CounterBalance Theater's SHE

CounterBalance Theater’s SHE

January 25-27th at 8pm, January 27 and 28th at 2pm
RSVP here.

Artistic Director of CounterBalance Theater and UCI Drama Professor Annie Loui, will create and premiere a new physical theater work in the Xmpl (Experimental Theater Laboratory), School of the Arts,  based on the recently published novel by New York Times “Editor’s Choice” novelist and UCI Professor, Michelle Latiolais.  

SHE will use a combined graduate undergraduate team of performers and designers to construct the story of a run-away teenager in Los Angeles.  Exploring the strata of Los Angelinos (from homeless under a freeway bridge, to an upscale gallery owner) our "everywoman" looks for a job, meaning, and a new home.  Set in an urban Los Angeles of many cultures, promises and dangers, SHE follows the runaway through random encounters during one night alone on the street, resolving in unexpected redemption.

SHE is a contemporary story of Southern California, seen through the eyes of a young adult learning to navigate the opportunities and options of life.

CounterBalance Theater’s mission statement is “to create physical theater based on great literature” and has a history of working with Illuminations to share timeless and resonating stories with the UCI undergraduate population.  These works include The Odyssey (2014/2015) in the Claire Trevor Theater; Elsewhere (2015/2016) in Tamkin Hall, UCI Medical School; and Longitude (2016/2017),in the Experimental Media Performance Lab (xMPL)

This new creation will follow in the same model, and post-show discussions will include the author of the source material, Michelle Latiolais (Co-director of the UCI Writing Program) seeking to promote discussion about creative writing, but also about the unique social and economic construct of this place we call Los Angeles. 

Annie Loui works as a director/choreographer, and is the Artistic Director of Counter-Balance Theater.  She trained with dancer Carolyn Carlson (at the Paris Opera), and studied in France with Etienne Decroux,  Ella Jarosivitcz and Jerzy Grotowski.  Original physical theater pieces have been seen in France, Monaco, West Germany, Italy, and in the United States at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, among other venues. Longtime member of the Brandeis Theater Arts Department; she also taught extensively for the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard before coming to the University of California, Irvine, where she now runs the Movement Program for the MFA Actor Training.  Her book The Physical Actor is published by Routledge Press.llor's Arts and Culture Initiative.

Sponsored by llluminations: The Chancellor's Arts and Culture Initiative.