Choreographer and dancer Erin Gottwald ’98 joins rapper, writer, actor and director Postell Pringle ’98 to lead longstanding Short Term unit “Tour, Teach, Perform,” in which students create a dance piece and teach it to pupils in local schools. Video produced by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

More about ‘Tour, Teach, Perform’

For the second year, the theater and dance department at Bates College and the local arts agency L/A Arts have teamed up to bring the dance program “Tour, Teach, Perform” to local elementary schools in May.

A course created by Bates in 1973, “Tour, Teach, Perform” brings Bates students to public schools in the Lewiston-Auburn region every spring to offer a performance and an arts lesson.

This year’s performance piece is “Welcome to Illyria (a 12th Night Story),” a multidisciplinary adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” The piece was written by Postell Pringle and created by Pringle, choreographer Erin Gottwald and L/A Arts’ director of arts in education, Joshua Vink, who is teaching the course.

“Tour, Teach, Perform” will travel to 11 schools, presenting performances to more than 2,300 students and workshops to more than 1,400. The visits began May 8 and continue through the 23rd. Please note that the school performances are not open to the general public.

Postell Pringle ’98, center rear, and his classmate Erin Gottwald (in green) led these students in creating a piece for the 2013 “Tour, Teach, Perform” unit.

Pringle and Gottwald are performance collaborators and members of the Bates class of 1998. Pringle is a playwright, hip-hop artist-producer, actor and director. He is one of the four Q Brothers, a troupe that creates new musicals, recordings and multi-disciplinary productions using the tools of hip hop.

Pringle recently played the title role of the Q Brothers’ acclaimed multimedia production “Othello: The Remix,” presented in Chicago, London, Germany and Edinburgh. He has performed on and off Broadway, in film and in such television programs as “Rescue Me,” “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

Gottwald, a dancer and choreographer, has worked throughout the United States. She has taught dance for more than 15 years, and since 2005 has taught at Spoke the Hub Dancing in Brooklyn, where she is co-director of the Young Artists Program and producer-curator of the annual performance series, Gowanus Guest Room.

“Tour, Teach, Perform” is a course presented annually during Bates’ five-week spring Short Term. Students create a production and learn how to teach an arts lesson to K-6 graders. When they visit the elementary schools, they perform their show and then fan out to teach a 45-minute lesson in 10 classrooms, giving the pupils a chance to explore the elements of performance for themselves.

Bates is an important partner in the arts in Lewiston-Auburn, with hundreds of performances open to the public on campus each year and multiple partnerships off campus. Bates is also home to the internationally renowned Bates Dance Festival, which offers six weeks of performances on and off campus by recognized artists from around the world, as well as the Youth Arts Program for young people from the region.

L/A Arts is the designated arts agency for Lewiston-Auburn. For “Tour, Teach, Perform,” L/A Arts has provided outreach to the local schools and supported transportation and accommodations for Gottwald and Pringle, who were in residence for the first two weeks of Short Term.

Aquila Theatre Company visits Bates and Lewiston in a residency co-sponsored with L/A Arts. Photograph copyright 2005 by Lois Greenfield.

Here are the three Aquila Theatre Company presentations co-sponsored in September 2012 by Bates and L/A Arts:

Cyrano de Bergerac

Beautifully funny, poignant and often heartwrenching, Edmond Rostand’s play is one of the most famous romantic adventures in world literature. (7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, Bates’ Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St. $15, available at www.laarts.org. 207-782-7228. Pre-show discussion at 6 p.m. in the college Chapel.)

Cyrano is an excellent swordsman from Gascony, a region of France famous for producing stubborn, courageous and grandiose soldiers. He is besotted with the beautiful and alluring Roxanne, and yet, because of his famously huge nose, the forlorn Cyrano feels that he can never truly win her heart and keeps his love as a personal and painful secret.

In this classic story of unrequited love, Cyrano befriends the handsome Christian de Neuvillette, who helps him woo Roxanne by composing elegant love letters and teaching him the arts of eloquence, courtship and poetry. Living his love vicariously through Christian, while desperately yearning for the truth to come out, Cyrano’s passionate adventure unfolds in the streets of Paris, the battlefield of Arras and the placid convent where this exquisite tale reaches its dramatic conclusion.

The Aquila Theatre Company performs “Cyrano de Bergerac” at Bates on Sept. 27.

The story, based on a true historical figure, still attracts audiences today, more than ever, both on the stage and in film. Notable film productions of this tale include Jose Ferrer’s Oscar-winning performance in 1950, Gerard Depardieu’s in 1990, and Steve Martin’s modern American version, Roxanne.

Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives: Poetry-Drama-Dialogue*

Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives: Poetry-Drama-Dialogue is a major national humanities program traveling to 100 public libraries and art centers across America with a mission to inspire people to come together to read, see and think about classical literature and how it continues to influence and invigorate American cultural life. (7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, Lewiston Public Library, 200 Lisbon St. Free. FMI www.laarts.org. or 207-782-7228.)

This new program unites the Aquila Theatre Company, the Urban Libraries Council, the American Philological Association, the Center for Ancient Studies at New York University and the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.

The staged reading of Ancient Greeks / Modern Lives: Poetry-Drama-Dialogue will include a repertoire of scenes from Greek drama such as Homer’s Odyssey, Sophocles’ Ajax, Euripides’ Herakles and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. The event will feature five professional actors and include an introduction, performed readings, a post-show discussion and a town hall-style meeting, including audience comments.

Before the show, Bowdoin College classics professor Jennifer Clarke Kosak will discuss the program and how it relates to the show that is about to be performed. She will later facilitate a town hall-style discussion encouraging audience members to share their impressions and experiences.

This performance and workshop are in conjunction with a National Endowment for the Humanities project in which Aquila Theatre will do a workshop with veterans in our community on staging classical plays.

The Taming of the Shrew

Set in the idyllic town of Padua, The Taming of the Shrew tells the story of the timeless battle of the sexes. Bianca Minola, the beautiful daughter of a lord, is eligible for marriage but cannot be courted until her elder sister, Katherina, finds a husband. Katherina’s quick temper and acerbic wit, however, frighten off every potential suitor. (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, Bates’ Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St. $15, available at www.laarts.org. 207-782-7228. Pre-show discussion at 6 p.m. in the college Chapel.)

Feeling that they are running out of options, two suitors hire a newcomer named Petruchio to seduce and “tame” Katherina. After their exchanges of wisecracks and double entendres, Petruchio succeeds in dragging Katharina to the altar then away to his country home. Once there, the taming process begins, with both sides unwilling to yield.

From its earliest productions at the Globe to Michael Bogdanov’s 1978 production at the Royal Shakespeare Company to Gil Junger’s modern retelling, 10 Things I Hate About You, the play has proven itself adaptable to each new generation. The story, with its domestic power plays and controversial depiction of marriage, has been the subject of multiple operas and the backdrop for Cole Porter’s Tony Award-winning musical Kiss Me Kate.

Aquila Theatre Company

Aquila’s productions, wrote The New York Times, are “beautifully spoken, dramatically revealing and crystalline in effect.” In 1991, Artistic Director Peter Meineck founded Aquila Theatre with the desire to create bold reinterpretations of classical plays for contemporary audiences that sought to free the spirit of the original work and recreate the excitement of the live performance that made it become a classic play.

The company’s mission is simple yet very ambitious – to bring the greatest works to the greatest number. They believe passionately that everyone should be afforded the opportunity to engage with classical drama of the highest quality at an affordable price right in their own communities, experience arts from other places and exchange ideas, discuss and explore these works in an accessible and exciting format.

Based in New York City, Aquila has gone on to win popular, critical and academic acclaim worldwide. Aquila presents a season of classical plays in New York at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, tours nationwide to between 50-70 cities per year and provides extensive educational programming.

*Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: great ideas brought to life. ancientgreeksmodernlives.org. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Return to the main story.

The Aquila Theatre Company performs “Cyrano de Bergerac” at Bates on Sept. 27.

Bates and the local arts agency L/A Arts have been collaborators for years, jointly presenting arts and cultural events, but the partnership has gained a new intensity for autumn 2012.

In part, this higher level of activity is simply reflecting a new excitement and cooperative spirit in Lewiston-Auburn. And in part, it’s directly attributable to Odelle Bowman, executive director of the arts agency for 18 months.

“I’m a collaborator by nature and a community person,” says Bowman. “It’s my nature to want to bring people together, because we are stronger together than by ourselves.”

The college and L/A Arts are jointly hosting the Aquila Theatre Company in a three-day residency (Sept. 27-29). Dedicated to bringing the greatest works of the stage to the greatest possible number of viewers, Aquila is known for a robust touring program that takes in some 70 cities across the country each year. Learn more.

Coinciding with the Aquila visit are two readings, Sept. 27-28, by Brian Turner, known as a soldier-poet who served as an infantry team leader in Iraq, and has two published poetry to his credit. Learn more.

As if all that weren’t plenty, Bates’ Olin Arts Center and L/A Arts are also jointly presenting a return performance by jazz-gospel-blues singer Francine Reed, whose 2011 date at the college was one of the highlights of the concert season. Learn more.

Here are the specifics:

Aquila Theatre: All at 7:30 p.m., Aquila performs Cyrano de Bergerac on Thursday, Sept. 27, in Bates’ Schaeffer Theatre; Ancient Greeks / Modern Lives: Poetry-Drama-Dialogue*, which combines a community discussion with excerpts from ancient Greek drama about war, on Friday, Sept. 28, in Lewiston Public Library’s Callahan Hall; and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew on Saturday, Sept. 29, back at Schaeffer.

Schaeffer Theatre is located at 305 College St., Lewiston, and the public library is downtown at 200 Lisbon St. Admission to Cyrano and Taming of the Shrew is $15, and discussions precede each of those performances at 6 p.m. in the college Chapel, 275 College St.

Ancient Greeks is open to the public at no cost. For tickets or more information, please contact 207-782-7228 or visit www.laarts.org.

Brian Turner: Both open to the public at no cost, Turner’s readings take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at Bates College’s Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., as part of the Language Arts Live series of literary readings at Bates; and at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, in Callahan Hall, Lewiston Public Library, 200 Lisbon St. This Poet As Art series reading coincides with the monthly Art Walk Lewiston Auburn.

Also supporting Turner’s appearances are the library, the Harward Center for Community Partnerships and the Spanish department at Bates, and the Maine Humanities Council.

For more information, please contact L/A Arts at 207-782-7228 or www.laarts.org.

Francine Reed: Reed takes the stage at the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St., at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, presented by the Olin Arts Alive concert series in collaboration with L/A Arts. Admission: $15 / $10, increasing to $20 /$10 on the day of the show. Available at batestickets.com. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

L/A Arts, the designated Local Arts Agency of the Twin Cities, has a 35-year history of arts and cultural initiatives, partnerships and performances. L/A Arts combines arts-centered educational programming, MainStage performance series, free summer concerts, gallery installations and more.

Frequently partnering with local community organizations, L/A Arts promotes the arts and culture in various forms — from benefit concerts for veterans to Art Walk Lewiston Auburn, the Auburn Art Wall to Arts in Education.

*Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: great ideas brought to life. ancientgreeksmodernlives.org. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Would it be the newspaper? Radio or TV? E-mail, Twitter or Facebook?

If you had your druthers, what would be your favorite way to learn about arts and entertainment events in the Lewiston-Auburn region?

That’s what Bates and a number of local organizations would like to know. And we’re hoping you’ll tell us.

Through a survey launched today on SurveyMonkey.com, Bates and such organizations as L/A Arts hope to assess audience preferences for cultural events — the types of events you most enjoy, how you hear about them now and, most important, how you would like to hear about them.

• If you attend events in Lewiston-Auburn, please take our survey! Follow this link to the 8-minute survey.

“The earthquake in mass communications is shaking up arts presenters, too,” says Bates staff writer Doug Hubley, who publicizes cultural events for the college. “As we try to spread the word about happenings at Bates, or at the Public Theatre or L/A Arts, we can’t assume that the old methods are still effective.

“The question is, what methods will be effective? And we’re hoping our audiences will use this survey to tell us.” The 8-minute survey is titled ”The Arts in L/A: Getting the Word Out.”

Currently, Bates follows a fairly traditional path in publicizing events — press releases to the media, a printed monthly calendar mailed to subscribers and the same calendar online. The information gathered through the survey, the sponsors hope, will have a two-birds, one-stone effect, Hubley says.

“If it turns out our print pieces are going straight to the recycling bin, we may be able to save money on printing and mailing. And at the same time, we’ll learn how to give information to people the way they want to get it,” whether it’s through e-mail or even a Facebook site, he says.

Partnering with Bates in the survey project are the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce, the Auburn Community Band, the Bates Dance Festival, the Franco-American Heritage Center, Gleason Media Group, L/A Arts, the Lewiston Public Library and the Sun Journal.

– Doug Hubley, Office of Communications and Media Relations

In a landmark event for the Androscoggin Valley cultural community, Bates College and the Maine Music Society will muster an ensemble of some 260 musicians for a performance of music by Johannes Brahms, including his monumental “Requiem,” at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 31, in the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, 27 Bartlett St.

The concert is the first-ever collaboration between the Maine Music Society and the college, both key players in the cultural life of the region. Choral groups from the high schools of Lewiston and Auburn are taking part in the program, as well.

Maine Gov. John Baldacci is scheduled to make opening remarks at the event.

For the general public, tickets cost $17.50 at the door and $15 in advance, available through the L/A Arts box office at 207-782-7228. Admission is free to students with valid ID, but tickets are required. To reserve student tickets or for general information about this event, please call Bates College at 207-786-6135.

To open the program, John Corrie, director of the Bates College Choir and the artistic director of the Maine Music Society, will lead four choirs in two motets by Brahms. The choirs are the Bates College Choir, the Edward Little High School Chamber Choir, the Lewiston High School Concert Choir and the Androscoggin Chorale, which is one of the music society’s two performing ensembles.

The balance of the program consists of Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” (Op. 45), sung by the Bates and Androscoggin choirs with soprano Bonnie Scarpelli and baritone Peter Allen, both well-known to Maine audiences, as soloists. The singers will be accompanied by a 60-piece orchestra composed of the Bates College Orchestra and the Maine Chamber Ensemble, the other performing arm of the music society.

Hiroya Miura, director of the Bates orchestra, will conduct the ensemble.

First performed in its seven-movement entirety in 1869, “A German Requiem” is a consistently popular entry in Brahms’ catalog. In its sophistication and complexity, the music marked a turning point in 19th-century composition. The texts, chosen by the composer from the Lutheran Bible, deal with issues of loss, consolation and a transcendent hopefulness for humanity.

For more information about the Maine Music Society, please visit the Web site.

Evans presented Speechless, a look at the history of hip-hop, at the 2001 Bates Dance Festival. Started as an underground dance movment by African-American teenagers in the 1980s, hip-hop has grown into an international music, fashion, film and dance phenomenon. Since 1991, Evans has appeared in such major performances as the Q102 Monster Concert with recording artist TL; John Coltrane Project, commissioned by the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia; and Dance Africa America in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

Captivating audiences as a member of Rennie Harris’ dance company, Evans has performed and taught at major venues throughout the world. He co-developed and co-starred in the role of Mercutio in Rome and Jules, Harris’ dazzling spin-off of Romeo and Juliet. He has also appeared in feature films and dance videos. Evans has “something important to say,” said the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Kimberly Roberts of The Philadelphia Tribune called him “exciting . . . with cat-like quickness and the stupefying hang time of Allen Iverson.”

Evans’ Bates appearance is sponsored by Bates College Modern Dance, Office of the Dean of Students, Amandla! and L/A Arts.

In Farsi with English subtitles, A Taste of Cherry follows Mr. Badii, who drives through the hilly outskirts of Tehran in search of someone who will bury him if he succeeds in suicide or rescue him if he fails. He meets an assortment of characters including Afghans, Kurds, Turks, prisoners of the desert, a soldier, a seminary student and a museum employee, all of whom turn down his request.

“Kiarostami, like no other filmmaker, has a vision of human scale that is simultaneously epic and precisely minuscule,” said Stephen Holden of The New York Times.

A Taste of Cherry is the second of seven films in the 1998-99 International Film Series. Next in the series will be La Promesse, in French with English subtitles, directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne Saturday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 8, at 2 p.m. in Room 105 of the Olin Arts Center.

Starring Dolores Del Rio and Roland Drew and directed by Edwin Carewe, Evangeline is a romantic tragedy, celebrating self-denial and heroic virtues. The film has been preserved by UCLA Film and Television Archive and is combined, for the first time, with a soundtrack from surviving original sound discs. Since not all the recordings have been located, the audience will experience the first half of the film as it was originally presented, with live music. Evangeline is the first of seven films in the 1998-99 International Film Series, sponsored by L/A Arts and the Bates Filmboard.

Next in the series will be A Taste of Cherry, in Farsi with English subtitles, directed by Abbas Kiarostami, Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 27 at 2 p.m. in Room 105 of the Olin Arts Center at Bates College.

Featuring a caustic collage of new footage and propaganda films tracing the death throes of the Soviet Union from the end of the repressive Brezhnev regime through the brief heyday of perestroika to the shaky arrival of democracy, “Anna” (Russian with English subtitles) is the third of four films in the 1998 Spring Foreign Film Series, sponsored by L/A Arts and the Bates Student Film Board.

Also featured in the series is “Guelwaar” on April 4 and April 5.

All screenings will be in Room 105 of the Olin Arts Center at Bates College. All Saturday shows in the series are at 7 p.m., and all Sunday shows are at 2 p.m. Admission for all shows is $5.

Directed by Andre Techine and featuring Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, Marthe Villalonga and Carmen Chaplin, Ma Saison Préférée (unrated: nudity and adult situations, subtitled in English) is the second of four films in the 1998 Spring Foreign Film Series, sponsored by L/A Arts and the Bates Student Film Board.

Also featured in the series are Anna on March 7 and March 8 and Guelwaar on April 4 and April 5.

All screenings will be in Room 105 of the Olin Arts Center at Bates College. All Saturday shows in the series are at 7 p.m., and all Sunday shows at 2 p.m. Admission for all shows is $5.