Mark Murphy & David Sefton
In conversation with journalist/author Barbara Isenberg
Nigerian music, Mexican farce, John Updike, Lou Reed. Polish puppeteers, Belgian Butoh, Irish bards--what goes into the making of a season of groundbreaking performing arts at REDCAT and UCLA Live?
Mark Murphy, Executive Director of REDCAT, is an influential leader in the national and international field of contemporary performing arts, with 20 years of experience producing, presenting and developing new audiences for interdisciplinary performances. Murphy has served as Chairman of the Choreographer's Fellowship Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, was a founding board member of the National Performance Network, an advisor to the National Dance Project, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Japan Foundation's Performing Arts Program. He is the winner of first place awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for Feature Writing and radio documentary production.
David Sefton was appointed Director of UCLA Performing Arts in October 2000. Previously he was Head of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Festival Hall in London where he created and produced the annual Meltdown Festival, the largest and most influential festival in the center's season. His program at Royal Festival Hall focused on the development of music, performance and multi-media and was the recipient of several major awards. For UCLA Live he directs an ambitious annual series of music, dance and performance which has become renowned locally, nationally and internationally for its diversity and innovation.
Barbara Isenberg is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and Time magazine and has written for such publications as Esquire, Talk and London's Sunday Times. She received a Distinguished Artist Award from the Los Angeles Music Center, has been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute and is associate director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC. Her books include Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical and State of the Arts: California Artists Talk About Their Work. Her new book, Conversations with Frank Gehry, is due out this spring.
Unless otherwise indicated, ALOUD programs take place at the Los Angeles Central Library's Mark Taper Auditorium, 630 W. Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071.
