Spring lack for none of the drama of the original while breathing new life into this masterwork.
On Monday October 18th, the company will share an evening of contemporary repertoire, showing the broad range of talent this company possesses.

Behind the Broken Words
Monday, November 1, Fine Arts Center, 7:30 p.m.

Behind the Broken Words is a theatrical friction of characters, images, emotions and ideas as Emmy Award-winning actors Anthony Zerbe and Roscoe Lee Browne perform selections of the work of more than 20 poets, and playwrights, including William Butler Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, Derek Walcott, Edmond Rostand and W. H. Auden. The piece combines poetry, comedy and drama, beginning with a send up of art in The Very Latest School in Art by E. E. Cummings. The performance speaks to a number of themes–the price of progress and the need to progress, journeys that fulfill and those that dead-end, the perversion of language and the power of love.

Behind the Broken Words premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in 1969 and played at the American Place Theatre in 1981. The production was reprised in 1995 at Harvard University, returning to the Mark Taper Forum for its 30th anniversary in 1997. After 35 years the production continues to speak to the two actors‚ convictions, their love of poetry and language, their longtime friendship and their delight in the practice of their art.
“It evolves in the doing,” say Roscoe Lee Browne. “It gets deeper and deeper.”

The Assad Duo
UTC Fine Arts Center
Saturday, November 20, 7:30 p.m.

Sergio and Odair Assad are today's preeminent guitar duo. The Brazilian-born brothers have been making music together since they first picked up their instruments. The result is an uncanny rapport that has set new standards and an exceptional level of artistry that has led to a revival of contemporary music for guitar duo.

The Assads have recorded widely and have collaborated on discs Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma and Nadia Salerno Sonnenberg. They regularly perform in recital and with orchestras in all of the major European music capitols, as well as throughout Australia, Asia, Israel, North America and Latin America.

Mark O'Connor and Hot Swing! at the Tivoli Theatre
Tuesday, January 18th 7:30 p.m.

In June 2001 world champion fiddler, acclaimed violinist and composer Mark O‚Connor released Hot Swing! a tribute to his great friend and mentor, the legendary French jazz master, Stephane Grappelli. Released on his own OMAC label, the CD was recorded live with Jon Burr on bass and Frank Vignola on guitar. The critical acclaim was unanimous and immediate. The Chicago Tribune called it "one of the finest discs of his career and one of the greatest jazz violin albums ever."

O'Connor's Hot Swing trio performs in concerts throughout the United States, and in February 2002 played three sold-out nights at Jazz@Lincoln Center in New York City.

Porgy and Bess at Memorial Auditorium
Sunday, February 20th at 3 pm

When Porgy and Bess premiered in 1935, few imagined it would become the forerunner of today’s hottest Broadway musicals, which are essentially operatic works. Conceived as a folk opera, Porgy and Bessis today recognized as a masterpiece, entwining pride, prejudice, pathos and passion with a heartwarming and memorable score, which includes “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty o‚ Nuttin” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”

Van Cliburn Gold Medalist Jon Nakamatsu
and the Prazak String Quartet
Tuesday, March 15th

A native of California, JON NAKAMATSU claimed a distinguished place on the international musical scene in June, 1997 when named the Gold Medalist of the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the only American to have achieved this distinction since 1981. His extensive recital tours throughout the United States and Europe have featured debuts in New York City (Carnegie Hall), Washington, DC (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Miami, Houston, San
Francisco, Paris, London and Milan. The recipient of the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for his semifinal round chamber music performances at the Cliburn competition, he has collaborated with various chamber ensembles, among them the Brentano, Ives, Manhattan, Miami, St. Lawrence, Tokyo and Ying String Quartets. In both 2000 and 2002, he toured the United States with the Berlin Philharmonic Woodwind Quintet.

The Prazak Quartet–one of today´s leading international chamber music ensembles–was established in 1972 while its members were students at the Prague Conservatory. The 1974 Czech Music Year saw the Prazak Quartet receive the first prize at the Prague Conservatory Chamber Music Competition. In 1978 the quartet took the first prize at the Evian String Quartet Competition as well as a special prize awarded by Radio France for the best recording during the competition.

For nearly 30 years, the Prazak Quartet has been at home on music stages worldwide. They are regular guests in the major European musical capitals–Prague, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Madrid, London, Berlin, Munich, etc.–and have been invited to participate at numerous international festivals. In North America, the Prazak Quartet has performed
in New York (Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, 92nd St. Y), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Washington, Philadelphia, Miami, St. Louis, New Orleans, Berkeley, Cleveland, Tucson, Denver, Buffalo, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.

Ronald K. Brown/Evidence Modern Dance Ensemble
UTC Fine Arts Center
Tuesday, April 5th, 7:30 p.m.

Ronald K. Brown founded Evidence, a dance company, in 1985. The company has gone on to perform at numerous venues in New York and abroad including Performance Space 122 Dance Theater Workshop, The Joyce Theater, Aaron Davis Hall, National Black Arts Festival, American Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow, Bates Dance Festival, Lyon/Biennale de Ia Danse and Exit Festival. In addition to his work with Evidence, Brown has created
work for African American Dance Ensemble, Philadanco, Cleo Parker Robinson,
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company [in collaboration with Donald McKayle],
Maimouna Keita West African Dance School, Def Dance Jam Workshop, Ailey II
and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Brown has received numerous awards and fellowships including: a National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer‚s Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Choreography, Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund Fellowship, New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) and a Black Theater Alliance Award. In 2000 he was named a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in Choreography and Def Dance Jam Mentor of the Year.

Brown serves as Co-Curator (with Poet Cheryl Boyce Taylor) for Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center's Toenails of Steel and Ruby Red Text Series, sits on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Blacks in Dance and Dance USA and is a former Board Member of Black Pride NYC.