Dimitris Papaioannou’s The Great Tamer is ready to wow BAM audiences at the Next Wave Festival (photo by Julian Mommert)
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
November 14-17, $30-$55
718-636-4100
www.bam.org/greattamer
www.dimitrispapaioannou.com
Under new artistic director David Binder, BAM’s 2019 Next Wave Festival consists exclusively of BAM debuts, with none of the familiar names that regular BAMgoers are used to seeing time and time again. About the closest you’re going to come is The Great Tamer, conceived, visualized, and directed by Dimitris Papaioannou, a former painter and comics artist who is the first person invited to create a piece for Tanztheater Wuppertal since BAM legend Pina Bausch’s death in 2009, Since She, which premiered last year. The Greek choreographer is now bringing his widely hailed The Great Tamer world tour to the Howard Gilman Opera House, where it runs November 14-17. Don’t let the title fool you; there’s nothing tame about this one-hundred-minute work, which features a Kubrick-esque astronaut, ample nudity, absurdist sculptural installations, nods to art history, bits of magic, and an unpredictable integration of humanity, nature, and technology, all set to Stephanos Droussiotis’s adaptation of Johann Strauss II’s Blue Danube. The wild piece is performed by Pavlina Andriopoulou, Costas Chrysafidis, Ektoras Liatsos, Ioannis Michos, Evangelia Randou, Kalliopi Simou, Drossos Skotis, Christos Strinopoulos, Yorgos Tsiantoulas, and Alex Vangelis, with sets by Tina Tzoka, costumes by Aggelos Mendis, lighting by Evina Vassilakopoulou, and sculptures by Nectarios Dionysatos. Prepare to be awed.