Tag Archives: howard gilman opera house

DANCEAFRICA: ONE AFRICA/MANY RHYTHMS

The inimitable Baba Chuck Davis will once again lead the BAM DanceAfrica celebration on Memorial Day Weekend (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
May 25-28, free – $50
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

For some people, it isn’t summer in New York City until the beaches and pools open, or half-day Fridays begin, or the free outdoor music series kick off all over town. For us, summer doesn’t get under way until BAM’s annual DanceAfrica returns, four days of dance, film, music, fashion, food, and one of the best street fairs of the year. The thirty-fifth annual cultural celebration starts in the Howard Gilman Opera House on May 25 with performances by the Adanfo Ensemble, Farafina Kan: The Sound of Africa, United African Dance Troupe, and the BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble. On Saturday, Adanfo and Restoration will be joined by the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre and the Oyu Oro Afro-Cuban Dance Company, on Sunday by Illstyle Peace Productions and Creative Outlet, and on Monday by Hamalali Wayunagu Garifuna and Asase Yaa. The inimitable Baba Chuck Davis will participate in an Iconic Artist Talk on May 27 at 6:00 with Kariamu Welsh in the Hillman Attic Studio. The Mason-Jam-Ja Band will play BAMcafé Live on Friday night at 10:00, while the Black Rock Coalition Orchestra Salute to Don Cornelius & Soul Train takes place on Saturday night, followed by a late-night dance party with DJ Idlemind. BAMcinématek will be screening such films as Fabio Caramaschi’s One Way, a Tuareg Journey, Zelalem Woldemariam Ezare’s Lezare (For Today), Abdelkrim Bahloul’s A Trip to Algiers, Akin Omotoso’s Man on Ground, Lionel Rogosin’s Come Back, Africa, Andy Amadi Okoroafor’s Relentless, Daniel Daniel Cattier’s 50 Years of Independence of Congo, Claus Wischmann & Martin Baer’s Kinshasa Symphony, and Michel Ocelot’s Tales of the Night, with Omotoso, Cattier, and Okoroafor on hand for Q&As. Through June 3, BAM will be hosting the exhibition “Waiting for the Queen,” highlighting works on paper by U.S.-based Nigerian artists Njideka Akunyili and Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, curated by Dexter Wimberly. And on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the DanceAfrica 2012 Bazaar will transform Ashland Pl. into a global marketplace rich with African and Caribbean cultural heritage, including great food, clothes, art, jewelry, books, music, and so much more. “Ago!” “Amée!!”

CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY

Brothers Bryce and Aaron Dessner have put together quite a multimedia festival at BAM (photo by David Kressler)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Bam Rose Cinemas, BAMcafe
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
May 3-5, $45
718-636-4100
www.crossingbrooklynferry.com
www.bam.org

In his poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” from Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman wrote, “Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! / Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! — stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! / Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! / Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! / Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public assembly!” BAM is now inviting Manhattanites — and everyone else — to once again dare to venture across the river for “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” a three-day film and music festival curated by Bryce and Aaron Dessner of the National. The festivities begin May 3 with live performances by the Walkmen, Sharon Van Etten, Twin Shadow, Jherek Bischoff, ZS, Callers, People Get Ready, yMusic, JACK Quartet, Heather Broderick, and Yellowbirds, with nine short films (which will be screened each night) by Poppy de Villeneuve & Missy Mazzoli; Jonas Mekas, Dalius Naujo, and friends; Michael Brown & Glenn Kotche; Bill Morrison & William Basinski; Justin Davis Anderson & Juan Comas; Tunde Adebimpe & Ohal Grietzer; Matthew Ritchie & Bryce Dessner; Su Friedrich; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt & wirrow. On May 4, the musical lineup features St. Vincent, the Antlers, Tyondai Braxton, Sō Percussion, Buke and Gase, Sinkane, Ava Luna, Missy Mazzoli and Victoire, NOW Ensemble, Hubble, and Nadia Sirota, followed by DJ sets by Chris Keating and Joakim. The May 5 show is sold out, but in case you can still score a ticket somehow, it includes Beirut, Atlas Sound, My Brightest Diamond + yMusic, Caveman, Oneohtrix Point Never, Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang, Skeletons, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Yehudim, Benjamin Lanz, and Thieving Irons, with late-night / early-morning DJ sets by Pat Mahoney and Nancy Whang.

BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY: HORA

Ohad Naharin and his Batsheva company reimagine traditional Israeli group dance in HORA (photo by Gadi Dagon)

Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
March 7-10, $20-$70
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.batsheva.co.il

For more than thirty years, Tel Aviv-based choreographer Ohad Naharin has been creating exciting, unpredictable works that push the limits of what contemporary dance can be. His unique movement language, known as Gaga, has been a centerpiece of the Batsheva Dance Company since 1990, when he was named artistic director. Works such as Deca Dance, Three, Minus 16, and Project 5 have dazzled audiences with their wild creativity and often humorous use of music. Naharin returns to BAM this week with Hora, an hour-long piece for eleven dancers that features lighting and stage design by Avi Yona Bueno, costumes by Anna Mirkin, and a vast array of classical music arranged and performed by Isao Tomita, including snippets of Mussorgsky, Strauss, Ives, Grieg, Wagner, Debussy, Sibelius, and John Williams. You never know what’s going to happen in Naharin’s work, which always makes it fresh and inviting. On Saturday, March 10, at 12 noon ($20), you can join in the fun by taking an open class with Batsheva dancers at BAM’s Hillman Attic Studio; we recently found ourselves onstage with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater going Gaga to their production of Minus 16, a thrill that still gives us chills every time we think of it, which is rather often.

Ohad Naharin’s HORA is a dazzlingly subtle, mesmerizingly beautiful dance (photo by Gadi Dagon)

Update: In a large rectangular room bathed in an intoxicating green light, eleven dancers sit on a long bench at the back. One at a time they get up and start moving slowly to an austere silence that eventually gives way to Ryoji Ikeda’s electronic drone music. Six women, wearing various black leotards, and five men, in white and gray shorts and T-shirts, often stay in place as they bend down, stretch toward the ceiling, and twist and turn. Soon Isao Tomita’s score takes over, playfully reconfigured versions of classical music familiarized in Hollywood movies, including Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” Wagner’s “Die Walküre: Ride of the Valkyries,” and even John Williams’s main theme from Star Wars. Over the course of sixty minutes, the dancers (including stand-out Iyar Elezra) perform Ohad Naharin’s movement-based nonlinear, nonnarrative choreography that shifts from controlled chaos to featured solos and duets while at other times feeling like the dancers are rehearsing their own roles all at once, seldom making physical contact. The Batsheva Dance Company’s Hora — which never evolves into the title’s traditional Jewish celebratory group dance — is a mesmerizing experience, a stunning balance of light, color, sound, and movement from one of the world’s most innovative and entertaining choreographers.

THE INFERNAL COMEDY: CONFESSIONS OF A SERIAL KILLER

John Malkovich plays a charming serial killer in THE INFERNAL COMEDY (photo by Nathalie Bauer)

BAM Next Wave Festival
Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
November 17-19, $35-$175
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.theinfernalcomedy.org

Having toured around the world for a year and a half, The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer ends its run with a four-show stand at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House as part of the Next Wave Festival this week. Conceived by conductor Martin Haselböck, actor John Malkovich, and writer-director Michael Sturminger, The Infernal Comedy is a stage play with Baroque music that stars Malkovich as real-life Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger, who spent fifteen years in prison for murdering a woman, wrote a bestselling autobiography (Purgatory) while behind bars, then became a cause célèbre in his home country, leading to his parole. Once back out on the street, he became a journalist, helped the police, wrote plays, and, well, he was a serial killer, after all, so…. The show’s conceit is that Unterweger has returned fifteen years after his death with a new book, which he is presenting to the audience in the form of a special event, a reading and discussion backed by the thirty-one-piece Orchester Wiener Akademie (conducted by Haselböck) and featuring a trio of elegantly dressed sopranos (Marie Arnet, Kirsten Blaise, Marlene Grimson) who sing arias by Mozart, Vivaldi, Gluck, Beethoven, Haydn, and others and pose as women from Unterweger’s life.

John Malkovich plays Jack Unterweger with devilish delight in THE INFERNAL COMEDY (photo by Nathalie Bauer)

Wearing white shoes, white slacks, a white jacket, and a dark shirt and sunglasses, Unterweger considers himself a ladies’ man, even walking into the audience to charm a few fans, asking them about their sex life. Women “have always been my determination, my world, my paradise, my desolation, and my fate,” he explains in his Austrian accent, later adding, “They can really make me lose my mind!” Searching for the truth, he also notes that a smile is a lie, and over the course of the evening, he smiles a lot. Despite being the star of the show, Unterweger is sometimes part of the audience as well, watching the supertitles as the women sing or bringing one of the sopranos a bouquet of flowers and a sacher torte. However, he also places a bra around their chests and simulates strangling them as everyone watches, not doing anything about it, much like what happened after he got out of prison. One of the most powerful moments occurs when one of the sopranos sings Vivaldi’s “Sposa son disprezzata” and Unterweger, who was just talking about his mother, who abandoned him, rests his head against the woman’s belly and reaches up to grab her breasts, a scene both titillating and frightening, getting right to the heart of Unterweger’s Madonna-whore complex. Malkovich is captivating as the smarmy, clearly deranged madman, embodying the role with extra relish. The music and singing are quite lovely; keep an eye on Haselböck, who often shares his feelings about what’s going on in front of him with simple and funny gestures. The Infernal Comedy is an intoxicating production from three talented men who are already in the midst of their next collaboration, The Giacomo Variations, in which Malkovich will star as Casanova, set to the music of Mozart.

NEW YORK COMEDY FESTIVAL

Comic mastermind Louis C.K. will be at the Beacon for this year’s New York Comedy Festival

November 9-13
Multiple venues, $30-$100
www.nycomedyfestival.com

Tickets for the New York Comedy Festival are now on sale, but they’re going fast, as it seems that Gothamites are in deep need of some relatively expensive laughs these days. Although some of the events are already sold out, keep checking, because good seats are often released closer to the show date. Wanda Sykes will play the Town Hall (11/10, $61.85-$74.30), Louis C.K. will be at the Beacon (11/10, 7:30 & 10:15, $47.25-$70.80), Russell Peters’s “Back on the Grind” is at Carolines on Broadway (11/10-13, sold out), Bill Burr’s “That’s What You Get” reveals how to get to Carnegie Hall (11/11, $30.50-$45.50), John Pinette’s “Still Hungry” will feed fans at the Town Hall (11/11, $46-$58.70), Tracy Morgan will offer folks “The Experience” at the Beacon (11/11, $52.35-$81.05), “An Evening with Bill Maher” takes place at the Beacon (11/12, $63.15-$103.05), Sarah Silverman & Friends will gather at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House (11/12, $36-$46), Kathy Griffin’s “Tired Hooker” will be soliciting at Carnegie Hall (11/12, $44-$80), the great and powerful Norm MacDonald brings his live show to the Town Hall (11/12, $44.95-$57.50), “A Conversation with Ricky Gervais” occurs at the 92nd St. Y (11/13, sold out), and Jo Koy’s Lights Out Tour brightens the Town Hall (11/13, $42.85-$49.10). Tickets might be more than you’re used to paying to see stand-up comedy, but at least there won’t be two-drink minimums at most of these shows.

DISTANT WORLDS: MUSIC FROM FINAL FANTASY

Final Fantasy multimedia concert experience comes to BAM April 1-2 (Final Fantasy XIV © 2010 Square Enix Co., Ltd. Final Fantasy is a registered trademark of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. All material used under license.)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
Friday, April 1, and Saturday April 2, $65-$175, 8:00
718-636-4100
www.ffdistantworlds.com
www.bam.org

Final Fantasy began as a role-playing video game in 1987 and has since expanded into manga, movies, television, and much more, emerging as an international phenomemon with a legion of dedicated fans. In addition to its amazing imagery using cutting-edge technology, Final Fantasy features symphonic scores composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who began making the music for the series shortly after accidentally bumping into creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. On April 1-2, Uematsu and conductor Arnie Roth will present “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy” at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, performed by the Distant Worlds Philharmonic Orchestra, the Riverside Choral Society, and various soloists, accompanied by a screen showing memorable images and videos from the games. The April 1 program includes FF VII: Prelude, FFVIII: Liberi Fatali, FFXI: Memoro de la Stono — Distant Worlds, FF VII: J-E-N-O-V-A, FF VIII: Fisherman’s Horizon, the American premiere of FF XIV: Answers, FFX: To Zanarkand, FFVI: Terra’s Theme, FFXII: Kiss Me Goodbye, FFV: Clash on the Big Bridge, FFVII: Opening — Bombing Mission, and FFVIII: Don’t Be Afraid, while April 2 consists of FF VII: Aerith’s Theme, FF V: Dear Friends, FF IX: Vamo’ alla Flamenco, FF VI: Opera “Maria and Draco,” FF IX: A Place to Call Home — Melodies of Life, FFX: To Zanarkand, FFVI: Terra’s Theme, FFXII: Kiss Me Goodbye, FFV: Clash on the Big Bridge, FFVII: Opening — Bombing Mission, and FFVIII: Don’t Be Afraid. “Distant Worlds” has been touring the world, delivering its multimedia concert experience to fans who can’t get enough of Final Fantasy and its depiction of the ultimate battle between good and evil. Tickets start at $65, but if you splurge for the $175 package you get to meet Uematsu and Roth and attend an autograph and photo session. (If you use code 13999, you’ll save $10 on all tickets.)

THRONE OF BLOOD

Cristofer Jean offers up some tempting and dangerous prophecies as the Forest Spirit in Ping Chong’s theatrical adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD (photo by Jenny Graham)

Next Wave Festival
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
November 10-13, $25-$60, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.osfashland.org

Commissioned by BAM in conjunction with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ping Chong’s THRONE OF BLOOD, adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 samurai reimagining of MACBETH, contains not a single line from the Bard’s tale of murderous ambition in Scotland. Kurosawa and his cowriters wrote the screenplay without referring to Shakespeare’s play, and Chong continues that tradition, working only from the movie script. Kevin Kenerly stars as Washizu, a warrior who quickly rises up the ranks after a mysterious meeting with a Forest Spirit (Cristofer Jean) who sees good things in his future, turning his wife, Lady Asaji (Ako), into a power-hungry villain. Chong incorporates elements of Noh, Kabuki, and Chinese opera into his production, which will be performed in English and features set design by Christopher Acebo, costumes by Stefani Mar, lighting by Darren McCroom, video and projections by Maya Ciarrocchi, and music and sound design by Todd Barton. The November 11 show will be preceded by an Artist Talk between Ping Chong and writer Ian Buruma at 6:00.

Lady Asaji has some dangerous ideas in Ping Chong’s theatrical adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD (photo by Jenny Graham)

(November 10 performance reviewed) Fans of Akira Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD are in for quite a treat with Ping Chong’s very entertaining theatrical adaptation, running at BAM through November 13. Chong, returning to the Next Wave Festival for the first time in fifteen years — he previously presented THE GAMES in 1984, THE ANGELS OF SWEDENBORG in 1986, and CHINOISERIE in 1995 — has interpreted Kurosawa’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s MACBETH for the stage, incorporating film, smoke effects, surround sound, and set changes that mimic the wipes Kurosawa favored. Set in feudal Japan, the story follows the swift rise of warriors Washizu (Kevin Kenerly) and Miki (Danforth Comins), as prophesied by an ancient white-haired spirit (Cristofer Jean) who inhabits the mysterious Spider Web Forest. When Washizu’s wife, Lady Asaji (Ako), hears about the prophecy, she hungers for the blood of everyone standing between her husband and the throne. Stefanni Mar’s costumes include wildly bizarre helmets and vestments that evoke the Star Wars films, while Maya Ciarrocchi’s projections are shown on a narrow horizontal screen that expands the stage, depicting the top of Spider Web Castle, the sky, or a pair of closed eyes ready to open at any moment. Ako delivers the show’s strongest performance, handling the Lady Macbeth role (sensationally played by Isuzu Yamada in the film) with finesse and just the right amount of evil, whether gliding ominously across the stage or standing in front of a Japanese screen dripping blood. Kenerly has the tough task of the Macbeth role so memorably played by Toshirō Mifune in the film and comes out relatively unscathed. However, many of the line readings by much of the cast leave something to be desired, with the actors too often hesitating at the wrong spots. (The production is primarily in English, with some Japanese, most of which is translated.) And Chong is a bit too worshipful of Kurosawa, including overt references in the dialogue to such films as STRAY DOG and THE LOWER DEPTHS that take the audience out of the play (which is, of course, the thing). But such are the ways of men. For those fans wondering how he pulls off the arrow-laden finale, Chong hits a bull’s-eye. Despite some silly, awkward moments, THRONE OF BLOOD is great fun, an adventurous evening of theater that will leave audiences craving more Akira Kurosawa — and more Ping Chong.