Featuring a collaboration between the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet and Inuit vocalist Tanya Tagaq, Nunavut's program was created as a means of exploring the music from the far north.

Tanya Tagaq, whose collaborators have included the Icelandic vocalist Björk and the Galician Celtic group Lau, adapting the distinctive call-and-response improvisations of Inuit throat singing to such radically different urban styles as electronica, dance and rave. Traditionally performed by two women attempting to outdo each other as they vocalize in turns, the second throat singer in Nunavut is the quartet.

Also featured will be works by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho; Canadian composer and flautist Derek Charke; Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós; Norwegian electrofunk band Xploding Plastix and the world premiere of a piece commissioned for Luminato by Hurdy-Gurdy.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater marks its 50th anniversary of bringing African-American cultural expression and the American modern dance tradition to the world’s stages.

Programme:

May 16, 8pm         

Firebird
The Groove to Nobody's Business
Unfold
Revelations

May 17, 2pm         

Love Stories
The Groove to Nobody's Business
Treading
Revelations

May 17, 8pm         

The Winter in Lisbon
Phoebe Snow
Revelations
 

Rubies
Choreographer: Georges Balanchine

Episodes
Choreographer: Georges Balanchine

Kaleidoscope
Choreographer: Peter Quanz
A work commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre of New York.

Music: Webern, Stravinsky et Saint-Saëns

Once considered the Bad Boy of the mondern dance world, Mark Morris is now a role model and celebrated choreographer.

Mark Morris Dance Group: Mozart Dances
Photo courtesy of Luminato Festival

Morris' Mozart Dances reflect Morris’ uncanny ability to create an intimate relationship between dance and music.

Piano Concerto No. 11, K. 413
Sonata for 2 Pianos in D Major, K. 448
Piano Concerto No. 27, K. 595

A Midsummer Night's Dream
By William Shakespeare

Presented by a company of 23 Indian and Sri Lankan artists whose skills are as diverse as their backgrounds - not only actors but also dancers, singers, musicians, street acrobats and martial arts experts. A fusion, too, of language, for the play is spoken not only in English but also in tongues native to its performers: Tamil, Malayalam, Sinhalese, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Sanskrit.

Following its first run in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the production played to packed houses at the Roundhouse in London, England, and twice in Stratford-upon- Avon as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works festival.

Black Watch follows the disassembling of Scotland's most esteemed regiment over the course of its final tour in Iraq, written from the personal testimonies of ten men on the ground. Black Watch reveals what it really means to be part of the War on Terror and what it means to make the journey home again.

Hurtling from a pool room in Fife to an armoured wagon in Iraq, Black Watch is based on interviews conducted by Gregory Burke with former soldiers who served in Iraq.

Gregory Burke recently won the Writers’ Guild Award for Black Watch in the Best New Play category. BBC Scotland’s documentary, Black Watch: A Soldier’s Story won a BAFTA Scotland Best Documentary Award.

Director - John Tiffany
Associate Director (movement) - Steven Hoggett
Associate Director (music) - Davey Anderson
Set designed by Laura Hopkins
Costumes designed by Jessica Brettle
Lighting designed by Colin Grenfell
Sound designed by Gareth Fry
Video designed by Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer for Fifty Nine Productions Ltd.

The National Theatre of Scotland

The full cast is: David Colvin, Paul J Corrigan, Ali Craig, Emun Elliott, Jack Fortune, Jonathan Holt, Michael Nardone, Henry Pettigrew, Paul Rattray and Nabil Stuart.

This comprehensive exhibition explores the extraordinary life of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) whose curiosity, observations and discoveries nearly 150 years ago forever changed the perception of the origin of species and launched modern biological science. Simple yet at times controversial, misunderstood and misused for social goals, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection theory remains unchallenged as the central concept of modern biology.

In addition to his theory of evolution, Darwin is known for his work as a botanist, geologist, and naturalist. From specimens of Galápagos finches to original manuscripts and notebooks, the exhibition, on display in the spacious new Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall in the Lee-Chin Crystal, is the broadest collection ever assembled on the life and work of Darwin.

The brilliant six-point black star sapphire gem was found in the 1930s in the town of Anakie in Queensland, Australia. It weighed 1156 carats. It was purchased uncut by the Kazanjian Brothers in 1947 and later cut and polished to its present-day 733 carats. It is now surrounded by 35 sparkling diamonds in a white gold setting.

The Black Star Sapphire of Queensland explores the beauty and science surrounding sapphires — how they are formed in nature, where and how they are mined, and their significance in various cultures.

Kevin Loring:  Where the Blood Mixes

Where the Blood Mixes is the story of Floyd, a native man whose daughter was taken into care by social services two decades earlier. Now, as Floyd prepares for a reunion with his child, he must find a way to cope with his guilt - a guilt that is exacerbated by the country's growing awareness of the abuse of First Nations children in the residential school system.

A member of the Nlaka'pmux First Nation in Lytton, B.C., and winner of the 2005 Vancouver Arts Award for Emerging Theatre Artist, Kevin Loring is currently an artist in residence at the Playhouse Theatre Company. Where the Blood Mixes won 2nd place in the 2007 Herman Voeden National Playwriting Competition.