Two nights with Beats Antique in August at The Center for the Arts

The Center for the Arts and Fresh Bakin’ are pleased to present Beats Antique for two nights in the Marisa Funk Theater on August 11 & 12, 2023. They are joined by special guest YOHM Live with Lighthawk on August 11th and Naughty Princess on August 12th. 

You can’t know Beats Antique until you’ve been a part of its journey and experienced the act as an entity with a life of its own. A stage show that demands more music; music that needs costumes, ships and masks, and shadow dances; an audience that comes for art, and takes away stories to feed their imagination. Commitment to the full performance art form is how Beats Antique fuses musical worlds, pulling on global sounds for experiments on the fringes of cinematic cabaret, informed by electronic mash-ups and inspirations who have joined them on the journey such as Les Claypool, Bassnectar, Alam Khan, The Glitch Mob, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

When Beats Antique first drew breath, there was no pressure to become anything. The first album was just Zoe, David, and Tommy’s one-off experimental project for entertainment executive Miles Copeland, when Zoe performed with his Bellydance Superstars. From that creative freedom, a family formed, with  each member wearing many hats: Tommy steering percussion, piano, and music production; Zoe producing music, choosing themes and commanding a circus of traveling set designs, creating costuming, and, of course, dancing like nothing you’ve ever seen; David as the multi-instrumentalist, captain of banjo, songwriting, and production. These diverse skills are the muscle of the monster, and how the creature moves through them, making itself real.

Some music evolved organically from the decades of experience each collaborator brings to the project. Other pieces were written for the show. In deeply vulnerable interplay, every song is woven into a tapestry of danced and drummed story. 

Each album and stage show has built upon the last, with highlights such as: emergence from the bellydance and bass underground in the San Francisco Bay; performing to a massive crowd at Red Rocks Amphitheater; Thievery Corporation and their management discovering Beats Antique one fateful night at Burning Man; artist friends painting set pieces, or donning masks for the finale; performing in Egypt on the day some said the world would end, and playing a hometown show at The Fox on the night Occupy Oakland was evicted and merged with their fans to light bonfires in the street and leap over the flames.

Beats Antique is lifted in each step by loyal fans who are included in their definition of chosen family. Whether they’ve been music producers or appreciators, acrobats, illustrators, or students of Zoe’s, the multigenerational, welcoming faces in the crowd are the fire that keeps Beats Antique warm, and ready to explore new depths for the sake of these many muses. They aim for a show anyone can enjoy, a circus that feeds the spirit. In this place, where they can teach and create and converse with their creation like it’s a dragon come to life, full of riddles and blustery demands, Beats Antique is weaving a unique story.

Don’t miss Beats Antique perform at The Center for the Arts on August 11 & 12, 2023. 

Since 2000, The Center for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization, has grown into a leading presenter of music, dance, theater, comedy, literary and visual art, and family programming, offering more than 150 events per year from its location in downtown Grass Valley. The Center recently completed a major renovation of its multiuse, 21,000-square-foot facility in downtown Grass Valley, making it a premier performing arts destination. The venue includes the Main Stage, which accommodates up to 492 guests in configurable theater seats and up to 700 patrons for dance shows, and a 90-seat studio theater.