this week in dance

BEING PRESENT: ALVIN AILEY BACK IN BROOKLYN AT BAM

Fourth consecutive AAADT BAM season features company premiere of Medhi Walerski’s Blink of an Eye (photo by Georgia Modi)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
June 4–7, $46-$156
www.bam.org
ailey.org

New Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artistic director Alicia Graf Mack leads the company into its fourth consecutive visit to BAM with an exciting program running June 4–7. A mix of the old and the new concludes Mack’s inaugural season, which included a terrific December/January season at City Center that featured the world premiere of Cuban American theater director and arts educator and activist Maija García’s dazzling, fabulously costumed Jazz Island, a fable celebrating the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, inspired by Geoffrey Holder’s book Black Gods, Green Islands, about Trinidad and Tobago, with original music by jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles; Matthew Neenan’s Ailey debut, Difference Between, set to emotive choral music by MacArthur fellow and two-time Obie winner Heather Christian; Jamar Roberts’s compelling narrative solo Song of the Anchorite, a reimagining of Alvin Ailey’s 1961 solo Hermit Songs, set to jazz trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s interpretation of a Ravel adagio; Fredrick Earl Mosley’s Embrace, which incorporates tunes by Stevie Wonder, Kate Bush, Etta James, Maxwell, Ed Sheeran, Des’ree, and P!nk in exploring the intimacy of human connection as a group of dancers in everyday dress make inventive use of tables; and the company premiere of Medhi Walerski’s Blink of an Eye, set to J. S. Bach’s violin sonatas and partita performed by Itzhak Perlman.

At BAM, AAADT will present a new production of Judith Jamison’s Emmy-winning Hymn, the 1993 thirty-seven-minute tribute to Ailey set to music by Robert Ruggieri and text by Anna Deavere Smith that uses the words of Ailey dancers and Ailey himself; the fifteen-minute Blink of an Eye; and the thirty-six-minute 1960 classic Revelations, a cultural touchstone inspired by Ailey’s childhood.

“I definitely can say to the audience to be present as much as our dancers because it will be over in the blink of an eye,” stager Valentina Scaglia says about Walerski’s piece in the above video. “I think it’s important to just be there and just breathe it in and see what it does. I think the music and the dancers together will bring it over in the most wonderful way.”

On June 4 at 6:00, there will be a free roundtable discussion with the original cast of Hymn in the Adam Space; you can RSVP here.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CELEBRATING ISRAEL WITH TIGHTER SECURITY THAN EVER

The annual Israel Day parade will march up Fifth Ave. on May 31 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

ISRAEL DAY ON 5th
62nd to 74th St. up Fifth Ave.
Sunday, May 31, free, 11:30 am – 4:00 pm
israeldayon5th.com

On May 14, 1948, “The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel” proclaimed, “The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race, or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Israel’s existence has been fraught with controversy since the very beginning, but especially now since the October 7 attacks by Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu’s military response in Gaza, but the nation perseveres, and on May 31 its seventy-eighth birthday will be honored with the annual Israel Day parade. This year’s theme does not back away from the growing vitriol, making a point: “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists.”

On Sunday, tens of thousands of marchers are expected to make their way from Sixty-Second to Seventy-Fourth Sts. up Fifth Ave., including members of synagogues and youth organizations, musicians, dancers, political figures (but not Mayor Zohran Mamdani), community and advocacy groups, civil servants, with lots of flag waving and singing, but the specific roster of entertainers is not being made public in advance of the event. There will be tighter security than ever, for participants as well as viewers; you can check out the details here. As a sign of the times, the grand marshal is police commissioner Jessica Tisch, who said in a press conference, “To be blunt, we are not messing around with security at this year’s parade.”

Onlookers. celebrants, and well-wishers can enter on Madison Ave. at Sixty-First, Sixty-Third, Sixty-Sixth, Seventieth, and Seventy-Third Sts.; the parade will also be broadcast on MY9 and livestreamed here.

CELEBRATING THE PEARL OF AFRICA: BAM DANCEAFRICA BRINGS UGANDA TO BROOKLYN

Who: Abdel R. Salaam, Ndere Troupe, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, DJ YB, more
What: DanceAfrica Festival 2026
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave.
When: May 22-28, many events free, Gilman dances $21-$86, film screenings $17
Why: The coming of the summer season means the arrival of one of the best festivals of every year, BAM’s DanceAfrica. The forty-ninth annual iteration focuses on Uganda, with four companies performing “Umoja/Mirembe/Obulungi (Unity/Peace/Beauty)!” in BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House: DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, and Ndere Troupe, highlighting movement and music from the Pearl of Africa. Curated by artistic director Abdel R. Salaam, the festival also includes the DanceAfrica Bazaar with more than 150 vendors, dance workshops and master classes at the Mark Morris Dance Center, Sanaa Gateja’s “Voices of Peace” art installation, the Council of Elders Roundtable: Legacy & Preservation moderated by Dyane Harvey-Salaam, the Memorial Room, which offers a place to honor festival ancestors, and a late night dance party with DJ YB.

This year’s FilmAfrica screenings and cinema conversations, held in conjunction with the New York African Film Festival, are highlighted by Mohamed Ahmed’s A Tribe Called Love (2025), Maia Lekow and Chris King’s How to Build a Library (2025), Ossie Davis’s Black Girl (1972), Olive Nwosu’s Lady (2026), and Awam Amkpa’s The Man Died (2024) all followed by Q&As with the directors and/or others.

“Thousands of years of African cultural development were interrupted by centuries of colonialism, which gave rise to a sociopolitical movement that led to Uganda’s independence on October 9, 1962, and its formal nationhood in 1963. In the decades since, a powerful artistic movement has emerged to reclaim and celebrate Ugandan identity and intelligence through cultural expression, a force that continues to this day,” Salaam said in his mission statement. “Today, ancient Uganda is considered a cradle of human evolution and early civilization in the East African region of Lake Nalu Baale, the traditional name of what became Lake Victoria. In Luganda, a Bantu language, ‘Nalu Baale,’ translates to ‘Mother of the Ancestral/ Guardian Spirits.’ I am honored to share more of these ancient dances and songs, mixed with shades of contemporary visions of East Africa.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TAKING ROOT AND DIGGING IN: NEW WORKS AT THE GREEN SPACE

Who: Charlotte Aucella, Louise Heit, Will Pettigrew, Not a Dance Company, Josephine Brunner, Liiiam, Eleanor Crawford, Chisato Fujii
What: Take Root: Digging In Group Artist Residency
Where: Green Space, 37-24 24th St., Suite 211, Long Island City
When: May 14-17, $22 in advance, $25-$27 at the door, 7:00/8:00
Why: Since October 2025, Green Space has been hosting “Digging In” mentored group artist residencies for eight dancer-choreographers. This week the public will be able to see what they’ve been up to as part of the “Take Root” series. On May 14 and 16, Charlotte Aucella, Louise Heit, Will Pettigrew, and Not a Dance Company will present their new works, while Josephine Brunner, Liiiam, Eleanor Crawford, and Chisato Fujii will share their pieces on May 15 and 17. The residency consists of eight work sessions, two personal and professional development workshops, and two full-production performances complete with marketing and publicity support, lighting, sound, a stipend, and a post-residency recap. Founded by Valerie Green of Dance Entropy in 2005, the venue is “a place for dancers, choreographers, teachers, and community members alike to gather and experience dance where it’s created.” Applications for the 2026–27 residency open in the fall.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

IRISH COLD CASE: SCORCHED EARTH AT ST. ANN’S

Suspect John McKay (Luke Murphy) is interrogated by Detective Alison Kerr (Sarah Dowling) in Scorched Earth (photo by Teddy Wolff)

SCORCHED EARTH
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Through April 19, $74
stannswarehouse.org
www.atticprojects.com

Writer, director, choreographer, dancer, and actor Luke Murphy returns to St. Ann’s Warehouse, following 2024’s sci-fi gem Volcano, with the searing Scorched Earth.

I called the nearly four-hour Volcano “an eruption of ingenuity, a multimedia, multidisciplinary melding of past, present, and future bathed in mystery.” The same can be said of the ninety-minute Scorched Earth.

“What does it take to be from somewhere?” Detective Alison Kerr (Sarah Dowling) asks while discussing a questionable case, setting the stage for a play steeped in humans’ relationship with one another and the land.

The show takes place in a small, tight-knit, unnamed Irish town where the body of a wealthy man, William Dean (Will Thompson), was found on a ten-acre plot of land he had just won at auction, outbidding John McKay (Murphy), a tenant farmer who had worked on the property for eight years. Ten years after the death, Kerr has reopened the case. She brings in McKay for twenty-four hours of interrogation, a digital clock on the wall counting down the time.

The fractured narrative shifts kaleidoscopically in time and space, between the interrogation, re-creations of past events, and a radio talk show where host Leanne Meany (Tyler Carney-Faleatua) speaks with Dean, both before and after his death. Alyson Cummins’s stark set is a bleak, gray, angled room in which the cast of five moves around tables and chairs, an open door morphs into a telephone booth where Sergeant Leahy (Ryan O’Neill) calls Kerr, and a rectangular section of the back wall slides open to reveal other elements. Patricio Cassinoni’s slide projections depict crime-scene photos, pages from official reports, and aerial views of the contested land while putting the murder in context of other similar disputes through Irish history.

Much of the story is told through captivating movement that takes the story in fascinating directions, brilliantly expanding the tense atmosphere as the police procedural unfolds. McKay dances with a grass body (Carney-Faleatua) that is less a green monster than a piece of the land. The deceased Dean writhes around on the floor, his body like a limp, boneless creature. There’s even a country line dance where, as Leahy announces, “no one has to touch each other,” a sly reference to the previously accepted claim that Dean died because of a fall, not at the hands of a murderer.

Meanwhile, the townsfolk seem far more concerned about John O’Donnell’s missing donkey than what happened to Dean, which they seek to remain buried in the cold earth.

Scorched Earth incorporates thrilling dance in police-procedural narrative (photo by Teddy Wolff)

Scorched Earth was inspired by John B. Keane’s 1965 play The Field, which was adapted into a 1990 film by Jim Sheridan that featured an Oscar-nominated Richard Harris as an elderly Irish tenant farmer who is fighting to own the land his family has worked on for generations, as well as by Mark O’Connell’s A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder, Myles Dungan’s Land Is All That Matters: The Struggle That Shaped Irish History, and Andrew Jarecki’s The Jinx, the Peabody-winning docuseries about real estate heir Robert Durst and a long-unsolved murder.

Cork-born Murphy (Sleep No More, Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte) is magnetic as McKay, a deeply conflicted man who firmly believes the land should have been his. Dowling, who portrays a bartender and a bank teller in addition to Kerr, is cool and calm as the determined detective. Thompson, who starred opposite Murphy in Volcano, brings nuance to Dean, a rich mogul who can afford to buy whatever he wants. (Perhaps the character was also based partly on William K. Dean, a doctor who retired to a New Hampshire farm where he was murdered in 1918; the case, investigated by a private detective named Wilhelm DeKerlor — oddly similar to “Kerr” — remains unsolved.) O’Neill and Carney-Faleatua provide expert support.

Scorched Earth is a scintillating success all the way around, including Cummins’s costumes, Stephen Dodd’s stark lighting, which beams in from the sides of the set, and composer Rob Moloney’s wide-ranging score. Everything merges beautifully for an exhilarating, powerful surprise Sisyphean conclusion where it all comes tumbling down, no matter who you are or where you’re from.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CELEBRATING WIFREDO LAM AT MoMA WITH DANCE, MUSIC, AND POETRY

Wifredo Lam with the unfinished Bélial, empereur des mouches in his garden, Havana, 1947 (courtesy Archives SDO Wifredo Lam, Paris / photo by Ylla © Pryor Dodge)

Who: Ballet Hispánico New York, Aruán Ortiz, Yaissa Jimenez
What: A Special Evening Celebrating “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream”
Where: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West Fifty-Third St. Between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
When: Thursday, March 19, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: “I knew I was running the risk of not being understood either by the man in the street or by the others,” Cuban-born artist Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla said, “but a true picture has the power to set the imagination to work, even if it takes time.” The wide-ranging MoMA retrospective “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” paints a fascinating portrait of Lam, the son of a Chinese immigrant and the grandson of a Congolese former slave mother. It’s a marvelous collection of paintings, drawings, archival photographs, sketches, books, and ephemera tracing Lam’s career, which took him from Cuba, Spain, and France to Martinique, Haiti, and New York as his imagination turned to Spanish modernism, Surrealism, and Afro-Cuban tradition. Among the highlights of the exhibition, which runs through April 11, are the 1943 gouache on paper masterpiece The Jungle, a trio of dazzling abstracts, and a collection of plates.

On March 19 at 6:30, MoMA will be hosting “A Celebration of ‘Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream,’” as Ballet Hispánico New York, Cuban-born, Brooklyn-based pianist, violist, and composer Aruán Ortiz, and Dominican writer and poet Yaissa Jimenez will perform specially commissioned new works in the exhibition galleries, paying tribute to Lam and his legacy. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

O ROMEO, O JULIET, WHEREFORE ART THOU?

Benjamin Millepied’s Romeo & Juliet Suite offers numerous views of the action at Park Ave. Armory (photo by Stephanie Berger)

ROMEO & JULIET SUITE
Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
March 2-21, $55-$245
www.dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com
www.armoryonpark.org

“Oh no,” the person sitting next to me said at the start of Benjamin Millepied’s Romeo & Juliet Suite at Park Ave. Armory.

I couldn’t help but agree as we watched two dancers move a couch on a platform stage, followed by a cameraman in black who was documenting the action, the live video projected on a large screen. The men got onto the couch, which was facing away from the audience, but we could see what they were doing onscreen, since the cameraman was now in front of them. It was an odd way to begin the ballet, a multimedia adaptation of Sergei Prokofiev’s 1930s classic Romeo and Juliet, but it also signaled what was to come: ninety minutes of not knowing where to look as mostly unidentified characters — current and former members of Millepied’s LA Dance Project — performed on the stage, on the sides, and in various hallways and period rooms throughout the armory.

The score is bold and majestic. The choreography is often moving and beautiful. Camille Assaf’s naturalistic costumes, primarily blacks, brown, and grays, are set off by the usually heart-red platform and glow when the performers grab fluorescent light tubes and incorporate them in both inventive and curious ways. We get an inside look at various locations in the historic building, some not open to the public. A dark, mysterious masked ball with mirrors is held in a tight space. Romeo and Juliet (portrayed by three different pairs at each show: a man and a woman, two men, or two women) pose in silhouette against a white screen. A chase scene takes place under the rafters.

The problem is that we’re at a live performance and we spend much of the show’s eighty minutes essentially watching a movie, although it’s happening live. Even when the dancing is occurring on the stage, it is often being projected simultaneously, with cameraman Sebastien Marcovici, the company’s associate artistic director and rehearsal director, running about to capture it; it’s particularly intrusive during several duets between Tybalt (Renan Cerdeiro) and Mercutio (Shu Kinouchi) and Romeo (Daphne Fernberger) and Juliet (Rachel Hutsell). Many of the story’s most critical scenes can be seen only onscreen; in addition, no plot is ever described, so it helps if you know at least the basics of the Shakespeare play. There’s also a camera above the platform that offers a bird’s-eye view that is awe inspiring the first time but quickly becomes more like a scene from a Busby Berkeley movie starring Esther Williams. When the screen isn’t being used, it’s cast in shapes and colors that resemble a blurry Mark Rothko painting, as if hinting at the suicides to come.

And then there’s the balcony scene, which for me summed up the entire experience. (Just as an fyi, there was no balcony scene in the original play, which merely called for Juliet to be at a window.) Romeo and Juliet celebrate their newfound love by dancing in the glorious Veterans Room, then run upstairs and suddenly emerge on the upper ledge behind the screen. It’s a breathtaking moment — until Marcovici joins them, getting close to them so he can zoom in on their first kiss.

Mercutio (Shu Kinouchi) and Tybalt (Renan Cerdeiro) are at odds in multidisciplinary Romeo & Juliet Suite (photo by Stephanie Berger)

I’m sorry if I sound snarky; overall, I enjoyed the production, and there are numerous memorable moments that will stay with me. Fernberger and Hutsell are terrific, their movement packed with emotion, and the rest of the cast has a powerful energy. But it could have been so much more without all the bells and whistles; Millepied may have fared better had he incorporated the cinematic elements without getting camera happy, instead focusing more on the dance happening on the platform, in the room where the audience is sitting.

“Of all the places I’ve shown Romeo & Juliet Suite, the armory is by far the most fitting, as it provides the massive scale, flexibility, and grandeur needed to present this work at its fullest potential,” Millepied said about this iteration; previous versions have been presented at the Sydney Opera House, La Seine Musicale in Paris, and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. He may have gotten a little carried away by the glorious armory, but there’s still a worthwhile dance to be found in his radically reimagined tale, if you know where to look.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]