Tag Archives: missy mazzoli

JODY OBERFELDER PROJECTS: AND THEN, NOW

And Then, Now leads guests through historic Green-Wood Cemetery (photo courtesy Jody Oberfelder Projects)

And Then, Now
Green-Wood Cemetery
Fifth Ave. and 25th St., Brooklyn
May 4-6, $30
www.jodyoberfelder.com
www.green-wood.com

“Are Americans always in a hurry?” dancer and choreographer Jody Oberfelder asked in a May 2022 diary entry published in The Dance Enthusiast.

She was writing about her site-specific piece Splash Dance, which took place in the pool in the John Madejski Garden at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, but she could have been referring to so much of her work.

Founded in New York City in 1988, Jody Oberfelder Projects has staged immersive, participatory, and/or site-specific performances in an officers house on Governors Island, at the since-demolished amphitheater in East River Park, on pedestrian bridges in Germany, and in the 6½ Ave. corridor in midtown Manhattan, among other locations around the United States and the globe. This weekend, Oberfelder will be in historic Green-Wood Cemetery for the world premiere of And Then, Now, a unique guided hike through the cemetery, which boasts spectacular vistas, lush green hills and giant trees, monk parakeets, and remarkable headstones, mausoleums, gates, and catacombs. Among the famous and infamous buried there are Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Charles Ebbets, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Lola Montez, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Horace Greeley. Comfortable footwear is strongly suggested; seating will not be available as everyone winds through the environs.

And Then, Now gives attendees the opportunity to slow down and contemplate as part of an intimate community. “Invite someone you’ve lost to walk with us,” one of the dancers offers.

“In this season of rebirth, amidst a challenging time for our collective humanity, we extend a heartfelt invitation to our neighbors to witness moments of exquisite artistry and profound reflection among the historic backdrop of Green-Wood Cemetery,” Oberfelder said in a statement. “Through dance, music, and dialogue, let us honor the enduring power of connection by bridging the gap between the echoes of the past and their tangible influence on our present lives.”

There will be four performances, including a special twilight show on May 6, for which flashlights are encouraged. The 105-minute immersive, performative walk will feature three dancers at a time (Maria Anton-Arters, Andi Farley Shimota, Michael Greenberg, Justin Lynch, and Oberfelder), with live music by the Glass Clouds Ensemble, consisting of violinist Raina Arnett, violist Noémie Chemali, and vocalist Marisa Karchin playing pieces by Henry Purcell, Missy Mazzoli, and others. The costumes are by Reid & Harriet, with sound by Sean Hagerty and dramaturgy by Rebekah Morin. Having seen many of Oberfelder’s works over the last twenty years, I can’t recommend And Then, Now highly enough, as she always delivers a special experience.

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

PEAK HD: FALLING & LOVING

PEAK HD kicks off with SITI Company and STREB Extreme Action’s Falling & Loving (photo courtesy PEAK Performances)

Who: SITI Company, STREB Extreme Action
What: Online premiere of dance-theater collaboration
Where: Peak HD
When: Sunday, October 11, free, 8:00
Why: In September 2019, SITI Company and STREB Extreme Action joined forces for Falling & Loving, an adaptation of love sonnets and plays by Charles L. Mee, who has written such works for SITI as bobrauschenbergamerica, Hotel Cassiopeia, Under Construction, and American Document. The piece, codirected by SITI’s Anne Bogart and STREB’s Elizabeth Streb at PEAK Performances’ Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University in New Jersey, featured six actors from SITI and six dancers from STREB, along with a Guck Machine providing color, humor, and danger. (SITI recently announced a legacy plan that will follow its thirtieth and final season, 2020-22.) The collaboration was Mee’s idea, bringing together Bogart’s Viewpoints and Suzuki Method and Streb’s PopAction technique. Falling & Loving will have its online premiere October 11 at 8:00, kicking off PEAK HD’s inaugural digital season, in conjunction with WNET’s All Arts.

“The obstacles we’re facing today are catastrophic and coated in painful loss, but this is not new for the performing arts,” PEAK executive director Jedediah Wheeler said in a statement. “The performing arts in America are filled with the most tough-minded, forward-thinking, get-it-done people I have ever experienced in the world. So PEAK HD comes as a celebration of the deep, purposeful, important creativity that exists not just in the U.S. but worldwide, and it’s an intense creative process with multiple experienced minds focused on it. The day we can open the Kasser’s doors to 465 people (and simultaneously capture these performances for broadcast) — that will be another celebration. But the doors that are open are the doors of our ideas. Everybody is welcome. All seats are available. There is no social distancing to the imagination.” The lineup continues November 8 with the Martha Graham Dance Company and the International Contemporary Ensemble’s Appalachian Spring and The Auditions from November 2019, December 13 with Gandini Juggling and Alexander Whitley’s Spring from December 2019, January 10 with Grand Band (Kate Moore’s Sensitive Spot, Julia Wolfe’s my lips from speaking, Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerrilla, and Three Fragile Systems by Missy Mazzoli with Joshua Frankel’s Emergent System and Faye Driscoll) from February 2020, and February 14 with the Richard Alston Dance Company’s Detour, Shine On, and Brahms Hungarian also from February 2020.

WINTER 2017 PERFORMANCE FESTIVALS

Bobbi Jene Smith and Keir GoGwilt team up for A STUDY ON EFFORT at Invisible Dog Center as part of COIL festival

The always exciting winter performance festival season gets under way right after New Year’s, with a slew of popular programs occurring all over town and in multiple boroughs. PS122’s COIL 2017 festival, the last under artistic director Vallejo Gantner, consists of fourteen events, with a dozen performances, a sewing bee, and the Red + White Party. The Public Theater’s fourteenth annual Under the Radar fest includes twenty-one programs, centering on experimental music, theater, and dance, along with postshow discussions and the Incoming festival within a festival. The NYC Winter Jazzfest will celebrate the centennial of Thelonius Monk’s birth while also concentrating on social justice. Focusing on “socially and aesthetically marginal and subversive artists tearing at the boundaries of form and wrestling with the realities of identity,” American Realness was founded in 2010 by Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor and Abrons Arts Center in 2010, directly modeled after the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival; the eighth annual event comprises more than two dozen performances, readings, workshops, discussions, installations, and a party. The fifth annual Prototype festival, which presents cutting-edge opera-theater and music-theater, hosts seven productions, an anniversary party, panel discussions and talkbacks, and the Out of Bounds series of free performances in public spaces. Below are a handful of recommendations for each of the above January festivals.

COIL
Multiple venues
January 3-22
www.ps122.org/coil-2017

January 3, 4-7, 10-15
CVRTAIN, by Yehuda Duenyas, immersive virtual reality experience, 151 Gallery, 132 West 18th St., $10

January 5-8
Custodians of Beauty, by Pavel Zuštiak/Palissimo, dance-theater piece exploring beauty, La MaMa, the Downstairs, 66 East Fourth St., $20

January 7-10
Basketball, by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith, dance exploring past shames, Howard Gilman Performance Space, Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th St., $20

January 8
Umyuangvigkaq: PS122 Long Table and Durational Sewing Bee, by Emily Johnson/Catalyst, featuring breakfast, “This Is Lenapehoking: Countering Perceived Invisibility,” “Indigenizing the Future: The Continuance of Aesthetic, Invention, Ceremony,” “My Dad Gives Blueberries to Caribou He Hunts: Indigenous Process and Research as Ceremony,” and “Radical Love: Indigenous Artists and Our Allies,” Ace Hotel New York, 20 West 29th St., free with advance RSVP, 11:30 am – 6:00 pm

January 12-14
A Study on Effort, by dancer and choreographer Bobbi Jene Smith in collaboration with violinist Keir GoGwilt, Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen St., $20

Tania El Khoury’s GARDENS SPEAK give voice back to dead Syrian activists and protesters (photo by Jesse Hunniford)

UNDER THE RADAR
Public Theater and other venues
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
January 4-15
publictheater.org

January 4, 6, 10
Erin Markey: Boner Killer, words and music by Erin Markey, directed by Ellie Heyman, starring Markey and Emily Bate, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, $25

January 6-9
Gardens Speak, interactive sound installation about ten deceased Syrian activists, by Tania El Khoury, NYU Tisch School of the Arts Abe Burrows Theatre, 721 Broadway, $25

January 9
Incoming! They, Themselves and Schmerm, written and performed by Becca Blackwell, directed and developed by Ellie Heyman, the Robert Moss Theater at Playwrights Downtown, 440 Lafayette St., $25, 5:00 & 8:30

January 11, 12, 14, 15
Latin Standards, written and performed by Marga Gomez, directed by David Schwizer, Martinson Hall, the Public Theater, $25

January 12-15
Time of Women by Belarus Free Theatre, about a trio of women (Maryia Sazonava as Iryna Khalip, Maryna Yurevich as Natalya Radina, Yana Rusakevich as Nasta Palazhanka) fighting for a free and democratic Belarus, written by Nicolai Khalezin and Natiala Kaliada and directed by Khalezin, NYU Tisch School of the Arts Shop Theatre, 721 Broadway, $25

NYC Winter Jazzfest will celebrate one hundredth birthday of Thelonius Monk (photo by William P. Gottlieb)

NYC WINTER JAZZFEST
Multiple venues
January 5-10
www.winterjazzfest.com

January 6, 7
NYC Winter Jazzfest Marathon, multiple venues, $45-$55 per day, $80-$90 for both

Sunday, January 8
Thelonious Monk Makes a Hundred, panel discussion, the New School, Fifth Floor Theater, 55 West Thirteenth St., 3:00

Thelonius Monk 100th Birthday Improv Show, with Kris Davis, David Virelles, Shabaka Hutchings, Sam Newsome, Marc Ribot, Charlie Burnham, Erik Friedlander, Linda Oh, Trevor Dunn, Hamid Drake, Andrew Cyrille, and Deva Mahal playing Solo Monk, Littlefield, 622 Degraw St., $20-$25, 8:00

Tuesday, January 10
Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra: A Concert for Social Justice, with special guest Geri Allen and arrangements by Carla Bley, Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., $30-$40, Social and Environmental Justice panel at 6:00, show at 8:00

Meg Stuart will present an evening of solo works at Abrons Arts Center as part of American Realness festival (photo by Giannina Urmeneta Ottiker)

Meg Stuart will present an evening of solo works as part of American Realness festival (photo by Giannina Urmeneta Ottiker)

AMERICAN REALNESS
Abrons Arts Center and other venues
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
January 5-12
americanrealness.com

January 5-7
An Evening of Solo Works by Meg Stuart, including XXX for Arlene and Colleagues and Signs of Affection, Abrons Arts Center, Playhouse, $20

January 6, 7
Étroits sont les Vaisseaux, by Kimberly Bartosik / daela, duet for Joanna Kotze and Lance Gries, inspired by Anselm Kiefer’s large-scale sculpture, Gibney Dance, Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway, $15

January 6, 7, 10
Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church (s), solo by Trajan Harrell, first work in series, Abrons Arts Center, Playhouse, $20

January 7, 8, 9, 10
Adult Documentary by Juliana F. May, piece for five dancers about trauma and form, Abrons Arts Center, Experimental Theater, $20

January 8
In the Works: Dance in Process Resident Artists & Guests, with performances by Melinda Ring, Anna Sperber, Michelle Boulé, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Gibney Dance Company, Antonio Ramos, Katie Workum, Bjorn Safsten, Yanira Castro, iele paloumpis, Gibney Dance Choreographic Center, 890 Broadway, free, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

FUNERAL DOOM SPIRITUAL will have its New York premiere at National Sawdust as part of Prototype festival (photo by M. Lamar)

PROTOTYPE
Multiple venues
January 5-15, $25 unless otherwise noted
www.prototypefestival.org

January 5
Out of Bounds: Amirtha Kidambi, inspired by Nina Simone’s performance at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, 60 Wall St. Atrium, free, 1:00

January 5-14
Mata Hari, composed by Matt Marks, directed and with libretto by Paul Peers, conducted by David Bloom, and starring Tina Mitchell, HERE, 145 Sixth Ave., $30

January 6
Out of Bounds: Leah Coloff, inspired by Patti Smith’s Kimberly and a set at CBGB’s, 60 Wall St. Atrium, free, 1:30

January 6, 7, 9
Breaking the Waves, New York City premiere of opera based on Lars Von Trier film, composed by Missy Mazzoli, directed by James Darrah, conducted by Julian Wachner, with libretto by Royce Vavrek, and starring Bess McNeill and Jan Nyman, NYU Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Pl., $30-$75, 7:30

January 13, 14
Funeral Doom Spiritual, multimedia concert by composers M. Lamar and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix and librettists Lamar and Tucker Culbertson, with Lamar on piano and vocals, string arrangements by Hunt-Hendrix, and additional arrangements by James Ilgenfritz & the Anagram Strings, National Sawdust, 80 North Sixth St., $30, 7:00 & 10:00

DE MATERIE

Heiner Goebbels’s multidisciplinary reimagining of Louis Andriessen’s DE MATERIE runs at the Park Avenue Armory March 22-30 (photo by Wonge Bergmann)

Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. between 66th & 67th Sts.
March 22–30, $85-$195
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s four-part magnum opus, De Materie, makes its North American stage debut this month at the Park Avenue Armory, in a wildly inventive production directed by Heiner Goebbels, whose Stifters Dinge had its U.S. premiere at the armory in December 2009. Andriessen’s visionary work weaves in dance, spoken text, choral singing, jazz, science, philosophy, poetry, Renaissance music, and more, with Goebbels adding, among other things, one hundred sheep. Among those being referenced in the piece, which explores the relationship between matter and spirit, are Madame Curie, Piet Mondrian, Hadewijch, David Gorlaeus, and the De Stijl art movement. The work will be performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), conducted by Peter Rundel, with the ChorWerk Ruhr, more than two dozen actors and dancers, and others; tenor Pascal Charbonneau is Gorlaeus, soprano Evgeniya Sotnikova is Hadewijch, and Catherine Milliken is Madame Curie. The stage and lighting design is by Klaus Grünberg, with costumes by Florence von Gerkan, sound by Norbert Ommer, and choreography by Florian Bilbao. “This highly imaginative collaboration asks us to appreciate the inherent connections between all manner of innovation throughout society — from the discovery of radioactivity to the creation of a work of art,” new Park Avenue Armory artistic director Pierre Audi said in a statement. In addition to the six performances, there will be four special programs to shed more light on this monumental undertaking. On March 23 at 8:00 ($60), Andriessen will team up with pianist Jason Moran for “Improvisations: Louis Andriessen and Jason Moran,” an exploration of how jazz is used in De Materie while discussing improvisation in general. On March 24 at 6:00 ($15), WNYC’s John Schaefer will host “De Materie: Matter & Spirit,” a conversation with Goebbels, Columbia music professor and musician and composer George E. Lewis, and composer Missy Mazzoli. On March 25 at 6:00 ($15), Schaefer will moderate “Four Different Ways: Celebrating Louis Andriessen,” with Bang on a Can cofounder Julia Wolfe, electronic experimental musician and composer Nathan Michel, and Princeton music professor Donnacha Dennehy. And finally, on March 26 at 6:00 ($15), Audi will lead an artist talk with Goebbels, Rundel, and Andriessen.

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.

ECSTATIC MUSIC FESTIVAL

Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center
129 West 67th St.
Monday, January 17, free, 2:00 – 9:00
Festival continues through March 12, $25 per concert, four-concert subscription $80
212-501-3330
www.ecstaticmusicfestival.com

Classical and pop combine in myriad ways during the Ecstatic Music Festival, which begins today with a seven-hour free marathon at Merkin Concert Hall, beginning at 2:00 and featuring performances by Buke and Gass with Victoire, Ne(x)tworks, Face the Music, So Percussion, the Chiara String Quartet, Missy Mazzoli, Gabriel Kahane, Hohn Matthias, NOW Ensemble, Julianna Barwick, Ashley Bathgate with Lisa Moore and Michael Gordon, Vicky Chow with Daniel Wohl, Nadia Sirota and Nico Muhly, and others. The festival continues January 19 with Chiara String Quartet, Nico Muhly, and Valgeir Sigurðsson, January 20 with So Percussion and Dan Deacon, January 22 with Craig Wedren, Jefferson Friedman, and ACME, January 30 with Alarm Will Sound and Face the Music, and February 19 with Roomful of Teeth with William Brittelle, Caleb Burhans, and Merrill Garbus before continuing into March.

VICTOIRE

Victoire will celebrate release of their debut CD at Joe’s Pub on October 2

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. between East Fourth St. & Astor Pl.
Saturday, October 2, $14, 7:30
212-967-7555
www.myspace.com/victoiremusic
www.joespub.com

Atmosphere is everything when it comes to Victoire, and what an atmosphere they create. Led by Brooklyn-based keyboardist and composer Missy Mazzoli, Victoire is a five-piece all-woman avant-garde chamber ensemble that tests the limit of classical music by incorporating elements from a myriad of genres, along with haunting vocal samples and pure noise. Mazzoli, violinist Olivia de Prato, clarinetist Eileen Mack, keyboardist Lorna Krier, and double bassist Eleonore Oppenheim have followed up their 2009 EP, A DOOR INTO THE DARK, with their debut full-length, CATHEDRAL CITY (New Amsterdam, September 2010), a stunning collection of eight forays into the unknown. Throwing in a hint of jazzy percussion in the title track, some German Expressionism with Irish tinges in “A Song for Mick Kelly” (featuring the National’s Bryce Dessner on guitar and soprano Mellissa Hughes on vocals paying tribute to the American peace activist) and more than a touch of Coldplay-esque piano in “A Door into the Dark,” Victoire glides along on a cloud of mystery. Things turn rather melancholy on “I am coming for my things,” while “India Whiskey” ends the record in an exciting blur of experimentalism. CATHEDRAL CITY is like a journey through the dark, daring world of the Brothers Quay. Victoire will be celebrating the release of the new record with a launch party at Joe’s Pub on October 2, promising that there will be “special secret guests.” The band will also be playing at the Brooklyn gallery Smack Mellon on November 4 at 7:00. (In addition, “Missy Mazzoli and Sarah Snider: A Night of Chamber Music” will take place October 5 at Galapagos in Brooklyn, featuring the New York premiere of Mazzoli’s “Death Valley Junction,” performed by the MIVOS Quartet.)