Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University and Open Dance Project present “Red Landscape: Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas”

For Immediate Release
CONTACTS 
Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University
Erin Rolfs, Director of Marketing & Communicatio| erin.rolfs@rice.edu | 713-348-4115
Open Dance Project
Elissa Turner, Interim Managing Director | elissa@opendanceproject.org | 281-678-2306

Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University and Open Dance Project
present
Red Landscape: Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas 1912-1918

[HOUSTON, Texas, April 25] —The Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University and Open Dance Project (ODP) present Red Landscape: Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas 1912 – 1918, an immersive dance theater performance devised by the ODP ensemble under the choreographic direction of Annie Arnoult. Twelve ticketed performances will run at the Moody’s Lois Chiles Studio Theater beginning June 7, 2024. 

“Red Landscape is the third Open Dance Project performance hosted at the Moody and we’re excited to partner with this brilliant team every season,” said Suzanne Deal Booth Executive Director Alison Weaver. “Their innovative use of dance, design, and sound to convey thought-provoking themes and directly engage the audience aligns with our mission to offer unexpected and interdisciplinary entry points into the arts.” 

Red Landscape: Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas 1912-1918 surrounds audience members with a three-dimensional, multi-sensory collage of O’Keeffe’s memories and experiences in Texas. Inspired by the artist’s personal letters, journals, interviews, sketches, photographs, and works of art, this immersive multimedia experience invites audience members to walk through theatrical recreations of the bedroom, art studio, school, and West Texas town where O’Keeffe lived and taught. ODP ensemble members perform the roles of O’Keeffe, her admirers, and her adversaries through movements that echo both the “bigness” and “emptiness” of O’Keeffe’s landscapes and the intimacy of her written correspondence. 

“Georgia’s time in Texas is ripe source material for ODP. Georgia found her artistic voice in Texas, and that voice was modern, feminist, disruptive, provocative, and important,” said ODP Executive Artistic Director Annie Arnoult. “Like Valeska Gert, whose life and work inspired Open Dance Project’s DADA GERT, also presented by the Moody, Georgia O’Keeffe was a brilliant female artist in a man’s art movement. She knew she was a rebel, and she wore that badge proudly. Lucky for us, she wrote it all down.”

The performance weaves in and out of a visual, tactile, and sonic experience of O’Keeffe’s worldview created by set designer Ryan McGettigan, scenic artist Lauren Davis, projection and lighting designers Bryan Ealey and Tiffany Schrepferman, and sound designer Edgar Guajardo. A Texas-inspired score by Winter Barn (Garreth Broesche and Jason Stumpf) and produced and engineered by Paul Beebe infuses the piece with the dramatic pull between O’Keeffe’s Texas landscapes and the New York skyscrapers. The show benefits from the extensive local and national design experience of this team specializing in interdisciplinary collaboration and innovative use of movement, music, space, and form. This is the seventh immersive performance built with production manager Christina Maley and ODP artistic director Annie Arnoult. 

“Like our previous productions, Red Landscape is designed and choreographed to invite active, physical exploration by guests, who stand and walk in and among the performers,” said Arnoult. “Immersed in the words, images, and ephemera of O’Keefe both dancer and attendee break the conventional divisions between artist and audience.” 

The twelve intermission-free, hour-long performances will take place June 7 and 8 at 7 and 9 p.m.; June 9 at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.; June 12 and 13 at 7 p.m. and June 14 and 15 at 7 and 9 p.m. at the Moody’s Lois Chiles Studio Theater. A free pre-show director/designer set tour and talk will take place Saturday, June 15 at 6 pm. Tickets are $35 for the general public and are available at moody.rice.edu. 

Press review tickets, photos, interviews, and access to in-person or virtual open rehearsals are available by request.  Please contact Elissa Turner, elissa@opendanceproject.org

WHEN:
Friday, June 7, 7 pm and  9 p.m.
Saturday, June 8,  7 p.m. and  9 p.m.
Sunday, June 9, 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Wednesday, June 12, 7 p.m.
Thursday, June 13, 7 p.m.
Friday, June 14, 7 and 9 p.m. 
Saturday, June 15, 7 p.m.* and 9 p.m.

*Pre-show director/designer set tour and talk, Saturday, June 15, 6 pm

WHERE:
The Moody Center for the Arts
Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University
6100 Main Street, MS-480, Houston, TX 77005
(University Entrance 8, at University Boulevard and Stockton Street)

TICKETS:
www.moody.rice.edu
$35
713.348.ARTS

Production Team:
Annie Arnoult (Choreographer), Garreth Broesche & Jason Stumpf of Winter Barn (Composers),  Paul Beebe (Additional Music and Recording Engineer), Lauren Davis (Scenic & Prop Artist), Bryan Ealey and Tiffany Schrepferman (Lighting and Projection Design), Ashley Horn (Costume Design), Lynn Lane (Photographer), Ryan McGettigan (Set Design), Edgar Guarjardo (Sound Design) Christina Maley (Production Manager), Mary McNeely (Stage Manager), Elissa Turner (Interim Managing Director)

ODP DANCERS:   
Annie Arnoult, Joshua De Alba, Lauren Burke, Sonia Engman, Atticus Griffin, Madelyn Manlove, Cameo Renée, Jaime Garcia Vergara, Brenden Winkfield

SUPPORT
Red Landscape: Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas 1912-1918 is co-presented by Open Dance Project and the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University.  Red Landscape is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance and the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts. Additional major supporters include Texas Commission on the Arts, the Brown Foundation, Inc. and Dance Source Houston.

Co-Presenters:
Open Dance Project is a contemporary dance-theater company, under the direction of Annie Arnoult, whose ensemble-driven work transforms literary, historical, and community-based source material into highly stylized performance experiences. Through a collision of dance and theater, live performance and new media, urban grit and magical realism, Open Dance Project breaks down conventional barriers between artist and audience to make dance more accessible and meaningful for both. Open Dance Project is on the Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Artists Roster and is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. The company brings high-quality interdisciplinary arts education and arts integration to Houston school children through its extensive education and community engagement program and partners with Young Audiences of Houston and Arts Connect Houston to work towards arts equity in Houston schools.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/opendanceproject
Instagram: @opendanceproject
Web: www.opendanceproject.org

The Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University’s mission is to encourage creative thinking and original expression, enrich curricular innovation, and promote cross-campus and community collaboration through transformative encounters with the arts. We are a public-facing institution that connects the arts at Rice to the greater Houston community.

The Moody mounts three exhibitions a year in its galleries, curates numerous temporary and permanent public art installations throughout Rice’s campus, and hosts public performances, conversations, classes, and hands-on workshops. By centering these efforts on generative partnerships with artists, scholars, and students from various disciplines, the Moody presents unexpected and ever changing entry points into the arts which bridge communities and areas of interest, thus realizing its mission.

@theMoodyArts | #atTheMoody

About Rice University
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,879 undergraduates and 2,861 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for happiest students by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as the best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

Moody Center for the Arts 
Rice University
6100 Main Street, MS-480
Houston, TX 77005-1827
Moody.rice.edu
713-348-ARTS