Ringling’s Art of Performance creates a year-long international festival

While planning an eclectic slate of international artists appearing throughout the season for The Ringling’s Art of Performance series, Elizabeth Doud said she always has the sense of a busy weekend festival in mind.

The series is an outgrowth of the Ringling International Arts Festival, which featured roughly a dozen different shows in an extended weekend each fall for nine years.

“I look at the series as a protracted festival. People harken back to RIAF and I’m trying to keep that energy while stretching it over the year,” said Doud, the Currie-Kohlmann Curator of Performance at the museum.

Doud joined The Ringling in 2019, two years after RIAF ended, but she has maintained the festival’s spirit in planning each season. For 2023-24, she has booked 12 mainstage dance, theater and music programs, along with six artist developmental residencies, more than a dozen free and discounted master classes and artist talks and a showcase of works in progress by Sarasota area artists.

The new season will have a Francophone undercurrent with French-speaking artists from around the world, as well as programs intended to reach Spanish-speakers and a more diverse group of the region’s population.

“There’s a very new population and Sarasota is in a moment of change with different expectations of what’s needed, and we’re trying to address that,” Doud said. She added that she has been meeting many French-speaking artists from around the world at a variety of festivals and the timing worked to bring some of them to Sarasota during the same season.

The series and season kick off at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20 with the White Hot Fête party in the museum courtyard featuring La Dame Blanche, otherwise known as Yaite Ramos Rodriguez, a singer, flautist, percussionist and dance hall artist from Paris via Havan. She is the daughter of Jesus “Augaje” Ramos, of the Buena Vista Social Club, and will provide the entertainment for a party to launch the season, along with DJ Moses Belanger of Montreal. Food and beverages will be available for purchase for regular ticket holders ($35, $31.50 for Ringling members). VIP tickets are $125.

Most performances will be presented in the Historic Asolo Theater (or the HAT) in The Ringling’s visitor center.

Here is what else is planned during the season.

FLAFlamenco Mini-Festival

Nov. 2-5

A weekend of traditional and contemporary Flamenco dance and music. Israel Fernandez and Diego del Morao perform at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 2, bringing new elements to traditional styles. At 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4 and 5 p.m. Nov. 5, Spanish dancer and choreographer Rafael Ramirez presents his solo dance “Lo Presciso” (the essential) accompanied by live musicians. There also will be masterclasses for Flamenco dance and guitar on Nov. 4 and 5.

‘Congo Jazz Band’

11 a.m. Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17-18

A piece of theater in the style of a concert of Congolese music by Les Francophonies, written by Mohamed Kacimi and directed by Hassane Kassi Kouyaté. Doud said it makes a statement about “present day conversations about resource extraction, colonialism and more.” Music was taken over by dictators and used by revolutionaries for change in the Congo. The piece is presented in French with English supertitles. Kouyaté will also take part in an Artist Talk.

La Santa Cecilia

6 p.m. Dec. 12 in the Bolger Campiello

A music program that represents a hybrid of Latin culture, rock and world music, with Pan-American rhythms like the rumba and bossa-nova, along with Klezmer music, all filtered through the band’s Mexican heritage.

MicroWIP (works in progress)

7:30 p.m. Jan. 27

The Ringling has been offering Florida artists opportunities to develop new works, and this evening is a showcase in a semi-formal style for the artists to present what they’re working on.

‘Creole Soul’

7:30 p.m. Feb. 15-16

Trinidad-born trumpeter, composer and storyteller Etienne Charles makes his Sarasota premiere with a jazz program that weaves in a variety of styles, textures and percussive grooves.

‘Rave Lucid’

11 a.m. Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22-24

The French group Mazelfreten performs an electro dance program that features choreographed movements at 120 beats per minute that creates the style of a “rave” party. The artists also will present a master class.

BélO in ‘Pa Lage Sa!’

7:30 p.m. March 8-9

The singer-songwriter BélO, considered Haiti’s musical ambassador to the world, presents “Pa Lage Sa!" (or never give up), a program that blends jazz, worldbeat, rock, reggae and Afro-Haitin traditional rhythms known as “Ragganga.”

‘Florida Woman’

11 a.m. March 21, 7:30 p.m. March 22-24

Miami dance artist Rosie Herrera and Sarasota’s Leah Verier-Dunn (director of Sarasota’s Moving Ethos dance company) play off the internet meme of the “Florida Man” with a dance theater elegy to stereotypes and myths of Florida life and restrictive laws on women’s bodies. The performers also will take park in an Artist Talk about their work.

‘Un Payo Royo’

7:30 p.m. April 6, 5 p.m. April 7, 11 a.m. April 8

Two Argentinian men play with movement, analogue radio and tiny shorts in a program in which they move from wrestling to dance, acrobatics and physical comedy in a showcase that distorts expectations of manhood. They will present a masterclass on their performance style at 11 a.m. April 8.

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‘La Famille GoldenCrust’

7:30 p.m. April 18-20, 11 a.m. April 21

Doud describes this circus show from Quebec as “so good and perfect for Florida.” It features former Cirque du Soleil performers, who created a show that “exemplifies the Canadian snowbird whose big dream is to travel to Florida.” The artists play a couple, the GoldenCrusts, working out of a special RV who imagine themselves as exotic performers. It features juggling, gaffes and physical comedy, performed in Franglais, a combination of Quebecois French mixed with English. The performers also will take part in an Artist Talk.

‘Parisian Refraction’

7:30 p.m. May 9 and 10, 2 and 7:30 p.m. May 11

ensembleNEWSRQ founders George Nickson (percussion) and Samantha Bennett (violin) present a four-part series feature works and composers that embody the City of Light, have been commissioned by groups in Paris or are inspired by the French capital. Doud said she has wanted to “work with them for some time. They’re masters in this area of contemporary classical music. The series will feature four separate concerts in which they will be be both performers and musical directors.

There also will be a series of artist residenices throughout the season to provide opportunities for performers to develop new work, including actor and playwright Modesto “Flako” Jimenez, founder of Oye Group in Brooklyn; dancer and choreographer Jasmine Hearn of Houston; dance-choreographer Rosie Herrera, director of her own dance theater in Miami; Leah Verier-Dunn, director of Sarasota’s Moving Ethos dance company; Moira Finucane, a performer and director and founder of Finucane & Smith in Melbourne, Australia; tap dancer and choreographer Brinae Ali of Baltimore, and dancer-choreographer John Heginbotham of New York City.

Season subscriptions start at $120. Single tickets also are now available. 941-360-7399; ringling.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Ringling’s Art of Performance series plans a year-long festival