News Release

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World premiere at Memorial Hall 
examines media and audience roles

CHAPEL HILL – Modern news and the technologies that connect us to it will be subjects of a multimedia theatrical work March 24 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Live music, performance poetry, video and more will be part of the world premiere of "Still Life With Commentator" at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall, part of the Carolina Performing Arts Series.

The piece will be staged later this year at the 2006 BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Next Wave Festival in New York.

Collaborators are jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer, performance poet and recording artist Mike Ladd and Ibrahim Quraishi, who creates artistic installations using objects, actors and videos. Quraishi will direct the work.

Iyer’s album "Reimagining" ranked in the top 10 of the best jazz compact discs of 2005 in JazzTimes magazine. The disc also made the online magazine Slate’s Jazz-A-List for 2005 and best-of-2005 lists in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. His other recordings include "Panoptic Modes" and "Blood Sutra."

Iyer holds a doctorate in technology and the arts from the University of California, Berkeley, and has lectured and published on cognitive science, jazz studies and performance studies.

Poet, singer and social commentator Mike Ladd also will perform in "Still Life With Commentator." A BBC interview called the Bronx-based artist and published poet a visionary, a post-futurist and a rap, hip-hop and rogue avant garde artist. His nine albums include ""Easy Listening 4 Armageddon" and "Welcome to the Afterfuture."

Ladd has been an English lecturer at Long Island University and a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue. There he produced and directed "Blood Black and Blue," an audio documentary and performance about black police officers in the United States.

Quraishi directs the theater company Compagnie Faim de Siecle, based in New York and Paris. He has created site-specific performances and three-dimensional installations at festivals and galleries in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Exploring themes including cultural and social conflict, migration, dispossession and contemporary Islam, Quraishi also uses visual art forms and digital media in his creations. They include "5 Streams," performed recently at the Asia Society in New York. He has received grants from funding agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Still Life With Commentator" also will feature experimental vocal artist Pamela Z, electronic percussionist Guillermo E. Brown, cellist Okkyung Lee and guitarist Liberty Ellman.

Single tickets – $15 to $35 for the public and $10 for Carolina students – are available by calling (919) 843-3333 or from the Memorial Hall box office on Cameron Avenue, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Carolina students should call the box office for purchasing information. Series subscriptions also are available. For more information, e-mail performingarts@unc.edu or visit www.unc.edu/performingarts. 

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Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/memorial/mike_ladd_vijay_iyer.jpg

Artist Web sites: Iyer: www.vijay-iyer.com

BBC interview with Ladd: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A2858484

Quraishi: http://faimdesiecle.org/eng_version/fds_company_people/perso_04.html

Carolina Performing Arts Series contact: Jennifer Smith, (919) 966-3834 or jwsmith@unc.edu

News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589