Who: Kiki Abba, Erin Bednarz, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Nick Spencer, Ayo Tushinde, Faye Driscoll
What: Live watch party with preshow chat and postshow wrap-up
Where: Instagram
When: Wednesday, April 22, free, 7:00
Why: When Seattle arts organization On the Boards kicked off its 2019-20 fortieth anniversary season last year with the theme “In the Future’s Wake: Rituals, Ceremonies, and Happenings,” it could never have conceived what the future did in fact hold for them and the rest of the country (and world). On April 22, the company will be hosting a highly relevant watch party on Instagram, streaming the first part of Faye Driscoll’s Thank You for Coming: Attendance, recorded with four cameras at Danspace Project in 2014. Driscoll followed Attendance with Play and Space, an endlessly creative trilogy that ingeniously shatters the boundaries between audience and performer. The work takes on a new meaning in the age of Covid-19, with the relationship between audience and performer changing again — and among the performers themselves, since they can’t be together in the same place, instead relegated to individual boxes on a screen — as we are all hunkered down at home, seeing one another only through our phones and computers and communicating via live chats. This online presentation of Attendance begins with an introduction and preshow chat at 7:00 with the Bounce House, a cohabitating collective that consists of Kiki Abba, Erin Bednarz, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Nick Spencer, and Ayo Tushinde, followed by the performance and a wrap-up at the end. The show will be streamed on DelPan-Monley’s Instagram.
twi-ny recommended events
LA CONVIVIALITÉ: LA FAUTE DE L’ORTHOGRAPHE (with live Q&A)
Arnaud Hoedt and Jérôme Piro will take a unique look at French spelling at FIAF online performance
Who: Arnaud Hoedt and Jérôme Piro
What: Live performance and Q&A from Belgium (in French)
Where: French Institute Alliance Française
When: Wednesday, April 22, free with advance RSVP, 5:00
Why: In 1771, Voltaire wrote, “The spelling in French books is ridiculous for the most part. Convention alone allows this incongruity to persist.” Two former Belgian teachers, Arnaud Hoedt — a self-described “linguist dilettante, philographer, pedagogue, true-false comedian, and academician eater” — and Jérôme Piro have taken that quote as inspiration for their two-person presentation La Convivialité: La Faute de l’Orthographe (roughly, Friendliness: The Spelling Error), an abridged version of which they will perform on April 22 at 5:00 via FIAF’s Facebook page and Zoom, followed by a Q&A. You need to register in advance here to receive the Zoom password and be able to ask questions. You can get a preview of their dissection of the French language by watching their May 2019 TEDx Talk and this preview, both of which are in French without English translation, as will be the FIAF program. And you thought American English spelling had problems.
YOM HA-SHOAH: THE SOAP MYTH PLAY AND LIVE WEBINAR
Tovah Feldshuh and Ed Asner will talk about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as part of Yom HaShoah commemoration
Who: Ed Asner, Tovah Feldshuh, Jeff Cohen, Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, Arnold Mittelman, Michael Berenbaum, Ira Forman, Richard Salomon
What: Panel discussion about The Soap Myth in honor of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)
Where: Temple Emanuel Streicker Center website
When: Monday, April 20, free with advance registration, 6:30
Why: In commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, the National Jewish Theater Foundation, and the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center have teamed up to present a live online panel discussion exploring anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the historical record as brought up in Jeff Cohen’s poignant play The Soap Myth, which looks at the claim that the Nazis made soap from the bodies of dead Jews. I saw a full staging of the work in 2012, calling it “an emotionally moving production [that] offers an intriguing look into the speculative nature of history and one man’s furious dedication to setting the record straight.” Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh have been touring with the play for several years, performing staged readings directed by Pamela Berlin, one of which was taped for PBS, where it can be seen for free as part of WNET’s All Arts.
You’ll want to watch it before tuning in to the live event on April 20 at 6:30, when Asner, Feldshuh, and Cohen will be joined by Holocaust scholar Dr. Michael Berenbaum, former special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism Ira N. Forman, and moderator Rick Salomon of the Illinois Holocaust Museum. The program will be introduced by Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson of Temple Emanu-El and Arnold Mittelman of the National Jewish Theater, who directed the production I saw. Advance registration is required here.
JOHN FORD’S ‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE
Who: Red Bull Theater company
What: Unrehearsed reading of John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
Where: Red Bull Theater website
When: Monday, April 20, donation suggested, 7:30
Why: In the spring of 2015, the New York-based Red Bull Theater company staged a revival of John Ford’s rarely performed 1630s classic, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, at the Duke on 42nd Street. In my review, I called the production of the Jacobean drama “glorious,” “a bold, brash, violent, and very funny riff on Romeo and Juliet,” raving about the acting, Jesse Berger’s direction, Sara Jean Tosetti’s costumes, and David M. Barber’s set. (You can read my review here.) On April 20 at 7:30, Red Bull will be presenting an unrehearsed reading of the play with the full, original cast, but this time they will be performing in their own clothing from wherever they’re sheltering in place, with Amelia Pedlow as Annabella, Matthew Amendt as Giovanni, Kelley Curran as Hippolita, Christopher Innvar as Friar Bonaventura, Franchelle Stewart Dorn as Putana, Clifton Duncan as Lord Soranzo, Tramell Tillmann as Grimaldi, Rocco Sisto as the Cardinal, Derek Smith as Vasques, Philip Goodwin as Florio, Ryan Garbayo as Bergetto, Everett Quinton as Donado, Auden Thornton as Philotis, and Marc Vietor as Richardetto. It’s free to watch, but if you’d like to donate to the company, you can do so here.
RICHARD THOMPSON LIVESTREAM
Who: Richard Thompson
What: Livestreamed couch concert
Where: Somewhere in Montclair, New Jersey
When: Sunday, April 19, 4:00
Why: London-born Richard Thompson is one of the greatest guitarists and singer-songwriters of the last fifty years. On March 29, the master raconteur played a twelve-tune live show from his couch in Montclair, where he is sheltering in place with his partner, singer-songwriter, author, and adoption advocate Zara Phillips. (You can watch it here.) The setlist included songs from throughout Thompson’s long career, from his days in Fairport Convention to teaming with his wife at the time, Linda Thompson, to deep cuts from his solo records. Among the songs he performed on his acoustic guitar were “I Misunderstood,” “Now Be Thankful,” “Down Where the Drunkards Roll,” “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” and the pandemic-related “Keep Your Distance,” accompanied by Phillips on several numbers. They also did some Covid-19 shtick. Thompson was as acerbic and funny as always, his infectious smile so necessary at this time. He is returning to his couch on April 19 at 4:00 for another livestreamed concert, benefiting the Community FoodBank of New Jersey; you can donate to the fund here. If you’ve never seen Thompson live, you’re missing one of the best performers around; don’t miss this next chance to see him in about as intimate a setting as you can imagine. And maybe by then he and Phillips will have figured out where to place the camera and how to turn the stream off at the end.
ONE WORLD: TOGETHER AT HOME
Who: Musicians, actors, television hosts, and other celebrities
What: Global Citizen benefit concert
Where: Global Citizen and many streaming sites
When: Saturday, April 18, donation suggested, 2:00 pm – 8:00 am
Why: Dozens of musicians will be appearing tonight in “One World: Together at Home Special to Celebrate COVID-19 Workers,” an international concert to benefit health-care workers on the front lines of the Covid-19 crisis. Proceeds from the presentation go to the WHO’s Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The show is sponsored by Global Citizen, the nonprofit whose mission statement declares: “Around the world, countless people face daily inequalities — from the LGBTI community, to children with disabilities. We can build a better world, but only if we each raise our voice and take action.” Among those making appearances from their homes during the overnight marathon, which is curated by Lady Gaga (who helped raise $35 million in one week for the charity), are, in one two-hour block, Adam Lambert, Jennifer Hudson, Lang Lang, Milky Chance, Niall Horan, Picture This, Rita Ora, Sofi Tukker, and the Killers; Annie Lennox, Ben Platt, Common, Ellie Goulding, Jack Johnson, Kesha, Michael Bublé, and Sheryl Crow in another two-hour block; and Angèle, Billy Ray Cyrus, Christine and the Queens, Hozier, John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Leslie Odom Jr., Luis Fonsi, and Sebastián Yatra in a third segment.
Also on the bill are the Rolling Stones, Alicia Keys, Amy Poehler, Andrea Bocelli, Awkwafina, Billie Eilish, Billie Joe Armstrong, Celine Dion, Chris Martin, Connie Britton, Don Cheadle, Eddie Vedder, Ellen DeGeneres, Elton John, Heidi Klum, Jack Black, Keith Urban, Kerry Washington, Lily Tomlin, Lupita Nyong’o, Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, Pharrel Williams, Sam Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Shawn Mendes, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, and Usher, with hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel. Give generously if you can — and stay safe and healthy.
BEYOND THE VISIBLE — HILMA AF KLINT (with live director Q&A)
Beyond the Visible profiles the life and work of master abstractionist Hilma af Klint
BEYOND THE VISIBLE: HILMA AF KLINT (Halina Dyrschka, 2019)
Opens virtually April 17, $12 (good for one-week pass)
Live Q&A on April 18 at 3:00
kinonow.com
zeitgeistfilms.com
In 2013, a new hero burst onto the art scene, despite being dead for nearly seventy years. First came “Hilma af Klint — A Pioneer of Abstraction,” by all accounts an eye-opening show that toured Europe, followed five years later by the smash Guggenheim exhibit “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future,” which propelled the extraordinary work of the Swedish abstractionist into the mainstream. I fondly remember making my way through the show, mouth agape at the many wonders I was seeing. German director Halina Dyrschka continues the celebration of this previously little-known painter in the documentary Beyond the Visible — Hilma af Klint, which will be available for streaming April 17 through Kino Marquee in association with BAM in Brooklyn and Laemmle Monica Film Center in Los Angeles. Dyrschka and Guggenheim assistant curator David Max Horowitz will participate in a Zoom Q&A with BAM on April 18 at 3:00.
In her debut full-length film, Dyrschka digs deep into who af Klint was, what inspired her unique achievements, and why she had been overlooked until the 2010s. “Now we have a real scandal,” German art critic and af Klint biographer Julia Voss says. “Suddenly, more than fifty years after history was written, completely out of the blue, at least for the general public, we discover this woman who painted abstract works before Kandinsky, creating this huge oeuvre, fully independently, and by a kind of miracle it’s all stayed together. It’s like finding a time capsule in Sweden. And now we have to ask: How should we integrate it?”
Born in Stockholm in 1862, af Klint incorporated physics, mathematics, the natural world, and spiritualism into her paintings, abstract canvases that predated Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, who both, like af Klint, died in 1944. She didn’t exhibit any of her work until 1906, and after that only sparingly. Upon her death, her estate was not permitted to show anything for twenty years; her first posthumous exhibition was held in LA in 1986.
“We are not here forever,” Dyrschka narrates early in the film. “So it is not at all astonishing that someone once wondered about what it means to be in the world and how everything fits together — and came up with a huge answer. The strange thing is I only found out about it more than one hundred years later. Art history has to be rewritten.” Among the others lobbying for af Klint’s ascension into the art canon are artists Josiah McEhleny and Monika von Rosen, novelist Anna Laestadius Larsson, art historians Ernst Peter Fischer and Anna Maria Bernitz, Eva-Lena Bengtsson of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, collector Valeria Napoleone, and gallerist Ceri Hand, offering different perspectives of the value and legacy of her her work. Lending more personal insight are Ulla af Klint, the widow of Hilma’s nephew Erik (from a 2001 interview); Johan af Klint, Ulla’s son, who ran the Hilma af Klint Foundation, which oversees the artist’s 1,500 paintings and 26,000 pages in notebooks; and Marie Cassel and Brigitta Giertta, descendants of two of Hilma’s closest friends. Together they paint a compelling portrait of the iconoclastic af Klint, who filled her work with cutting-edge and fringe philosophy and science. But you don’t have to agree with her offbeat world view to fall in love with her gorgeous canvases, many of which are displayed in the film.
The extraordinary canvases of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint are on view in Beyond the Visible
Curator Iris Müller-Westermann explains, “Never in her lifetime did she put any of her abstract work on show. Hilma af Klint’s project was something much grander than what we today call ‘art.’ It was all about seeing the world we live in in a larger context, to understand who we really are in a cosmic perspective.”
Cinematographers Alicja Pahl and Luana Knipfer often let the camera linger on peaceful shots of water, flowers, the sky, and other natural elements that morph into Klint’s paintings and reenactments of af Klint working on a large-scale painting on the floor of her studio. Petra van der Voort reads excerpts from af Klint’s writings in voice-over, narrating from books that we can follow along with, zooming in on her penmanship, while Damian Scholl supplies a wide-ranging, eclectic score.
“She was well educated, she had a mind of her own, and she painted like nobody else,” Johan af Klint says. McElheny points out, “In order to tell the history of abstraction now, you have to rewrite it.” Beyond the Visible confirms that it’s time for a new history.