UAPresents

UAPresents - what a gem! It had been a couple of years since I attended a production at Centennial Hall and Friday night's Fela! was fantastic! The music was fun and interesting but the dancing.....oh, the dancing!!! Afrobeats, uplifting and lively! The kind of dancing that puts a big smile on your face. The actors of Fela are very talented and held the audience's attention through every number. I was especially impressed with the woman who played Fela's mother. Her strong voice was at times haunting but always beautiful. The lead actor who played Fela involved the audience with some dancing, clapping and several "yeah, yeah"s. So much fun!! It was fantastic to have Michelle Williams from Destiny's Child as part of the cast.A special shout-out to our Yelp CM Bella for scoring a few free tickets to this fabulous show. Even without the complimentary tickets, I am looking forward to many more UAPresents productions!

Went to see Rent. What a great show and music. The actors were all wonderful and a great set and production. Love all the music. Remember to bring a jacket it was freezing in the auditorium.

Bravo UA Presents! They're lining up incredible shows for Tucson and promising one stellar season after the next with world class entertainment ranging from classical music to jazz, dance, musicals and even stand up comedy. The variety is fantastic and it's neat to see them work with the Fox Theatre to accomodate certain shows. Either way we get to see incredible shows at fabulous venues such as Centennial Hall and The Fox Theatre. For those that are not familiar with Centennial Hall, it's right on the heart of the University of Arizona. It's a classic old building and a wonderful venue. It's clear the crew at UA Presents is devoted to bringing in the best shows possible. I'm looking forward to spending more time getting cultured by the folks at UA Presents.

Here to see Annie. Great seats but the place looks run down and seat covers and wood handles worn. This place needs serious revamping. Not to mention the shoddy parking options. Annie was wonderful. Cast was great and the music was outstanding. Looking forward to Phantom of The Opera. The staff was beyond nice. My 6 year old daughter who had just opened her birthday present which was a Barbie, lost a Barbie shoe and the staff used their flashlights to find it when the show was over.Five stars for the staff

UAPresents kicked off their 2011 - 2012 "A World of Artists" season on 23 September at Centennial Hall. If you haven't been there, it's a great place to watch a performance. This historical building is nicely arranged. The floor declines towards the stage and the seats are staggered so that you don't have look directly at the back of someone's head. It was comfortable and relaxing. Anyway, Centennial Hall is bringing world-class entertainment to Tucson. It promises to be an exciting season! Last night I saw the return of a favorite to the stage--Yamato, The Drummers of Japan. Yamato's performance at UAPresents was phenomenal. The performance was inspired and entertaining. Yamato overcame language barriers with their drumming and on-stage humor. We convulsed with laughter as Yamato interacted with each other and the audience. For a brief moment I felt that Yamato, the audience and I were connected in some way as part of the performance. In the beginning I thought two hours of drumming might be too much, but in the end, the audience-- including myself --were unwilling to leave and gave Yamato a three-minute standing ovation. Yamato literally rocked the house!!! Their encore performance was the highlight of the show, as they proceeded to give us their best performance of the night.If you like world-class performances such as this, it's important to get a hold of the schedule at http://www.uapresents.org. Each performing artist may only appear for one performance...With the likes of KD Lang, Miles Davis, Mannheim Steamroller, Branford Marsalis, and YoYo Ma coming this season; it's good to get those tickets in advance! Hope to see you all there!

BRAVO!! Last night's "Water Is Rising" performance was a series of contrasts. Concerned that climate change will bring an end to their beautiful Islands, a troupe of Tuvala, Tokelua and Kiribati performers entered the darkened theater singing and drumming down the isles to take the audience on a journey. The lights came on revealing women and men dressed in grass skirts, and beautiful colorful costumes .Once they took the stage, these singer, dancers and musicians strummed at my heartstrings, touched my soul and educated me all at the same time. The performances, accompanying photo slides and written translations of their songs, were beautiful, sad, inspiring, mesmerizing, haunting, and feet stomping, lap slapping awesome to say the least. What a wonderful way to put human faces to such an important issue. Witnessing their culture through song and dance, and receiving their message about how global warming and climate change, are not only threatening their daily lives and culture, but their very land which is vanishing beneath the waves, was moving. Their pleas to take care of them, stop dumping trash in the ocean, and do all we can to help put an end to man-caused climate change was sobering.I took my children 16, 10, and 7 to this performance and they all LOVED it. I appreciate and applaud UAPresents for supporting this important effort and bringing Water Is Rising to Arizona so that my children and I could have such a wonderful and enlightening experience.

This review is going to be based on lady weekend selected performance of Sequence 8. This one time offering of modern satirical dance troupe meets circus acrobatics was phenomenal! It is so hard to put this into words. Each vignette of dance was preceded by the "narrator" who made us laugh with his wit and wisdom of youth. The music was contemporary as the dance. It left you wondering what was going to happen next and how to interpret the dance. I kept smiling and wondering how to interpret the awesomeness! Then they included acrobatics, juggling, and flips! A must see if they come back to town.

UA Presents manages to put on a stellar show while maintaining the casual easy-going feel that makes Tucson, Tucson. For instance, you could show up dressed in your finest or a golf shirt and a pair of tennies and you would be comfortable here. We saw Patti LaBelle and it was possibly the craziest show ever. Patti may not be in her finest form, yet she was passionate, genuine and her back-up band kept the show moving along. It was disappointing to not hear the whole version of Lady Marmalade, but I am pretty sure that the zaniness of the whole performance and the camaraderie in the audience made up for it. UA Presents had our tickets well organized and ready to go with a voucher for a bottle of water. It was extremely professional. All of our seats had excellent views, so it may be true "there is not a bad seat in the house". The schedule for this year looks awesome. I can't wait to try out another performance.