Hancher

Oumou Sangaré is an icon whose powerful musci and fierce feminism have inspired artist from Alicia Keys to Aya Nakamura to Beyoncé. Her most recent record, Timbuktu, blends the sounds of traditional West African instruments with those instruments most associated with the blues.

Martha Graham radically expanded the dance vocabulary, and her work has captivated audiences worldwide while influencing generations of artists. The program will open with Graham's Panorama, performed by more than 20 student dancers from the University of Iowa Dance Department. 

Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion composed Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, a journey across the soul's landscape through distinctly contemporary songs. The concert will open with Go Placidly in Haste, a new work composed by Jason Treuting performed with Iowa Percussion from the UI School of Music. 

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo—the world's foremost all-male ballet comic ballet company—offers both homage and parody performed en travesti. The program will include works from across the company's 50 years.

The Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group's body of work draws from the spiritual and earth-bound traditions of Africa and its diaspora. Wilson's most recent work, POWER, considers how the Black Shaker communities in the early 1800s might have lived and worshipped.

Elias String Quartet are "simply astounding, in the freshness, intensity, assurance, and seeming spontaneity of their playing." Hancher will welcome back one of our favorite ensembles to introduce a new chamber music experience at Hancher. 

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London, U.K.) is uncompromising in its pursuit of excellence and inclusive in its appeal to music lovers of all stripes. Embracing a broad repertoire has allowed the orchestra to build a diverse live and online audience of more than 60 million people.

Yaite Ramos Rodriguez, the singer, flautist, and percussionist—who performs as La Dame Blanche—blends the Cuban music of her childhood with the sounds of hip-hop, dancehall, and cumbia, and plenty more.

World Café says Luz Elena Mandoza Ramos, lead vocalist and producer of Y La Bamba, "[Her] inimitable songwriting is propelled by and earth-shaking voice and incisive lyrics that speak towards the duality of hurt and healing."

Folk singer/songwriter and guitarist Haley Heynderickx's introspective songs are infused by her religious Filipino-American upbringing and call to mind the folk music of the 1960s and 1970s mixed with a love of jazz radio.