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Cambodian Dancers Migrate to Wesleyan to Finish Breaking Ground Season, April 15-16, 2005

Middletown, CT, March 28, 2005 – Traditional Cambodian art forms and contemporary themes fuse together in a shimmering display of culture, dance and music when thirty-five dancers and musicians come to Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts (CFA) to perform Seasons of Migration, a new work choreographed by California-based artist Sophiline Cheam Shapiro. Shapiro, in collaboration with composer Chinary Ung and Phnom Penh’s Royal University of Fine Arts, brings this work and a rarely-performed, ancient dance—Ream Eyso & Moni Mekhala (The Creation of Thunder & Lightning)—to the CFA as part of a six-city U.S. tour.

Seasons of Migration imagines a world in which heavenly spirits have come to earth to live among humans and encounter something universal—culture shock. “[The story] describes how they adjust to their new surroundings, much as I have been transformed by my experiences as an immigrant,” said Shapiro in her notes about the production.

Seasons will be performed in the CFA Theater (275 Washington Terrace) on Friday and Saturday, April 15 and 16 at 8pm. Tickets are $19 for the general public and $17 for non-Wesleyan students and seniors. On Friday, there will be a pre-show talk at 7:15pm in the Zilkha gallery with Sam-Ang Sam (Ph.D '89), ethnomusicologist and MacArthur Fellow. More information is available by calling the box office at 860-685-3355 or visiting www.wesleyan.edu/cfa. Advance ticket purchases are strongly recommended.

In August of 2001, the CFA worked with the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to mount the first major U.S. tour of Cambodian dance in more than two decades. Seasons brings this impressive company of 35 dancers and musicians—with their spectacular agility, magnificent costumes and transcendent music—back to the CFA, in advance of their appearance at the esteemed Joyce Theater in New York.

One of Seasons’ lead dancers, Hun Pen, was a special student at Wesleyan for 2003-2004. She lived in a dormitory and audited classes while studying English at Middlesex Community College.

The tour is produced by the Khmer Arts Academy, of which Shapiro is a co-founder and Artistic Director. The Academy is a performing arts organization dedicated to fostering the vitality of Cambodian arts and culture. The event, part of the CFA’s Breaking Ground Dance Series, is co-sponsored by the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, the Freeman Asian / Asian American Initiative and the Office of the Presidents, and funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts with lead funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Ford Foundation.

The CFA is an 11-building complex on the Wesleyan campus  (parking at 283 Washington Terrace and on High Street) that houses the departments of art and art history, film studies, music, theater and dance. It serves as a cultural center for the region, the state and New England. The CFA includes the 400-seat Theater, the 260-seat Cinema, the World Music Hall (a non-Western performance space), the 414-seat Crowell Concert Hall and the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery.

Tickets for Seasons of Migration can be purchased via phone or in person at the University box office. The box office is located on the first floor of the Davenport Campus Center (222 Church Street).  For more information about CFA performances and events, call (860) 685-3355, or visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Box Office Phone:      860-685-3355                     Address:              Wesleyan University

Box Office Fax:          860-685-3935                                                 222 Church Street

E-mail:                       boxoffice@wesleyan.edu                                Middletown, CT 06459-0001