REDCAT Presents UNDER POLARIS; Multimedia Odessy 10/14

REDCAT (the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) presents the Los Angeles premiere of Cloud Eye Control's Under Polaris, an epic multimedia odyssey with live music by The Need. Under Polaris opens Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at REDCAT and runs for a limited four-night engagement through Saturday, October 17, 2009.

"Having watched these artists grow since their early performances in REDCAT's Studio Series and NOW Festival 2008, we are thrilled to have co-commissioned and be presenting their newest opus, Under Polaris," explains Mark Murphy, REDCAT's executive director. Murphy continues, "The members of Cloud Eye Control are reaching deep into their individual expertise and pulling out a collaborative wealth of new performance works which are getting noticed nationally and internationally for good reason."

At once playful and deeply expressive, this young Los Angeles-based multimedia ensemble confronts head-on the tension between primal nostalgia and modern technological optimism. Formed in 2004, Cloud Eye Control consists of animation and media artist Miwa Matreyek, writer, musician and actor Anna Oxygen, and director Chi-wang Yang. The three met while students at CalArts studying Integrated Media. Their productions utilize both high and low tech methods raning from projected pre-rendered animation to puppets covered in lama hair to custom-built interactive video software allowing for interaction between the live actor and the media as scenery and virtual actor in their productions.

Cloud Eye Control's latest multimedia odyssey, Under Polaris, charts an epic journey across a vast arctic expanse--a sublime icebound landscape illuminated under the ethereal lights of the Northern sky. At the center of Under Polaris is the quest to preserve, inside pristine shards of ice, a seed containing the wealth of all human history: a back-up system for our genetic imprint and the sum total of our personal memories. En route, the story's protagonist shape-shifts into many a mythic creature to survive the elements and, in the process, learns the inextricable interdependence of humans and nature.

Incorporating projected animation, live theater and a fantasy metal score, the performances at REDCAT also feature a rare reunion of The Need--a queercore band formed by 1990s indie rock veterans, Rachel Carns and Radio Sloan--performing Anna Oxygen's heavy metal-inspired score.

REDCAT is an NPN Partner of the National Performance Network (NPN). The performances at REDCAT are made possible in part by support from the National Performance Network's Performance Residency Program. Major contributors of the National Performance Network include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), the MetLife Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. For more information, see www.npnweb.org. Additional support provided by Ovation TV Judith O. and Robert E. Rubin.

Under Polaris is a National Performance Network Creation Fund project co-commissioned by REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater), PICA and Leslie B. Durst. Additional commissioning support provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Dance Project, a program administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and The Ford Foundation. Under Polaris was also supported by the Princess Grace Foundation-USA and The Durfee Foundation.

Under Polaris runs October 14-17, 2009 at REDCAT with performances Wednesday-Saturday at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $20, with student discounts available. Seating is general admission. Tickets and information available at the REDCAT box office, 213-237-2800 or www.redcat.org.

REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

Cloud Eye Control's official website: www.cloudeyecontrol.com