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Fall 2003
Stage Craft
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David Sefton came to UCLA three years ago to take the helm of the university’s
performing-arts program. Southern California hasn’t been the same since
By Cynthia Lee
Photography by Irene Fertik
Since David Sefton moved from London to Westwood three years ago
to become director of UCLA’s public performing-arts program, he has transformed
what was a fairly mainstream schedule into a wild E-ticket ride. Under his guidance,
UCLA Live has taken audiences on a tour of some of the most radical, experimental,
enthralling and, some might say, bizarre performances offered on any stage in
the country. The 40-year-old Liverpudlian and former head of contemporary culture
at Royal Festival Hall has, with an exacting eye for quality and eclectic tastes
that lean toward the iconoclastic, the bold, the mystifying and downright weird,
taken center stage with his fearless programming picks for UCLA Live while at
the same time offering the best from the world of classical music and dance.
Extolled by arts writers on both coasts as a fresh force that has awakened
Los Angeles to a new sensibility about theater, music and dance, Sefton has
introduced audiences to works never before seen on the West Coast or the United
States, mixing classical and traditional with edgy, contemporary works that
reflect the aesthetics of the street. In his first full season, 2002-’03,
he broke new ground by launching the adventurously hip International Theatre
Festival, bringing to campus large-scale, world-class, experimental theater
with such works as Woyzeck, a fully staged production by modern theater’s
“Leonardo da Vinci,” Robert Wilson, and two visually stunning plays
by the revolutionary Societas Raffaello Sanzio from Italy.
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