Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Lovers of avant-garde, cutting-edge performing arts in tune with the current pulse rejoice! The Public Theater’s annual theater festival, Under the Radar, is back after a hiatus since its 2020 edition. This year brought some of the most exciting creators making new work locally, nationally, and globally. This year’s UTR Festival sprawled out across various venues beyond the Public’s Astor Place home, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The New York Public Library, and La MaMa, to name those I visited. My final show was a homecoming to Joe’s Pub for New York cabaret artist Salty Brine’s monstrously fun
Tag: BAM
FC Bergman’s 300 el x 50 el x 30 el at BAM Next Wave
How does one describe the foreboding feeling of the calm before the storm? What might you witness if you peeked into the homes of a small community before a raging tempest transpired? In the US and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) premiere of 300 el x 50 el x 30 el by the daring, provocative Belgian theatre company FC Bergman, you don’t have to guess. Instead, you are granted fly-on-the-wall access to the private moments of ordinary people with quirky and bizarre habits, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing. The Harvey Theater at BAM Strong is transformed into a quaint European
The Accidental Futurist Ensemble: SITI Company’s “The Medium” at BAM
The year is 1993: Bill Clinton becomes president of the US; the World Trade Center is bombed by Islamic Fundamentalists; the FBI raids Branch Davidians, a religious cult in Waco, TX; Russia and the US sign a treaty; an earthquake and tsunami devastate Japan; brush fires ravage Australia; ethnic fighting causes turmoil in Bosnia; Ty introduces plush toys called Beanie Babies; the tech company Intel launches its Premium Processor. And an ensemble-based theater company called SITI Company devises the play The Medium in Toga-Mura, Japan. The Medium returns almost 30 years later to BAM Fisher, Fishman Space from March 15-20. As Shakespeare
Mdou Moctar & Bartees Strange launch Music at BAM Curated by Hanif Abdurraqib
There are moments when music can break down all borders and boundaries to touch something deep within the soul. Those rare experiences make an individual recognize their place in their collective community and within humanity as a whole. This is not an intellectual process but requires the heart's opening. It is a possession of sorts that takes you over as if seized by some supernatural force. That was the feeling that permeated BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House when Mdou Moctar and Bartees Strange kicked off Music at BAM, a series programmed by Hanif Abdurraqib, Guest Curator-at-Large. The vast space was jam-packed
Celebrations Two Legends Remembered During PRIDE Month
It's been 30 years since photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) and choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) died from AIDS. The June-long celebration of civil rights and respect is also a reminder that while there are now ways of controlling the disease, there remains no cure. Two recent performances were timely reminders that both left indelible marks on art and society. Triptych (Eyes of One on Another). New York premiere. BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, June 6-8, 2019. In 1989 when the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. caved to pressure from politicians and the Religious Right and cancelled the travelling Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment exhibit, protesters aimed a high-power scenic projector and
Diary of One Who Disappeared at BAM Lingers With Themes of Familiarity, Longing and Obsession
Obsession, fixation, unrequited love, chasing the muse and being haunted by a longing that can never fully be realized or consummated, but nevertheless continues to ignite flames of desire and creative sparks, are pervasive themes in Diary of One Who Disappeared. Muziektheater Transparant — a Flemish company devoted to sharing old-meets-new opera and musical theatre expressions for a wide audience — returns to their exploration of the autobiographical tormented love story of Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s enchantment with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman nearly 40 years his junior and from a very different background to whom he wrote over 700