Feb 29, 2024
Manual Cinema: Ada/Ava Featuring Aaron David Miller, organist
Mobile-friendly Program
Greetings, and welcome to Northrop! I’m delighted that you are joining us during the 2023-24 Northrop Season. In true Northrop fashion, this season brings a breadth of preeminent artists to the Twin Cities, offering audiences the chance to revisit long-time favorites, discover new gems, and even catch two world premieres of works that are part of the Northrop Centennial Commissions program. I hope you will explore everything we have to offer across dance, music, film, and this year’s Spotlight Series, Moving Through Injustice.
The performances that you see onstage are just one facet of each artist’s engagement with Northrop. In support of our mission to cultivate intersections between arts and education, there are a plethora of opportunities to dive more deeply into the artists and their work. Community roundtables, performance previews, workshops, classes, Q&A’s, and more offer insight into artists’ histories and processes, and give context surrounding the works you will see. Make sure to visit the “Learn More” section on each company’s event page on Northrop’s website to find interdisciplinary thematic connections, discover resources that provide more information on the performers, art forms, and artistic processes, and explore questions that will help engage you in conversations and reflections. Each of these elements are intended to complement and add new depth and dimension to the way you see the performances. I encourage you to visit the website now and often, as new engagements and resources are added throughout the year. While you’re there, explore the many other events happening at Northrop including concerts, lectures, comedy, and more!
Thank you again for joining us during the 2023-24 Northrop Season. I want to give a special thank you to our subscribers and donors. Your support is more important than ever before. Through your attendance and contributions, you help to ensure that Northrop can continue to bring world-class artists to the Twin Cities community. Thank you.
Gratefully,
Kari Schloner
Executive Director
Greetings and welcome to Northrop,
We are thrilled, honored, and grateful that you are joining us for this performance. Northrop presents some of the greatest dance and music performers from all around the world and has been doing so for almost 100 years! We are happy that you are a part of our community who supports this amazing work and helps us achieve our belief that the arts are essential to the human experience. We are committed to cultivating intersections between performing arts and education for the benefit of all participants now and for generations to come.
Northrop has been an integral center for the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota arts community for close to a century and we need your help to continue to do so. We hope you can be a champion and advocate for Northrop by sharing your experiences at Northrop with your friends, family, and community at large, as well as supporting our work financially when you can. You can learn more about how to support Northrop here.
As Chair of the Northop Advisory Board, we are delighted to share that we are growing in our work to increase the impact of Northrop on the stage, in the schools, and in the community. If you are interested in learning more about being part of the Northrop Advisory Board, learn more here or contact Cynthia Betz, Director of Development, at betzx011@umn.edu.
Thanks again for joining us and don’t forget to say “Hi” and introduce yourself when you are attending a performance. I can’t wait to meet you!
Jeff Bieganek
Northrop Advisory Board Chair
Duration: 60 minutes, followed by a chance to go onstage and meet the puppets and artists
Director's note from co-artistic director and co-composer/sound designer of Ada/Ava Ben Kauffman:
Manual Cinema has the unique and sometimes maddening(!) habit of returning to and re-making our shows after they’ve had their official premieres. Because we’re always learning something new about our medium, we're always hungry to infuse old works with new techniques, new tricks, new ideas.
Re-scoring Ada/Ava for live organ is special because it certainly follows in this tradition of ours, but in this case only one variable in the show has changed–the music. There were sounds, textures, and musical moments from the original score (for guitar, cello, rhodes, and more) that we simply had to leave behind. But there were exciting new gestures and textures to explore as well. With the organ (and with Aaron David Miller’s deft touch), the piece has new colors, shadings, and accents that weren’t there before. It's in conversation with very different musical traditions than the original score as well. And yet, the story is still the story. Our connection to Ada and her journey isn’t any less strong. For a show that’s about whether and how to bring the past with you into the present, Ada/Ava with live organ is a fitting experiment in returning to a show deep in our repertoire and finding something new and vital within it.
Ada/Ava
Bereaved of her twin sister Ava, septuagenarian Ada solitarily marks time in the patterns of a life built for two. However, a traveling carnival and a trip to a mirror maze plunges her into a journey across the thresholds of life and death. Set in a landscape of the New England gothic, Ada/Ava uses a story of the fantastic and supernatural to explore mourning and melancholy, self and other. Ada/Ava premiered in 2013.
Credits
Directed by: Drew Dir
Score and Sound Design by: Kyle Vegter and Ben Kauffman
Designed by: Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, and Julia Miller
Additional Drums, Synthesizer, and Piano by: Michael Hilger
Wigs and Costumes by: Mieka van der Ploeg
Mask Design by: Julia Miller
Cast
Organist: Aaron David Miller
Ada/Puppeteer: Julia Miller
Ava/Puppeteer: Lizi Breit
Puppeteer: Sarah Fornace
Puppeteer: Myra Su
Puppeteer: Jeffrey Paschal
Vocals and Guitar: Nashon Holloway
Live Sound Effects: Ben Kauffman
Live Organ Effects: Kyle Vegter
For all North, Central, and South American booking enquiries please contact:
Laura Colby, Director, Elsie Management
laurac@elsieman.org
TEL: +1 718 797 4577
www.elsieman.org
Photo by Maren Celest
Manual Cinema is a performance collective, design studio, and film/video production company founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter. Manual Cinema combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen.
Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and live music, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema and imbues it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality. The company was awarded an Emmy in 2017 for The Forger, a video created for The New York Times, and named Chicago Artists of the Year in 2018 by the Chicago Tribune. In 2020 they were included in 50 of Chicago theater "Rising Stars and Storefront Stalwarts" (Newcity). Their shadow puppet animations were featured in the 2021 film remake of Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
Manual Cinema has been presented by, worked in collaboration with, or brought its work to The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), BAM (NYC), Arts Emerson, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Kennedy Center (DC), The L.A. Opera, Under the Radar Festival (NYC), La Monnaie-DeMunt (Brussels), The Noorderzon Festival (Netherlands), The Kimmel Center (Philadelphia), The Seattle Theatre Group, The O, Miami Poetry Festival, The Tehran International Puppet Festival (Iran), Davies Symphony Hall (SF), Stanford Live (Stanford, CA), The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Saudi Arabia), The Ace Hotel Theater (LA), The Hakawy International Arts Festival (Cairo), The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and elsewhere around the world. They have collaborated with StoryCorps (NYC), Erratica (London), The Belgian Royal Opera (Brussels), Hubbard Street Dance (Chicago), Pop-Up Magazine (SF), Nu Deco Ensemble (Miami), Santiago a Mil festival (Santiago), three time Grammy Award-winning eighth blackbird (Chicago), NPR’s Invisibilia, The Poetry Foundation, Chicago History Museum, Topic Magazine, Grammy Award-winning Esperanza Spalding and The New York Times. Their work has been produced by AMC and Showtime.
In 2023 they filmed their first self-produced short puppet film, Future Feeling, which will have its festival premier in 2024.
Lizi Breit
Photo by Maren Celest
Sarah Fornace
Nashon Holloway
Photo by Maren Celest
Julia Miller
Jeffrey Paschal
Myra Su
Photo by James Mims
Aaron David Miller
Northrop Acknowledgments
The Northrop Advisory Board
The Northrop Advisory Board is committed to the growth and awareness of Northrop’s mission, vision, and the continued future of presenting world-class dance and music in our community. If you would like more information about the advisory board and its work, please contact Cynthia Betz, Director of Development, at 612-626-7554 or betzx011@umn.edu.
Northrop Advisory Board Members
- Cynthia Betz
- Jeff Bieganek, Chair
- Kristen Brogdon
- Dr. Robert Bruininks
- John Conlin
- Deb Cran
- Susan DeNuccio
- Karen Hanson
- Cari Hatcher
- Jill Hauwiller
- Holly Kellar
- Kelly McQueen
- Bob McMaster
- Katheryn Menaged
- Gary Reetz
- Robyne Robinson
- Toni Pierce-Sands
- Kari Schloner
- Kao Lee Vang
- Donald Williams
Thank you for supporting Northrop!
Making Legendary Performances Possible!
At Northrop, we believe in connecting great artists and ideas with our community and to a new generation of audiences. Your gift helps make memorable arts experiences possible by supporting extraordinary performances and new arts commissions, and helping ensure accessibility to everyone through live-streamed programming, outreach to diverse communities and subsidized student tickets. Our Friends are at the center of Northrop’s biggest ideas and brightest moments on stage.
Become a Friend of Northrop today!
Donate online at northrop.umn.edu/support-northrop
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To learn more about supporting Northrop please contact:
Cynthia Betz
betzx011@umn.edu or 612-626-7554
Friends of Northrop
A special thank you to our patrons whose generous support makes Northrop's transformative arts experiences possible. Make your mark on Northrop's future by becoming a Friend today, learn more by visiting northrop.umn.edu/support-northrop.
We gratefully acknowledge the support from Curtis L Carlson Family Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, project support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Givens Foundation, and event sponsors PNC Bank, and RBC Wealth Management.
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Northrop's Aeolian-Skinner Organ
Thank you to the generous donors who continue to support programming for Northrop’s beloved Aeolian-Skinner Organ. It is because of you that this magnificent instrument’s voice will be enjoyed by many for years to come.
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The Northrop Organ Advisory Board
- J. Michael Barone
- Cynthia Betz
- Dean Billmeyer
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- Dr. Robert Bruininks
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- Laura Edman
- Nils Halker
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The Heritage Society Members
The Heritage Society honors and celebrates donors who have made estate and other planned gifts for Northrop at the University of Minnesota.
- Nancy M. Allen*
- Jerry L. Artz
- John W. Follows*
- Stephen Gordon and Pat Gavan-Gordon
- Gail and Stuart Hanson
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- Darlene M. Sholtis
*Deceased
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Visit the Event Page for More Insights
Mobile-friendly digital programs have replaced printed programs in support of fiscal stewardship (focusing funds on the artists appearing on our stage), environmental sustainability (reducing paper consumption and not contributing to supply chain issues), and visual accessibility (allowing you to zoom in on the content). Want to enjoy the program after the event? You can find it linked from the event page on Northrop's website. Thank you for viewing!