Carolina Performing Arts Announces 2023-24 Season Highlights Centered on Cultural Diplomacy and Southern Futures
Philadelphia Orchestra and Rimini Protokoll: 100% The Triangle to focus on sparking conversations about the arts and cultural bridge-building.
(Chapel Hill, N.C. – April 18, 2023) – Carolina Performing Arts (CPA) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announces two marquee productions for its 23/24 season that showcase how art can change perceptions and build connections when other avenues fail.
On Sept 20 and 21, The Philadelphia Orchestra will commemorate the 50th anniversary of its 1973 trip to the People’s Republic of China with two exciting performances in Chapel Hill. The repertoire will be announced soon, and will echo that historic trip by featuring Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony — the highlight of the orchestra’s famed performance in Beijing.
“When The Philadelphia Orchestra traveled to China in 1973, they were the first American orchestra to do so in decades,” said Alison M. Friedman, the James and Susan Moeser Executive and Artistic Director at CPA. “The 50th anniversary of that trip gives us the opportunity to explore what role the arts play in regional, national, and international affairs. Here at UNC, the country’s leading global public research university, we have an obligation to open and maintain new avenues of inquiry. While we don’t have all the answers, our position allows us to engage in crucial conversations about cultural diplomacy, both at home and abroad.”
On Oct. 14 and 15, CPA will continue this process of artistic inquiry by welcoming 100% The Triangle to UNC’s Memorial Hall. The data-driven theater experience, created by German theater group Rimini Protokoll, will feature 100 local participants chosen according to statistical criteria that reflect the demographics of the Research Triangle. Over a four-month period leading up to the performances in October, the group will partner with CPA and Carolina Demography to ensure that a true cross-section of residents from Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill is represented on stage.
“A single person’s view of the Triangle is shaped by a range of factors: their neighborhood, their income, their race, their gender, if or where they went to school, their jobs and countless other elements,” Friedman said. “100% The Triangle creates a living, breathing portrait of where we live, as people beyond percentage points. What you see on stage will reflect something familiar, and also surprise you about this rapidly changing place we call home.”
100% The Triangle is part of the Southern Futures initiative, in which CPA has committed to the research, commissioning and production of new work that aims to break down monolithic narratives of the American South. Now moving into its third year, CPA and its audiences are being spurred to ask and observe how art can build bridges locally in the South and also globally — allowing more people to see the humanity in each other.
Tickets for The Philadelphia Orchestra and 100%: The Triangle are available for the general public at noon on April 18.
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About Carolina Performing Arts
Carolina Performing Arts is the leading multi-arts presenter in the American South, housed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Our public service mission is to spark curiosity and inspire members of our campus and community to discover and more deeply engage with the world. We collaborate with artists from across the globe — the Bolshoi Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Tony Bennett, Big Freedia, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra to name a few — to create performing arts experiences in partnership with our community. In under two decades, CPA has presented thousands of performances and master classes by more than 450 artists from 56 countries and territories, commissioned 69 new works and hosted 48 world and U.S. premieres. Our performances, outreach and campus partnerships have reached hundreds of thousands of patrons, students and faculty. Students comprise 25% of our annual audience on average — one of the highest percentages in the nation among our peer major university presenters. We also open our venues to others to explore, create and celebrate their own work.
About the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university, is a global higher education leader known for innovative teaching, research and public service. A member of the prestigious Association of American Universities, Carolina regularly ranks as the best value for academic quality in U.S. public higher education. Now in its third century, the University offers 77 bachelor’s, 112 master’s, 66 doctorate and seven professional degree programs through 14 schools, including the College of Arts & Sciences. Every day, faculty, staff and students shape their teaching, research and public service to meet North Carolina’s most pressing needs in every region and all 100 counties. Carolina’s more than 355,786 alumni live in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. Territories and 147 countries. More than 189,842 live in North Carolina.
