Expulsion

The Arts Council for Long Beach’s A LOT series brings temporary visual and performance based artwork to vacant lots in the City’s targeted areas. Each project is accompanied by an open-air symposium related to urban planning, civic engagement and art.
The first installment of the A LOT series will feature an original performance danced by four men from Collage Dance Theatre (CDT). EXPULSION is conceived by Heidi Duckler and Merridawn Duckler with the set designed by architect, Alex Ward, AIA. Original music composed and performed by Daniel Rosenboom and Alex Noice. Collage Dance Theatre’s mission is to redefine the relationship between audience and art by presenting bold choreography in extraordinary places. CDT initiates collaborations with artists and cultivates community engagement to create meaningful, multidisciplinary public art experiences with exceptional artistic standards.
For EXPULSION, CDT will activate a vacant lot in Long Beach’s Cambodia Town that is owned by the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency. Based on the themes of immigration and dislocation, this cross-disciplinary site performance explores the temporary, often fragile nature of “home.” The performance will feature dancers from Long Beach’s Khmer Arts Academy and will incorporate stories from local community members.
On March 19, a symposium with Heidi Duckler, Artistic Director of CDT will follow the performance. Says Ms. Duckler, “Expulsion takes place in an empty lot and asks, ‘What has brought us to this place?’ Place for me is time, location and a state of being.” The symposium will also include: Guillermo Avilés Rodríguez, Artistic Director of Watts Village Theatre Company, Felicia Filer, Director of Public Art at the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and Craig Watson, Executive Director of the Arts Council for Long Beach.
The A LOT series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Art Commission.
About the Arts Council
The Arts Council for Long Beach fosters excellence in the creation and presentation of arts and cultural endeavors by supporting arts and cultural organizations and individual artists. The Arts Council provides access for families, children, and the community to a broad spectrum of creative expressions and cultural experiences by building strategic partnerships and programs that weave arts and culture into the fabric of our community.
The Arts Council delivers programs and services through three core areas:
• Public Art facilitates civic improvement projects of all kinds: public art, parks, cultural facilities, live/work spaces, etc., which has resulted in over $2 million in projects since 1990.
• Grants and Professional Development provides support to more than 100 regional arts and cultural organizations and more than 1,000 area artists through merit-based grants, contracts, and commissions.
• Arts Learning provides children and their families with direct experiences with arts and culture through various programs.

For more information on the Arts Council and its programs visit:
www.artslb.org

About Collage Dance Theatre

Collage Dance Theatre (CDT) is a nonprofit, site‐specific dance performance company based in Los Angeles, California. CDT seeks non‐traditional venues and methods for creating contemporary dance theatre works that seek new forms of relationship between audience and performer. In developing their choreography, they draw strongly on the history, community, and architecture of each performance site. CDT actively seeks collaborations with artists, arts organizations, and community groups in order to forge a link between professional performance, public space and audience.

CDT and Artistic Director/Choreographer Heidi Duckler have received numerous awards and honors including a total of 9 Lester Horton Dance Awards for Outstanding Achievement. In addition, Ms. Duckler has been awarded a City of Los Angeles Artist’s Fellowship and two James Irvine Foundation’s Dance in California Awards.

For more information on Collage Dance Theatre visit:
www.collagedancetheatre.org

Craig Watson is the Executive Director of the Arts Council for Long Beach. He previously served as Vice President of Communications for Charter Communications, culminating 25 years in the telecommunications industry. Prior to this, Watson held the positions of Assistant Director for the Sonoma County Arts Council; co-Director, Santa Barbara Arts Services and Director; and Rural Arts Services in Santa Rosa, California. In addition, Watson is a program graduate of the Coro Foundation’s Arts Management Leadership program and completed a summer fellowship within the National Endowment for the Arts “State-Local” program. He was honored to serve on the installation team for Christo’s “Running Fence” project in Sonoma County, California. More recently, he has served on the City of Long Beach Youth and Gang Violence Prevention Taskforce and is a graduate of the 2005 class of Leadership Long Beach.

Heidi Duckler is the Artistic Director and founder of Collage Dance Theatre. Since its inception in 1985, she has choreographed more than 60 original dance works at unique sites in Hong Kong, New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Portland, Oregon and throughout Southern California including the Lincoln Heights Prison, the Los Angeles River, the Subway Terminal Building, the Herald Examiner Building, the Ambassador Hotel and the L.A. Police Academy. Called “the reigning queen of site-specific performance,” by the L.A. Times, her work has been commissioned by Miami Light, Grand Performances, REDCAT, Aben Dans in Denmark, Brookfield Properties, and the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation, among others.

Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez is the Artistic Director of Watts Village Theater Company. Born in Compton and raised in Watts; he has built a career around using theater as a way of exploring issues of social inequality as well as self-empowerment. His expertise working with at-risk youth in developing original work is highly sought after. He has worked with paroled and group home youths for The Unusual Suspects and as a traveling drama specialist for MudTown Arts Education. He is a member of Grupo Apolo a Spanish-language theater group in Los Angeles. As a drama specialist and playwright/director Guillermo has worked with the Nationwide ArtsBridge outreach program as well as multiple residencies and collaborations with many after school, teen and social service programs.

Felicia Filer is the Director of the Public Art Division of the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs. She has overseen the commission of more than 150 permanent public art projects throughout the city, including the City’s Airport, Animal Services, Bureau of Engineering, Fire, Library, Police, Recreation and Parks, Transportation and Zoo departments. The Public Art Division includes the Public Percent for Art, Private Percent for Art, City Art Collection, Murals, and Music L.A. programs.

Contacts:

Arts Council for Long Beach
Erin Harkey, Associate Director of Public Art & Design
562.570.3811
erin.harkey@artslb.org
Anne Huyck, Director of Arts Learning
562-570-1930
artslearning@artslb.org

Collage Dance Theatre
Liliane E. Ribeiro, Managing Director
(818) 784-8669
liliane@collagedancetheatre.org