Tickets For The Season Go On Sale Starting On Friday, June 23
By Dolores Quintana
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) has announced the highly anticipated lineup for its inaugural 2023-24 season at the newly renovated UCLA Nimoy Theater (formerly known as The Crest Theatre). This historic landmark venue in Westwood has undergone a remarkable transformation, now serving as a flexible 300-seat off-campus performing arts space.
Named after the renowned artist, actor, director, and philanthropist Leonard Nimoy, The Nimoy is set to provide an immersive and engaging experience for audiences while offering local and global performing artists expanded opportunities to showcase their work. With diverse disciplines such as music, dance, theater, literary arts, digital media arts, and collaborative projects, The Nimoy aims to become a true home for artists representing various voices, viewpoints, and creative expressions.
Brett Steele, the dean of UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture, expressed his excitement about the inaugural season, stating, “The opening of The Nimoy marks a transformative moment in CAP UCLA’s history of presenting live performances. With this new venue, UCLA becomes an even more vital cultural hub, serving the Westwood neighborhood and communities across greater Los Angeles.”
Edgar Miramontes, the newly appointed executive and artistic director of CAP UCLA, emphasized the organization’s role in shaping Los Angeles’ cultural landscape, saying, “CAP UCLA plays a leading role in the cultural landscape of Los Angeles, and the arrival of The Nimoy will make the arts at UCLA even more integral to the city’s vibrant culture of creative expression.”
The 2023-24 season at The Nimoy will showcase diverse performances. Grammy Award-winning poet, spoken word artist, and songwriter J. Ivy open the CAP UCLA season at The Nimoy (September 23) with his singular style of performance poetry. J. Ivy will be joined on stage by singer Tarrey Torrae and local musicians as part of the first installment of Poetry Uncut, a four-part series of curated poetry evenings hosted by J. Ivy and notable guest artists (February 3 & 17), culminating in a final poetry jam (April 6).
Bringing an energetic and culturally rich experience to The Nimoy stage is Ethiocolor (September 29), a dynamic ensemble that blends contemporary influences with traditional instruments and dances of Ethiopia’s Azmari culture; renowned pipa player and pre-eminent ambassador for conventional Chinese music Wu Man (October 15); and the all-female band LADAMA (May 5), whose use of traditional and non-traditional instruments create rousing Latin Alternative music with a modern twist.
Audiences will experience captivating theatrical performances throughout the season. Omar Offendum’s genre-bridging performance, The Little Syria Show (November 3-4), set against the backdrop of the lower Manhattan neighborhood once known as Little Syria, spans hip-hop, Arabic instrumentation, and ḥakawātī oral storytelling traditions of the Levant, to imagine early 20th-century life in the heart of this Arab-American community.
Emmy-winning puppeteer Ronnie Burkett returns to CAP UCLA with an original piece titled “Wonderful Joe” (May 9-12), about an old man and his dog, and in celebration of The Nimoy’s opening season, acclaimed playwright Daniel Alexander Jones curates an original series for CAP UCLA, “Rites of Passage” (May 16-19), featuring renowned Los Angeles artists Lynell George, Roger Guenveur Smith, Luis Alfaro, Adelina Anthony, Alice Tuan, Kristina Wong, and Imani Tolliver.
Postmodern cabaret sensation Meow Meow pays tribute to the trailblazing female singers, dancers, and revolutionaries of the Weimar Republic in her dazzling show “Sequins and Satire, Divas and Disruptors: The Wild Women of the Weimar Republic” (March 8).
Dance highlights include choreographer-dancer Caleb Teicher and renowned pianist-composer Conrad Tao’s collaborative and stylistically diverse piece “Counterpoint” (September 30). Harmonic, rhythmic, and theatrical, the duo explore the dichotomy of their different artistic practice, expanding their expressive capacity through a collective experience.
In addition to The Nimoy, CAP UCLA will continue to program extraordinary artists at UCLA’s Royce Hall and its partner venue in downtown Los Angeles, The Theatre at Ace Hotel.
In addition to its performances, CAP UCLA’s K-12 arts education program, Design for Sharing (DFS), will be presented at The Nimoy. This program offers thousands of students the opportunity to experience live performances in an intimate setting, fostering a deeper connection to the arts.
Tickets for CAP UCLA’s 2023-24 Season at The Nimoy and other venues can be purchased here starting on Friday, June 23 at 10:00 a.m.
