twi-ny recommended events

OUR LAUNDRY, OUR TOWN: MY CHINESE AMERICAN LIFE FROM FLUSHING TO THE DOWNTOWN STAGE AND BEYOND

Who: Alvin Eng
What: Book launch of Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond
Where: City Lore, 56 East First St., Yu & Me Books, 44 Mulberry St., Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy St.
When: Friday, May 20, free, 5:30 webinar, 7:00 in person; Wednesday, June 8, 5:00; Saturday, June 25, 2:00
Why: “While I have been blessed to have always had a roof over my head and the honor of living with loved ones, when I was growing up, homelessness was a constant spiritual state. A child’s longing to belong is one of the most powerful forces and relentless muses on Earth. In every culture, belonging has many different nuances of meaning and resonance. What and who exactly constitutes that destination of longing changes with every age and, in childhood, with every grade. What never seems to change is the feeling that we never quite arrive, and when or if we do, it only lasts for a fleeting time and was never quite what we expected. These memoir portraits are an attempt to decode and process the urban oracle bones from growing up as the youngest of five children in an immigrant Chinese family that ran a hand laundry. Our family was born of an arranged marriage, and our laundry was in the Flushing, Queens, neighborhood of that singular universe that was New York City in the 1970s. Like many children of immigrant or ‘other’ family origins in late-twentieth-century America, I was constantly seeking American frames of reference with which to contextualize my own ‘outsider’ experiences and sensibilities.”

So begins Alvin Eng’s Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond (Fordham University Press | Empire State Editions, May 17, $27.95), in which the New York City–based playwright, performer, acoustic punk rock raconteur, and educator explores the history of his family, immigration and assimilation, and the Chinese American experience and makes pilgrimages to his ancestral homeland. The book features such chapters as “The Urban Oracle Bones of Our Laundry: Channeling China’s Last Emperor and Rock ’n’ Roll’s First Opera,” “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting . . . or Faking It,” “A Sort of Homecoming: But Where Are You Really From,” and “Life Dances On: Our Town in China.” Eng, whose previous work includes such solo shows as Here Comes Johnny Yen Again (or How I Kicked Punk) and The Last Emperor of Flushing and such plays and musicals as Portrait Plays and The Goong Hay Kid, will be launching Our Laundry, Our Town with a series of free events around the city.

On May 20 at 5:30, Eng will lead a webinar hosted by CUNY’s Asian American / Asian Research Institute, followed at 7:00 by an in-person appearance at City Lore on First St., where he will read from the new book and speak with City Lore codirectors Molly Garfinkel and Steve Zeitlin, then sign copies. On June 8 at 5:00, Eng will give a talk and sign books at Yu & Me on Mulberry St., and on June 25 at 2:00 he will at the Hudson Park Library on Leroy St. for an author talk.

HBO’s SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE: SPECIAL SCREENING AND CONVERSATION

Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac will talk about their HBO series at the 92nd St. Y

Who: Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac, Hagai Levi, Amy Herzog, Michael Ellenberg
What: Screening and discussion
Where: 92nd St. Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall, 1395 Lexington Ave. at Ninety-Second St.
When: Thursday, May 19, $27-$45, 7:00
Why: If you missed HBO’s English-language adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s six-part Scenes from a Marriage, you can get a special chance to watch one of the 2021 episodes on the big screen, followed by a conversation with members of the creative team, at the 92nd St. Y on May 19. Bergman’s 1973 miniseries detailed the slow, heart-wrenching fracture of the relationship between Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson). Directed and executive produced by Hagai Levi (The Affair, In Treatment) and written by Levi and playwright Amy Herzog (4000 Miles, Mary Jane), the remake turns the tables on such issues as infidelity, truth, gender, responsibility, and identity, with Oscar Isaac as Jonathan and Jessica Chastain as Mira. The 92Y screening will be followed by a discussion with Isaac, Chastain, Levi, Herzog, and producer Michael Ellenberg that goes behind the scenes of the making of the almost painfully intimate show.

WHO KILLED MY FATHER (QUI A TUÉ MON PÈRE)

Édouard Louis’s Who Killed My Father makes its US premiere at St. Ann’s this week (photo by Jean-Louis Fernandez)

WHO KILLED MY FATHER (QUI A TUÉ MON PÈRE)
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Tuesday – Sunday, May 18 – June 5, $49-$59
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org
www.schaubuehne.de

In November 2019, St. Ann’s Warehouse presented History of Violence, a radical, highly inventive multimedia interpretation of the 2016 nonfiction novel by activist and artist Édouard Louis, directed by Thomas Ostermeier for Schaubühne Berlin. Ostermeier and Louis return to St. Ann’s with the US premiere of Who Killed My Father (Qui a tué mon père), an adaptation of Louis’s 2018 book, starring the twenty-nine-year-old Paris-based Louis himself in his debut as a professional performer. A coproduction of Schaubühne Berlin and Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Who Killed My Father deals with how the French government’s treatment of the working class broke Louis’s alcoholic, conservative, homophobic father. “Throughout my entire childhood, I hoped you’d disappear,” Louis writes. “You can no longer get behind the wheel, are no longer allowed to drink, can no longer shower unaided without it presenting an enormous risk. You’re just over fifty. You belong to the precise category of people for whom politics has envisaged a premature death.”

Ostermeier always brings something new to the table, as displayed in such works as Returning to Reims and Richard III, so prepared to be awed in many ways. Who Killed My Father features video design by Sébastien Dupouey and Marie Sanchez, stage design by Nina Wetzel, costumes by Caroline Tavernier, lighting by Erich Schneider, and music by Sylvain Jacques.

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY AT THE JOYCE

Stephen Petronio Company rehearses at Snug Harbor for Joyce season (photo by Lance Reha)

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
May 17-22, $10-$71
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
petron.io

“What does it mean to be out in front of you tonight, to show up for you after so long?” Stephen Petronio asks in a program note for his company’s upcoming season at the Joyce, running May 17-22. “SPC has been coming to the Joyce each spring for almost forty years — a rite, a contract as celebration. To have that interrupted by Covid is like having our oxygen taken away. We are back and breathing now! We come before you tonight to show you that we have survived, that we are still here, in some ways stronger than ever, and that dance is a kind of social glue that keeps us all connected.”

SPC’s Joyce program begins with the world premiere of New New Prayer for Now, created as a virtual piece for the company during the lockdown to celebrate online collaboration, set to original music by Monstah Black and renditions of “Balm in Gilead” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” recorded with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC), directed by Francisco J. Nuñez; the costumes are by Marine Penvern, with lighting by Ken Tabachnick. Following a pause, SPC continues its “Bloodlines” series honoring important choreographers who influenced Petronio with his mentor Trisha Brown’s 1973 Group Primary Accumulation, restaged by Shelley Senter. The online version with four dancers in white on a wooden bridge was breathtaking, so it will be fascinating to see it now live indoors.

After an intermission, the company presents a restaging of Petronio’s Bloom, which premiered at the Joyce in 2006 and features music by Rufus Wainwright based on the poetry of Walt Whitman (“Unseen Buds,” “One’s-Self I Sing”) and Emily Dickinson (“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”) and the Latin Mass, sung live by YPC, with choral arrangements by Nuñez; the costumes are by Rachel Roy, with lighting by Tabachnick. The May 19 performance will be followed by a Curtain Chat with members of the company, which consists of Jaqlin Medlock, Kris Lee, Larissa Asebedo, Liviya England, Mac Twining, Nicholas Sciscione, Ryan Pliss, Tess Montoya, and Tiffany Ogburn. “It’s an emotional time,” Petronio says in the above preview of the Joyce season. If you haven’t yet seen this extraordinary company, you have only yourself to blame.

DONNA UCHIZONO COMPANY: WINGS OF IRON

Donna Uchizono’s Wings of Iron will have its world premiere this week at BAC (photo courtesy Donna Uchizono Company)

Who: Donna Uchizono Company
What: World premiere of Wings of Iron
Where: Baryshnikov Arts Center, Howard Gilman Performance Space, 450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
When: May 18-21, $25, 7:30
Why: For more than thirty years, Donna Uchizono has been creating innovative dance works that dig deep into the mind and human emotions while exploring the limits of our physical body. In such pieces as State of Heads, Thin Air, longing two, and Out of Frame, Uchizono, who was born on a US Army base in Tokyo and is proudly “the first and only American-born choreographer of Asian ancestry in the history of modern dance,” has developed a unique movement language that is as unpredictable as it is thrilling.

Her latest evening-length piece, Wings of Iron, has been in the works since 2017 and was originally scheduled to premiere at Baryshnikov Arts Center in May 2020 but was delayed because of the pandemic. A copresentation with the Chocolate Factory, Wings of Iron will now have its world premiere May 18-21 at BAC’s Howard Gilman Performance Space. “Listening is a key to my creative practice,” Uchizono said in a statement. “My creative research takes two to four years to develop a new work with its own physical vocabulary and structure. Dedicated to charting new territory with each dance, my process involves ‘hearing’ the work. I shape conceptual ideas into a physical language specific to each piece, carefully ‘listening’ as the dialogue with the dance itself is revealed. As that dialogue unfolds, a new dance vocabulary emerges that has the imprint of my own history while remaining highly specific to the work itself. My work demands a physical and mental rigor and I am drawn to a redefined sense of ‘virtuosity’ that extends the markers of skill and excellence to push against human standards of patience, duration, and minute, intensely detailed movement. My embrace of unseen undercurrents leads to the unexpected that traverses a spectrum of the discovery of the extraordinary in the vulnerable human experience.”

Wings of Iron will be performed by Bria Bacon, Natalie Green, Molly Lieber, and Pareena Lim, with an original score by okkyung lee and lighting by Joe Levasseur. The visual design features chairs and giant portraits of the dancers. “It is with worried excitement, hopeful relief, and a tinge of cautiousness that we announce the world premiere,” Uchizono wrote in an email blast. Wings of Iron “examines what it takes to remain humane in these charged times, providing a forum for both performer and audience to share in the weight of a vulnerability that is simultaneously public and private.”

CITY LYRIC OPERA: THE GARDEN OF ALICE

Who: City Lyric Opera
What: American premiere of Elizabeth Raum’s The Garden of Alice
Where: Blue Building, 222 East Forty-Sixth St.
When: May 17-21, $35
Why: During the pandemic, City Lyric Opera staged a hybrid, interactive version of The Threepenny Opera that people could watch and participate in from the comfort of their homes. Now CLO returns to in-person events with the US premiere of Canadian composer Elizabeth Raum’s The Garden of Alice, an immersive, interactive, multisensory show that takes Alice, and the audience, down a digital rabbit hole of social media and into a hybrid Wonderland of live performances and kaleidoscopic landscapes. Despite the connection to Lewis Carroll’s beloved tale, this production is not meant for kids. Alice will be played by soprano Laura Soto-Bayomi, with bass-baritone Nate Mattingly as the White Rabbit, mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra as the Duchess and the Queen, soprano Gileann Tan as the Doormouse, and tenor Ryan Lustgarten, baritone Steve Valenzuela, bass Robert Feng, tenor Ramon Gabriel Tenefrancia, and mezzo-soprano Mary Rice in multiple roles.

“We wanted to pick an opera that is cheerful and colorful yet edgy and thought provoking,” CLO cofounder and executive director Megan Gillis said in a statement. “The Garden of Alice merges both the adult and child worlds in a mesmerizing, strange, and beautiful way. Alice finds herself alone, bored, and afraid — a frightening place we all recently visited collectively.” Raum has rescored the 1983 opera for a small chamber orchestra, featuring piano, violin, cello, clarinet, bassoon, and percussion. The presentation consists of an installation of prerecorded material and projections and the ninety-minute opera. “Similar to Alice, we are all entranced by the illusion of an idyllic place, only to discover it’s all fake and convoluted,” Gillis added. “Like Alice’s rabbit hole, we have all begun the journey into the metaverse with so much of today’s digital interactions.” The opera is directed by Attilio Rigotti, with music direction by Danielle Jagelski, video by Orsolya Szánthó, sets and costumes by Gaya Chatterjee, lighting by Jessica Wall, and sound by Evan Tyor.

VOICES FROM THE GREAT HALL WITH SAM WATERSTON

Who: Sam Waterston, the New York Philharmonic, the Resistance Revival Chorus, Harold Holzer
What: A celebration of the Cooper Union’s new Voices from the Great Hall Digital Archive
Where: The Cooper Union, 7 East Seventh St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
When: Tuesday, May 17, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
Why: The Cooper Union celebrates the opening of its Voices from the Great Hall Digital Archive with a special free program on May 17 at 7:00, hosted by actor Sam Waterston; several times, the Emmy winner and Oscar nominee has portrayed Abraham Lincoln, who delivered one of his most memorable speeches in the Great Hall on February 27, 1860, in which he declared, “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” Waterston reprised that speech in the Great Hall in 2004. The program will feature multimedia excerpts of original recordings of politicians, Supreme Court Justices, and others, with live presentations from the New York Philharmonic, the Resistance Revival Chorus, and Lincoln expert and author Harold Holzer. The archive goes back as far as 1859 with a copy of Frederick Douglass’ Paper and includes lectures, commencement addresses, music exhibitions, political pamphlets, campaign speeches, memorials, drawings, forums, audio and video recordings, and much more.