FLOODESIGN

36 www.peakperfs.org Peak Performances recently launched PeARL (Performing Arts Research Laboratory), an extended residency program for performing artists, to enable and support a deep creative process culminating in the world premiere of a new work during the Peak Performances season. In July, the first PeARL residents, Amy Beth Kirsten and Mark DeChiazza, brought the members of their company, HOWL, together in the rehearsal studio at the Alexander Kasser Theater for a week of work on their new piece, QUIXOTE. They rehearsed, tested new ideas, and collaborated with designers to imagine the final look and sound of the new production, which will premiere on the Kasser's stage in March 2017. "Making QUIXOTE would be impossible without this support," said Amy Beth Kirsten. "During our PeARL residency we are developing the staging and music, and we have the added benefit of presenting the work-in-progress to students and engaging with the campus at large. We feel incredibly fortunate and can't wait to share our invention." According to Jedediah Wheeler, Peak Performances' executive director, "PeARL expands on the residencies Peak has offered since its inception in 2004. It allows artists to work from the most basic inspiration to the final performance, knowing that a single institution is supporting the evolution of an idea over two years. Along the way they have to experiment, try out ideas. With PeARL we say, 'We know your idea isn't finished, but we like it, we think your notion is good, and we believe in you. You can work on it here, adapting and changing and knowing where you're going to work at least; making the piece here in both our rehearsal studio and on stage.' It diminishes somewhat the anxiety that the creative process in America stimulates." In Development: QUIXOTE A M Y B E T H K I R S T E N ' S music combines popular idioms with fierce expressionism and theater and is distinguished by an intense physicality that pushes players to extremes by making their bodies and voices instruments of artistic expression. A composer, librettist, and vocalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and ASCAP. Her works have been commissioned and supported by the New World Symphony, Harvard University Fromm Foundation, Chamber Music America, The MAP Fund, New Music USA, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn in rehearsal Composer/librettist Amy Beth Kirsten

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