DALLAS – Sept. 22, 2009 – After 30 years of planning, the vision for Dallas Arts District comes to life October 12 – 18 when AT&T Performing Arts Center (formerly Dallas Center for the Performing Arts) joins its neighbors in the Arts District. The celebration will be marked by a week full of events that culminate with a district-wide “open house” on October 18 from 11 am to 8 pm called “Spotlight Sunday.”

Free and open to the public, the day features free admission to all museums and related programming they created for the inaugural event, and to performances at other venues like the newly-renovated Booker T. Washington High School, Cathedral Guadalupe and Catholic Foundation Plaza. To introduce North Texas to its new AT&T Performing Arts Center, there will be free tours and performances designed to appeal to every taste.

AT&T Performing Arts Center
Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre
Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House
Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park
2403 Flora St.
214-880-0202

www.attpac.org
www.attpac.org/grandopening for updated performance schedule Free tours and performances on Spotlight Sunday 11 am - 8 pm.

Spotlight Sunday and activities during the preceding week are designed as a public celebration of the Center’s opening and a prelude to the Inaugural Season. Spotlight Sunday will include family-friendly activities, venue tours and indoor and outdoor spotlight performances by the Center’s resident companies and national, regional and local talent spanning dance, music, opera and theater.

Highlights include:
• Nationally acclaimed flutist Nestor Torres
• Multi-instrumentalist virtuoso Ellis Hall
• Eden Espinosa from Broadway’s Wicked
• Mass Ensemble creates giant sculptural instruments as their performance backdrop
• Anti-Gravity’s champion athletes and urban dancers deliver Cirque-like acrobatic performance art
• 11 am – 6 pm – Free admission to exhibitions and special programming at Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas Center for Architecture, Dallas Museum of Art and Nasher Sculpture Center
• 2 pm – Free Always Imagine performance by Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts students including performance on John Lennon’s piano loaned by the Goss-Michael Foundation. In the Montgomery Arts Theatre
• 2:30 pm - Free Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performance by Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jaap Van Zweden in the Meyerson. Reservations required at www.attpac.org/tickets
• 6 pm - Free concert at Cathedral Guadalupe by 40-voice choir Gloriæ Dei Cantores, including Gregorian Chant, Tchaikovsky and other performances
• 7:45 pm - Fireworks show
• Ballet, ballroom, hip-hop, jazz and modern dance
• Culturally diverse performances including lion dance, African drum and dance, flamenco and folklorico
• Gospel, chorale and youth chorus groups
• Art installation on view at Art Wall of Catholic Foundation Plaza
Download the most current schedule with performance times at www.attpac.org/grandopening.
Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
2501 Flora St.
972-925-1200
www.artsmagnet.org

Free performance on Spotlight Sunday, 2 p.m. in the Montgomery Arts Theatre

Always Imagine - Multimedia performance featuring original works from the school’s dance, theater, music and visual arts departments based on the legendary John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The performance will conclude with a student playing their rendition of “Imagine” on the original piano used by Lennon to pen the original song by the same name. The piano is on loan courtesy of the Goss-Michael Foundation.
Cathedral Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Guadalupe
2215 Ross Ave.
214-871-1362
www.CathedralGuadalupe.org

Free concert at 6 p.m. and pre-concert lecture at 5 p.m. (donations welcome) on Spotlight Sunday

Under Elizabeth Patterson’s inspired direction, the world-class, 40-voice choir from Cape Cod, MA Gloriæ Dei Cantores (Singers to the Glory of God) seeks to illuminate truth and beauty through choral artistry of all styles and periods. The program includes Gregorian chant, music of the Russian Orthodox Church (including excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom , Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, and the entire six-movement work Ineffable Mystery by Georgiy Sviridov), the First Nocturn of the Tenebrae, Op. 72 by English composer Edmund Rubbra, and Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir.
Catholic Foundation
Outdoor plaza behind the Cathedral Guadalupe at the corner of Flora and Crockett
972-661-9792
www.catholicfoundation.com
Plaza is always open. Admission is always free

The winning, larger-than-life artwork from the juried 4th Annual Catholic Foundation Plaza Artists Competition will be on display on the Art Wall in the Foundation’s public plaza. The 28’ x 9’8” Art Wall is the backdrop of the 3,900-square-foot plaza that includes serene water features and landscaping.

Crow Collection of Asian Art
2010 Flora Street
214-979-6430
www.crowcollection.org
Free on Spotlight Sunday, 11 am - 6 pm*. Admission is always free
Spotlight Sunday at the Crow – Asia is closer than you think at the Crow Collection. This open house features music, dance, theater and art activities for artists of all ages, and a complimentary tea service in the newly opened Snuff Bottle Court at the corner of Harwood and Flora Street. Visitors may also experience the completed sand mandala (sand painting) until 3 pm: a marvelous sight of millions of grains of colored, crushed marble painstakingly placed in this ancient spiritual art form from Tibet.

Wild Flowering: The Crow Family and Asia: illuminates the adventures of the Crow family during their five-decade quest to collect the arts of Asia. The diverse collection of art assembled by two generations of the Crow family is narrated through original photographs, letters, and other materials from the Crow Family Archives dating to 1960. At the heart of the story are Trammell and Margaret Crow – a gracious, industrious, and visionary couple – who inspired their family to embrace the cultures of Asia long before their museum opened to the world in 1998.

YEOHLEE: DESIGN FOR NOW: The first major exhibition in Dallas about the work of Yeohlee, whose name is synonymous with design innovation and artistic integrity and whose work has been exhibited at museums in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin and Washington D.C. The exhibition features selected fashion designs and concepts from Yeohlee’s 2004–2009 collections and show the evolution of her design approach, which closely parallels architectural concerns but is ultimately attentive to the body.
Related Programming:

• Mystical Arts of Tibet Closing Ceremony - After six days of constructing a traditional sand mandala in the galleries, the Tibetan monks will dismantle the mandala in a traditional closing ceremony, representing the impermanence of all that exists. Ceremony is 4 - 5:30 pm. *$10 for Friends of the Crow Collection and $25 for non-members. Reservations required. Call 214-979-6438 or visit crowcollection.org.

Dallas Center for Architecture
1909 Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Suite 100
214-742-3242
www.dallascfa.com
Free on Spotlight Sunday from 11 am - 6 pm. Admission is always free
Putting it in Context: The Architecture of the Arts District - Dallas’ Arts District is a living museum of architecture—featuring not only the work of four Pritzker Prize-winning architects (Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, I.M. Pei and Renzo Piano), but also other buildings important in the civic history of the city. Models, original documents and other artifacts examine the District’s evolution and places its buildings into a larger context within the extraordinary architectural richness of the region.

Dallas Museum of Art
1717 North Harwood St.
214-922-1200
www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
Free admission on Spotlight Sunday from 11 am – 6 pm
Three exhibitions tell the remarkable history of the Arts District, illustrating the dynamic connections between all the arts, and celebrating the Museum’s 25th anniversary that coincides with the Center’s arrival.

All The World’s A Stage: Celebrating Performance in the Visual Arts - Approximately 125 works of art illustrate how performance and visual artists partner, respond and inspire each other to shape audience experiences. Works span 2,600 years of world-wide cultural expression.

Performance/Art - Works by contemporary artists whose paintings, sculpture, films and photography were inspired by performing arts. Pieces by Argentinean artist Guillermo Kuitca, who was commissioned by AT&T PAC to create the Winspear Opera House curtain, will also be on display.

A Dream Comes True:The Dallas Arts District - DMA archives reveal the growth of the museum and the Arts District that culminates with the AT&T PAC’s opening.
Also on view: The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs
Related programming:

• 2 pm – Conté de Loyo Flamenco Theatre - traditional flamenco dance performance inspired by John Singer Sargent’s Study for The Spanish Dancer
• 2 pm – family film, I Can Fly Part II: Kids, Painting, and Art Appreciation
• 1 – 3:30 pm – studio creations – visitors transform themselves into works of art using face paint, paper bags, fabric and more
• 1:30 – 3 pm – collection connections: Olowe of Ise - with the help of a trained volunteer, visitors take an in-depth look at a piece of art. Perfect for all ages
• 3 pm – All the World’s a Stage exhibition tour with DMA curator Dr. Anne Bromberg

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
2301 Flora St.
214-692-0203
www.dallassymphony.com
Free on Spotlight Sunday at 2:30 pm. Reservations required at www.attpac.org/tickets
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 - Under the direction of Music Director Jaap van Zweden, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, four vocal soloists including world-acclaimed soprano Christine Brewer and the Dallas Symphony Chorus will perform this piece for the first time at the Meyerson. The piece is widely considered as Beethoven’s grandest and most influential composition.

Nasher Sculpture Center
2001 Flora St
214-242-5100
www.NasherSculptureCenter.org
Free admission on Spotlight Sunday, 11 am - 6 pm
Foster + Partners: The Art of Architecture - The exhibition is the first major U.S. retrospective to explore Foster’s major architectural achievements of the past four decades including the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Winspear Opera House. Architectural models, drawings, renderings, photographs, and videos will give insight into the formal and conceptual underpinnings of Foster’s architecture and provide context for better understanding his new contribution to the panoply of modernist architecture in Dallas.
Related scheduled activities:

• 11 am – 2 pm: Young visitors work collaboratively to build a large architectural structure
• 11 am – 4 pm: Professional, local artists create artworks on-site and discuss their creative process
• Hourly from 11 am - 4 pm: Families complete architectural projects using a variety of building blocks
• 11:30 am: Families explore the Nasher through an interactive, docent-led tour
• 2 pm - 5 pm: Create sketches of architectural works with guidance from a professional artist
• 2:30 pm: Docent-led tour of the exhibition
• 3 pm: Live performance in Nasher Hall

About the AT&T Performing Arts Center:
The AT&T Performing Arts Center, a new multi-venue Center for music, opera, theatre and dance will open in 2009, completing the 30-year vision of the Dallas Arts District. The $354 million Center will provide multi-state-of-the-art facilities woven together by an urban park covering more than ten acres to create a dynamic cultural destination that will be unparalleled in the world. The AT&T PAC will feature the following:
• The Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, designed in a modern horseshoe configuration, will seat 2,200 (with capacity up to 2,300), designed by Foster + Partners.
• The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre will serve as a gateway to the Dallas Arts District from the downtown Dallas business center and will seat 600, designed by REX/OMA, Joshua Prince-Ramus (partner in charge) and Rem Koolhaas.
• The completely new Annette Strauss Artist Square will be the AT&T PAC’s outdoor entertainment venue, which can accommodate audiences of up to 5,000, designed by Foster + Partners.
• The City Performance Hall will provide main stage production space for many of Dallas’ smaller performing arts organizations, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
• The Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park will unify the venues and will create a dynamic cultural destination in downtown Dallas.
• Two underground parking structures will accommodate more than 850 vehicles.

More information on the AT&T Performing Arts Center is available at www.attpac.org.

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Maria May Christine Rogers
Media Contacts
AT&T PAC SparkFarm (on behalf of AT&T PAC)
214-978-2834 - office 214-978-2831 - office
214-207-6082 - cell 214-364-7049 - cell
Maria.May@attpac.org

christine.rogers@attpac.org

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For Media in Texas:           For Media outside of Texas:
Maria May Ilana B. Simon / Martha Kang McGill
AT&T Performing Arts Center Resnicow Schroeder Associates
214.978.2834 212.671.5176 / 212.671.5169
maria.may@attpac.org isimon / mmcgill@resnicowschroeder.com