this week in music

UNDER THE RADAR 2021

Piehole’s Disclaimer will be livestreamed over Zoom July 7-11 and 14-17

UNDER THE RADAR
The Public Theater online
January 6-17, free with advance RSVP
publictheater.org

For sixteen years, the Public Theater’s multidisciplinary winter festival “Under the Radar” has been presenting cutting-edge, experimental works from around the world, in its four theaters and Joe’s Pub in addition to such satellite locations as Japan Society, La MaMa, BRIC, and other city venues. But the 2021 iteration will be virtual — and it’s also all free. This year’s festival has been trimmed down to eight shows, one panel, one symposium, and live Q&As, requiring advance RSVPs; donations beginning at $5 are requested for each production.

“The challenges facing cultural exchange is not limited to the pandemic; it includes the tightening reactionary world trying to suffocate alternative voices, combined with a climate crisis growing more threatening every day,” festival director Mark Russell said in a statement. “Under the Radar began as an answer to an isolationist government in 2005, trying to connect voices, not always heard on American stages, from communities not always invited. We continue to follow this path with both international and American artists.”

The 2021 UTR fest is actually already under way with 600 Highwaymen’s A Thousand Ways (Part One): A Phone Call, continuing through January 17. Written and created by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone, the piece is an hourlong phone call between you and another person, randomly put together and facilitated by an electronic voice that asks both general and intimate questions, from where you are sitting to what smells you are missing, structured around a dangerous and lonely fictional situation that is a metaphor for sheltering in place, even though the work began several years ago. It’s a great way to get connected to a stranger while looking inwardly at yourself — and there’s more to come, as the next two parts involve one-on-one in-person encounters and a group gathering once the pandemic lockdown is lifted.

Below is the rest of the schedule; note that some shows can be viewed on demand at any time, with specific dates for live Q&As, while others are available only during livestreams.

Inua Ellams shares his personal stories of immigration in livestreamed Borders & Crossings

CAPSULE (January 6-17, artist Q&As 1/6 and 1/11 at 8:00)
Written by Whitney White and Peter Mark Kendall and directed and produced by Taibi Magar and Tyler Dobrowsky, Capsule explores isolation and connection, race and film using original text and music. White and Kendall will also be the guests on the “Live at the Lortel” podcast on January 4 at 7:00.

ESPÍRITU (January 6-17, artist Q&As 1/8 and 1/14 at 8:00)
Teatro Anónimo’s Espíritu takes place over the course of one night in an unidentified city, dealing with such issues as consumerism and manipulation of desire. The thirty-five-minute piece is written and directed by Trinidad González and will be performed in Spanish with English subtitles.

INCOMING! (January 6-17, talkback following 1/10 and 1/17 shows at 8:00)
The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Working Group has collaborated on a specially commissioned program of short pieces about where we are here and now, with cohort members Savon Bartley, Nile Harris, Miranda Haymon, Eric Lockley, Raelle Myrick-Hodges, Mia Rovegno, Justin Elizabeth Sayre, and Mariana Valencia presenting a thirty-minute video including such brief works as “Edna’s Best Friend Jeans” and “What We Forgot.”

UNDER THE RADAR SYMPOSIUM: A CREATIVE SUMMIT (January 7, 10:00 am)
Livestreamed interactive half-day symposium with Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts vice president and artistic director Marc Bamuthi Joseph, showcase of future works by Tania El Khoury, Héctor Flores Komatsu, Anna Maria Nabirye / Annie Saunders, and Roger Guenveur Smith, breakout sessions, and the concluding “Artists and International Presenting” discussion.

BORDERS & CROSSINGS (January 7-10, talkback after each show)
Poet, performer, playwright, graphic artist, and designer Inua Ellams, who was born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, shares his personal story of migration, from Nigeria to England to Ireland and back to London, in this hourlong livestreamed one-man show produced by Fuel Theatre, which hosted his in-person An Evening with an Immigrant in the fall.

The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Working Group’s Incoming! consists of short pieces by eight cohort members

RICH KIDS: A HISTORY OF SHOPPING MALLS IN TEHRAN (January 7-10, 14-17, talkback after each show)
The Javaad Alipoor Company’s Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran is an experimental hybrid of live performance and social media that explores the growing separation between the wealthy and the poor, looking at income inequality through a kaleidoscopic mirror. Written by Alipoor and co-created by Alipoor and Kirsty Housley, the sixty-minute show, the second part of a trilogy following the multimedia The Believers Are But Brothers, won the 2019 Scotsman Fringe First Award.

DISCLAIMER (January 7-11, 14-17, talkback following 1/17 show at 6:00)
Piehole’s Disclaimer is a live Zoom event in which a cooking class led by Chef Nargis incorporates Persian food, cultural misrepresentation, minimal audience participation, and murder. Disclaimer is written by Tara Ahmadinejad, who directed Japan Society’s livestreamed presentation of Satoko Ichihara’s Underground Fairy last month.

THE MOTOWN PROJECT (January 8-17)
Alicia Hall Moran reimagines the Motown songbook with opera in this recorded performance from Joe’s Pub, featuring Thomas Flippin on guitar, Reggie Washington on bass, and Steven Herring and Barrington Lee on vocals, with choreography by Amy Hall Garner.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (January 9, 12 noon)
Livestreamed panel discussion and Q&A with MC93 director Hortense Archambault, MC93 director of productions Frank Piquard, performance artist, choreographer, and director of dance festivals Aguibou Bougobali Sanou, and Perelman Performing Arts Center producing director Meiyin Wang, moderated by LMCC artistic director Lili Chopra.

SANCTUARY: AN AUDIO IMMERSIVE SOUNDWALK

Working Theater’s Sanctuary takes visitors on an audio journey through the welcoming community of St. John the Divine (photo by P. Kevin O’Leary)

SANCTUARY
Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Ave. at 112th St.
Through December 31, free
theworkingtheater.org
www.stjohndivine.org

“What is sanctuary? Is it a place? Is it a feeling? A state of being?” a narrator asks near the start of Sanctuary, an immersive audio soundwalk about the historic Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Working Theater’s Five Boroughs/One City Initiative began with Adam Kraar’s Alternating Currents in Queens and includes Liba Vaynberg and Dina Vovsi’s The Only Ones and Ed Cardona Jr.’s Bamboo in Bushwick in Brooklyn, Dan Hoyle’s The Block in the Bronx, and Chisa Hutchinson’s Breaking Bread in Staten Island. It returns to Manhattan with Sanctuary, a forty-eight-minute piece that has been in progress since 2015 and is now available for free download through December 31. It is not a guided tour of the cathedral but instead is a spiritual (and secular) journey that you can experience at home. (In 2013, Working Theater staged La Ruta, an immersive play about illegal immigration, set in a truck outside the cathedral.)

Sanctuary was created by Michael Premo and Rachel Falcone of Storyline and developed with and directed by Working Theater associate artistic director Rebecca Martinez, with original devotional music by Broken Chord, recorded in the cathedral’s nave on the Duke Ellington grand piano. The soundwalk welcomes listeners into the diverse cathedral community, consisting of people who work there, visit regularly, have celebrated special occasions there, or turned to the cathedral at times of hardship or joy. Participants discuss immigration, a blue heron, 9/11, gay marriage, gardening, depression, letting go, healing, and rebuilding, accompanied by the sounds of footsteps, nature, a helicopter, sirens, and a door opening.

St. John the Divine has offered sanctuary to all since 1899 (photo courtesy St. John the Divine)

“We are unfinished,” one person says. A man adds, “The amount of grief that we have seems to be insurmountable. We mourn partly because so much of what we called normal is gone, and yet, we persevere.” The narrator asks, “Do we ever get where we’re going? If we arrive, are we here?”

The cathedral has been providing sanctuary since the late nineteenth century; construction by architects George Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge began in 1892, and the first services were held there in a chapel of the crypt in 1899. The cathedral is an Episcopal church that doesn’t discriminate on any basis; in fact, it falls right in line with New York’s decision to become a sanctuary city in 2020, as delineated by Manhattan Community Board 10 here.

Sanctuary expounds on the cathedral being a revered safe space, both physically and psychologically, not only during the pandemic, but at all times. It is currently open for free to visitors; timed tickets are strongly encouraged. “What is the path you’re on?” the narrator asks. Any path leading to the historic Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine is one that is worth taking.

STAND WITH TEACHERS

Who: Stevie Van Zandt, Eddie Vedder, Margo Price, Bruce Springsteen, Sammy Hagar, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Lowell Levinger, Matisyahu, Whoopi Goldberg, Melle Mel, Tom Morello, Edward Norton, Vincent Pastore, Maureen Van Zandt, Trønd Fausa Aurvåg, Steinar Sagen
What: Holiday fundraiser for TeachRock
Where: TeachRock
When: Monday, December 21, $25-$150, 8:00
Why: “Little Steven’s TeachRock program brings an essential curriculum of music and culture into school and makes it available at no cost to educators. In a time of cutbacks in arts funding, Steve’s programs are keeping kids engaged in the arts, and in school — this is his greatest legacy,” Bruce Springsteen said about his longtime E Street Band cohort Stevie Van Zandt’s TeachRock, an organization dedicated to teaching arts, and specifically popular music, in schools. Part of the nonprofit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, TeachRock has adapted to remote learning by making available special lesson packages for children of all ages.

On December 21 at 8:00, Van Zandt and TeachRock will host a benefit fundraiser highlighted by performances by board members Springsteen and Jackson Browne, Eddie Vedder, Margo Price, and Matisyahu in addition to appearances by Sammy Hagar, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Whoopi Goldberg, Melle Mel, Tom Morello, Edward Norton, Vincent Pastore, Maureen Van Zandt, and, from Lillyhammer, Trønd Fausa Aurvåg and Steinar Sagen. Tickets are $25 or $150 to get your name added to the TeachRock Solidarity Wall. “Music connects us, even when we must be apart,” Van Zandt said in a statement. “Our amazing teachers stood by us and provided structure, emotional support, and a reassuring sense of normalcy to our children during Covid. Now we’re going to stand with teachers and provide them the resources they need to keep kids engaged, emotionally healthy, and learning.” The hourlong event will be followed by a Holiday Video Jukebox featuring songs by Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, Darlene Love, Dean Frasier, and others.

HOMESICK

Danielle Agami looks deep inside herself in Homesick (photo courtesy Source Material)

HOMESICK
December 20 – January 10, $10-$25 (pay-what-you-can)
www.homesickthefilm.com
www.sourcematerialcollective.com

Israeli-born, LA-based dancer and choreographer Danielle Agami has reimagined her autobiographical solo piece, Framed, which had its world premiere in May 2018 at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, as the fifteen-minute film Homesick, streaming online December 20 to January 10. In the work, she looks deep inside herself as a woman and a creator, asking such questions as “What is expected for me to provide? Will dance be enough? Am I enough?” Directed by Samantha Shay and photographed by Victoria Sendra for Source Material, Homesick follows Agami as she moves from her apartment to a bar (where she is served by real-life Icelandic cocktail bartender Martin Cabejsek) to an indoor flower market (where she is joined by Jordan Klitzke) to a vast outdoor landscape and, as an encore, around Jerry Moss Plaza at the Music Center in LA.

For much of the film, Agami, a former Batsheva dancer and gaga teacher who has run Ate9 Dance Company since 2012, first in Seattle, then in LA, changes between a black negligee, head shaved, to regular clothing and fuller hair, moving in fits and starts on her hands and knees, shaking her head in trancelike gestures, petting a cat, and extending her arms as if searching for freedom and love. “For me, there are two kinds of home,” she narrates. “There is the outer, and the inner. When I feel safe and peaceful in my surroundings and my mind, I feel at home, and everything falls into place.” Agami dances to a pair of haunting songs by Iceland-based Danish musician Sara Flindt, aka ZAAR, “Homesick” and “How Many Hearts.” The film is followed by a Q&A with Agami (Pick a Chair, calling glenn), Shay (In These Uncertain Times, Light), Sendra, and Flindt, moderated by CalArts professor of dance cinema Francesca Penzani.

THE LONG GOODBYE: ONLINE EDITION

Actor, activist, and rapper Riz Ahmed takes viewers on a personal journey of music and storytelling in one-time-only livestream of The Long Goodbye

Who: Riz Ahmed
What: One-man show with music and stories
Where: BAM, Manchester International Festival
When: Saturday, December 19, $6.75 – $27 (pay-what-you-feel), 3:00
Why: Back in March, British actor, musician, and activist Riz Ahmed was scheduled to premiere his one-man show, The Long Goodbye, at the Manchester International Festival, followed by a run at BAM this fall, but the pandemic lockdown scrapped those plans. Emmy winner Ahmed has appeared in such films as Nightcrawler, Sound of Metal, and his latest, Mogul Mowgli, such television shows as Dead Set, The Night Of and The OA, and such plays as Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train and the opera Gaddafi in addition to being a founding member, known as Riz MC, of the hip-hop band Swet Shop Boys, which has released the full-length record Cashmere and the EPs Swet Shop and Sufi La. This past March, he released the concept album The Long Goodbye, featuring such tracks as “The Breakup (Shikwa),” “Can I Live,” “Deal with It,” and “Karma,” with such special guests as Mindy Kaling, Mahershala Ali, and Hasan Minhaj. You can check out his latest video, “Once Kings,” here.

Ahmed combines all those talents in his virtually reimagined The Long Goodbye: Online Edition, streaming live one-time-only on December 19 at 3:00. Co-commissioned by MIF and BAM, the thirty-minute presentation is a companion piece to the full show, which has been postponed to 2021, once theaters are allowed to open and welcome audiences once again. Directed by Kirsty Housley with sound by Gareth Fry, the show is a personal journey with live music and storytelling that asks the question: “How did we get here?” Tickets are $6.75 to $27 based on what you can pay, but they are very limited, so act now if you want to catch what should be a unique, compelling experience.

LIFT UP

Who: Blake Shelton, Dave Matthews, Jimmie Allen, Jason Mraz, Michael Ray, Shy Carter, the War and Treaty, John Rzeznik, Dispatch, Keala Settle, Mt. Joy, Augustana, Indigo Girls, Lucie Silvas, Annie Bosko, Bre Kennedy, CJ Hammond & Sloane, Veridia, Public, Michael Cerveris, the McCrary Sisters, Sam Wade, Roger Daltrey, Steve Connell, Michael McDonald, Kenny G, Jeff Tweedy, Nick Wheeler, Greta Van Fleet, Adam Gardner, Ray Parker Jr., Jerry Dipizzo, Taye Diggs, Ben Wysoki, the Harleys, Dublin Gospel Choir, Jim Sheridan, Storme Warren, Nicole Ryan
What: “A Festival of Music & Stories of Life On & Off the Road”
Where: Ryman Auditorium
When: Wednesday, December 16, free (donations encouraged), 8:30
Why: “It is so important that music fans and governments realize the impact this virus is having on millions of self-employed people who make the music industry function to bring much needed joy to our lives,” Roger Daltrey says about the effect the pandemic lockdown is having on the people who make a living supporting the work of superstar musicians. Daltrey will be appearing along with dozen of other rock, country, pop, R&B, and gospel musicians at “Lift Up,” a festival streaming live on Twitch from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville that benefits the entertainment and events industry. The concert will feature the brand-new song “12 Million,” written by Sam Wade and LEVL UP music supervisor Keith Levenson in tribute to the crews that make music happen from behind the scenes. “Almost my whole adult life I have been touring in one shape or form and the road crews on my team and the venue crews that welcomed us and helped us put on a great show are all part of my extended touring family,” Cisco Adler said in a statement. “They really make it possible for artists like me to do what we do, and they are truly unsung heroes. They are also the first to be hit hard by a situation like this, so part of our mission at NoCap is to get shows happening again and get these good people back to work.”