Upcoming Performances

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 4 pm
Admission is free, suggested donation $10

Members of the Chicago-based Ethnic Heritage Ensemble are no strangers to Erie, and the group will again deliver some of the most prolific jazz on the Museum’s stage this February. The jazz trio, comprised of Kahil El’ Zabar (percussion), Ernest Kahbeer Dawkins (sax) and Corey Wiles (trumpet) will stop in Erie while on their 2012 “The End is the Beginning Tour.” Their sound combines the ancient rhythms of the past with new frontiers of improvisation while resonating with the vibrations of optimism. A fanfare of colors, sounds and rhythmical hipness, a performance by the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, under the leadership of the internationally renowned percussionist El’Zabar, is a celebration of deep jazz.

Sponsored by

Bridgman/Packer Dance Performance
Friday, March 9, 2012 at 8pm
Admission is free, suggested donation $20 per person

Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer have collaborated as performers and choreographers since 1978. Their innovative work developing “video partnering”—the total integration of live performance and video technology—has been acclaimed for exploding the duet form into a magically populated stage where image and reality collide. They were recently awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of their collaborative work.

Since 2001, they have been creating their own alchemy of the live and the virtual. Their works probe the themes of identity and perception while asking the question: “What is real and what is image?” This has led to their current works, Trilogy and Double Expose, where they enhance the possibilities of dance by multiplying, transposing and manipulating their own life-size video images and integrating them into their live performance. Their distinctive use of technology, their sensual partnering, and their surprising humor give the work a physically and theatrically riveting edge.

Bridgman/Packer will be in residence for a week, doing workshops for local students, dancers, and the general public. Their performance at the Erie Art Museum is a rare chance to see these world-class artists in an intimate setting.

“An ingenious trompe l’oeil fusion of physical and video-image bodies…merged and then disappeared with magical and fascinating suddenness.” –New York Times

“You may marvel at the effects achieved through technological wizardry, but you’re also amused, charmed, or disturbed by the ways in which two people’s images and dreams and memories of each other fly around like shadows in the wind.” –The Village Voice

http://www.bridgmanpacker.org/