live performance

AMANDA SELWYN DANCE THEATRE: THREADS

Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre presents world premiere of Threads at New York Live Arts this week (photo by Maria Baranova)

Who: Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre
What: World premiere of Threads
Where: New York Live Arts, 219 West Nineteenth St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves., and online
When: April 7-9, $15-$30, 7:30 (livestream $20)
Why: Since 2000, Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre has been staging works that explore what makes us human, the connections between people and nature, performer and audience, and humanity itself. The New York–based company will be presenting the world premiere of its latest evening-length piece, Threads, April 7-9 at New York Live Arts, looking at how we have dealt psychologically, emotionally, and physically with the last two years. “Threads explores what holds us together in isolation and the practice of letting go,” Selwyn said in a statement. “This pandemic has brought into focus where priorities are, the value of our human connections, and the very fleeting nature of it all. We are just a moment away from change. The threads can be fixed, torn, mended, or woven. . . . This is a story of heartbreak, forgiveness, loss, new beginnings, agency, and powerlessness.”

The work features set and costumes by Anna-Alisa Belous, lighting by Dan Ozminkowski, and sound by Joel Wilhelmi; it will be performed by Torrey Harada, Manon Hallay, Misaki Hayama, David Hochberg, Isaac Kerr, Minseon Kim, Ashley McQueen, Michael Miles, Oscar Antonio Rodriguez, Lauren Russo, John Trunfio, and Evita Zacharioglou. If you can’t make it to the Chelsea theater, the shows will also be livestreamed here.

“It starts as a thread of an idea and, from that thread, a fabric of meaning emerges,” Selwyn (Hindsight, Crossroads, Renewal) continues. “One thread at a time. By listening, pulling, teasing, tearing at each piece. Showing up in it. We can only see when our minds, eyes, and hearts are open. We can only see when we are ready. When we aren’t looking. In this pause, we step forward and balance on a thread to discover divine beauty. We measure risk, we acknowledge what is gone, we let go.”

MICHAEL DORF’S 60th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION: THE MUSIC OF JAMES BROWN

Who: Catherine Russell, David Gilmore, Vernon Reid, Corey Glover, Nicole Atkins, John Medeski, the Millennial Territory Orchestra, more
What: Celebration of the music of James Brown and the sixtieth birthday of City Winery founder Michael Dorf
Where: City Winery New York, 25 Eleventh Ave. at Fifteenth St.
When: Thursday, April 7, $60-$75, 8:00
Why: City Winery founder Michael Dorf knows how to throw a party. For his sixtieth birthday, he is celebrating with some of his favorite musicians, who will serenade him with the music of James Brown, accompanied by fine wine for the special occasion. Among the people who will be taking the stage and performing songs by the Godfather of Soul are Catherine Russell, David Gilmore, Nicole Atkins, Vernon Reid, Corey Glover, and John Medeski; the Millennial Territory Orchestra is the house band, featuring music director Steven Bernstein on trumpet, Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, David Gilmore on guitar, Charlie Burnham on violin, Peter Apfelbaum on tenor sax, Briggan Krauss on baritone sax, Erik Lawrence on alto sax, Ben Allison on bass, and Ben Perowsky on drums. Tickets range from $60 to $75. In a November 2021 twi-ny talk, Dorf said, “I’m a kid in a candy shop.” Fortunately, he gets to share all his sweet treats with the rest of us.

WORD. SOUND. POWER. 2022

Who: Baba Israel, AMYRA, Drew Drake, Dizzy SenZe, Freakquencee, DJ Reborn, Jade Charon
What: Live music, dance, and spoken word performances centered around Aṣẹ
Where: BAM Fisher, Fishman Space, 321 Ashland Pl.
When: April 7—9, $25, 7:30
Why: BAM’s annual celebration of spoken word and hip-hop features a stellar lineup of performers honoring the power of Aṣẹ, the Yoruba philosophical concept of affirmation, life force, and verbal creation. Artist, producer, educator, and consultant Baba Israel will host “Word. Sound. Power. 2022,” which takes place April 7-9 at BAM Fisher’s intimate Fishman Space. The impressive gathering brings together Bronx-born lyrical assassin Dizzy SenZe, Newark vibe curator Freakquencee, NYC-based poet and actor Drew Drake, and Harlem musician, author, and director AMYRA, with music by Brooklyn-based DJ Reborn and choreography by Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Jade Charon. The seventy-minute showcase, exploring agency, creativity, resilience, and more, also includes student poets from Brooklyn public schools, part of a BAM in-school residency program, and will conclude with a twenty-minute Q&A with the artists.

LIVE FROM THE WOODY GUTHRIE CENTER: OKLAHOMA SINGS WOODY!

Who: Branjae, John Fullbright, David Amram, Red Dirt Rangers, Deana McCloud
What: Livestreamed concert from the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa
Where: Morgan Library & Museum online
When: Wednesday, April 6, free, 7:00
Why: The Morgan Library exhibition “Woody Guthrie: People Are the Song” takes visitors on a deep dive into the life and career of Oklahoma-born singer-songwriter Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie, the folk music legend who fought for everyday Americans through his staunch activism and protest songs. The outstanding show, continuing through May 22, features hundreds of items, from Woody’s instruments, records, letters, and notebooks to photographs, postcards, lyrics, and artworks, including a rare painting. The audioguide is narrated by country folk rock troubadour Steve Earle and features snippets of songs and archival interviews with Guthrie. Talking about moving to the West Coast, Guthrie says, “They called us ‘dust bowl refugees.’ But then there’s more than one kind of a refugee. There’s refugees that take refuge under railroad bridges, and there is refugees that take refugee and . . . take refuge in public office. But when we was out in California, all that the native sons and daughters called us was just ‘dust bowl refugees.’”

Guthrie, who was born in the small town of Okemah on July 14, 1912, and died of Huntington’s disease on October 3, 1967, in Coney Island, left behind a legacy that reaches around the world, impacting such musicians as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Wilco, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, and so many others. On April 6 at 7:00, the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa will present the live concert “Oklahoma Sings Woody!,” with performances by Branjae, John Fullbright, David Amram, and Red Dirt Rangers, playing three songs each, their own as well as Woody’s. While the in-person show is sold out, the event will be livestreamed for free by the Morgan, supplemented with a brief virtual tour of the center by founding executive director and chief curator Deana McCloud. Throughout his too-short career, Guthrie revealed the power that music can have on politics and the populace; as he famously carved into a guitar, “This machine kills fascists.” Yes, people are the song.

ReelAbilities FILM FESTIVAL: NEW YORK 2022

Who: ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York
What: Annual festival of films celebrating stories of people with disabilities
Where: Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan and other venues as well as online
When: April 7-13, free – $15
Why: Since 2007, the ReelAbilities Film Festival has been showcasing shorts, features, and animated works from around the world to continue its mission “dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with disabilities.” The fourteenth annual event takes place at the host venue, the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, as well as Lincoln Center, the IAC Building, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Maysles Documentary Center, the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, and online. The opening-night selection is Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s The Specials, about caregivers of autistic youths in underprivileged areas, starring Vincent Cassel, Reda Kateb, and Hélène Vincent; Victor Calise, former commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, will be the guest honoree. The closing-night film is Brian Malone and Regan Linton’s imperfect, about a theater group staging Chicago; the screening will be followed by a Q&A with the directors moderated by actor Gregg Mozgala and the presentation of the ReelAbilities Spotlight Award to deaf actress Lauren Ridloff.

Among the other full-length films are Marc Schiller’s deeply personal No Bone: Scars of Survival, Jim Bernfield’s Me to Play, Margaret Byrne’s Any Given Day, Lynn Montgomery’s Amazing Grace, Teemu Nikki’s The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic, Linda Niccol’s Poppy, and Jack Youngelson’s Here. Is. Better.; the films deal with such issues as stroke, Parkinson’s disease, mental illness, Acute Flaccid Myelitis, multiple sclerosis, Down syndrome, deafness, ADHD, and PTSD. In addition, there will be workshops on film puppetry and storytelling, an accessibility summit, a solo musical by Anita Hollander, a conversation with Deaf Utopia author Nyle DiMarco, the panel discussion “Just Do It?: The Impact of Perfectionism & Productivity on Mental Health and Disability,” and such shorts programs as “Out of the Box,” “Relationships,” and “Autism.” Many of the screenings will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers, actors, documentary subjects, and health experts.

CITY CENTER DANCE FESTIVAL: MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY

Martha Graham Dance Company will present world premiere of Hofesh Shechter’s CAVE at inaugural City Center Dance Festival (photo by Brian Pollock)

Who: Martha Graham Dance Company
What: City Center Dance Festival
Where: New York City Center, 131 West Fifty-Fifth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
When: April 6-10, $35-$125
Why: Celebrating the long-awaited return to the stage in front of in-person audiences following two years of lockdown, the inaugural City Center Dance Festival kicked off March 24 with Paul Taylor Dance Company followed by Ballet Hispánico, with Dance Theatre of Harlem coming in April 5-10. DTH will be performing concurrently with Martha Graham Dance Company, which is presenting three programs April 6-10. “It’s staggering to think that we are premiering nine new creations by nine exciting and diverse choreographers at New York City Center in April,” Graham Company artistic director Janet Eilber said in a statement. “Creating new work has never been more challenging than in the past many months, which makes the accomplishments of the choreographers, our dancers, and the entire creative team even more resonant. Each of these dances provides a visceral, ecstatic, and even cathartic response to the restrictions the world has endured.”

Program A (April 6 and 9) consists of the 1936 anti-Fascist classic Chronicle, choreographed by Graham, originally about Hitler’s Germany but now relating to Putin’s Russia, with music by Wallingford Riegger (performed live by the Mannes Orchestra); the New York premiere of the reconceived version of 1952’s Canticle for Innocent Comedians for its seventieth anniversary, with a new score by Jason Moran (who will play live on opening night) and choreography by Sonya Tayeh, Kristina and Sadé Alleyne, Sir Robert Cohan, Jenn Freeman, Juliano Nunes, Micaela Taylor, Yin Yue, and Graham, for the vignettes “Sun,” “Moon,” “Earth,” “Water,” “Fire,” “Stars,” “Wind,” and “Death”; and the world premiere of Hofesh Shechter’s CAVE, with music by Shechter and Âme.

Program B (April 10) begins with Graham’s 1944 masterwork Appalachian Spring, featuring a marvelous score by Aaron Copland for a thirteen-piece chamber orchestra and set design by Isamu Noguchi, and concludes with Canticle for Innocent Comedians. On April 7, MGDC’s gala is highlighted by Ritual to the Sun, the final section of Graham’s 1981 Acts of Light, set to music by nineteenth-century Danish composer Carl Nielsen, in addition to CAVE and excerpts from the new Canticle. The works will be performed by MGDC members So Young An, Alessio Crognale, Laurel Dalley Smith, Natasha M. Diamond Walker, Lloyd Knight, Jacob Larsen, Devin Loh, Lloyd Mayor, Marzia Memoli, Anne O’Donnell, Lorenzo Pagano, Kate Reyes, Anne Souder, Richard Villaverde, Leslie Andrea Williams, and Xin Ying.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Award-winning production of Cyrano de Bergerac swashbuckles into BAM April 5 to May 22 (photo by Marc Brenner)

Who: Jamie Lloyd Company
What: US premiere of award-winning production of Edmond Rostand play
Where: Harvey Theater at the BAM Strong, 651 Fulton St.
When: April 5 – May 22, $45-$310
Why: It’s not always clear why an old classic suddenly becomes sizzling hot; this time around, it’s Edmond Rostand’s 1897 favorite, Cyrano de Bergerac, about a relatively unattractive soldier in love with a beautiful woman who falls for a not-too-bright handsome gent who gets his poetic, romantic words from Cyrano. In 2012, the Roundabout staged a version at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Douglas Hodge as the title character. In Theresa Rebeck’s 2018 Bernhardt/Hamlet, at the same theater, Rostand is a minor character who is rewriting Hamlet for Sarah Bernhardt but turns his attentions instead to Cyrano. Franco-British actor, writer, and director Alexis Michalik made Cyrano, My Love, in 2018, following his stage version of Edmond in 2016. In 2019, the New Group presented a musical version at the Daryl Roth Theatre starring Peter Dinklage as Cyrano, adapted and directed by his wife, Erica Schmidt, that was turned into a 2021 film directed by Joe Wright. Also in 2021, Andrey Cheggi Chegodaev performed My Cyrano, a melding of Cyrano de Bergerac and Tanya Lebedinskaya’s poem “My Cyrano,” at the Center at West Park.

Now the Dorset-born Lloyd, whose other acclaimed works include Betrayal, Macbeth, Three Days of Rain, Passion, and Evita, comes to BAM for the first time for the US premiere of his Olivier-winning production of Cyrano de Bergerac. This new adaptation by Martin Crimp stars Scottish actor James McAvoy (The Ruling Class, The Last King of Scotland) in the role previously performed by Ralph Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Richard Chamberlain, Christopher Plummer, Gérard Depardieu, Steve Martin, and Kevin Kline, among others over the last century-plus. Eben Figueiredo is Christian, with Michele Austin as Ragueneau, Adam Best as Le Bret, Sam Black as Armand, Tom Edden as De Guiche, Adrian Der Gregorian as Montfleury, and Evelyn Miller as Roxane. The set and costumes are by Soutra Gilmour, with lighting by Jon Clark and music and sound by Ben and Max Ringham. The 170-minute show, which won the Olivier Award for Best Revival (in addition to four other nominations), runs April 5 through May 22.