16
Oct/16

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: LETTER TO A MAN

16
Oct/16
Mikhail Baryshnikov plays Vaslav Nijinsky in Robert Wilsons  LETTER TO A MAN at BAM (photo by Lucie Jansch)

Mikhail Baryshnikov brings Vaslav Nijinsky’s diaries to life in Robert Wilson’s LETTER TO A MAN at BAM (photo by Lucie Jansch)

BAM Harvey
651 Fulton St.
October 15-30, $35-$130
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In March, Mikhail Baryshnikov starred in the one-man show Brodsky/Baryshnikov at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, a stirring presentation based on the writings of his friend and fellow Riga native Joseph Brodsky. Now Misha is reteaming with stage impresario and BAM regular Robert Wilson on another one-person show, Letter to a Man, in which Baryshnikov portrays Vaslav Nijinsky, taking the audience on a surreal tour through the legendary Russian dancer’s diaries as he battled mental illness. Baryshnikov was last at BAM in 2014 in Wilson’s The Old Woman with Willem Dafoe, while the Waco-born Wilson, who specializes in wildly inventive audiovisual spectacles, has been putting on shows at BAM since The Life & Times of Sigmund Freud in 1969; he’s staged Einstein on the Beach, The Civil Wars, The Black Rider, Woyczeck, and others there since then. Part of BAM’s 2016 Next Wave Festival, Letter to a Man is directed and designed by Wilson, with text by Christian Dumais-Lvowski, dramaturgy by Darryl Pinckney, music by Hal Willner (with snippets from Tom Waits, Arvo Pärt, Henry Mancini, and Alexander Mosolov), movement collaboration by Lucinda Childs, costumes by Jacques Reynaud, lighting by A. J. Weissbard, sound design by Nick Sagar and Ella Wahlström, and video projections by Tomek Jeziorski. The show runs October 15-30; on October 24, the free program “Inside Nijinsky’s Diaries” will take place at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, featuring Paul Giamatti reading from the diaries, followed by a panel discussion with Pinckney, Joan Acocella, and Larry Wolff, moderated by Jennifer Homans.