JACKSON, WY— Tickets to three bonus shows at the Center for the Arts go on sale Wednesday, 3/14.
First, on May 10, Angélique Kidjo will deliver a powerful talk “Give her Wings: Teach Girls and Empower Women.” Kidjo grew up in Benin, West Africa, and was lucky to come from a family that believed in educating girls. As Kidjo’s mother and father were educated, they made certain that all 10 of their children went to school, despite the popular belief that education was “only for boys.”
Kidjo believes that once a woman is educated, she will fight to ensure that both her sons and daughters receive and education, and begin a tradition that will be passed from family to family, generation to generation, which will change the future for women. In this performance, Angélique will share stories from her work as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and Batonga Foundation, an organization she formed in 2006 to empower young girls through education.
Then, on May 31, get weird with The Flaming Lips. The American rock band from Norman, Oklahoma plays lush, multi-layered, psychedelic rock arrangements. Lyrically, their compositions show elements of space rock, including unusual song and album titles like “Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles,” “Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber),” and “Yeah, I Know It’s a Drag… But Wastin’ Pigs Is Still Radical.” They are also acclaimed for their elaborate live shows, which feature costumes, balloons, puppets, video projections, complex stage light configurations, giant hands, large amounts of confetti, and frontman Wayne Coyne’s signature man-sized plastic bubble, in which he traverses the audience. In 2002, Q magazine named The Flaming Lips one of the “50 Bands to See Before You Die.”
Finally, enter a new world through musical theater with New York Gilbert & The Sullivan Players‘ show, “Ive Got a Little Twist” on June 2. This one-of-a-kind show proves that the Gilbert & Sullivan repertoire is as fun, fresh, and full of life as, well, three little maids from school. See it for yourself as New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players celebrate the legacy of Gilbert & Sullivan in American musical theater, featuring favorites from Rodgers & Hammerstein, Bernsten, Sondheim, Lerner & Loewe, Meredith Wilson, and Jeremy Herman. Life is a cabaret, and so is this show—and as we all know, it’s always more fun when you add a little twist.
