live performance

INTO THE WOODS

Into the Woods features a dazzling all-star cast with superstar understudies (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

INTO THE WOODS
St. James Theatre
246 West Forty-Fourth St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 8, $69-$159
intothewoodsbway.com

At intermission of the spectacular revival of Into the Woods, I was heading outside for a breath of fresh air when I saw a notice posted on the doors that the show was not yet over, that there was a second act. At first I wondered who would leave the theater at this point, but then I thought about how nearly perfect the first act was, how everything seemed to be wrapped up in a neat little package, with everybody onstage and in the audience elated and satisfied.

But in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s devilishly clever show, “happily ever after” is a misnomer, more of a warning than a coda. As the Narrator (David Patrick Kelly) had ominously just informed us, “To. Be. Continued.” Everyone’s jubilation is about to come tumbling down, like a giant falling from the sky — although one can find plenty of exhilaration in the dark side as well.

Inspired by Bruno Bettelheim’s 1976 Freudian book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Lapine and Sondheim’s musical debuted at San Diego’s Old Globe in 1986 and moved to Broadway the following year, earning ten Tony nominations and winning three, losing the Best Musical award to The Phantom of the Opera. This new version, which premiered at New York City Center’s “Encores!” series in May, has made a super-smooth transition to the St. James, maintaining its brilliant streamlined adaptation.

The nearly-three-hour show, which has been extended through October 16, is a mashup of fairytale favorites with some added central characters. The stage is dominated by a fifteen-piece orchestra conducted by Rob Berman, who leads the musicians through Sondheim’s complicated, unpredictable score. The actors spend most of the show on a narrow, horizontal section at the front of the stage, with minimal props, highlighted by miniature versions of their forest homes dangling from the ceiling, teasingly just out of reach. In addition, they occasionally wander through the orchestra, running around and hiding behind white birch trees that have come down from above.

The story is built around three wishes. Cinderella (Phillipa Soo) is suffering through a miserable existence, terrorized by her stepmother (Nancy Opel) and stepsisters, Florinda (Brooke Ishibashi) and Lucinda (Ta’Nika Gibson), while her father (Albert Guerzon) offers her no support. “I wish to go to the festival — and the ball . . . more than anything,” Cinderella sings, referring to a grand party being thrown by the handsome prince (Gavin Creel).

Jack (Cole Thompson, although I saw Alex Joseph Grayson) and his mother (Aymee Garcia) are worried that they might lose their farm, so the mother sends Jack off to sell his beloved old and ragged cow, Milky White (Kennedy Kanagawa). “I wish my cow would give us some milk, more than anything,” Jack croons.

And the Baker (Brian D’Arcy James; I saw Jason Forbach) and his wife (Sara Bareilles) are desperate to have a baby. “I wish . . . more than the moon . . . more than life . . . I wish we might have a child,” the couple, invented for the show, opine.

Milky White (Kennedy Kanagawa) sits in the back as the Baker (Brian D’Arcy James) and his wife (Sara Bareilles) come up with a plan (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Other familiar and new characters also show up in the threatening forest. Little Red Ridinghood (Julia Lester; I saw Delphi Borich) stops at the bakery to bring some treats to her granny (Annie Golden) but better be aware of the hungry Wolf (Creel). “Into the woods / to bring some bread / to Granny who / is sick in bed. / Never can tell / what lies ahead. / For all I know, she’s already dead,” Red declares. Rapunzel (Alysia Velez) has been locked up in a tower, where another handsome prince (Joshua Henry) seeks to rescue her. A Mysterious Man (Kelly) pops up from time to time, telling riddles and positing, “When first I appear, I seem delirious. But when explained, I am nothing serious.”

Everything is set in motion by the Witch (Patina Miller), who lives next door to the Baker and his wife. She had cursed the Baker’s family — which includes the sister he never knew he had, named Rapunzel — deeming it impossible for them to have children, but she now offers to reverse it in exchange for “the cow as white as milk,” “the cape as red as blood,” “the hair as yellow as corn,” and “the slipper as pure as gold.” She promises, “Bring me these / before the chime / of midnight / in three days’ time, / and you shall have, / I guarantee, / a child as perfect / as child can be. / Go to the wood!”

And off they go, into the woods, where they have to determine how far to compromise their morals in order to acquire the four elements that will allow them to finally have a baby. These decisions ring true with audience members, who, in our own lives, regularly face ethical decisions. “Into the woods / without regret, / the choice is made, / the task is set,” the Baker, his wife, Cinderella, Jack, and Jack’s mother sing in unison. “Into the woods / to get my (our) wish, / I don’t care how, / the time is now.”

But when a widowed Giant (voiced by Golden) comes down from her haven in the sky to avenge her husband’s death, everyone’s future is destined to not be so happy after all.

In the last ten years, I’ve seen two previous adaptations of Into the Woods, from the Public Theater at the Delacorte in 2012 and Fiasco Theater for Roundabout at the Laura Pels in 2015. Both were lovely, memorable productions that were very different from each other but thoroughly satisfying in their unique approaches to a beloved musical.

First-time Broadway director Lear deBessonet (Pump Boys and Dinettes, transFigures), the head of Encores! and the founder of Public Works, and choreographer Lorin Latarro (Fiasco’s Merrily We Roll Along, Assassins for Encores!), expertly guide the actors across the stage, up and down the handful of steps, and through the trees, making the most of the tight quarters; the charming scenic design is by David Rockwell, with lighting by Tyler Micoleau, sound by Scott Lehrer and Alex Neumann, and lovely music direction by Rob Berman. The tasty costumes are by Andrea Hood, with hair, wig, and makeup design by the extraordinary Cookie Jordan.

The Wolf (Gavin Creel) has an evil plan in store for Little Red Ridinghood (Julia Lester) (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

The cast is a true ensemble; several friends and colleagues saw different actors in key roles than I did, and everyone raved about them all, whether the understudy or the award-winning star. But two performers do stand out.

Miller brings down the house when she belts out “Last Midnight,” driving the crowd into a frenzy as she cries out, “It’s the last midnight, / it’s the last verse. / Now, before it’s past midnight, / I’m leaving you my last curse: / I’m leaving you alone.” Miller won a Tony as Leading Player in Diane Paulus’s 2013 Broadway revival of Pippin, but I missed her when I went; I instead saw the wonderful Stephanie Pope, who has had quite a career of her own.

But Kanagawa nearly steals the show as Milky White. Puppet designer James Ortiz (2022 Drama Desk Award winner for Best Puppet Design for The Skin of Our Teeth) has created a tender and fragile cow out of cardboard — part Slinky, part accordion — operated by Kanagawa, who had never worked with puppets before. He masterfully moves Milky White as the cow’s destiny is threatened, making sure we feel every emotion in her static foam eyes, from joy to sadness, as if it were a living creature in front of us. It’s a bravura performance that is receiving Tony buzz.

“If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives,” Bettelheim writes in the introduction of The Uses of Enchantment. “Our positive feelings give us the strength to develop our rationality; only hope for the future can sustain us in the adversities we unavoidably encounter.”

This latest adaptation of Into the Woods zeroes in on how Lapine’s book and Sondheim’s music and lyrics form a fairy tale for both kids and adults, about human beings’ instinctual desires, alongside their darkest fears. And don’t worry about the second act; it turns out that happily ever after is always within reach.

TICKET ALERT: FALL FOR DANCE FESTIVAL 2022

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will perform Aszure Barton’s BUSK at Fall for Dance (photo by Paul Kolnik)

FALL FOR DANCE FESTIVAL
New York City Center
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tickets go on sale Sunday, August 28, 11:00 am
Festival runs September 21 – October 2, $20
212-581-1212
www.nycitycenter.org

And, they’re off! Sunday morning at 11:00, tickets go on sale for the always hotly anticipated Fall for Dance Festival at City Center. The nineteenth annual event consists of five programs performed twice each over the course of ten days, featuring an international collection of established and emerging companies and choreographers; among the highlights are several live premieres of digital commissions; the festival includes works choreographed by Marius Petipa, Pam Tanowitz, Aszure Barton, Jamar Roberts, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, and Hofesh Shechter, among others. With tickets a mere twenty bucks, the festival sells out extremely quickly, so don’t waste any time and set those alarm clocks. Good luck!

Wednesday, September 21, and Thursday, September 22, 8:00
Program 1
HERVE KOUBI, Boys Don’t Cry, New York premiere, choreography by Hervé Koubi
António Casalinho & Margarita Fernandes, Bavarian State Ballet, Pas de deux from Le Corsaire, choreography by Marius Petipa
Gibney Company, Bliss, North American premiere, choreography by Johan Inger

Friday, September 23, and Saturday, September 24, 8:00
Program 2
Music from the Sole, I Didn’t Come to Stay, choreography and music by Leonardo Sandoval and Gregory Richardson
Melissa Toogood & Herman Cornejo, No Nonsense, New York premiere, choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, BUSK, choreography by Aszure Barton

Tuesday, September 27, and Wednesday, September 28, 8:00
Program 3
James Gilmer, Morani/Mungu (Black Warrior/Black God), live premiere, choreography by Jamar Roberts
San Francisco Ballet, In the Night, choreography by Jerome Robbins
María Moreno, Tangos & Alegrías, with guest singer María Terremoto, choreography by María Moreno

Thursday, September 29 and Friday, September 30, 8:00
Program 4
Sara Mearns & Robbie Fairchild, The Two of Us, live New York premiere, choreography by Christopher Wheeldon
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Indestructible, choreography by Abby Zbikowski
Kyiv City Ballet, Thoughts and Men of Kyiv, New York premiere, choreography by Vladyslav Dobshynskyi, Ivan Kozlov

Saturday, October 1, 8:00, and Sunday, October 2, 3:00
Program 5
Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, in collaboration with Chitrasena Dance Company, Poornāratī, New York premiere, choreography by Surupa Sen
Dutch National Ballet, Variations for Two Couples, choreography by Hans van Manen
Martha Graham Dance Company, CAVE, choreography by Hofesh Shechter

LIVE AT THE ARCHWAY: “iyouuswe III”

White Wave Young Soon Kim Dance Company will present the denouement of its “iyouuswe” trilogy August 25 at the DUMBO archway (photo courtesy White Wave Dance)

Who: White Wave Young Soon Kim Dance Company
What: Live at the Archway
Where: DUMBO Archway, 155 Water St. between Anchorage Pl. & Adams St.
When: Thursday, August 25, free (advance RSVP recommended), 6:00
Why: White Wave Young Soon Kim Dance Company, founders/curators of the DUMBO Dance Festival, Wave Rising Series, CoolNY Dance Festival, and SoloDuo Dance Festival, will perform the latest iteration of their longtime work-in-progress “iyouuswe” on August 25 at 6:00 as part of the summer program “Live at the Archway.” The show takes place in the archway under the Manhattan Bridge on Water St.; admission is free but advance RSVP is recommended.

The first section of the work, which as a whole “explores the body’s three dimensions in space” and “the weight of human emotions . . . as chaos propels us to the inevitable collapse of society,” premiered at La MaMa in 2017. The Brooklyn-based troupe presented a virtual version of iyouuswe II in November 2020, filmed on Jones Beach as the tide approaches three dancers. (You can watch it at the sixty-minute mark of this video.) The next iteration occurred this past February at Dixon Place for SoloDuo. For “Live at the Archway,” the denouement of the trilogy will feature Lacey Baroch, Michael Bishop, Sumire Ishige, Casey LaVres, Tess McCharen, Derick McKoy Jr., Jake Nahor, Alexander Sargent, Ellie Swainhart, and John Trunfio, with an original score by Marco Cappelli, additional music by Jim Perkins, Stephan Bodzin, and Angus MacRae, lighting by Yuriy Nayer, dramaturgy by James Leverett, and videography by Sargent.

TURN IT UP TWO!! BUSH TETRAS, THE BONGOS, TAPE HISS

Who: Bush Tetras, the Bongos, Tape Hiss
What: Free concert
Where: David Rubenstein Atrium, 61 West Sixty-Second St.
When: Thursday, August 25, free, 7:30
Why: There will be quite a hum Thursday night at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium when two quintessential local ’80s bands and a groovy new retro group come together for “Turn It Up Two!!” On August 18, Ivan Julian & the Magnificent Six, Gary Lucas, and the Veldt took the stage for “Turn It Up!!,” part of Lincoln Center’s free summer season. This week it’s New York City’s own Bush Tetras, Hoboken legends the Bongos, and the all-star Tape Hiss. The shows are curated by Hoboken musician Jared Michael Nickerson, who will also join in onstage.

“Turn it Up! is a celebration of my too-lit-to-mention ’80s New York City club scene memories,” Nickerson, who played bass for Human Switchboard, said in a statement, adding that the shows are “an acknowledgment that in 2022 there are rockers from that scene, some forty, forty-five years later, still kicking out the jams and turning it up.”

Formed in 1979, Bush Tetras initially broke up in 1983, then reunited in 1995 and 2005; original members Pat Place and Cynthia Sley — cofounder and drummer Dee Pop passed away last October, while cofounder and guitarist Laura Kennedy died in 2011 — will be accompanied by former Sonic Youth drummer Shelley and multi-instrumentalist R. B. Korbet. The band’s video for “Too Many Creeps” helped define the 1908s underground music in NYC.

Over in Jersey, the Bongos burst through with the seminal album Drums Along the Hudson and such singles as “In the Congo,” “The Bulrushes,” and “Numbers with Wings.” Cofounders Richard Barone on guitar and vocals, Frank Giannini on drums, and Rob Norris on bass, with master guitarist James Mastro, who signed on after the first record, will serenade the atrium with classic originals and some sweet covers. Tape Hiss consists of Shelley, Ernie Brooks from the Modern Lovers, and Peter Zummo from Arthur Russell and the Lounge Lizards, along with David Nagler and Pete Galub, performing songs from those bands and more.

HYPROV: IMPROV UNDER HYPNOSIS

Volunteers fall under the spell of master hypnotist Asad Mecci in HYPROV (photo by Carol Rosegg)

HYPROV
Daryl Roth Theatre
103 East 15th St. between Irving Pl. & Park Ave.
Wednesday – Sunday through October 30, $55-$195
www.hyprov.com

There’s a curious aspect to ticket prices for HYPROV: Improv Under Hypnosis, which opened tonight at the Daryl Roth Theatre. The highest-priced tickets are in the first row and on the aisle in the lower rows, nearly double the price in the second row center. After seeing the hilarious show, I understand why.

HYPROV, a combination of hypnosis and improvisational comedy, has been traveling across the US and Canada, along with stops in England and Scotland, since 2016. Canadian master hypnotist and motivational life and performance coach Asad Mecci contacted Scottish-Canadian improv legend Colin Mochrie via an email he sent through the comedian’s website. Mochrie’s manager, Jeff Andrews, discussed the idea with Mochrie and HYPROV was born.

The evening begins with Mecci describing to the audience what they’re in for. Twenty volunteers will come onstage and be hypnotized, locking out their brain’s penchant for self-reflection and embarrassment so the participants will be much less inhibited and able to invest themselves fully in improv comedy sketches. No one will be made to do anything they don’t want to do; instead, they’re so relaxed that they can release their inner performer. Mecci whittles down the twenty volunteers to about five who will then be part of the main show.

So, back to the ticket prices. When Mecci announces that anyone interested in being hypnotized should come to the stage, there’s a mad dash from all over the theater. Thus, if you are sitting in the front row or the lower aisle seats, you have a much better chance of making the twenty-person cutoff than someone sitting, say, in the middle of the twentieth row. My guess is that those paying the premium price are determined to make it to the stage; a woman in the center of my row hesitated just enough to miss the cut by a few people. But no worries; like the rest of us, she was about to have a rousing good time nevertheless.

Asad Mecci and Colin Mochrie set up the next scene in hypnotic improv show at the Daryl Roth (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Part of the fun is watching the muscle-bound Mecci, who studied under hypnotist Mike Mandel and life and business strategist Tony Robbins, do his thing as you try to predict who he will ultimately select. He tests how relaxed and hypnotized the volunteers are by putting them in a few unusual situations; he doesn’t make anyone bark like a dog or act like a chicken, but he does have them search for one of their missing body parts. The night I went, he asked one of the volunteers why he needed it. “Because my mother gave it to me,” he responded, as if it were a family heirloom. He made the cut.

After Mecci chooses that evening’s cast, Mochrie, who has been a regular on several iterations of Whose Line Is It Anyway? for more than twenty-five years, working with Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady, Greg Hoops, and Brad Sherwood (as well as hosts Drew Carey and Aisha Tyler), takes over. For the next hour or so, Mochrie selects a series of scenes — there are about ten standard setups in the repertoire, with more to be added — and asks the audience to call out prompts, from locations and professions to animals and props. Mecci throws in an extra twist by deciding which of the hypnotized cast will play what role.

Then the sketches unfurl, with Mochrie ready to pick up any pauses and Mecci holding the mic for the volunteers while making sure they don’t snap out of their trancelike state and, even more important, don’t cross any barriers, either psychological or physical. For example, when one young man began a surprisingly entertaining dance, mixing contemporary with ballet, Mecci watched closely to make sure he wasn’t going to whack anyone in the head or take an unintentional dive off the stage. In another scene, two characters were in the midst of a romantic moment when Mecci jumped between them right before they were about to kiss. “That was a close one,” Mochrie acknowledged. Mecci, who has to be careful not to become too much of an audience member himself — he tries his best to contain his own outbursts of laughter — heartily agreed.

Mochrie, who was one of the first popular social media gifs, appears to be having a ball through it all, though he admits that it is scary for him too; he’s used to working with trained professionals, so his instincts have to be even quicker here with the amateur comedians. He also had to sing, quickly noting that music is not his forte, but the hypnotized woman he duetted with knocked it out of the park.

Speaking of music, Rufus Wainwright, who was born in New York but raised in Montreal, has composed an original score for the induction scene, a steady, breathy drone that is heard as the volunteers are being hypnotized. (Mecci had helped Wainwright’s husband quit smoking through hypnosis.) Meanwhile, music director John Hilsen sits off to stage left, improvising at the keyboards as the scenes play out.

Just about anything can happen in HYPROV, with a few important exceptions (photo by Carol Rosegg)

The line of the night didn’t come from Mecci or Mochrie but instead from one of the volunteers who, while portraying a sound effects engineer for an old-time radio show who gets each noise wrong, called out in a high-pitched voice when he was cued for an owl: “owwwwwwwwlllllllll noooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiise!”

Jo Winiarski’s set features a giant circle on the back wall, right behind a curved bench where the volunteers sit when not part of the show. The colors on the circle change ever so slowly, with a calming effect; the lighting designer is Jeff Croiter, with sound by Walter Trarbach. Longtime television writer and producer Stan Zimmerman (The Gilmore Girls, A Very Brady Sequel) is left with the near-impossible task of directing a production that thrives when it veers toward a certain amount of chaos.

While there are sure to be skeptics who think that at least some of the volunteers have to be plants, Mecci and Mochrie declare that they have never before met any of the people who have made it onstage, and I spoke with two of the participants after the show who both assured me that it was all legit, that they were aware all the time exactly what they were doing but free of any lack of self-esteem or worry that they would embarrass themselves in public.

HYPROV can be a little ragged at times, and there are occasional hiccups and lapses as the improv sketches get under way, but the show is a tribute to what we are all capable of, persuading each of us that maybe we should get on the stage next time and give it a go. Maybe you’ll come home having delivered the line of the night — but you’ll probably need to splurge for those more expensive seats.

STAND WITH SALMAN: DEFEND THE FREEDOM TO WRITE

Who: Paul Auster, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Tina Brown, Kiran Desai, Andrea Elliott, Amanda Foreman, A. M. Homes, Siri Hustvedt, Hari Kunzru, Colum McCann, Douglas Murray, Andrew Solomon, Gay Talese, more
What: Public reading of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses
Where: The New York Public Library, Fifth Ave. and Forty-Second St., and online
When: Friday, August 19, free, 11:00 am
Why: “‘To be born again,’ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Ta-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won’t cry? How to win the darling’s love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again . . .’”

So begins Salman Rushdie’s 1988 Booker Prize finalist and Whitbread winner, The Satanic Verses, which famously led the Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa on the Indian-born British-American novelist, calling for his death, complete with a multimillion-dollar bounty. While others associated with the publication of the book have indeed been murdered (Italian translator Ettore Capriolo, Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi; Norwegian publisher William Nygaard and Turkish translator Aziz Nesin survived attacks), Rushdie spent years in hiding but ultimately emerged to become a leading international literary figure. But on August 12, Rushdie was stabbed ten times as he prepared to give a talk and lecture at the Chautauqua Institution; the alleged assailant, twenty-four-year-old Hadi Matar, claims to have read only two pages of The Satanic Verses but decided to try to kill Rushdie after watching numerous speeches of his on YouTube.

Rushdie, who has been writing and speaking about human rights and free speech around the world for decades, will be celebrated on August 19 at 11:00 am when a group of his friends and colleagues gather on the steps of the New York Public Library in Midtown for a public reading of his most famous book; there was also a public reading of the work a few days after the fatwa was declared, some thirty-three years ago. Organized by PEN, the NYPL, PenguinRandom House, and House of SpeakEasy, “Stand with Salman: Defend the Freedom to Write” will include such authorial stalwarts as Paul Auster, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Tina Brown, Kiran Desai, Andrea Elliott, Amanda Foreman, A. M. Homes, Siri Hustvedt, Hari Kunzru, Colum McCann, Douglas Murray, Andrew Solomon, and Gay Talese. The grassroots event is open to all and will be livestreamed as well; in addition, you can post your own reading of a short passage on social media using #StandWithSalman and tagging @penamerica.

“We are again facing a watershed moment,” Foreman wrote in a statement. “The war against freedom of expression is gaining strength. Globally, over two thousand writers and journalists have been murdered since Rushdie was sentence to death by Iran. On August 19 we have an opportunity to make a stand: courage breeds courage.”

LIMITLESS AI / FLIGHT / SÉANCE

Limitless AI immerses audiences in a barrage of digital imagery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

LIMITLESS AI
ArtsDistrict Brooklyn (AD/BK)
25 Franklin St., Brooklyn
Thursday – Sunday through November 20, $44.50 – $49.50
artsdistrict.live
online slideshow

There’s a big-time new artist in town, but it’s not a human being.

Apps such as DALL-E 2, Craiyon, Artbreeder, and Deep Dream offer anyone the opportunity to create a virtual masterpiece by feeding descriptive text into an artificial intelligence generator that then uses an algorithm to output a digital image. The app Midjourney recently found itself in the news when a user named #postpoopzoomies made a series of works in which Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight host John Oliver married a cabbage.

Meanwhile, immersive art experiences have taken off around the world, large-scale, Instagram-friendly installations in which canvases come to life, filling massive rooms with pieces by van Gogh, Magritte, Klimt, and other international favorites.

Turkish artists Ferdi Alici and Eylul Alici of Istanbul’s Ouchhh Studio take both to the next level with Limitless AI, the centerpiece of the new ArtsDistrict Brooklyn (AD/BK) in Greenpoint. The twenty-five-thousand-square-foot space on Franklin St. features three immersive experiences along with a café and an outdoor bar; the cofounders and executive producers of the NYC destination are the Toronto-based David Galpern and Charles Roy.

Limitless AI is a sixty-minute experience divided into five sections; visitors can sit on benches or movable chairs or wander around the ten-thousand-square-foot room, where an ever-changing panoply of spectacular images are splashed onto walls, pillars, and the floor by more than sixty 4K laser projectors. There’s also a mezzanine with a nifty view. Be sure to walk to the various corners to enjoy different perspectives, but be warned that if you look down at the floor as you proceed, you might get a little dizzy, but in a good way.

The show begins with “Poetic AI,” consisting of a barrage of words, letters, and phrases from Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and others, in black-and-white. “Data is the paint. Algorithm is the brush. Architecture is the canvas,” a robotic voice announces. “Twenty million lines of visionary text, unspooled into data, processed by a mechanical mind.”

“Leonardo da Vinci: Wisdom of AI Light,” set to an original score by beloved Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi and multidisciplinary Turkish-Canadian musician, composer, and DJ Mercan Dede, celebrates the genius of Leonardo and such other Renaissance artists as Michelangelo and Caravaggio with digital re-creations, using billions of pieces of data from the paintings, of some of their most famous works, from the Mona Lisa to the Pietà to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; here, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, in which the fingers of God and the first man nearly touch, evoke the future of artificial intelligence, as if the Supreme Being is passing the torch.

Classic Renaissance paintings are re-created through AI algorithms for immersive Brooklyn installation (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Data Gate” repurposes millions of images taken by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, while “Dark Machine” uses data compiled by the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The voice asks, “What goes through the mind of an atom when it explodes? Maybe this.”

Limitless AI concludes with “Superstrings,” which adds a human component. A wide column opens up to reveal a three-piece band performing live; one of the instrumentalists is wearing a headset that monitors her real-time EEG brainwaves, while the algorithm is also picking up information from the people in the crowd, resulting in what the voice describes as “the flickering waves of human consciousness, transformed into light.” The finale is unique for every show.

As with the dueling immersive van Gogh presentations, I find it a strange way to experience classic art; even in the age of Instagram and TikTok, there’s still nothing quite like seeing the originals up close and personal in museums and churches. But the non-art sections of Limitless AI don’t have the same restrictions, letting loose with the unexpected.

It’s sort of like the old days of Laser Floyd and Laser Zeppelin, psychedelically grooving out at planetariums, but replacing rock and roll with visual and mathematical data as the baseline for the imagery. It can be ultracool and beautiful as well as repetitive and head-scratchingly bizarre; it’s best not to get too caught up in taking photos and videos and let the sound and images waft over you, literally.

There are two other immersive installations at AD/BK, set in a pair of side-by-side forty-foot-long white shipping containers in the outdoor back patio. Created by London’s Darkfield, Flight and Séance each takes place in complete darkness, with the audience wearing binaural headphones that make it seem like characters and events are actually present in the real space around you. The twenty-five-minute Flight is reminiscent of Martín Bondone’s Odd Man Out, in which the seated, blindfolded audience goes on a mock plane trip narrated by an Argentine guitarist returning home from America, as well as Simon Stephens’s Blindness, a postapocalyptic tale about strangers trying to survive after an epidemic robs most people of their sight.

Digital images flash on walls and floors in Limitless AI (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Flight involves a meticulously constructed replica of a plane interior. The setup is definitely economy class, right down to the uncomfortably small distance between seats, but the production values are first class, with a series of sounds and videos that all-too-convincingly simulate a sketchy airline and life-changing outcome. Musings about Schrödinger’s cat and the nature of reality make for an enjoyable if puzzling ride.

For the twenty-minute Séance, the audience is arranged on two sides of a long, narrow table, with chandeliers hanging from above and lots of red velvet. Everyone has gathered to attempt to contact spirits; a medium guides the Victorian story as creepy things start to occur, and not just through your headphones. Be sure to sit near the end of the room if you think you might need to suddenly run out.

So, what’s the future of AI art? In 2019, the US Copyright Office ruled that AI art cannot be copyrighted because it “lacks the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim.” Attorney Ryan Abbott, representing AI pioneer and Imagination Engines president and CEO Stephen L. Thaler in his request for a new hearing, recently told Artnet News, “We disagree with the Copyright Office’s decision and plan to appeal. . . . AI is able to make functionally creative output in the absence of a traditional human author, and protecting AI-generated works with copyright is vital to promoting the production of socially valuable content.”

If the flurry of immersive art presentations have proved anything, it’s that these experiences are all about socially valuable content, particularly when it comes to marrying a Brassica oleracea or other species of wild vegetable.