this week in dance

BURN

Alan Cumming brings his debut solo dance-theater piece, Burn, to the Joyce this week (photo by Jane Blarlow/PA Wire)

Who: Alan Cumming
What: North American premiere of solo dance-theater piece
Where: The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at Nineteenth St.
When: September 21-25, $76-$106
Why: “You must not deny me!” Alan Cumming declares in his portrayal of eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns in Burn, making its North American premiere at the Joyce this week. The solo dance-theater work was created by Olivier- and Tony-winning actor Cumming with Olivier- and Obie-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett, who choreographed the piece with Vicki Manderson, and is set to the music of British composer Anna Meredith, including such songs as “Solstice In,” “HandsFree,” “Blackfriars,” “Descent,” and “Return.” The set design is by Ana Inés Jabares Pitz, with costumes by Katrina Lindsay, lighting by Tim Lutkin, projections by Andrzej Goulding, and sound by Matt Padden.

In a program note, Cumming — who has appeared on Broadway in Cabaret and a one-man reinterpretation of Macbeth and off Broadway in “Daddy” and has lent his voice to such films as They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead and numerous animated children’s films (while spectacularly lending his body to the hybrid documentary My Old School) — explains, “In 2015, I has just turned fifty and realised I would never be as fit or asked to dance in a show in the same way again. But I still felt I had one more in me! I meant a play or a musical that was dance heavy. Little did I think I would end up making my solo dance theater debut at fifty-seven!” Together, Cumming and Hoggett (Black Watch, Once, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) point out, “An early intention was to explore the idea of Burns as national icon and a figure who, under modern scrutiny, was becoming something more complex than the beloved face on tourists’ souvenir biscuit tins.” There will be a curtain chat with members of the creative team following the September 21 performance. Some shows are already sold out, so get your tickets now if you want to experience what should be an exhilarating evening of dance, theater, music, and poetry.

ANDREA MILLER AND GALLIM: WHY DO WE DANCE?

GALLIM founding artistic director and choreographer Andrea Miller will be at the National Arts Club on September 20 (photo by Franziska-Strauss / First Republic Bank)

Who: Andrea Miller and dancers
What: Actions and Detail panel discussion
Where: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Tuesday, September 20, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
Why: On September 20 at 7:00, GALLIM founding artistic director and choreographer Andrea Miller will be at the National Arts Club to discuss her company’s approach to dance upon its fifteenth anniversary. Since 2007, the New York City–based company has presented such works as Fold Here, I Can See Myself, Wonderland, Blush, and To Create a World. Miller, a Juilliard graduate, stayed busy during the pandemic lockdown, presenting the site-specific You Are Here outside at Lincoln Center in July 2021, directing Another Dance Film starring Sara Mearns at the East River Park Amphitheater, and continuing to host the livestreamed Gallim Happy Hour featuring such guests as Ayodele Casel, Francesca Harper, Justin Peck, Mimi Lien, Camille A. Brown, Gina Gibney, Wendy Whelan, Alicia Graf Mack, and Kyle Abraham. At the NAC, Miller and some of her dancers will answer the question “Why Do We Dance?,” delving into her philosophy of creation and performance.

BIJAYINI SATPATHY: DOHĀ

Bijayini Satpathy concludes her MetLiveArts residency on September 13 (photo courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Who: Bijayini Satpathy
What: MetLiveArts performance
Where: Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
When: Tuesday, September 13, $35+ (includes museum admission), 7:00
Why: MetLiveArts artist in residence Bijayini Satpathy concludes her residency with Dohā, taking place September 13 at 7:00 in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. In the evening-length work, the Indian principal dancer, master teacher, and respected scholar explores ritualized prayer while embracing playfulness as she searches for the divine. Satpathy will also give give a talk on Odissi dance at the New York Public Library on September 19 at 6:00 as part of the new Dr. Sunil Kothari Honorary Lecture series; admission is free with advance registration.

MIGUEL GUTIERREZ: SUEÑO

Miguel Gutierrez and others will perform sueño on the High Line next week (photo by Marley Trigg Stewart)

Who: Miguel Gutierrez, Justin Faircloth, Estado Flotante, Johnnie Cruise Mercer Jr, Seta Morton, Angie Pittman, Christopher Ralph, Kim Savarino, Santiago Venegas, Rosana Cabán
What: Live musical performance of sueño
Where: The High Line at Fourteenth St.
When: September 12-14, free with RSVP
Why: Queens-born, Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Miguel Gutierrez brings his newest work, sueño, to the High Line for three special performances September 12 and 14 at 7:00 and September 13 at 6:00. Gutierrez, whose previous pieces include Sabotage, SADONNA, Age & Beauty, I as another, Unsustainable Solutions: Duet with Dead Dad, and Cela nous concerne tous (This concerns all of us), will play keyboards and sing in both English and Spanish, accompanied by dancers Justin Faircloth, Estado Flotante, Johnnie Cruise Mercer Jr, Seta Morton, Angie Pittman, Christopher Ralph, Kim Savarino, and Santiago Venegas. Rosana Cabán joins Gutierrez with the arrangement, production, and sonic transitions; the lighting is by Alexandra Vásquez Dheming.

The dreamy project features churchlike harmonic songs that explore melancholy and longing, with movement inspired by such choreographers as Ted Shawn and Harald Kreutzberg. Gutierrez also hosts the podcast Are You for Sale? and performs music as the Belleville, explaining, “i make sad songs in weird ways.” With sueño, you can expect the unexpected, in a terrific space.

TABLE OF SILENCE PROJECT: A CALL TO ACTION FOR PEACE

Annual “Table of Silence Project” performance ritual of peace returns for twelfth year to Josie Robertson Plaza (photo courtesy Lincoln Center)

TABLE OF SILENCE PROJECT
Josie Robertson Plaza, Lincoln Center
65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Sunday, September 11, free, 8:10 – 8:46 am
www.tableofsilence.org
lincolncenter.org

Every September 11, there are many memorial programs held all over the city, paying tribute to those who were lost on that tragic day while also honoring New York’s endless resiliency. One of the most powerful is Buglisi Dance Theatre’s “Table of Silence Project,” a multicultural public performance ritual for peace that annually features more than one hundred dancers on Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center. It had to be reconfigured during the pandemic but is now back in a hybrid format, available to be experienced in person or streaming live here.

On Sunday morning from 8:10 to 8:46, the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center, BDT will present the full piece, around the Revson Fountain. “The strength of the work is found in the gestures, patterns, and repetition that mirrors our daily lives and is accesssible to all. We would not return to the work each year if it were not so universally meaningful as a tool for storytelling through which the audience can recognize itself,” BDT artistic director Jacqulyn Buglisi, who recently received the President’s Medal from Juilliard, said in a statement. “Your passionate belief makes this ritual a powerful testimonial of freedom for all people suffering oppression and is an imperative at this time in our history.”

CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL 2022

Fouad Boussouf’s Näss will be performed at the Joyce as part of FIAF fest (photo © Charlotte Audureau)

CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL
FIAF and other locations
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 9–October 28, free – $75
212-355-6100
fiaf.org

FIAF’s fifteenth annual Crossing the Line Festival is another journey into exciting, challenging, and experimental music, dance, and theater from the French-speaking world. Running September 9 through October 28, the programs take place at such venues as Abrons Arts Center, New York Live Arts, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, the Joyce, and BAM in addition to FIAF’s Gallery, Florence Gould Hall, and Skyroom.

“For our first year curating this festival, we wanted to honor its founding principles: presenting compelling multidisciplinary art forms throughout the city, bringing acclaimed cutting-edge French and Francophone productions to our shores, and nurturing dialogue between international and New York-based artists,” curators Mathilde Augé and Florent Masse write in a program note. “The fifteenth edition of the festival features a diverse group of audacious artists engaging with the most pressing issues of our time — including gender, sexuality, human connection, race, and climate change — and exploring new territories in performing arts.”

None of the nine live performances — there were supposed to be ten but Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s FRATERNITY, A Fantastic Tale had to be canceled because of visa problems — has ever been seen before in New York, including several North American, US, and world premieres. The mix of dance, theater, art, music, and literature hails from Senegal, France, South Africa, Rwanda, the United States, and Morocco, examining societal change, Vaslav Nijinsky, science, Cheikh Anta Diop, intergenerational culture, the political views of René Char and Frantz Fanon, and a Detroit rave.

In addition, FIAF is hosting the fall open house celebration Fête de la Rentrée, highlighted by an opening reception for Omar Ba’s “Clin d’oeil” art exhibition on September 9 at 6:00 (free with RSVP) and a Sunset Soirée at Le Bain on October 12 at the Standard Hotel (free with RSVP). Below is the full Crossing the Line schedule.

Helena de Laurens stars in Marion Siéfert’s _ jeanne_dark _ at FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival (photo © Matthieu Bareyre)

September 9 – October 28
Exhibition: “Clin d’oeil,” by Omar Ba, FIAF Gallery, free

Wednesday, September 14, and Thursday, September 15
Theater: _ jeanne_dark _, by Marion Siéfert, starring Helena de Laurens, North American premiere, FIAF Florence Gould Hall, $40, 7:30

Wednesday, September 21
Theater: Traces – Speech to African Nations, by Felwine Sarr and Étienne Minoungou, with Étienne Minoungou and Simon Winsé, New York premiere, Abrons Arts Center, $25, 8:30

Thursday, September 22, through Saturday, September 24
Dance: And so you see… our honourable blue sky and ever enduring sun… can only be consumed slice by slice…, by Robyn Orlin, performed by Albert Ibokwe Khoza, US premiere, New York Live Arts, $15-$35, 7:30

Saturday, September 24
Theater: Freedom, I’ll have lived your dream until the very last day, by Felwine Sarr and Dorcy Rugamba, featuring Marie-Laure Crochant, Majnun, Felwine Sarr, and T.I.E., North American premiere, Florence Gould Hall, $40, 7:30

Thursday, September 29, and Friday, September 30
Performance: Fire in the Head, by Christopher Myers, world premiere, Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, $20, 7:30

Thursday, October 6, through Saturday, October 8
Dance: The Encounter, by Kimberly Bartosik, performed by Kimberly Bartosik, Claude “CJ” Johnson, Burr Johnson, Joanna Kotze, Ryan Pliss, Kalub Thompson, Mac Twining, River Bartosik-Murray, Logan Farmer, and Ellington Hurd, world premiere, FIAF Skyroom, $30, 7:30

Thursday, October 13, through Saturday, October 15
Dance: CROWD, by Gisèle Vienne, US premiere, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, $35-$75, 7:30

Tuesday, October 18, through Sunday, October 23
Dance: Näss, by Fouad Boussouf, New York premiere, the Joyce Theater, $20-$55

Thursday, October 27, and Friday, October 28
Theater: The Terrestrial Trilogy, a Performance in Three Parts: Inside, Moving Earths, and Viral, by Bruno Latour and Frédérique Aït-Touati, with special guest Bruno Latour, North American premiere, FIAF Florence Gould Hall, $40

JOHN JASPERSE PROJECTS: VISITATION

Tim Bendernagel and Doug LeCours will perform in John Jasperse’s Visitation at NYU Skriball (photo by Maria Baranova)

VISITATION
NYU Skirball
566 LaGuardia Pl.
September 9-10, $35, 7:30
nyuskirball.org
johnjasperse.org

In a May 2012 twi-ny talk, dance artist John Jasperse said, “I would like to see justice in general in the world. I’d like to think that the work that I make is participating in this greater collective effort. Since money is our primary mutually agreed system of valuation, I would like to see more ethics reflected in how money gets spent in the domain of culture.” For more than thirty years, the Manhattan-based Jasperse, who was born in Rockville, Maryland, and graduated from Sarah Lawrence, where he has been the director of dance since 2016, has been choreographing works that challenge the audience while taking on social issues and exploring personal intimacies. In works such as Misuse Liable to Prosecution, Canyon, Fort Blossom, Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies, and Becky, Jodi and John, he walks the fine line between fantasy and reality while delving into the human body and the psyche.

For its first evening-length piece in four years, John Jasperse Projects is making its NYU Skirball debut with the world premiere of Visitation, incorporating spiritualism, the occult, ghosts, and camp. Visitation was created in collaboration with performers Tim Bendernagel, Cynthia Koppe, and Doug LeCours, featuring an original score by Hahn Rowe along with fragments from Richard Wagner. The lighting is by Stan Pressner. Visitation was initially developed over Zoom before in-person rehearsals were deemed safe. In a late 2021 email to supporters, Jasperse explained, “I can’t recall a creative process that has gone through so many twists and turns.” Performances take place September 9 and 10 at 7:30; tickets are $35.