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With David Gonzalez and The Poetic License Band, Latin jazz meets spoken word in a kaleidoscopic multi-media production exploding with passion, intelligence and energy. Created and produced by poet/musician/performance artist David Gonzalez, City of Dreams brings a quintet of New York’s hottest Latin Jazz musicians setting Gonzalez’s compelling poetry like a diamond in a mambo/funk music box. Mr. Gonzalez' poems and stories start with personal history and cultural identity, then expand to the search for transcendence, and his mission toward planetary consciousness and compassion. The band heats it up with sacred Yoruba chants, mambo-flavored house grooves, funk, and metal-tinged rock. City of Dreams was commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and developed at La MaMa, ETC, in New York City. Hispanic Magazine says, “At once cutting, reverential, and deeply insightful, Gonzalez’ words resonate with a broad audience, while the music keeps hips swaying. City of Dreams is one of the season’s best.” We are also pleased to announce a new work being developed by David and also commissioned by the Clarice Smith Center, Wounded Splendor. Inspired by recent sojourns to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the rain forests of Costa Rica and the Hudson River, David's latest multi-media adventure will include images from our world near and far, words from activists and experts in the environmental movement, poetry from his own heart, and the music of composer and jazz pianist Daniel Kelly. This work-inprogress, developing over the year through engagement with our community, will celebrate the splendor of the natural world and speak to the critical role that stewardship plays in preservation and conservation. "My wish," says David, "is to cause people to reflect on the natural world, to reconsider their place within it, and their responsibility to it." It will be in residency at Clarice Smith in early 2009 and available for further development and residencies in the 2009/10 season.