this week in literature

GrahamDeconstructed — MARTHA GRAHAM: WHEN DANCE BECAME MODERN

Who: Martha Graham Dance Company, Neil Baldwin, Janet Eilber
What: GrahamDeconstructed
Where: Martha Graham Studio Theater, 55 Bethune St., eleventh floor
When: November 8-9, in person $20-$30 (livestream $25), 7:00
Why: “For me, growing up in the Manhattan neighborhood where Lincoln Center would someday be built, the name ‘Martha Graham’ conjured a distant image: A goddess-like, athletic personage in a tight, shirred bodice extended at the hips into a flowing gown, her bare right foot weighted and planted as if holding to the floor, left leg poised aloft at an impossible angle revealing a long, muscular thigh emerging from the play of fabric in the eloquent garment. Her right arm is bent, her hand half-crooked at the wrist, fingers contracted and crowning a smooth brow while she gazes, angular-featured, luminous half-closed eyes fixed downward and focused inward, seeking an undefined, urgent answer.” That’s how Neil Baldwin describes his subject at the beginning of his new biography, Martha Graham: When Dance Became Modern (Knopf, October 2022, $40).

On November 8 and 9 at 7:00, the Martha Graham Dance Company will present a special program as part of its continuing “GrahamDeconstructed” series. Baldwin, who has also written such books as The American Revelation, Man Ray: American Artist, Edison: Inventing the Century, and Henry Ford and the Jews, will be at the Martha Graham Studio Theater on Bethune St. to launch the book, reading sections — joined by MGDC company members who will perform excerpts from dances he mentions — signing copies, and participating in a discussion with MGDC artistic director Janet Eilber, followed by a wine reception. The event will be livestreamed as well.

BOOK SIGNING WITH KIMBERLY BROWN: NAVIGATING GRIEF AND LOSS

Kimberly Brown will celebrate new book at Rubin Museum on November 4 (photo courtesy Kimberly Brown)

Who: Kimberly Brown
What: Book launch
Where: Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
When: Friday, November 4, free, 6:30 – 8:30
Why: “Unsuccessful attempts to deny, bypass, or discharge pain create disappointment or frustration and increase our suffering. Why do I still feel so angry? When am I going to stop being so tired? These can also make our feelings even more powerful, insistent, and overwhelming, because they need to be heard and cared for by you before they can resolve,” meditation and mindfulness teacher Kimberly Brown writes in her new book, Navigating Grief and Loss: 25 Buddhist Practices to Keep Your Heart Open to Yourself and Others. Brown’s follow-up to July 2020’s Steady, Calm, and Brave: 25 Practices of Resilience and Wisdom in a Crisis, Navigating Grief and Loss pairs chapters with guided practice; for example, “There Is Nothing Wrong with You” is linked with “Stay,” “When People Behave Badly” with “Forgive and Remember,” and “Mourning and Social Media” with “Skillful Speech.”

“I wrote the book to share the practices that supported me after my dear friend Denise died, and when my elderly dad had a health crisis during the pandemic, and included chapters on divorce and job loss too because not all painful losses are deaths,” Brown explained in a Substack post. “I hope it will remind everyone that profound loss doesn’t have to overwhelm or destroy us because we can learn useful and simple tools to meet our pain and sadness with kindness and wisdom, and open our beautiful hearts to ourselves and everyone else — to connect in our sorrows as well as our joys.” Brown will be at the Rubin Museum on November 4 to sign copies of the book as part of the institution’s free K2 Friday Nights program. Brown is one of the teachers in the museum’s Mindfulness Meditation series on Mondays; you can listen to past sessions here. In addition, on November 15 at 7:00, Brown will celebrate the book’s release with an online party hosted by Mindful Astoria.

BOOK LAUNCH: TRANSFORMING SPACE OVER TIME

Who: Beowulf Boritt, James Lapine, Susan Stroman, Elliott Forrest
What: Book launch
Where: The Drama Book Shop, 266 West Thirty-Ninth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
When: Tuesday, October 11, $35 (includes copy of book), 7:00
Why: “My goal is to couple thematically evocative visuals with a considered transformation of the physical space as the story plays out. Set design is a kinetic sculpture that is constantly being manipulated to enhance the emotions and narrative of the story: transforming space over time. Thematic evocation and spatial transformation are my tools to create an intellectual concept to guide the scenery and support the story. Once that concept is clear in my mind, I can envision the style of the set: literally, what it will look like. When the process goes well, the frosting really does enhance the cake.”

So writes Tony- and Obie-winning set designer extraordinaire Beowulf Boritt in his new book, Transforming Space Over Time: Set Design and Visual Storytelling with Broadway’s Legendary Directors (Globe Pequot / Applause, August 2022, $34.95). The tome features conversations between Boritt (Act One, The Scottsboro Boys, The Last Five Years) and six theater greats he has worked with either on Broadway or off: James Lapine, Kenny Leon, Hal Prince, Susan Stroman, Jerry Zaks, and Stephen Sondheim. The book is a celebration of the art of creation and collaboration; it will have its launch October 11 at 7:00 at the Drama Book Shop, where Boritt will be joined by Lapine, Stroman, and Peabody-winning moderator Elliott Forrest. Tickets are limited and include a copy of the book.

WILLIAM SHATNER: STILL BOLDLY GOING

Who: William Shatner, Joshua Brandon, Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson
What: Livestreamed discussion
Where: Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center online
When: Thursday, October 6, free with RSVP ($28 with a copy of the book), 7:00
Why: “I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely . . . all of that has thrilled me for years. Where matter in the universe came from, where it’s going, why it’s expanding . . . I know very little, but I know just enough about the universe to be in its thrall, in awe of its mystery.”

So writes William Shatner in his latest book, Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder (Atria, October 4, $28), which includes such essays as “We Belong Together,” “Listen to the Animals,” and “There’s Beauty in Everything.” Now ninety-one, the actor, singer, horseman, and astronaut, whose grandparents emigrated from Ukraine and Lithuania, will launch the tome in a virtual presentation from the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center on October 6 at 7:00, speaking with his coauthor, Joshua Brandon, and moderator Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson. Registration is free, or you can order the book with the RSVP for $28. “I probably say wow more now than when I was a child, and I am absolutely enchanted by that fact,” Shatner explains in the introduction. “I don’t know how not to be doing. I really would regret not giving myself a chance to experience something new and to learn in the process.” Words to live by from a living legend.

BOOK LAUNCH FOR EL ANATSUI: THE REINVENTION OF SCULPTURE

Who: El Anatsui, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Jason Farago, Massimiliano Gioni, Julian Lucas
What: Book launch
Where: New Museum Theater, 235 Bowery
When: Thursday, September 22, $10, 6:30
Why: “The fact that El Anatsui normally expects curators and collectors of his metal sculpture to decide how to install them, but also because they are hand-wrought, flexible things, with numerous parts that can behave in infinite ways when moved, how they are installed determines their composition, affect, and phenomenological presence. Having conceived the work, and invested so much labor along with his many studio assistants to realize it in initial sculptural form, ceding its inaugural and future manifestations to whoever has custody of the work, is an extraordinary power to invest in others, without any instruction or even suggestion of his own authorial intentionality.” So write Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu in their new book, El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture (Damiani, $70), about Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, who uses discarded items (primarily bottlecaps) in creating large-scale pieces that comment on the relationship between humans and the environment. The works are malleable, able to be displayed in various configurations that El Anatsui leaves up to whoever is showing the piece.

On September 22 at 6:30, the seventy-eight-year-old El Anatsui (“Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui”), who works in Ghana and Nigeria, will be at the New Museum for the official US launch of the book, highlighted by a panel discussion with Princeton-based artist, critic, and art historian Okeke-Agulu, art critic Jason Farago, and Brooklyn-based critic and essayist Julian Lucas, moderated by New Museum director Massimiliano Gioni. Okeke-Agulu wrote the book, which features such chapters as “El Anatsui and Modern African Art,” “The Aesthetic and Rhetoric of Fragmentation,” and “The Epic and Triumphant Scale,” with beloved Nigerian curator and critic Enwezor, who passed away in 2019 at the age of fifty-five and whose spirit will be felt throughout the evening.

BURN

Alan Cumming brings his debut solo dance-theater piece, Burn, to the Joyce this week (photo by Jane Blarlow/PA Wire)

Who: Alan Cumming
What: North American premiere of solo dance-theater piece
Where: The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at Nineteenth St.
When: September 21-25, $76-$106
Why: “You must not deny me!” Alan Cumming declares in his portrayal of eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns in Burn, making its North American premiere at the Joyce this week. The solo dance-theater work was created by Olivier- and Tony-winning actor Cumming with Olivier- and Obie-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett, who choreographed the piece with Vicki Manderson, and is set to the music of British composer Anna Meredith, including such songs as “Solstice In,” “HandsFree,” “Blackfriars,” “Descent,” and “Return.” The set design is by Ana Inés Jabares Pitz, with costumes by Katrina Lindsay, lighting by Tim Lutkin, projections by Andrzej Goulding, and sound by Matt Padden.

In a program note, Cumming — who has appeared on Broadway in Cabaret and a one-man reinterpretation of Macbeth and off Broadway in “Daddy” and has lent his voice to such films as They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead and numerous animated children’s films (while spectacularly lending his body to the hybrid documentary My Old School) — explains, “In 2015, I has just turned fifty and realised I would never be as fit or asked to dance in a show in the same way again. But I still felt I had one more in me! I meant a play or a musical that was dance heavy. Little did I think I would end up making my solo dance theater debut at fifty-seven!” Together, Cumming and Hoggett (Black Watch, Once, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) point out, “An early intention was to explore the idea of Burns as national icon and a figure who, under modern scrutiny, was becoming something more complex than the beloved face on tourists’ souvenir biscuit tins.” There will be a curtain chat with members of the creative team following the September 21 performance. Some shows are already sold out, so get your tickets now if you want to experience what should be an exhilarating evening of dance, theater, music, and poetry.

THE LIT. BAR: NEIL deGRASSE TYSON AND STARRY MESSENGER

Who: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr. Matthew O’Dowd
What: Book launch and talk
Where: Lovinger Theater at Lehman College, 250 Bedford Park Blvd. West
When: Monday, September 19, $58.42 (includes signed copy of book), 7:00
Why: “Objective truths of science are not founded in belief systems. They are not established by the authority of leaders or the power of persuasion. Nor are they learned from repetition or gleaned from magical thinking. To deny objective truths is to be scientifically illiterate, not to be ideologically principled,” Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson explains in his new book, Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization (Macmillan, $28.99). “After all that, you’d think only one definition for truth should exist in this world, but no. At least two other kinds prevail that drive some of the most beautiful and the most violent expressions of human conduct. Personal truths have the power to command your mind, body, and soul, but are not evidence-based. Personal truths are what you’re sure is true, even if you can’t — especially if you can’t — prove it. Some of these ideas derive from what you want to be true. Others take shape from charismatic leaders or sacred doctrines, either ancient or contemporary. For some, especially in monotheistic traditions, God and Truth are synonymous.”

On September 19 at 7:00, the superstar astrophysicist and beloved pop-culture icon will be back where it all started, his home borough of the Bronx, to launch Starry Messenger. He’ll be at the Lovinger Theater at Lehman College to discuss the book with physics and astronomy chair Matthew O’Dowd, host of the YouTube show PBS Space Time; the event is being presented with the Lit. Bar, the Bronx bookstore and wine bar run by Lehman alum Noëlle Santos. Tickets include a presigned copy of the book, which features such chapters as “Truth & Beauty: Aesthetics in life and in the cosmos,” “Conflict & Resolution: Tribal forces within us all,” “Meatarians & Vegetarians: We are not entirely what we eat,” “Law & Order: The foundation of civilization, whether we like it or not,” and “Body & Mind: Human physiology may be overrated.”