this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

TARIQ “BLACK THOUGHT” TROTTER IN CONVERSATION WITH JON STEWART

Tariq Trotter (photo by Joshua Kissi) will discuss his new new memoir at BAM with Jon Stewart this week

Who: Tariq Trotter (Black Thought), Jon Stewart
What: Book launch and conversation
Where: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harvey Theater at the BAM Strong, 651 Fulton St., 30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
When: Tuesday, November 14, $44-$68, 8:00
Why: “The story of my life starts with the fire. A lot of people know I burned down my family’s home when I was six years old, but are not aware of the magnitude of that moment — ­and all that began to unravel after it. That, I have never spoken of publicly, and rarely even to those closest to me,” Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, writes at the beginning of his new memoir, The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are (One World, November 2023, $26.99). “You sometimes hear stories about people who have ‘lost it all’ and rebuilt their lives, but what I learned at a young age is that sometimes shit is just lost forever, or the cracks are so bad the building blocks never quite Lego-­fit the way they once did. We lost everything we had in that fire. Yes, material goods are just ‘things,’ but the things we collect and value — ­especially when we’re young, or broke, or struggling — ­are extensions of who we are. Our visible, tangible losses, then, represent something deeper. In the fire, we lost ourselves.”

Written with Jasmine Martin, the book features such chapters as “A Creative Reckoning,” “Family,” “An Epidemic,” “New City, New Self,” and “The (Square) Roots” as Trotter traces the arc of his life and career. Born in Philadelphia in 1973, Trotter was a graffiti artist and drug dealer before hooking up with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson in high school and Malik B. in college and finding success as a rapper and MC in the Roots while also establishing a solo career as a musician, actor, film producer, and stage composer and lyricist. He also leads the Roots as the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

On November 14 at 8:00, Trotter will be at BAM’s Harvey Theater, discussing the book with talk show legend and activist Jon Stewart, the former host of The Daily Show and The Problem with Jon Stewart, which is ending after just two seasons over creative differences with Apple about coverage of China and AI. The $68 tickets come with a copy of Trotter’s book, in which he also writes, “Our lives are a response to the call of our childhoods. Somewhere in the echoes of the past, we find our truest selves. Who am I? Who are you?”

If you can’t make it to BAM, Trotter will be at Columbia’s Miller Theatre on November 28, speaking with journalism dean Jelani Cobb.

JewCE!: THE JEWISH COMIC EXPERIENCE

THE FIRST ANNUAL JEWISH COMIC BOOK CONVENTION
Center for Jewish History
15 West Sixteenth St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, November 12, $40 (children eight and under free)
jewce.org
www.cjh.org

Jews played key roles in the development of the comic book industry in the United States, as artists, illustrators, editors, and publishers. In 2006-7, the Jewish Museum presented with the Newark Museum the outstanding exhibit “Masters of American Comics,” which explored the work of fourteen artists, several of whom were Jewish.

This weekend the Center for Jewish History is hosting “JewCE!: The Jewish Comic Experience,” being held in conjunction with the exhibit “The Museum and Laboratory of the Jewish Comics Experience,” consisting of original art, historical memorabilia, and interactive installations focusing on Jewish history, culture, and identity as depicted in comic books, on view through December 29.

Awards will be handed out Saturday night, in such categories as Career Contributions to Jewish Comics, Diverse Jewish Representation, Historical Narratives, Autobiographical Content, Contemporary Topics, and Combating Prejudice. The big day is Sunday, with a full slate of lectures, panel discussions, workshops, artist booths, and more. The guest of honor is Trina Robbins, the Brooklyn-born cartoonist and activist who is in the Will Eisner Hall of Fame and is one of the three characters in the Joni Mitchell song “Ladies of the Canyon” (“Trina takes her paints and her threads / And she weaves a pattern all her own”).

Among the events are “Jewish Roots of the Comic Industry,” “Queering Jewish Comics,” “Kids Comics for Mini Mensches,” “Jewish Female Narratives in the Graphic Arts,” and “Holy Graphic Novels!”; the lineup of participants includes Frank Miller, Stephanie Phillips, Neil Kleid, Koren Shadmi, Fabrice Sapolsky, Yehudi Mercado, Dean Haspiel, Chari Pere, Ken Krimstein, Danny Fingeroth, Barry Deutsch, Roy Schwartz, Amy Kurzweil, E. Lockhart, Ben Kahn, Emily Bowen Cohen, Jenny Caplan, Karen Green, Leela Corman, Paul Levitz, Tahneer Oksman, Terri Libenson, Simcha Weinstein, JT Waldman, Jessica Tamar Deutsch, and Stan Mack, as well as Source Point Press, Big Apple Comics, Jews in Doodles, Israeli Defense Comics, Jewish Arts Salon, Stand Up! Comics/Stand Up! Records, and Torah Comics. Below is the full schedule.

Exhibition continues at the Center for Jewish History through December 29

Jewish Roots of the Comic Industry, with Arie Kaplan, Roy Schwartz, and Simcha Weinstein, moderated by Danny Fingeroth, auditorium, 10:00

Jewish Folklore in Comics, with Dani Colman, Trian Robbins, Chanan Beizer, and Yehudi Mercado, moderated by Eddy Portnoy, Kovno Room, 10:00

Jump into Drawing Comics!, with Joshu Edelglass, for kids ages 8-12, Discovery Room, 10:00

From Strength to Strength: Jewish Superheroes through the Ages!, with Brian Michael Bendis, E. Lockhart, Dean Haspiel, and Frank Miller, moderated by Roy Schwartz, auditorium, 11:30

Queering Jewish Comics, with Ben Kahn, Shira Spector, Barry Deutsch, and Miriam Libicki, moderated by Tahneer Oksman, Kovno Room, 11:30

Jewish Comics Trivia Game: JewCE Edition, with Sholly Fisch and Jeremy Arcus-Goldberg, Discovery Room, 11:30

Breaking the Mainstream: Getting Past Ashkenormativity and Secularism in Comics, with Daniel Lobell, Emily Bowen Cohen, Joshua Sky, and Carol Isaacs, moderated by Arnon Shorr, auditorium, 1:00

Kids Comics for Mini Mensches, with Yehudi Mercado, Terri Libenson, Chari Pere, and Barry Deutsch, moderated by Jeremy Dauber, Kovno Room, 1:00

Torah Comic Workshop, with Andrew Galitzer, for kids ages 6-12, Discovery Room, 1:00

Canons Are Made to Blow Up! Retconning, Rebooting, Jossing, and Other Paradigm Shifts, with Brian Michael Bendis, Brian Azzarello, Joshua Sky, and Barbara Slate, moderated by Jenny Caplan, auditorium, 2:30

Jewish Comics and Remembrance Culture, with Rafael Medoff, Ken Krimstein, Stan Mack, and Trina Robbins, moderated by Samantha Baskind, Kovno Room, 2:30

From Perek to Panel: Using Pictures to Explore Interpretation, with Ben Schachter, for teens and adults, Discovery Room, 2:30

Will Eisner: The First Poet Laureate of the Jewish Graphic Novel, with Paul Levitz and Jules Feiffer (via Zoom), auditorium, 4:00

Telling Other People’s Stories, with Tracy White, Stephanie Phillips, Koren Shadmi, and Neil Kleid, moderated by Julian Voloj, Kovno Room, 4:00

Jewish Comics Trivia Game: JewCE Edition, with Sholly Fisch and Jeremy Arcus-Goldberg, Discovery Room, 4:00

Jewish Female Narratives in the Graphic Arts, with Leela Corman, Amy Kurzweil, Alisa Whitney, and Miriam Libicki, moderated by Karen Green, auditorium, 5:30

Holy Graphic Novels!, with JT Waldman, moderated by Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Kovno Room, 5:30

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

DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE: THE MAKING OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S NEBRASKA

Who: Warren Zanes
What: Literary and music discussion
Where: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Wednesday, November 8, free with RSVP, 8:00
Why: Following the international success of his international 1980–81 River tour through North America and Western Europe totaling 140 dates, New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen went into his bedroom on January 3, 1982, with a Teac four-track cassette machine and recorded fifteen songs by himself, then mixed them with an Echoplex. He carried the cassette, sans case, around with him for a few weeks, intending to teach the E Street Band the tunes that could be their next album. It was eventually decided that the songs worked best as they were, and on September 30, 1982, Nebraska was released. In ten songs over forty-one minutes — including “Atlantic City,” “Johnny 99,” “Open All Night,” and “Reason to Believe” — Springsteen took a stark look at Reagan’s America. Two years later, Bruce and the band would explode with Born in the USA — the title song was originally part of the bedroom recordings — but Nebraska has stood the test of time, filled with characters who are still searching for the American dream.

In the spring of 2021, Springsteen invited music journalist and Del Fuegos cofounder Warren Zanes to his Colts Neck home to discuss the evolution and legacy of Nebraska, in time for its fortieth anniversary; the result is Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (Crown, May 2023, $28). In the first chapter, Zanes writes, “I wanted to know where Nebraska came from, what it led to. It sat between two of Springsteen’s most celebrated recordings, in its own quiet and turmoil. He described it to me as ‘an accident start to finish’ but also as the album that ‘still might be [his] best.’ The recording came from a place and a time in which Springsteen was facing troubles in his life, troubles that had no name as of yet. Wordsworth defines poetry as ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings . . . recollected in tranquillity.’ Quite differently, Nebraska came from the middle of that ‘overflow,’ was not a thing ‘recollected in tranquillity.’ It came from the heart of trouble and led to still more, its stark character the lasting reward. Nebraska was unfinished, imperfect, delivered into a world hovering at the threshold of the digital, when technology would allow recorded music to hang itself on perfect time, carry perfect pitch, but also risk losing its connection to the unfixed and unfixable. Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, recalled for me, over several afternoons at his Westchester home, the way in which Nebraska arrived. Chuck Plotkin, among Springsteen’s producers and a key player in the last stages of Nebraska’s creation, would talk about the anxious labor of trying to make the album conform to industry standards. But Springsteen knew the most by far, because it came from his bedroom.”

Bruce Springsteen and Warren Zanes discuss the making of Nebraska (photo courtesy Warren Zanes)

On November 8, Zanes will be at the National Arts Club to talk about the book, which features such chapters as “The Rhinoceros Club,” “The King of Pop and the Beer Can,” and “Darkness on the Edge of Bed.” The first question Zanes asks Bruce is “Are there any photographs of the room where you recorded Nebraska?” Bruce says no. Zanes writes, “I wanted to see that room because something important was made there, and I wanted to know if by looking at a photograph of the space, I could see traces of what happened, the outlines of Nebraska. And maybe those photographic traces could bring it back to life for me, a resurrection. Photographs of his previous place, the Holmdel farmhouse, are easy to find online. Whether you see Springsteen in them or not, whether the amps and guitars are in the room or not, you look at them knowing who was there once and what got done at the time, Darkness on the Edge of Town and much of The River. The rooms begin to breathe.”

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

WATCH NIGHT

Bill T. Jones leads rehearsal for upcoming Watch Night at PAC NYC (photo by Stephanie Berger)

WATCH NIGHT
Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC)
251 Fulton St.
November 3-18, $52-$138
pacnyc.org

Bill T. Jones’s home base might be New York Live Arts, where he’s the artistic director, but he stages works all over New York (and the world). In August, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company presented the free, site-specific Dance for Sunset in Brookhaven, Long Island. In April, his Deep Blue Sea dazzled audiences at Park Avenue Armory, where he debuted the immersive Afterwardsness the previous year. And last month he was back at NYLA with Curriculum II, kicking off his troupe’s forty-first season.

So it’s no surprise that he is presenting the first dance work at the brand-new Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) in Lower Manhattan, by Ground Zero. Running November 3-18, Watch Night will explore tragedy, justice, and forgiveness in these ever-more-difficult times. The multimedia work was conceived by director and choreographer Jones and librettist/poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph; the score is by Brooklyn musician and composer Tamar-kali.

The cast features approximately two dozen dancers portraying such characters as the Wolf, Super/Natural, and members of an Echo Chamber, with an eight-person ensemble including violin, viola, cello, bass, flute, oboe, and clarinet. The set is by Tony-nominated designer Adam Rigg, with costumes by Kara Harmon, lightning by Robert Wierzel, sound by Mikaal Sulaiman, and projections by Lucy Mackinnon.

In a program note, Jones lists dos and don’ts; for example:

DO NOT:
Create an event too easily digested in its desire to succeed by standards not of my making.
Be cowed by the city and this theater site’s precarious history in our fractious era.
Be oppressed by personal fear and anger.
Try to heal the world in this event.
Ignore each character’s worldview, individual psychological motivations that give them dimension and substance.
Attempt to be understood by all viewers and stake holders.

DO:
Acknowledge the privilege of this opportunity and the platform provided by the Perelman Performing Arts Center in its Inaugural Season.
Acknowledge this event is informed by real tragedies, real people, and real consequences.
Explore the potential of this new historic theater, built on contested land and a site of trauma.
Challenge my own taste and notions of abstraction and movement.
Attempt to “see this event” through the eyes of many people — different from myself and very much like me.
Stay alert, grateful, and hungry for joy!

Jones will be on hand for two postshow talkbacks, on November 9 with Joseph, Tamar-kali, and dramaturg Lauren Whitehead, moderated by rabbinical consultant Kendell Pinkney, delving into the creative inspiration behind the show, and on November 12, when Jones and guests from the Interfaith Center of New York will discuss faith and forgiveness. In addition, on December 4, Jones will speak with Joseph at NYLA as part of the ongoing “Bill Chats” series.

In her program note, Whitehead explains, “Every massacre has its moment. In the aftermath of every staggering act of violence we are inundated, for a time, with outrage and rallying cries, marches and memorials, public lament and lengthy speeches and great groanings of grief. And then, as is our way, we metabolize the grotesque. We will ourselves into movie theaters, send our children into schools again. We weep, we wail, and then we walk on. What our show is attempting to do is to ask ‘what if?’ What if we were unsatisfied by platitudes of forgiveness and forgetting? What if instead of moving on, we pointed our rage and discontent in a different direction?”

Don’t expect any easy answers to those challenging questions in what promises to be a memorable experience.

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

HOPE BOYKIN WANTS YOU TO HAVE THE BEST DAY EVER

Hope Boykin makes her Joyce debut with States of Hope (photo courtesy HopeBoykinDance)

STATES OF HOPE
The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
October 17-22 (Curtain Chat October 18), $52-$72
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org
www.hopeboykindance.com

“You have the best day ever,” Hope Boykin told me at the end of our lively Zoom conversation a few weeks ago. And I set out to do just that, as it’s impossible not to be affected by her infectious positivity, encased in a warming glow.

A self-described educator, creator, mover, and motivator who “firmly believes there are no limits,” the Durham-born, New York–based Boykin began dancing when she was four and went on to become an original member of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson’s Complexions, performed and choreographed with Joan Myers Brown’s Philadanco!, then spent twenty years with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, first under Judith Jamison, then Robert Battle. A two-time Bessie winner and Emmy nominee, Boykin was busy during the pandemic lockdown, performing the “This Little Light of Mine” excerpt from Matthew Rushing’s 2014 Odetta for the December 2020 Ailey Forward Virtual Season, making several dance films, collaborating with BalletX and others, and preparing October 2021’s . . . an evening of HOPE, a deeply personal hybrid program at the 92nd St. Y that investigated Boykin’s truth and her unique movement language.

Next up for Boykin is another intimate presentation, States of Hope, running October 17–22 at the Joyce. Boykin wrote, directed, and choreographed what she calls her “dance memoir,” which features an original score by jazz percussionist Ali Jackson, lighting and set design by Al Crawford, and costumes by Boykin and Corin Wright. The work, in which she explores different parts of herself, will be performed by Boykin as the Narrator, Davon Rashawn Farmer as the Convinced, Jessica Amber Pinkett as the Determined, Lauren Rothert as the Conformist, Bahiyah Hibah Sayyed or Nina Gumbs as the Daughter of Job, Fana Minea Tesfagiorgis or Amina Lydia Vargas as the Cynical, Martina Viadana as the Angry, and Terri Ayanna Wright as the Worried.

On a Wednesday morning, Boykin, evocatively gesticulating with her hands and smiling and laughing often, discussed transitioning from dancer to choreographer, making dance films, seeing Purlie Victorious on Broadway, avoiding ditches, and seeking radical love in this wide-ranging twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: You are in rehearsals for your Joyce show. Where are you right now?

hope boykin: I’m at the 92nd Street Y. I got here early because I was a fellow for the Center for Ballet and the Arts [at NYU] for 2022–23, and then they extended it through the academic year, then they extended it through the summer, but they have new fellows now. And so I will never take an office space and stairs down to the studio for granted again.

Now that I’m a New Yorker, I can say I was schlepping all of the cameras and the computers and the music, and so I found a corner here in the newly renovated Arnhold Dance Center. I give everybody a warmup at 10:15 before we get started. So I’m here early.

twi-ny: I’ve previously interviewed Matthew Rushing and Jamar Roberts, who are two other longtime Alvin Ailey dancers who became choreographers for Ailey while they were still dancing with the company. When you started at Ailey, did you anticipate becoming a choreographer in the way you have?

hb: I don’t think anything was in the way that I had; I definitely didn’t have that thought. I was always making work because at Philadanco!, Joan Myers Brown put into practice a summer event called Danco on Danco!, and so she allowed dancers in the company to choreograph on other dancers in the company, then in the second company, and there was also an evening that would showcase D/2, the second company. The concert was in a small theater. I mean, she gave us tech time and rehearsal so we could see our work on a stage.

That also happened at Ailey once I got there, but I feel like I was able to really create work there. And then I was also an adjunct professor and did choreography at University of the Arts. And so I was choreographing and then seeing things on stages there. But never would I have thought that I would wake up in the morning and say, This is what I do for a living. I mean, it’s a little bit wild. And then in this stage now, having the opportunity to do things under my own name — having commissions is incredible.

It’s not just satisfying because you’re able to travel, but you’re able to meet people and you’re challenged with different environments, you’re challenged with different artists, different genres of dance, and so that’s wonderful. But having your name on it, being responsible to make sure that everyone’s paid on time, having a physical therapy schedule, will that schedule work with the schedule that I made, it’s a different animal.

twi-ny: In some cases you’re choreographing on friends and colleagues you’ve worked with for years, and in other cases you’re working with completely new teams you’re not as familiar with. Is one harder than the other?

hb: That does get a little bit difficult.

twi-ny: You have to boss friends around sometimes.

hb: Well, yeah. You just have to remind them what you want and that as much as they know you and want the best for you, you may not have the answer for why you’re doing something right away, but they have to trust you. And they do. They ultimately do.

Sometimes, it’s funny; you still have to watch your words when they’re people who you love. I love to talk about the found family. And when you have people who are committed to you and they want the best for you, and they maybe think that their opinion’s going to help . . . what really helps above all is their support, not having to pretend or perform when you’re in front of people who don’t know you. You have to show up. You have to do the smiling thing. I mean, we always have to watch our words, especially now. I’m super conscious of how I speak to other artists, but I feel like I’ve always been conscious of that because of things I didn’t like. So I wanted to be one of those people who could tell you the truth and tell you no and tell you I don’t like that, let’s fix it.

twi-ny: Right. Tell them, “I still love you.”

hb: Exactly, “I still love you.” And so I feel that it’s easier for me. We were away during our technical residency in the Catskills, and I just had a yucky morning, and three of the women who I knew I could cry in front of and that they would pray with me did. We started late that day. I was weeping. I said, “I need some help.” They put their arms around me in a group, and then the day got started after that. It was just heavy times. But when you have people who’ve known you, they can also pick up some of the slack when you don’t feel a hundred percent; they fill in the rest.

twi-ny: In your PBS First Twenty episode Beauty Size & Color, you talk about “renegotiating and forcing a change of narrative,” which relates to something that comes up a lot in your work. You talk about finding your own path, that your path is different from someone else’s path. Are we on the right path as a society?

hb: Yes. It’s so interesting. Lately, especially because I’ve been applying for grants — I don’t mean foundational grants, I mean the creative grants — you are competing against hundreds of applications. You’re lucky if someone recognizes your name; maybe recognizing your name will move you forward, but maybe it also won’t. They’re really just trying to look at the topic. And if my topic of what I want to make is not radical enough, if it is not wild enough, if it is not socially piercing enough, if I’m not saying the words that people want to hear from a huge activist, I mean, I’m not saying that I’m not. I’m just saying if those words aren’t the words people want to hear, then it feels like I’m not in those rooms.

So I want to be clear about that. But it feels like you’re not chosen. And I think that love is the most radical thing we should work on. If we were radical with our love, we wouldn’t watch someone fall and then just look at them. We would pick them up. If we were more radical with our love, we would have compassion for those who didn’t have homes. If we were more radical with our love, we would not necessarily need to walk into a school with some sort of weapon. I’m going to tell you when it changed for me: There was a woman who looked fine. She did not look homeless. She was a young white woman, and she was walking in my neighborhood — I live in Harlem, but it’s gentrified. And then she pulled down her pants to take a wee.

And I said to myself, Excuse me, what are you doing? I didn’t judge; she looked perfectly fine. But at some point she was not able to walk into a place and say, May I use the bathroom?

twi-ny: Or someone said no.

hb: Or someone said no. I checked myself in the moment; instead of me saying, How dare you! I should have said, How could I help you? But please understand. I did not think that first; I thought that third or fourth after all of the other things. But if I were more radical with my love, maybe I would’ve said to her, How can I help you? Is there something I could do? I don’t know what her situation was.

twi-ny: Exactly. You don’t know.

hb: And so I want to speak about this love and trying to understand why I felt the lack and why I felt like I was in constant competition with things that I could not control. There are a lot of things I could control. So once again, let me be clear. I’m not trying to be a hypocrite, but if I’m in competition with you simply because you’re bald — I’m usually bald.

twi-ny: I know, I know.

hb: It’s a little bit long today.

twi-ny: Yeah, mine too. Mine too.

hb: But if that’s the case, I’m in the wrong business. I love to go into new studios and tell people, if it were about being tall and blond with a bun, I would not have been working for over twenty years. But I did. Which means that there is room for me; which means that there’s room for you. Now, it doesn’t feel like a lot of room at the time, but if I can make room, if my path is this wild and then I am able to do this, then that means someone else can come in and then they can, and then we can, and then they can. And then we can.

Even on Broadway right now. I went to see Purlie Victorious.

twi-ny: I saw it last night. Unbelievable.

hb: Unbelievable. I’m sure that they thought that the musical, Purlie, was going to be a better moneymaker. What’s the reasoning behind us not seeing that? Yes, the musical, yay, we’re not cutting it. Yay. We love a musical, song and dance. But that piece of art. That was written, what? More than sixty years ago?

twi-ny: Yes. And it felt like it could have been written yesterday. The friend I went with, she saw the musical with Cleavon Little and Patti Jo. She even brought her program from 1972, and she asked, Why is this a musical? Now that she’s seen the play, it’s like, wow.

hb: Yeah, I’m friends with [Purlie Victorious star] Leslie Odom Jr. And he was like, “You think Ms. Jamison wants to come?” I said, “Yeah.” So I called her and she said, “You mean Purlie? I said, No, I mean Purlie Victorious. She said, “Purlie.” I said, “No, Judy. The prequel.”

twi-ny: And to be that funny sixty years ago about this topic. We laughed our heads off while facing this truth.

hb: It’s unbelievable. All of that to say there is a radicalness that can change our view on what truth is. Do you know what I mean? And I’m not thinking in this log line; I call it my log line. It doesn’t really explain the work, but I say in this evening-length, fully scripted new dance theater work. It’s not new because I’m making something no one has ever seen. It’s new for me. It’s a new way for me to express myself. It’s a new way for me to make work that I feel deserves to be spoken about just because it’s my experience. And once again, here I am trying to broaden a path that I feel like other people just need to — I don’t want them to walk the way that I walk. I just want them to feel they’re given the ability to actually walk forward and not feel stunted.

twi-ny: Kara Young, who plays Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins [in Purlie Victorious], she’s like a dancer at times; she speaks volumes with her body even when not saying anything.

hb: She’s studied and trained in all the disciplines because you can’t move like that, I’m sure, without that agility and understanding. [ed. note: Young studied at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.] It’s not just being flexible; it’s about awareness. I don’t know all of her story, but I could say I can’t imagine that she didn’t. But I do know that Leslie studied at Danco. That’s where I met him when he was fifteen or sixteen years old. So I know he’s a mover. And his agility — that scene where he kept running back to the window, oh my God. Oh my. The timing. I was like, look at my friend. But anyway.

[ed. note: . . . an evening of HOPE opened with Deidre Rogan dancing to Odom’s rendition of “Ave Maria.”]

twi-ny: One of the things you say is your journey is yours, and your journey is yours. We’re not all on the same journey, even if we’re spending an hour and a half or two hours together in a safe space. Your recent work, first with . . . an evening of HOPE, a beautiful and fascinating thing to experience, and now with States of Hope, is very personal. It can’t get much more personal. You’ve taken this other meaning of your name — the work is very much about moving forward, evolving; hope is an essential theme. And now you’re baring your soul out there. Every choreographer and dancer puts themselves into it, but you’re putting Hope Boykin into it. Is that difficult to do?

hb: It is and it isn’t. Sometimes people are like, “Oh, it must be very healing.” And I was actually having to hear it every day. Getting it out was the part that was the healing part’ hearing other people voice these things has become something a little bit different. Matthew Rushing came to Bryant Park to see me perform a solo. The year before I was rained out; everyone was able to perform except for me. It started raining more. So then the next year, I was just going to do the same work, but no one was available. So I ended up dancing it; I did a recorded voiceover, and then I performed. He was like, “Wow, you really laid it out there. You all right?”

Because not only was it my voice, but you were watching me and hearing my voice. That was sort of the turning point for me. I had taken this memoir writing class during the pandemic here at the 92nd St. Y. And that was also another way that I understood that I could tell my story differently, that I could use prose as well as those poetic sounds. I call them my poetic moments. But I could speak. And I said, Well, what if I turned this around? I was acquainted with Mahogany L. Browne, and I was telling her I wanted to work on this project. And she was like, “Oh, sure, I can help you.” And so she’s called herself my script midwife, and she basically said, “Give me your text.” And she said, amongst other exercises and examinations, “How do you feel about this from this person’s perspective? Write this from your mother’s perspective.”

So then she is teaching me how to take a situation and bring it in together so that these perspectives can have a conversation. Then we named the people, and then the people got ideas. And then instead of them actually having names —because at first I thought they might have names; I just thought that we would hear their characteristic in their name. And she’s like, “Are you sure?” I’m like, “Yeah, I think this is the best way.” And then all of a sudden I was able to have one of them speak to the other. But that’s exactly what’s going on in my mind. Should I buy that purse? It’s pretty expensive. Well, did you pay the rent? Yes, I paid the rent. That’s the logical person. Well, did you buy groceries? Yeah, I bought groceries, dah, dah, dah. But you have that bag. You have another bag that looks just like that bag. So all of these ideas are floating around. Well, should you get it? Because if you just save that money, maybe you could put that money away. That’s the worry. You know what I mean? Maybe you could put that money someplace else. And then the Angry says, of course I buy the bag. I’m worth it. I want to buy it. And so all of these ideas — I’m not going to say people, but these states, these parts, these slivers of me are living together.

twi-ny: You’re talking about the Determined, the Conformist, the Cynical, the Convinced, the Angry, the Daughter of Job, and the Worried.

hb: And the Worried. Yes.

twi-ny: All parts of you and parts of other people in your life.

hb: Yes. Parts of me hearing other people. There are parts of me, but they also represent experiences that I’ve had. Matthew, when he was creating Odetta, he told the whole cast, “The turning point for me being able to make this piece was realizing that all of the people and all of my influences were inside of me, that they’re all an ingredient. And so there’s no point in trying to pretend that this doesn’t have some Ailey in it. It doesn’t have some Judy in it. It doesn’t have some [Ulysses] Dove.”

[ed. note: Boykin performed the “This Little Light of Mine” excerpt from Odetta for the December 2020 Ailey Forward Virtual Season.]

He said, “I’d be ridiculous to think that all of those influences weren’t coming out of me.” Because we’re always trying to do something brand new, right? But there’s nothing new under the sun. So we have to just know that all of those people are a part of me. So when my mother makes a statement to me, I make that statement to another person, who’s younger, because I learned that lesson. If I fall in the ditch — I’m from North Carolina; we had ditches. So if I fall in the ditch —

twi-ny: We have potholes here.

hb: Right? But if I can tell someone, “Hey, there’s a ditch about three feet from there, just go around it,” and they don’t listen, then they’re like, “Hope told me about that ditch.” It won’t be, “I didn’t know there was a ditch there.” And so all of those people have played a part of who those characters turn out to be and will be. It’s interesting, and it’s challenging, but I want to do it. I feel it’s important.

twi-ny: I’m looking at the seven characters, and I guess you’re the eighth.

hb: Oh, yeah.

twi-ny: All of us fit into every one of those characters. I was even thinking about the Book of Job the other day. So, in choosing the dancers, did you have ideas for who you wanted for each part? Did you have auditions, or did you say, Oh, I already know who’s going to be doing this and who’s doing that?

hb: There were a few people that I knew I wanted. There was all dance first. There were people who I know dance and then act; one of the dancers is on Broadway right now. Some of them have been in movies and television, but I’ve met most everyone through my relationship with the Ailey organization. Two of them are former students of mine from USC. So everything is dance first. And I let people know that we have to read and we have to act. And I let them know that I’ll help you do that. Not because I can, because I know people who can.

twi-ny: Well, that’s key.

hb: Yes, it’s key. Yes. And so a couple of the dancers had never read before. So I said, I want you to read this. And then I would say, “No, try reading it with this tone; here’s the back story for that person. Read it like this.” And then once the nerves are gone, and once they understood, all of a sudden the person who can physicalize pain without speaking can now speak pain and physicalize it at the same time, in my opinion, is probably going to be better than the person who has to learn to move. Because we do. We go onstage hungry, experiencing loss. I’ve danced directly after my father’s funeral. There’s just this thing. We are just experiencing things, but we don’t get to say it. So imagine if I can scream, “I’m still angry! I’m still angry!”

Hope Boykin will get personal in States of Hope at the Joyce (photo courtesy HopeBoykinDance)

Watching them do that is just amazing. The sweetness of Daughter of Job says, “Well, are you sure this is the way you want to move?” And then Cynical says, “Well, I don’t know.” So it wasn’t an audition per se, but some of them I needed to let them know, “I do need you to read this. I need to understand.” But I think it’s perfectly cast. I think there are challenges to everyone’s level. Another friend of mine said to me, “You realize that actors ask why. And dancers say okay.” So now I have to have these dancers ask me why all the time. And I’m like, “Can you just try it?”

twi-ny: At the Joyce, of all places. This is the big time for them, for all of you.

hb: It’s a big time for me. And I am excited and nervous, but it’s successful already because of the people in the room. It’s successful because they’ve already not just agreed but taken on the weight of this work in a way that is just — I’m just really blessed.

twi-ny: It’s got to be so gratifying for you.

hb: Yes.

twi-ny: You have said, “I’ve waited, sometimes patiently, for my turn, permission to be given. Who have I been waiting on and why? I can’t wait anymore.” What’s the next, as you call it, “hope thing” after the Joyce?

hb: I have some projects that are simmering, and they’re the ones that you can’t forget about, the ones you don’t need to write down, the ones that you are, like, Oh, I can see this happening.

You mentioned Beauty Size & Color. Three of the four cameras that were used to film that I own, the microphones are mine, the lights are mine. I mean, of course I had support from the spaces that we were in, but there’s something about being behind the camera that is so thrilling, because as a person who moves bodies in space, I see dance on film in a way that is scripted, much like what I’m working on right now with States of Hope.

So that’s just me dropping a little bit of some simmering plans, a scripted dance film that is moving while speaking. It’s not just moving instead of the word, but they’re working in tandem, which is why this States of Hope process feels difficult because everyone has to learn their lines, then you block them in the space. Or we work with choreography in the morning, and then I say, Oh, we’re going to do this choreography with this scene. And at first it’s like, Well, I can’t say that and do that. And then it’s like, Oh, okay, maybe I could say that and do that. Well, you know what? Then all of a sudden they’re literally moving and speaking at the same time. So the layers upon layers upon layers of trying to add to this presentation is what the challenge has been. But I’m happy right now. I don’t think it’ll be complete. I don’t think it’ll be finished by October 17. I think that I will still have to add and see things that I was like, Oh, I should have done that. But I have time.

twi-ny: So you’re still a little worried, who is one of the characters, and you’re happy, who is not. The happy person is not one of the people. But you’re not angry either.

hb: I’m not angry. [laughs] No, I’m not angry.

[Mark Rifkin, who wants you to have the best day ever, is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

JUDY CHICAGO IN CONVERSATION

Judy Chicago and Massimiliano Gioni will discuss artist’s career survey at New Museum on October 12 (photos by Donald Woodman; Christine Rivera)

Who: Judy Chicago, Massimiliano Gioni
What: Livestreamed talk
Where: New Museum YouTube page
When: Thursday, October 12, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: “Art history is a patriarchal paradigm, and my work challenges that entire paradigm,” Judy Chicago proclaims in a promotional video for her latest show, “Judy Chicago: Herstory.” On view October 12 through January 14 at the New Museum, this first career museum survey of the artist born Judith Sylvia Cohen in Chicago on July 20, 1939, features painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, textiles, photography, stained glass, needlework, and printmaking spread across three floors, one of which is dedicated to materials from more than eighty women artists (“City of Ladies”). To kick off the show, Chicago will be in conversation with New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni on October 12 at 6:30; the in-person event is at capacity, but the talk will be livestreamed for free on YouTube.

“Working with Massimiliano Gioni has been both a challenge and an absolute joy!” Chicago recently declared on Instagram. “He is one of the best curators I have ever worked with and I am looking forward to the first exhibition of my work that will provide an appropriate context, one that challenges the idea that art history is universal because it leaves out or marginalizes all the women artists upon whose shoulders we stand.”

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

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE

Three winged Mythology Sirens (Trio Limonāde) teach Zelma (Dagmara Dominczyk) old-fashioned ideas in My Love Affair with Marriage

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE (Signe Baumane, 2022)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
October 6-12
212-255-224
quadcinema.com
www.myloveaffairwithmarriagemovie.com

“I am a girl and I am weak,” seven-year-old Zelma (voiced by Dagmara Dominczyk) is taught in Signe Baumane’s wonderful animated feature, My Love Affair with Marriage.

In her 2014 debut, Rocks in My Pockets: A Crazy Quest for Sanity, the Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based filmmaker explored her family history of mental illness. In My Love Affair with Marriage, she follows the life of Zelma, from conception through childhood and the adult quest to find an identity.

Writer, director, animator, and designer Baumane combines hand-drawn animation, papier-mâché constructions, photographed backgrounds, and stop-motion animation to create a beguiling world that mixes reality with fantasy as Zelma goes through “Inception,” “Formation,” “Implementation,” and “Reconsideration.” Poignant scenes from her life — defending herself at school, moving to new countries, losing a friend, falling in love — are supplemented by songs performed by a Greek chorus of three winged Mythology Sirens (Trio Limonāde, consisting of Iluta Alsberga, Ieva Katkovska, and Kristine Pastare) who serenade her with old-fashioned notions about soul mates, virginity, sex appeal, shaming, weakness, and other concepts of life and romance. The heavenly music and songs are by Kristian Sensini, with lyrics by Baumane.

“It’s not a war / Not a tear / Not a wound / It’s the start of your monthly cycle,” the chorus tells Zelma. “You are on your way to becoming a woman / The worst is ahead of you / The world is full of traps set just for us women / Beware of everything / especially men / There are three simple rules for a woman to succeed in life / One: Be a virgin until you marry / Two: Choose and marry well / Three: Hold the marriage together whatever it takes.” Zelma responds, “But how about love?”

Zelma (Dagmara Dominczyk) is ogled by an older man on a train (Keith Randolph Smith) in My Love Affair with Marriage

As Zelma encounters new situations that she doesn’t understand, Baumane cuts to wildly inventive biology lessons animated by Yajun Shi in which an adorable smiling neuron (Michele Pawk) discusses fallopian tubes, the limbic system, major histocompatibility complex, the effects of oxytocin and dopamine, hormones, various parts of the brain, human microbiomes, and a bevy of scientific facts that impact how and why Zelma reacts to specific stimuli.

She is told early on that “ignorance is a girl’s bliss,” but she spends the film battling her biology and gender expectations to search out happiness and fulfillment, discovering that traditional ideas of subservience and marriage are not making her feel complete. Her relationships with such men as Bo (Matthew Modine), Sergei (Cameron Monaghan), and Jonas (Stephen Lang) bring her ever closer to who she is, but it is not going to be easy, especially as she still fights off the repression that was forced into her by growing up in the Soviet Union.

My Love Affair with Marriage is an engaging film that effectively turns stereotypical tropes inside out and upside down while avoiding becoming academic, moralistic, or didactic. Baumane uses different forms of animation for the personal, biological, political, and imaginary aspects of Zelma’s life, which helps maintain the fast pace of the 108-minute film. The entrancing visuals include works by Lasse Persson, Douglas Fitch, and Sandra Osip and art historical references, from Munch to Escher.

Dominczyk (Succession, The Lost Daughter) brings a childlike wonder to Zelma, while Tony winner Pawk (Crazy for You, Cabaret) is mesmerizing as Biology; if they ever make any kind of Biology collectible, count me in. Also in the voice cast are Erica Schroeder as Elita, Emma Kenney as Sarma, Clyde Baldo as Eduards the bully, Florencia Lozano as Zelma’s mother, Ruby Modine as Nina, Carolyn Baeumler as Darya, Christina Pumariega as Darya’s mother, Tracy Thorne and Laila Robins as emcees, Dale Soules as a Soviet official, and Michael Laurence as the Big Man.

But the focus is what’s happening in Zelma’s mind and body — which represents what’s going on in the viewer’s mind and body as well, regardless of gender. It might be an all-too-familiar story, but Baumane infuses it with a bold and intriguing freshness. Her depictions of kisses, coffins, clouds, and interior spaces are captivating, showing that life as a woman is no automatic fairy tale.

“To be a woman is dangerous and can be deadly,” Zelma, who turns into an animal when threatened, says. “I was so afraid to be a woman.” But that was once upon a time.

My Love Affair with Marriage opens October 6 at the Quad, with Baumane on hand for Q&As at the 2;30, 5:00, and 7:30 screenings every day through October 11.

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