News Release| Department of Music, Theatre and Dance; Cal State L.A.

August 23, 2012

Cal State L.A. performing arts students surprise Metro riders with ‘secret’ interactive performances during Meet Me @ Metro III

Opera del Espacio to perform along East L.A. Metro Gold Rail 

Los Angeles, CA – Cal State L.A. students and alumni will be part of the performance collective, Opera del Espacio, that will surprise audiences and riders along the Metro Gold Rail Line in East Los Angeles with interactive performances that suddenly “appear, delight and evaporate” as part of Meet Me @ Metro III (M3-III): Uncovering Los Angeles’ Hidden Treasures.

Taking place Aug. 25-26 and Sept. 1-2, Opera del Espacio will feature Cal State L.A. undergraduate and graduate students, and alumni, of the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance, secretly performing for M3-III audiences who purchased tickets, and surprising train riders who happen to be close by. The M3-III route was selected to highlight the many artistic contributions made to local cultural identity by Native American, Asian American and Latino communities. 

The students and audience will experience a lively celebration of the rich history of Los Angeles, presented in daring new ways,” said Tanya Kane-Parry, a CSULA Department of Music, Theatre and Dance faculty member who is Opera del Espacio’s artistic director. “The boundaries of audience and performer are broken down in public spaces, offering the opportunity to bring Angelinos together, across race, class and neighborhoods, creating a wider and larger consciousness of community.”

The CSULA student and alumni performers will be Christina Estrada, Melanie Keller, Jessica Miller, Marcelo Olivas, Alicia Tycer, Kymm Swank, and Ramona Young. The collective’s director is CSULA alum Jonathan CK Williams, and it is produced by student Jennifer Harrell.

M3-III is a hands-on artistic expedition that searches out culturally significant sites around the Metro rail system and creates “artistic excavations” that allow audience members to discover and learn about Los Angeles’ rich and diverse artistic history in an active and participatory manner. The annual event is produced by the Watts Village Theater Company (WVTC).

The audience members will be led by a “Musical Archaeologist” who will guide them to the discovery of different performing treasures along the train route. Performing solo artists and other companies along the way will play the role of “Site Stewards” of each site’s history. 

M3-III’s reflects the new and creative way L.A. theater companies are reaching out to new audiences and communities. The artists and designers of Opera del Espacio’s site-specific work reveal new possibilities in public spaces by physically responding to architecture and the environment. Purposely brought to the community to create a live, interactive and re-envisioned experience of the particular space, the group’s goal is to challenge audiences to re-evaluate the way they view the world around them.

“Opera del Espacio brings the art to the people! We mirror seemingly simple daily events and routines into a heightened, theatrical and entertaining performance that ultimately reflects the yearnings for connection to the world around us,” explained Kane-Parry. “These performances are always in relationship to the audience and the actual space of the event, often incorporating the audience into the live creation.”

M3-III is WVTC’s third-annual celebration of transit and performing arts. The company seeks to inspire its community with an appreciation of all cultures through new works about contemporary social issues. WVTC’s is also renowned for providing original professional theatrical performances for people who would otherwise not be able to experience them.

Click here to view a performance preview video.

For performance dates and times, maps, tickets and more information, visit http://www.meetmeatmetro.com/.

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Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 225,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six Colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to the Honors College for high-achieving students. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu