Friday, June 17 at 8.30pm - Sheetal Gandhi reinterprets Shel Silverstein's GIVING TREE - preceded by a one-man play about Founding Father Thomas Paine

 I first saw Sheetal Gandhi perform at Getty Center's Family Festival celebrating Cambodian culture and Angkor Wat a few weeks ago.  Sheetal retold and re-interpreted the classic tale of "How Ganesha Got His Head."  She is a singer, dancer, drummer, storyteller and choreographer- all in one person.  She mentioned this free performance at California Plaza which is her retelling of The Giving Tree in a performance entitled "Human Nature." Having seen her craft first hand, this should be a mesmerizing performance!

If you have never been to California Plaza, it is a picturesque performing space in front of a multi-tiered waterfalls right at the top of Angel's Flight tramway.  Pack a dinner and come earlier for a sunset dinner in front of the shimmering pools and cascading waters.  Seating is first come, first served.   I don't remember needing to get any physical tickets when I last went to a Grand Performance at this location, but check upon arrival.

From her website, http://www.sheetalgandhi.com/:

Sheetal Gandhi is a multidisciplinary choreographer and performer. She creates work that is reflective of a life that embraces diversity, observes human experience and yearns to tell a story. Using a hybrid movement vocabulary influenced by Kathak, Modern and West African dance, as well as complex rhythmic structures, theatricality and singing, she crafts a virtuosic and evocative physical/vocal vocabulary. In form and content, the work reflects her love for Indian cultural tradition and disciplinary technique, with the equally urgent desire to break away from them.

June 17, 2011 8:30pm:

"Human Nature"

Grand Performances and the COLA Festival present the premiere of "Human Nature", Sheetal's latest one-woman show that integrates animation with live performance in a provocative re-interpretation of Shel Silverstein's classic story, "The Giving Tree"

Here is a rehearsal shot from Human Nature
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150202131328948&set=o.200965523278534&type=1&theater

Tickets are FREE. For more info go to Info

Sheetal Gandhi’s work-in-progress, Human Nature, is a multi-media dance theater piece inspired by Shel Silverstein's children's book, The Giving Tree. 

For some videos of her range of work, see:
http://www.sheetalgandhi.com/

http://grandperformances.org/en/events/department-of-cultural-affairs-cola-artists-project.html

This Grand Performance begins at 8.30pm to 11.30pm  and appears to be preceded by this exciting dramatic and historical one-man play about Thomas Paine!

Ian Ruskin’s new one-man play, The Thomas Payne Project /“To Begin the World Over Again: the Life of Thomas Paine” delves into the mind of one of the nation’s most radical and misunderstood Founding Father’s – Thomas Paine, the man who started the American Revolution, defined the French Revolution and championed the power of human reason.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200965523278534

COLA performances are part of Los Angeles City’s Cultural Grant Program.

More Info >> http://grandperformances.org/en/events/department-of-cultural-affairs-cola-artists-project.html

Map & Directions >> http://grandperformances.org/en/gp/about/directions.html