this week in film and television

BroadwayCon 2022

Who: Anthony Rapp, LaChanze, Andrew Barth Feldman, Carolee Carmello, Ben Cameron, Erin Quill, Fredi Walker-Browne, Julie White, Telly Leung, Ilana Levine, Jacqueline B. Arnold, Jennifer Ashley Tepper, Vanessa Williams, Judy Kuhn, Lesli Margherita, Nik Walker, Ryann Redmond, Thayne Jasperson, Hillary Clinton, more
What: BroadwayCon 2022
Where: Manhattan Center, 311 West Thirty-Fourth St., and the New Yorker Hotel, 481 Eighth Ave.
When: July 8-10, day passes $80, general pass $200, gold pass $425, platinum pass $1,250
Why: BroadwayCon is back with an in-person edition taking place July 8-10 at the Manhattan Center and the New Yorker Hotel, right by Madison Square Garden and Penn Station and just a few blocks south of the Theater District. This year’s edition includes panel discussions, interviews, live performances, podcasts, a cosplay contest, workshops, photo and autograph sessions, singalongs, meetups, and celebrations of and inside looks at such shows as A Strange Loop, Six the Musical, Chicago, POTUS, Dear Evan Hansen, Beetlejuice, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Kimberly Akimbo, SpongeBob SquarePants, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Kite Runner, Assassins, and Hamilton.

Among those participating at the three-day festival are Anthony Rapp, LaChanze, Carolee Carmello, Ben Cameron, Erin Quill, Julie White, Telly Leung, Vanessa Williams, Judy Kuhn, Lesli Margherita, and Hillary Clinton, talking about such topics as racial and gender diversity, disability, understudies, anxiety, body positivity, and Stephen Sondheim.

Below are select highlights for each day:

Friday, July 8
Ensemble screening, with Telly Leung, 10:00 am, followed by a talkback at 11:20, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel

BroadwayCon 2022 Opening Ceremony, with Ben Cameron, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 12:40

Here’s to the Ladies: Hillary Rodham Clinton Live at BroadwayCon, with LaChanze, Julie White, and Vanessa Williams, moderated by Hillary Clinton, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 1:00

Making a Living and Having a Life in Theatre Production, with Jameson Croasdale, Mary Kathryn “MK” Blazek, Rebecca Zuber, Lauren Parrish, and Gary Levinson, moderated by Naomi Siegel, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 2:20

Lights, Overture, Stage Fright! Breaking Down Performance Anxiety, with Kira Sparks, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 3:40

POTUS is one of several Broadway shows that will be featured at BroadwayCon (photo by Paul Kolnick)

Saturday, July 9
Black Lives Matter on Broadway, with T. Oliver Reid, Britton Smith, Emilio Sosa, Michael Dinwiddie, and Lillias White, moderated by Linda Armstrong, New Yorker Hotel Grand Ballroom, 10:00

Broadway Livestreaming: Expanding the Reach of Live Theatre, with Timothy Allen McDonald, Sean Cercone, Luke Naphat, Tralen Doler, Nathan Gehan, and Jen Sandler, moderated by Joshua Turchin, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 11:20

Getting the Show Back on the Road: The Pandemic and Its Impact on Touring Broadway, with Jacob Persily, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 2:20

Paul Gemignani and Sondheim’s Musical Legacy, with Margaret Hall and Meg Masseron, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel, 3:40

BroadwayCon Cabaret, with special secret guest, hosted by Ben Cameron, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 5:00

Sunday, July 10
Cheers to Understudies: The Broadway Cast Live!, with Amber Ardolino, Mallory Maedke, Tally Sessions, and Lauren Boyd, hosted by Ben Cameron, New Yorker Hotel Grand Ballroom, 10:00

Body Liberation on Broadway, with Amara Janae Brady, Shantez M. Tolbut, and Evan Ruggiero, moderated by Stephanie Lexis, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 10:00

Directors on Debuts, with Zhailon Levingston and Tina Satter, moderated by Zeynep Akça, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel, 1:00

Tell Me More! Tell Me More!, special guests TBA, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 2:20

Broadway Anecdotes II: Golden Age Gossip, with Kenneth Kantor, Joshua Ellis, and Mimi Quillin, moderated by Ken Bloom, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 5:00

ECHOES OF THE EMPIRE: BEYOND GENGHIS KHAN

Robert H. Lieberman’s Echoes of the Empire is a love letter to Mongolia

ECHOES OF THE EMPIRE: BEYOND GENGHIS KHAN (Robert H. Lieberman, 2021)
Streaming on demand
www.echoesoftheempire.com

I recently spent two weeks in Mongolia, traveling across the steppes and the Gobi Desert before finishing our journey in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, known as UB. I’d never experienced anything like that; for most of our time there, we saw more animals (sheep, goats, horses, cows, gazelles, camels) than people, meeting nomadic herders, staying in gers (Mongolian yurts), and learning about Chinggis Khan, the famous Mongol warrior known to the West as Genghis Khan. His name and image are everywhere: statues and monuments, museums, beer bottles, paintings, the airport.

Shortly after returning to bustling New York City, I watched filmmaker and novelist Robert H. Lieberman’s beautiful documentary Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan, which is now available for online streaming after playing the festival circuit. The film, the conclusion of a trilogy that began with Angkor Awakens and They Call It Myanmar, wonderfully captures the Mongolia I had just toured as it explores the land’s history, from its unique topography and weather (particularly the wind) and Chinggis Khan’s power in the thirteenth century to the Soviet influence beginning in 1921 and the arrival of democracy and a new constitution in 1992. Essentially, Mongolia today is a very young country, barely thirty years old, with a very old culture. There’s a lot to learn as it reclaims its culture — Mongolians were not allowed to even say the name “Chinggis Khan” under the Soviets — and develops much-needed infrastructure as nomads who live as their ancestors have done for more than a thousand years now head to the big city to make a new life.

Echoes opens with gorgeous aerial shots by Michael Roberts of animals moving through vast landscapes of grass, sand, and mountains before the camera reveals UB, the past meeting the present and future as lush traditional music plays.

“As a child, I grew up on horseback leading camel caravans on the steppe,” poet G.Mend-Ooyo fondly remembers. “The nomadic life is the closest lifestyle to nature. During the summer, my family left our ger’s door open. Through the door frame, the outside always looked as if it were a painting, changing from dawn to dusk. It was like I was looking at a framed painting. This was my childhood art gallery as I grew up in a nomadic family.” I felt the same thing numerous times during my trip.

Jack Weatherford, author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, notes, “The people move constantly, and the air moves constantly. When you’re crossing the steppe, you can go for hours and sometimes days without seeing a human habitation, but you always look for the animals, because once you see the animals, you know there are going to be people somewhere close by.” He describes the basic conventions of the ger and how herders live. “You walk into the ger and you smell family; you know that you’re home.”

Rutgers scholar Simon Wickhamsmith points out, “Mongolia today seems to me a very modern society on the surface, but just below the surface there is a feeling of great antiquity and a tremendous respect for the history and the traditional culture.”

Lieberman also speaks with journalist and filmmaker Peter Bittner, former US ambassador to Mongolia Jonathan Addleton, Mongolia Quest director D.Gereltuv, ecologist and conservation biologist T.Batbayar, Cornell biologist Allen MacNeill, economist and teacher S.Unur, University of Delaware ethnomusicologist Sunmin Yoon, and others, giving wide-ranging perspectives of Mongolia, from its land to its politics.

Activist and former Parliament member Oyungerel Tsedevdamba talks about the importance of song in nomadic culture. “That’s the only entertainment they have,” she says. When we were invited into a ger by a herder, he and his friends sang a traditional song for us. (After we had lunch, they also showed us how to tame a wild horse.)

Weatherford shares the details of Chinggis Khan’s early life, from the death of his father, the shunning of his widowed mother, and the abduction of his wife to his growing expertise in battle and his successful invasions, told with animation by Camilo Nascimento. “We remember the conquests, and the conquest was harsh, it was brutal, and it was bloody,” Weatherford states. “But no empire survives on war. War is only one phase. Empire survives when the people prosper in some way from it.” Weatherford discusses the growth of commerce, the spreading of information, religious freedom, women’s rights, diplomatic immunity, and international law that came to be under the Mongol warrior’s leadership.

Echoes of the Empire focuses on both the humans and the animals of Mongolia

As Lieberman turns to the current day, the documentary delves into problems with coal, the untenable population growth surrounding UB with districts that lack running water or paved streets, the constant traffic and pollution, and the need to reinvent the ger now that so many Mongolians are using them as permanent homes.

“Sadly, we live on a tiny part of our vast territory, which led to density and a stressful life,” G.Mend-Ooyo opines. “In fact, living in the wilderness and steppe is nowhere near as stressful as city life, but rather it is freedom.”

Gracefully edited by David Kossack and photographed by Lieberman, who produced the film with Deborah C. Hoard, Echoes of the Empire is a love letter to the extraordinary country of Mongolia, from its past to its present, but it comes with a warning about its immediate future, which was evident during my travels there as well. I highly recommend the film — and a trip to Mongolia, an experience like no other.

JIM FLETCHER ON SCREEN

Jim Fletcher played Frankensteins monster in Tony Ourslers Imponderable (photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art)

Jim Fletcher plays Frankenstein’s monster in Tony Oursler’s Imponderable (photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art)

Who: Jim Fletcher
What: Film series
Where: Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave. at Second St.
When: June 11-16
Why: In a January 2020 twi-ny talk, actor, writer, and editor Jim Fletcher, who is beloved in the experimental theater scene, said of his working with such companies as the New York City Players (NYCP), the Wooster Group, and Elevator Repair Service, “I’m working with people I love. It seems I never asked myself what kind of work I wanted to do, and also never the follow-up question, who best to do it with. In that sense I’m not a productive person. I think when you get close to people, you spontaneously start working in some way . . . out of sheer energy or whatever it is. Surplus.” Fans of Fletcher’s stage work (Pollock, Isolde, Why Why Always) might not realize just how productive the deep-voiced actor is, but they can find out in the Anthology Film Archives series “Jim Fletcher On Screen,” running June 11-16.

The mini-festival consists of eight programs comprising sixteen shorts, documentaries, and features starring the tall, bold Fletcher, from Roland Ellis’s ten-minute Break Down, Nicholas Elliott’s Icarus, and Laura Parnes’s Blood and Guts in High School (an adaptation of the book by Kathy Acker) to Shaun Irons’s Standing By: Gatz Backstage (a behind-the-scenes look at the eight-hour Gatz), Zoe Beloff’s Glass House (based on an unrealized science fiction project by Sergei Eisenstein), and Ellen Cantor’s Pinochet Porn (an episodic narrative that was completed after her death). NYCP founder Richard Maxwell is represented with The Feud Other, The Darkness of This Reading, and Showcase, the latter promising, “Gradually getting dressed, [Fletcher’s character] discusses life on the road, memories, moron jokes, the conference he is attending, business strategies, and a pivotal deal that went down recently under intimate circumstances. He sings.” Yes, Fletcher sings!

The celebration of all things Fletcher concludes June 16 with visual artist Tony Oursler’s 3D Imponderable, which was the centerpiece of a MoMA exhibition in 2016-17 and in which Fletcher portrays his dream role, Frankenstein’s monster. Fletcher will be at Anthology to talk about his work at several screenings, bringing along some of his friends and colleagues. Be prepared to join the ever-growing Fletcher faithful; we are legion.

HUMAN CONDITIONS: THE FILMS OF MIKE LEIGH

The career of Mike Leigh is celebrated in Lincoln Center retrospective

HUMAN CONDITIONS: THE FILMS OF MIKE LEIGH
Film at Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
May 27 – June 8
www.filmlinc.org

For more than fifty years, British auteur Mike Leigh has been making character-driven films set in working-class worlds, anchored by memorable performances: Katrin Cartlidge in Career Girls, David Thewlis in Naked, Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky, Jim Broadbent and Timothy Spall in Life Is Sweet, Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Secrets & Lies, Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake. His famed style involves the actors immersing themselves in their roles months and months ahead of shooting, resulting in stories steeped in reality, and humanity.

Film at Lincoln Center is honoring the seventy-nine-year-old director with the two-week retrospective “Human Conditions: The Films of Mike Leigh,” consisting of all fourteen of his features and two of his shorts (A Sense of History and The Short and Curlies), ranging from 1973’s Bleak Moments to 2018’s Peterloo. Leigh will be at the Walter Reade Theater for Q&As following the May 27 screening of the 4K restoration of Naked, the May 28 screening of a new restoration of Secrets & Lies, and the May 29 screening of a new restoration of his Gilbert & Sullivan biopic, Topsy-Turvy. Below are select reviews.

A pair of sisters contemplate their miserable lives in Mike Leigh’s first film, Bleak Moments

BLEAK MOMENTS (LOVING MOMENTS) (Mike Leigh, 1971)
Friday, May 27, 4:00
Saturday, May 28, 9:00
Friday, June 3, 1:00
www.filmlinc.org

British master filmmaker Mike Leigh’s feature debut, 1971’s Bleak Moments, is just that, a series of grim scenes involving five main characters who are not exactly the most scintillating of conversationalists. But slowly, the dark, dreary opening evolves into a wickedly funny black comedy about different sorts of relationships (familial, sexual, professional), comprising episodes that help define the film’s alternate title, Loving Moments. It would be hard for Sylvia (Anne Raitt) to live a more boring life. A typist at an accounting firm, she spends most of her free time at home taking care of her sister, Hilda (Sarah Stephenson), who suffers from a kind of autism. Hilda works with Pat (Joolia Cappleman), a strange bird obsessed with movies, Maltesers, and Hilda. Meanwhile, teacher Peter (Eric Allan), who seems terrified of people, shows interest, if you can call it that, in all three women. And Norman (Mike Bradwell), a wannabe singer-songwriter, has moved into Sylvia’s garage, where he plays music that intrigues Hilda. Over a short period of time, the three women and two men sit around, go for walks, eat, drink, and, mostly, say very little to one another, their tentativeness palpable, each one terribly frightened in his or her own way of what life has to offer, of connecting. But Leigh isn’t making fun of them; instead, Bleak Moments is a lovingly drawn story of real life, where people don’t always know exactly what to say or do or how to react in various situations.

Peter (Eric Allan) and Sylvia (Anne Raitt) go on a date to remember in Bleak Moments

Originally mounted as a stage production, Bleak Moments transitioned to the big screen with the financial help of Albert Finney. As became his trademark, Leigh had the actors first embody the roles in rehearsals and preparation, giving the film a believability despite the absurdity of it all. The overwhelming despair and hesitation demonstrated by the characters becomes painfully funny, especially when Peter takes Sylvia to a Chinese restaurant and, afterward, she tries to ply him with sherry.

In January 2013, Leigh discussed Bleak Moments with the Guardian, at first comparing it to watching paint dry and acknowledging that some people thought it was “the most boring film in the world” while also explaining, “From this distance, I cautiously feel I’m allowed to feel a touch of paternal pride in my young self. With such brief life experience, did I really invent this painful, tragic-comic tale of a beautiful but suppressed young woman, tied to her elder, mentally challenged sister? I guess I’m astonished at the maturity and sophistication of my achievement, not to mention its pathos and irony. . . . I’ve tried to vary my films considerably, but I would have to admit that Bleak Moments remains, in some ways, the mother of all Mike Leigh films. And I’m very proud of it.” As well he should be.

Sally Hawkins is unforgettable in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (Mike Leigh, 2008)
Sunday, May 29, 9:00
Friday, June 3, 3:30
www.filmlinc.org

Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky is the most charming of all his films. Sally Hawkins gives a career-making performance as Poppy, the most delightful film character since Audrey Tatou’s Amélie (in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 French comedy Le Fabuleux Destin D’amélie Poulain). Poppy is a primary school teacher who has an endearing, seemingly limitless love of life; she talks playfully with strangers in bookstores, teases her sister (Kate O’Flynn) and best friend (Alexis Zegerman) with the sweetest of smirks, takes a flamenco lesson on a whim with a colleague, and, when her bicycle is stolen, simply starts taking driving lessons.

However, her driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan), is a tense, angry man with endless chips on his shoulder, trying to sour Poppy at every turn. But Poppy is no mere coquettish ingenue; when she senses a problem with one of her students, she is quick to get to the bottom of the situation, with the appropriate serious demeanor. As with most Leigh films, much of the dialogue is improvised (following long rehearsal periods), adding to its freshness. But also as with most Leigh films, there are dramatic turning points, but even those can’t wipe away Poppy’s — or the audience’s — endless smile.

British painter J. M. W. Turner (Timothy Spall) and his devoted housekeeper, Hanna Danby (Dorothy Atkinson), pause for a moment in biopic

MR. TURNER (Mike Leigh, 2014)
Sunday, June 5, 2:00
Wednesday, June 8, 3:30
www.filmlinc.org

Timothy Spall was named Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his compelling portrayal of British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner in Mike Leigh’s lovely biopic, Mr. Turner. Spall, who played Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter series and has appeared in such other Leigh films as Topsy-Turvy, All or Nothing, Life Is Sweet, and Secrets & Lies, portrays Turner as a gruff, self-involved painter who grunts and growls his way through life. At his home studio he is assisted by his aging father, William (Paul Jesson), and his devoted housekeeper, Hanna Danby (Dorothy Atkinson), who he occasionally shags when in the mood. Turner carries his sketchbook wherever he goes, always on the look-out for a beautiful landscape or winter storm that could become the subject of his next painting. With that in mind, he rents a room in a small seaside inn run by Sophia Booth (Marion Bailey), who eventually becomes more than just his landlady. An artist well ahead of his time, Turner becomes frustrated with the men at the Royal Academy of Arts and lisping art critic John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire), who don’t appreciate his work properly, especially when he starts heading toward abstraction.

J. M. W. Turner (Timothy Spall) is always on the look-out for a subject to paint in Mr. Turner

Leigh does not paint the kindest portrait of J. M. W. Turner, who turned his back on his former mistress, the shrill Sarah Danby (Ruth Sheen), and their two daughters (Sandy Foster and Amy Dawson); doesn’t have the nicest things to say about such contemporaries as John Constable (James Fleet) and Benjamin Haydon (Martin Savage); and won’t listen to the stern warnings of his doctor (David Horovitch). Turner is an artist first and foremost; everything else takes a backseat in his life. Despite being based on actual events, the film was made in Leigh’s usual style, with the actors improvising within set scenes; Spall, who studied painting for two years in preparing for the role, takes full advantage of the opportunity, often refusing to articulate, grunting and growling as he deals with other people who dare share their thoughts and opinions with him. It’s a very funny conceit that helps define a rather unusual character.

As befits a story about a masterful painter, cinematographer Dick Pope, who has shot most of Leigh’s films, beautifully photographs the sun rising and setting over vast landscapes, capturing its glowing light cast over the sea. Leigh keeps the narrative subtle, as when Turner and Sophia sit for a daguerreotype; almost nothing extraordinary happens in the scene, but from a few groaned questions and Spall’s expression, viewers can sense Turner realizing the changes that photography will bring to realist painting, spurring his controversial switch to more abstract canvases. It is not shown as a eureka moment but just another part of Turner’s development in becoming one of the most important and influential artists of the nineteenth century. And then there are the paintings themselves, glorious works that are always a joy to see, especially in a film that is a work of art itself.

LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS: ARTISTS EMBRACE LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Who: Nearly two hundred performers
What: Lower East Side Festival of the Arts
Where: Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. at Tenth St.
When: May 27-29, free (donations accepted)
Why: The twenty-seventh annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, a wide-ranging, indoor and outdoor celebration of the vast creativity of the neighborhood over the decades, will feature nearly two hundred performers, at Theater for the New City and on Tenth St. Taking place May 27-29, the festival, with the theme “Artists Embrace Liberty and Justice for All,” includes dance, spoken word, theater, music, visual art, and more from such familiar faves as David Amram, the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, James Rado, La MaMa, Akiko, Folksbiene National Yiddish Theater, Malachy McCourt, KT Sullivan, Eduardo Machado, Austin Pendleton, the Rod Rodgers Dance Company, Melanie Maria Goodreaux, Chinese Theater Works, New Yiddish Rep, Eve Packer, 13th Street Rep, and Metropolitan Playhouse.

The event will be emceed at the various locations by Crystal Field, Robert Gonzales Jr., Danielle Aziza, Sabura Rashid, David F. Slone Esq., and Joe John Battista. There will also be vendors and food booths and special programs for children curated by Donna Mejia and hosted by John Grimaldi, film screenings curated by Eva Dorrepaal, a “poetry jam with prose on the side” curated by Lissa Moira, and an art show curated by Carolyn Ratcliffe. Select performances will be livestreamed here.

PIONEERS GO EAST COLLECTIVE: CROSSROADS

Paz Tanjuaquio will present Dead Stars Still Shine at Judson Church

Who: Pioneers Go East Collective
What: Multimedia cross-disciplinary performance series
Where: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Sq. South between Thompson & Sullivan Sts.
When: May 26–28, free – $50 sliding scale, 8:00
Why: Pioneers Go East Collective continues its “Crossroads” series May 26-28 at Judson Memorial Church with works by Yoshiko Chuma, Symara Johnson, Anabella Lenzu, Amanda Loulaki, Molly&Nola, and artists-in-residence Angel Acuña, Doron Perk, Paz Tanjuaquio, and Dane Terry, curated by Daniel Diaz, Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, and Philip Treviño. The 8:00 program on May 26 includes Acuña’s video EPIFANIO – DV no.0001, Perk’s Grandfather Visit solo, Tanjuaquio’s Dead Stars Still Shine, a collaboration with visual artist/composer Todd B. Richmond and digital artist Onome Ekeh, with poetry by Luis H. Francia, and pianist Terry’s On Eternity, with visuals by Bizzy Barefoot. On May 27 at 8:00, Chuma will be joined by dancers Emily Pope and Sarah Skaggs and multi-instrumentalist Ginger Dolden for Hey Women!, the latest in Chuma’s “Head in the Sand” series; Johnson’s The Kitchen Sink Ranger at the Midnight Rodeo; Molly&Nola’s Steer, dealing with livestock auctioneering and cloning; and Pioneers Go East Collective’s film My Name’Sound.

Saturday’s lineup includes Hey women!, My Name’Sound, Lenzu’s A bone to pick with you, and a new piece by Loulaki, who explains, “There is something that is never able to be described, just to be sensed, and that is the place where we sometimes could meet. Traces of actions and faint memories wondering for their place in time. The focus shifts, the essence morphs, and pause gives meaning to time and sense to presence.” In addition, there will be NEXT! workshops on May 26 at 6:00 with Perk and on May 27 at 6:00 with Parijat Desai.

DanceAfrica 2022: HOMEGROWN

Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater will perform at BAM’s annual DanceAfrica festival

Who: Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, Bambara Drum and Dance Ensemble, Farafina Kan, Harambe Dance Company, LaRocque Bey School of Dance, BAM/Restoration Dance Youth Ensemble, DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, more
What: DanceAfrica Festival 2022
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave.
When: May 21 – June 2, many events free, Gilman dances $12.50 – $85, film screenings $16
Why: The coming of summer means the arrival of one of the best festivals of every year, BAM’s DanceAfrica. The forty-fifth annual event features the theme “Homegrown,” with five companies making return visits to BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House: Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, Bambara Drum and Dance Ensemble, Farafina Kan, Harambe Dance Company, and LaRocque Bey School of Dance, along with the BAM/Restoration Dance Youth Ensemble and DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, highlighting movement and music from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and the Caribbean, accompanied by Arkestra Africa. Curated by artistic director Abdel R. Salaam, the festival also includes the Tribute to the Ancestors, Community Day, a Memorial Room, the DanceAfrica Bazaar with more than 150 vendors, dance workshops and master classes in Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Mark Morris Dance Center, the Water Your Roots Youth Dance Expo & Talent Show, the Council of Elders Roundtable “Legacy & Preservation,” Christopher Myers’s stained-glass work Be Lost Well (Stay in the House All Day), and a late night dance party with DJ YB.

FilmAfrica runs May 27 to June 2, consisting of more than two dozen films, from Moussa Touré’s 1997 TGV (followed by a Q&A with Touré and Amy Andrieux), Raymond Rajaonarivelo’s 1996 When the Stars Meet the Sea, and Amleset Muchie’s 2019 Min Alesh! to Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s 2008 Sex, Okra, and Salted Butter, Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda’s 2006 Juju Factory, and Dumisani Phakathi’s Don’t F*** with Me, I Have 51 Brothers and Sisters.