TOLEDO – Chicago’s Redmoon Theater, known for using larger-than-life contraptions to create performances
bright with spectacle, is coming to the Toledo Museum of Art today through Saturday.
Redmoon is bringing its Drum Crane Tower, a 30-foot tall musical structure with three performance tiers
and mounted drums for multiple percussionists, to the Glass City. The tower will be adorned with newly
minted glass domes created earlier this month by TMA Glass Pavilion artists when it is erected on the
museum’s Monroe Street Terrace.
The company’s site-specific performances have opened in the Windy City’s Millennium Park, animated the
façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art, commemorated the groundbreaking of the Modern Wing of the Art
Institute and brought tens of thousands of spectators to the banks of the Chicago River. Redmoon also
has taken its work to Chicago’s most underserved neighborhoods, using spectacle to bridge differences
and transform the ways people see and understand public spaces. Each performance is unique to its
location.
The performance is in conjunction with the museum’s Play Time exhibition, which is based on the premise –
supported by research – that play is good for everyone.
The Drum Crane Tower will be the featured attraction at the museum’s Play Time exhibition party that
takes place Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m. Monroe Street in front of the museum will be closed to traffic
and instead filled with food vendors and a 419-foot-long picnic table.
Redmoon Theater will present its "Grand Spectacle" performance between 8-9:30 p.m. at the
party, which is free and open to the public.
That evening there also will be a strawberry social in the Glass Pavilion just for museum members.
Play Time is this summer’s major contemporary art exhibition at the museum. A more experimental format
than typical for TMA, the exhibition aims to defy traditional ideas of viewing art, with some works
created as visitors watch and others moving outside the museum’s galleries and popping up at locations
around the city.
For more information about the exhibition and the many programs planned in association with it, visit
playtime.toledomuseum.org or call 419-255-8000. Admission to the museum and the exhibit is free.
Thursday, June 11
9-11 a.m.: Open Rehearsal
Noon to 1:30 p.m.: Lunch Time Piano/Sitar Tower Performance Set
7-10 p.m.: Open Rehearsal
Friday, June 12
Noon to 1:30 p.m.: Lunch Time Piano/Sitar Tower Performance Set
2:30-5 p.m.: Tower Percussion Open Rehearsal
6-9:30 p.m.: Drum Crane Open Tech/Teaser Performances of All Moments
Saturday, June 13
9-11 a.m.: Open Rehearsal
Noon to 1:30 p.m.: Lunch Time Piano/Sitar Tower Performance Set
6-8 p.m.: Casual Environmental Celebration/Performances and Casual Crane Activities
8-9:30 p.m.: Drum Crane Grand Spectacle Performance
9:30-10 p.m.: Live Drum Crane DJ Dance Set
