Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), CalArts’ downtown center for contemporary arts, announces its new season of performances, screenings, and exhibitions running September through December 2023.

Kicking off the new season in the gallery, on Sept. 13, REDCAT opens the exhibition The Feminist Art Program (1970-1975): Cycles of Collectivity. In 1970, artist Judy Chicago pioneered a feminist model for art and education with her students at Fresno State College. Chicago was invited by Miriam Schapiro to collaboratively expand this program at CalArts in 1971, where they would go on to develop the radical and now-influential Feminist Art Program. The exhibition engages this history through diverse feminist practices, presenting materials from institutional and personal archives along with new responsive artworks by CalArts alumni AK Jenkins, Andrea Bowers, Gala Porras-Kim, and Suzanne Lacy.

That same week, on Sept. 16, an incredible season of music launches with Natural Information Society, led by the acclaimed composer and multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams, alongside artist Lisa Alvarado, who returns to REDCAT following her recent exhibition, Pulse Meridian Foliation. On Sept. 29 and 30, Anna Luisa Petrisko presents her experimental opera, All Time Stop Now, as part of Los Angeles Performance Practice’s Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival. Sans Soleil, the multi-genre duo of Chris Williams and Patrick Shiroishi focused on deepening Black and Asian American solidarity, makes its REDCAT debut on Nov. 11. On Dec. 3, REDCAT welcomes Cuatro Minimal, an intrepid quartet that blends roots music and oral traditions from Mexico and Asia with contemporary music, free improvisation, and deep collaborative experimentation.

Fall 2023 marks a season rich in dance. From Sept. 21 to 23, the California and New York-based 7NMS| Marjani Forté-Saunders and Everett Saunders present Prophet: The Order of Lyricism, a four-year multi-genre storytelling project on the practices and political ideologies that have shaped hip hop’s emcees. From Oct. 19 to 21, French Algerian choreographer Nacera Belaza brings L’Onde (The Wave) to REDCAT, kicking off a trio of groundbreaking dance programs as part of the Villa Albertine Dance Season 2023, a program of residencies, dance companies on tour, and panels and talks reflecting on the evolution of dance in a post-pandemic world and encouraging a new generation of dancers and choreographers. From Nov. 2 to 4, renowned choreographer, singer, and author Dorothée Munyaneza shares Mailles, a symphony for six African and Afro-descendant female voices. 

Nov. 8 and 9, REDCAT welcomes takemehome, the latest dance creation of world-renowned choreographer and CalArts Dance faculty Dimitri Chamblas and artist and musician Kim Gordon. The annual CalArts Winter Dance Concert showcases new generations of dancers working with current CalArts Dance faculty, alumnx, and local guest choreographers on Dec. 1 and 2.

Continuing a tradition of innovative theater, from Oct. 5 to 7, REDCAT – in partnership with UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance – presents interdisciplinary artist Edgar Arceneaux (CalArts MFA 01) with Boney Manilli, a dark musical comedy in the shape of a pop music video, puppet show, and burial ceremony loosely inspired by infamous pop music duo Milli Vanilli. On Dec. 9, Los Angeles-based director Sara Lyons presents This Emancipation Thing, resurrecting the second-wave feminist consciousness-raising circle and led by an interracial, gender-expansive ensemble.  

Two exciting and beloved festivals make their annual return to REDCAT: The Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation with a special retrospective screening of films by filmmaker and artist Al Jarnow on Oct. 27; and the Angel City Jazz Festival with musicians Nicole Mitchell, Next Jazz Legacy Showcase, Billy Mohler Quartet, and TC3 with Hubert Laws on Oct. 28 and 29. On Nov. 18, the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles convenes “Arts in Times of Crises & The Role of Artists in Weakened Democracies,” an international conference to discuss the role of artists and art in times of political and social crises in the United States and Germany.

Curated by film programmers and CalArts faculty Jheanelle Brown and Bérénice Reynaud, REDCAT’s Fall 2023’s film program features a diverse and far-reaching line-up of radical and experimental cinema and video, including L.A. Rebellion film movement co-founder and longtime CalArts faculty Billy Woodberry (Sept. 18); “Seis Vezes Mulher (Six Times Woman),” a curated program of six restored films directed by women under the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985) presented by feminist film journal Another Gaze (Oct. 9); multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, writer and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts Crystal Z Campbell (Oct. 23); Tibetan American artist and director Tenzin Phuntsog (Nov. 13); “Deep in the Mud, We Are Enmeshed in All Its Forms,” a program of films by Afro-Caribbean filmmakers Kearra Amaya Gopee, Simon Benjamin, Tamika Galanis, and Aliyah Blackmore considering the implications of continued ecological degradation (Nov. 20);  a restored version of legendary Chinese Martial Arts Film director King Hu’s masterpiece, Kong shan ling yu (Raining in the Mountain) (Nov. 27); and Indigenous filmmaker and artist Fox Maxy (Ipai Kumeyaay and Payómkawichum) (Dec. 4).

For dates, details, or ticketing information, check out our full event calendar.