Storyteller/Performer David Gonzalez Celebrates Environment in New, Community-based Performance Project "Wounded Splendor"

Work-in-progress showings launch Clarice Smith Center’s “Living in Our Landscape” series

March 11, 2009 — College Park, Md. — Award-winning storyteller/poet/performer David Gonzalez explores the Earth’s natural beauty and advocates for its preservation and stewardship in a new multi-media work, titled “Wounded Splendor.” Co-commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, “Wounded Splendor” is being developed through an extensive year-long residency with campus and community, and will have work-in-progress showings on Saturday, April 4, 2009 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Center’s Kogod Theatre, followed by informal meet and greet events in the Grand Pavilion. The Center will present the world premiere of the show during the 2009-10 season. These April 4 showings kick off the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s “Living in Our Landscape” series, which features environmentally-themed ticketed performances and free discussions centered around Earth Day 2009.

Inspired by his own personal journeys around the world, Gonzalez incorporates stunning images, poetry and music with monologues and poems based on his ongoing conversations and workshops with some of today’s top environmental activists, experts, scientists and UM professors. According to Gonzalez, “Wounded Splendor” celebrates the beauty of nature in our times of rampant pollution and environmental destruction. “My wish is to cause people to reflect on the natural world, to reconsider their place within it, and their responsibility to it.” With the help of stimulating visuals and live music composed and performed by pianist Daniel Kelly, “Wounded Splendor” conjures an environment that evokes the sublime beauty and fragility of the Earth. Consisting of poems, monologues, and world myths, the piece also explores Gonzalez’s personal stories including: recent sojourns to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the Smoky Mountains, the Swiss Alps, and Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains; the “Peace with Nature” initiative in the rain forests of Costa Rica; the cleaning of the Hudson River; his ongoing volunteer efforts to maintain a trail in a New York State Park; and his recent experiences with astronomy, geomorphology of the living earth, and spectacular underwater adventures.

During his Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center residency for the project, David Gonzalez collaborated with the local Maryland community, including the UM campus on exploratory river trips, informational interviews and workshops. Recent projects have included discussions with UM Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Technology Dr. Andrew Baldwin regarding the recuperative faculties of wetlands within the climate change environment; interviews and tours of the Anacostia and Patuxent rivers led by local river advocates; a roundtable discussion with UM’s Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology students; a residency at Hyattsville Middle School where Gonzalez led a group of students in “Touch the Earth,” a hands on art-making and creative writing workshop inspired by artist Andy Goldsworthy; and numerous visits to sites of damaged natural beauty.

Gonzalez also led an extensive Clarice Smith Center residency in 2004, including events around Prince George’s County and culminating in a performance of the Center-commissioned multi-media “City of Dreams.”

Tickets to the April 4 showings of “Wounded Splendor” are $25; $7 for full-time students of all ages. To order, or for more information, visit www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu or call (301) 405-ARTS. “Living in Our Landscape” events will continue with Ensemble Galilei’s performance of “First Person: Stories from the Edge of the World” on April 19, combining compelling diary accounts from great explorers, narrated by NPR’s Neal Conan (“Talk of the Nation”) and actress Lily Knight (“Changeling”); stunning projected photographs from the National Geographic Image Collection; and the Ensemble’s eclectic blend of Celtic traditional music, early music and original tunes. Two free discussions on Earth Day, April 22 will address environmental activism: a 4 p.m. event titled “Environmental Justice in Our Backyard” with a panel of activists and policy makers moderated by Frederick Tutman, Riverkeeper of the Patuxent and a 7 p.m. Creative Dialogue discussion titled “Living in Our Landscape,” exploring the roles and responsibilities of artists regarding environmental activism, featuring country music star Kathy Mattea, Adrian Zelski guitarist/vocalist of the sustainability conscious dub/reggae band Dubconscious, and Brian Allenby, manager of operations and education at Reverb, a non-profit that has helped green over 50 concerts and 900 events with groups like The Dave Matthews Band and Maroon 5. The series concludes with a Thursday, April 23 concert by Grammy winner Kathy Mattea, titled “Coal: Moving Mountains.”

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is located at the intersection of University Boulevard (Route 193) and Stadium Drive in College Park, on the campus of the University of Maryland. A parking garage is located across the street from the Center. Pacifica Radio WPFW 89.3 FM is media sponsor for this event, and this performance is sponsored in part by the generous support of the Gazette and the Star Newspapers. The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is funded by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. Additional support is generously provided by a grant from the Leading College and University Presenters Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and by a generous grant from The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

About David Gonzalez
With speech, sound, mime, dance and above all, inspired imagination, nationally acclaimed master storyteller/poet/performer David Gonzalez is keeping the ancient art of storytelling alive. As a public speaker/poet, he was one of the featured performers at the 2008 National Storytelling Festival, Lincoln Center’s “2008 Imagination Conversation” symposium, and the 2008 Alliance for a New Humanity conference alongside Deepak Chopra. As poet/guitarist/band leader, Gonzalez creates jazz-infused shows that combine his contemporary poetry with the Afro-Cuban rhythms of Latin jazz. His most recent project, “City of Dreams” featuring the Poetic License Band, performed earlier this year at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club “Coca-Cola” in a week-long series, which marked the first time the club hosted a spoken word artist. Dedicated to producing community-driven projects, Gonzalez has received several recent commissions to create multimedia works with social justice themes. The Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center commissioned works that premiered this past year as part of The Egg’s 30th anniversary: “Jimi and Mr. B” took audiences on a journey of New York’s performing arts history; and “Oh Hudson,” a suite of historical and colorfully descriptive poems with music by Mark O’Connor, Don Byron, and Daniel Bernard Roumain, commemorates the Hudson River’s quadricentennial, a New York City premiere is scheduled for Spring 2009. http://www.davidgonzalez.com.

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center transforms lives through sustained engagement with the arts.

Contact:
Laura Mertens, Communications Coordinator
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
mertens@umd.edu
(301) 405-8151