Off Center Festival is Back!
Segerstrom Center’s annual Off Center Festival returns January 16 – January 30, 2016 with a new line-up of creative, modern and even controversial artists and shows.
The festival will present Manual Cinema’s ADA/AVA, Dorothée Munyaneza’s Samedi Détente, Kid Koala’s Nufonia Must Fall, Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely in Sacred Music for Sacred Times, Sarah Jones’ Sell/Buy/Date and the Martha Redbone Roots Project.
There will be two FREE Parties on the Plaza – January 16 and 23 at 6 p.m.. Both will offer live music, dancing and food truck cuisine The Off Center Lounge in Leatherby’s Café Rouge will be open at 9 p.m. with a special low-cost post-performance menu and the opportunity to meet with festival artists.
On Off Center Saturdays, the Center’s Arts Plaza will come alive with dancing, popular OC food trucks and music by two LA-based bands. The festival kick-off party on January 16 with Allah-Las. It’s a rich fusion of West Coast garage rock and roll, Latin percussion and electric folk.
On January 23, Milo Greene takes over with its self-described “cinematic-pop.” The band’s album – Milo Greene – reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Heatseekers Albums.
All tickets are $25 (with $39 tickets also available for Nufonia Must Fall) .Tickets can be purchased online at SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling 714.556.2787.
And, Here's The Off Center Lineup
ADA/AVA
Manual Cinema January 19 & 20 at 7:30 p.m. Samueli Theater
An immersive story comes to life on both stage and screen with vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design and a live music ensemble, as Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema with ingenuity and theatricality. ADA/AVA, hailed as “an unclassifiable story of spectral beauty” by The New York Times, explores universal themes of mourning, melancholy and life in this fantastical tale of septuagenarian Ada who feels confined to a solitary life following the death of her twin, Ava. (Recommended for ages 12 and older.) Tickets available here.
Samedi Détente
Dorothée Munyaneza January 21 - 23 at 7:30 p.m. Judy Morr Theater
How can you speak about the unspeakable? Twenty years after fleeing Rwanda as a young girl, Dorothée Munyaneza is ready to look back. Conceived, written and performed by Munyaneza, Samedi détente takes its name from a popular Saturday morning radio program. It explores the will tosurvive and to find happiness amidst unspeakable horrors through spoken word, song and movement. Accompanied by Ivorian dancer Nadia Beugé and French musician Alain Mahé, Munyaneza returns to the memories of her childhood with potent music, electrifying movement and dispassionate testimony. (Recommended for mature audiences.). Tickets availabel here.
Nufonia Must Fall
Kid Koala and the Afiara Quartet January 22 7:30 p.m. and January 23 at 2 p.m. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall Tickets: $25 and $39
Montreal-based scratch DJ and music producer Kid Koala presents a magical, multi-disciplinary adaptation of his graphic novel, Nufonia Must Fall. The story centers on a headphones-sporting robot on the verge of obsolescence and infatuated with a winsome office drone. Collaborating with Oscar-nominated production designer K.K. Barrett (Her, Lost in Translation, Being John Malkovich), Kid Koala enlists a team of puppeteers to stage the circuit-bent amoré as camera crews edit the footage in real time, resulting in a live silent film. Tickets available here.
Sacred Music for Sacred Times
Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely featuring Judith Casselberry, Stephanie McKay, Allison Miller, Marcelle Davies Lashley, Ganessa James, Alex Nolan, Juliette Jones January 22 & 23 at 7:30 p.m. Samueli Theater Toshi and her all-star band BIGLovely are a joyful celebration of all that’s dynamic, progressive and uplifting in American music. This versatile singer-songwriter-guitarist, who has been described as a combination of Sly and the Family Stone, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin and an entire gospel choir, has moved audiences with her big-hearted approach to rock, blues, R&B, country folk, spirituals and funk. Tickets available here.
Sell/Buy/Date
Sarah Jones January 28 – 30 at 7:30 p.m. Studio Performance Space (Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall)
Tony Award-winning writer, performer and activist Sarah Jones (Bridge & Tunnel) brings to the stage a medley of characters in Sell/Buy/Date, a new play inspired by the real-life experiences of people affected by the commercial sex industry. (Recommended for mature audiences.) Tickets available here.
Martha Redbone Roots Project
Martha Redbone January 28 – 30 at 7:30 p.m. Samueli Theater
The powerful blues and soul singer explores traditional and modern variations of folk, roots, blues, tribal and soul. She grew up listening to everything from church hymns to country music, raised on Tanya Tucker as much as the Jackson Five. Award-winning singer-songwriter Redbone has sung in such disparate occasions as the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Nimham Mountain Music Festival and at both of President Barak Obama’s inaugurations. She is joined at Off Center Festival 2016 by an all-star band in an epic concert that spans generations and a breadth of music genres, revealing a great American story that has remained untold until now. Tickets available here.
