UCLA Arts Center Gears Up for Its Busiest Season Ever

The UCLA Center for the Performing Arts will celebrate its 60th anniversary season with the largest number of offerings in its history, nearly 60 events ranging from a Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival to the Grand Kabuki Theatre of Japan.

Highlights of the 1996-97 season also include three new works by choreographer Twyla Tharp; cellist Yo-Yo Ma in collaboration with jazz and bluegrass bassist Edgar Meyer and violinist Mark O’Connor; composer Steve Reich presenting his new “Proverb”; and the previously announced, new commissioned dance-theater work about the American West by Pina Bausch.

Los Angeles will see the local debut of choreographer Donald Byrd’s “The Harlem Nutcracker,” the West Coast debut of the off-Broadway hit “Jam on the Groove” and the last performance by the Los Angeles-based Lewitzky Dance Company, honoring more than 30 years of Lewitzky’s choreographic invention.

Additionally, performance artist Karen Finely will present her new “American Chestnut,” soprano Dawn Upshaw will sing her only Los Angeles recital, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore will make her West Coast recital debut, and the Vienna-based Alban Berg Quartet will appear in one of only three U.S. stops.

The season will also include the Jim Henson Foundation’s International Festival of Puppet Theater, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Japanese butoh group Sankai Juku, the Whirling Dervishes, Senegalese singer Baaba Maal, the Stephen Petronio Company, Diavolo Dance Theater and the Trisha Brown Company.

Jazz events will include the Mingus Big Band and a concert version of John Berendt’s novel “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

The Grand Kabuki will present Chikamatsu’s “Shunkan” and Mokuami’s “Tsuri Onna” Sept. 19-21 at the Wiltern Theatre. Actor Nakamura Kichiemon will be included among the 70 members of the famed Japanese theatrical company.

The hip-hop musical “Jam on the Grove” will be presented Sept. 24-Oct. 6 at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater.

Tharp’s new works will receive their Southern California premiere Sept. 27-28 at the Wiltern Theatre.

The Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal, sponsored by six major cultural institutions from Arizona, California and Texas, will appear at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in four performances, Oct. 10-13.

Byrd’s “Harlem Nutcracker,” a contemporary version of the holiday favorite, will be at the Wiltern Dec. 27-29.

The Slack Key Guitar Festival, showcasing the traditional pre-electric island sound, will be at Schoenberg Hall on the UCLA campus April 26.

The Lewitzky gala will take place May 17 at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State Los Angeles.

Season tickets, ranging from $53 to $235, are on sale now. Single tickets will go on sale June 14.

For a brochure and information, call (310) 825-2101.