Faye Driscoll’s Thank You for Coming: Space concludes five-plus-year trilogy (photo by Maria Baranova)
LIVE ARTERY
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St.
January 8-11, $15-$30
Festival continues through January 15 newyorklivearts.org fayedriscoll.com
“I think I have always been interested in performance as a ritual of expression, protest, transformation, and basically one gigantic act of mirroring with the performers and audience,” Guggenheim Fellow and Bessie Award-winning choreographer Faye Driscoll explained in a March 2014 twi-ny talk. “I don’t buy this idea that in order to be socially engaged you have to adapt to a certain way of being; I think we are all socially engaged whether we like it or not — or maybe whether we choose to deal with it or not. . . . I am trying through my own formal and aesthetic experiments to expand my perception of this interconnection, and maybe others will feel that or maybe they won’t.” Others have felt that interconnection through her trilogy that began with Thank You for Coming: Attendance in March 2014 at Danspace and was followed by Thank You for Coming: Play in November 2016 at the BAM Fisher.
Driscoll concluded the three-part piece in April 2019 at Montclair State University’s Peak Performances with Thank You for Coming: Space. If you didn’t make it to Jersey, you can catch the work January 8-11 as part of New York Live Arts’ annual Live Artery series, held in conjunction with the APAP conference. Thank You for Coming: Space explores presence and absence, death and grief, taking place in an intimate kinetic installation where it’s just Driscoll and the audience. You do not need to have seen the earlier works in order to join the potent and poignant community that Driscoll creates onstage. Live Artery continues through January 15 with such other shows as Kimberly Bartosik/Daela’s through the mirror of their eyes, Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith’s Body Comes Apart, and Liana Conyers’s #ImFxckingFunny.
Sophia Petrides’s BREATHING WITH THE ROOM is part of New Ear Festival
Once upon a time, January was considered a relative artistic wasteland, as people suffered from a post-holidays letdown with a dearth of high-quality movies and Broadway shows opening up. But this century continues to fill that void with more and more cutting-edge, experimental, and offbeat music, dance, film, and theater at unique performance festivals around the city. You can catch cabaret at Pangea, opera at Prototype, dance at the 92nd St. Y and New York Live Arts, jazz at JazzFest, Irish theater at Origin’s 1st, avant-garde music and film at New Ear, and a little of everything at Under the Radar. Sadly, the last few years have seen the demise of COIL and American Realness. Below are only some of the highlights of this exciting time to try something that might be outside your comfort zone and take a chance on something new and different to kick off your 2020, especially with the majority of tickets going for about twenty-five bucks.
NEW EAR FESTIVAL
Fridman Gallery
287 Spring St. by Hudson St.
January 6–12, $20, 8:00 www.fridmangallery.com
Monday, January 6 CT::SWaM ExChange, with Ginny Benson, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Dani Dobkin, Bernd Klug, and a very special guest
Tuesday, January 7
Victoria Keddie exchanges transmissions from Copenhagen, improvised animations and sound by Theodore Darst and Kevin Carey, and a performance by Adelaide Damoah
Wednesday, January 8
Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of the Roots, with Zachary Tye Richardson, Vuyo Sotashe, Onyx Violins, and Brother Paul Daniels II
Thursday, January 9 Model Home, new commission by Brandon Lopez with TAK Ensemble, and Sa’dia Rehman
Friday, January 10
Susie Ibarra and Dreamtime Ensemble, Allard van Hoorn, and the Dream Mapping Project
Saturday, January 11
Violist Joanna Mattrey, percussionist William Hooker’s quartet, and Sophia Petrides
Sunday, January 12
DeForrest Brown Jr., Muyassar Kurdi and MV Carbon, and SHYBOI
UNDER THE RADAR
Public Theater and other venues
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
January 6–19 publictheater.org
January 6, 10, 12, 20 Daniel J. Watts’ The Jam: Only Child, with Daniel J. Watts and DJ Duggz, Joe’s Pub, $35
January 8–19 The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes, with Michael Chan, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, and Scott Price, LuEsther Hall, Public Theater, $30
January 10–19 Selina Thompson: salt., with Rochelle Rose, Martinson Hall, Public Theater, $30
January 11–19 The Truth Has Changed, by Josh Fox & International WOW Company, Newman Theater, Public Theater, $30
January 11 & 17 Waterboy and the Mighty World by the HawtPlates, Shiva Theater, Public Theater, $25
London Assurance is part of Origin’s 1st Irish Festival (photo by Carol Rosegg)
ORIGIN’S 1st IRISH FESTIVAL
Multiple venues
January 7 – February 3 www.origintheatre.org
Through January 26 London Assurance, by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre, $50-$70
January 7–18 The 8th, written and directed by Seanie Sugrue, the Secret Theatre, $20
January 22 – February 2 The Scourge, by Michelle Dooley Mahon, directed by Ben Barnes, starring Michelle Dooley Mahon, Irish Repertory Theatre, $50
January 26 – February 1 Appropriate, by Sarah-Jane Scott, directed by Paul Meade, starring Sarah-Jane Scott, New York Irish Center, $26
January 27–28 Round Room: An Open Studio, by Honor Molloy, directed by Britt Berke, music by Susan McKeown, with Labhaoise Magee, Brenda Meaney, Rachel Pickup, Maeve Price, Zoe Watkins, and Aoife Williamson, the Alchemical Studios, $16
Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith will present Body Comes Apart at New York Live Arts (photo by Maria Baranova)
LIVE ARTERY
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St.
January 8-14 newyorklivearts.org
Saturday, January 11 Kathy Westwater: Rambler, Worlds Worlds a Part, $10, 2:00 Kimberly Bartosik/Daela: Through the Mirror of Their Eyes, 5:00
Saturday, January 11, 9:00
Sunday, January 12, 12 noon Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith: Body Comes Apart, $15
January 12-14 Sean Dorsey: Boys in Trouble, $15
Monday, January 13 Yanira Castro/a canary torsi: Last Audience, free with RSVP, 4:0
James ‘Blood’ Ulmer will be at the Sultan Room on January 11
January 9, 12, 15–17 Blood Moon, by Ellen McLaughlin and composer Garrett Fisher, Baruch Performing Arts Center, $35-$75
January 11–17 Magdalene, chamber opera cocreated by performer Danielle Birrittella and director Zoe Aja Moore, with poetry by Marie Howe, HERE, $35-$75
January 10–11 Iron & Coal, rock opera by Jeremy Schonfeld, featuring Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Contemporaneous, MasterVoices, Rinde Eckert, and Daniel Rowan, Gerald W. Lynch Theater, $35-$75
January 14–15, 17–19 Ellen West, by poet Frank Bidart and composer Ricky Ian Gordon, Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center, $35-$75
January 15–18 Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro, by Gregory Maqoma, featuring Vuyani Dance Theatre, Joyce Theater, $10-$75
January 17–18 REV. 23, libretto by Cerise Lim Jacobs, composed by Julian Wachner, featuring Novus NY, Gerald W. Lynch Theater, $35-$75
Harkness Dance Center festival features Catherine Tharin, Kyle Marshall Choreography, and more
92Y HARKNESS DANCE CENTER ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE: ShAIRed SHOW AND MORE!
92nd St. Y
1395 Lexington Ave.
January 10-12, $15 in advance, $25 at the door www.92y.org
Friday, January 10 King by Kyle Marshall Choreography, through the mirror of their eyes by Kimberly Bartosik (work-in progress excerpt), Quarry by Ivy Baldwin Dance, Good Rhythm Wonderful Life by Kazunori Kumagai, noon
Sunday, January 12 Good Rhythm Wonderful Life by Kazunori Kumagai, 3:00 through the mirror of their eyes by Kimberly Bartosik (work-in progress excerpt), 4:0 Of you from here by Catherine Tharin, 4:45 Quarry by Ivy Baldwin Dance, 5:30 A.D. by Kyle Marshall Choreography, 6:15 DECADOSE (excerpts) by cullen+them, 7:15
Raquel Cion will perform Me and Mr. Jones: My Intimate Relationship with David Bowie at Pangea Winter Alt-Fest
WINTER ALT-FEST
Pangea NYC
178 Second Ave.
January 10–18 www.pangeanyc.com
Tuesday, January 7, 14, 21
Barbara Bleier & Austin Pendleton, Bits and Pieces, $20-$25 plus $20 food/beverage minimum, 7:00
Friday, January 10
Vicki Kristina Barcelona, the songs of Tom Waits, $15-$20 plus $20 food/beverage minimum, 7:00
Hannah Reimann: Both Sides Now: The Music of Joni Mitchell 1966 – 1974, $20-$25 plus $20 food/beverage minimum, 9:30
Thursday, January 16, 7:00, and Friday, January 17, 9:30
Raquel Cion: Me and Mr. Jones: My Intimate Relationship with David Bowie, $20-$25 plus $20 food/beverage minimum
Friday, January 17
Susanne Mack: Where I Belong, $20-$25 plus $20 food/beverage minimum, 7:00
Following its 2016 Manhattan Theater Club presentation, Sarah Jones’s Sell/Buy/Date is back in the city for an encore engagement at New York Live Arts. Below is an update of twi-ny’s original review, with relevant information added.
In 2006, British playwright and actress Sarah Jones won a Special Tony Award (and an earlier Obie) for her one-woman show Bridge and Tunnel, in which she played multiple characters, shining a light on New York City’s immigrant population. It took a decade, but she returned three years ago with her follow-up, another one-woman multiple-identity tour de force, Sell/Buy/Date, which revives some characters from her previous works while adding new ones; the production is now back by popular demand, running at New York Live Arts September 12-15 and 18-21. It’s late-twenty-first-century America, and Dr. Serene Campbell is teaching a class on the sex business, leading her students through a series of BERT modules, bio-empathetic resonant technology that dates back to 2017. Using this imaginary technology like oral histories, she tells her students, “We will be experiencing different bodies, different ages, what were then called ‘races’ or ‘ethnic groups,’ as you’ll remember from Unit One, and along the gender continuum, we’ll be encountering males as well as females — it was quite binary at that time. Remember, these are Personal History modules — the focus today is on feeling each person’s experience, so, before we begin, how many people have your emotional shunts engaged?”
She then proceeds to embody seventeen characters interviewed throughout the decades about the commercial sex trade, examining the reaction in the recent past to prostitution, pornography, and exotic dancing. “Chronologically advanced” Jewish bubbe Lorraine L. talks about trying to enhance her sexual relationship with her husband by searching for porn on the internet. Post–Valley Girl Bella, named after feminist activist Bella Abzug, is a “sex work studies major, minoring in social media with a concentration on notable YouTube memes” who cohosts “the biweekly pole-dancing party . . . called ‘Don’t Get All Pole-emical.” Jamaican No Fakin’ is a Caribbean prostitute at a sex workers rally who is carrying an unseen sign that says “No Justice, No Piece.” She defends what she does, noting, “You find me somebody who don’t hate some part of their job. There’s a lotta things I hate about doing this, but the money is not one of them.” And New York Domini-Rican Nereida angrily declares, “It just makes me so sick that we are all supposed to care about the same human rights, at least, that’s why we’re all here for this Feminist Plenary, but I mean, if one more of these so called ‘sex work advocates’ calls me anti-sex, I swear to god. I’m gonna be, like, first of all, I love sex. Sex is amazing. But what you are having is not sex.”
Dr. Campbell also calls up interviews of members of the male species as she walks around Dane Laffrey’s futuristic set, a spare, antiseptic classroom with a podium, a file cabinet, a floor sparsely outlined with lights, and a projection screen at the back. “Yes, of course men were having sex as well, but you’ll remember from the reading, what were male sluts called?” she asks the class. “Very good, they were called ‘men.’” Among the male characters in the show are frat boy and Grand Theft Auto fan Andrew “AV” Vanderbeek, Russian raunchpreneur Sergei Ledinov, Los Angeles pimp Cookie Chris (“Even with what I was doing, you know, exploiting women and whatnot, I had a rep for being real sweet about it”), and Native American comedian Gary (“I’m usually most popular on college campuses, whenever they wanna do their Diversity Day or Hey, We’re Not All White week”). But as much as the treatment of women and sex workers needs to change, not all change turns out to be progress.
Jones (The Foundation, Surface Transit), who was born in Baltimore and raised in Boston, DC, and Queens in a multiracial family, has created a fascinating future devoid of organized religion, bachelor parties, unpaid internships, personal security guards, violent video games, a livable New Jersey, and mobile phones, where people can travel freely between countries and there is no discrimination of any kind. “They did not believe one has an automatic right to live equally,” Dr. Campbell says about people from the past. It’s a potent point, especially given the vitriol present in this year’s lurid presidential election campaign. In researching Sell/Buy/Date, Jones met with sex workers around the world, visiting Sweden, Germany, Korea, India, Las Vegas, France, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, and the Dominican Republican, helping her create believable men and women who share a wide range of thoughts about commercial sex. She smartly captures the humanity in the industry, even if it is a bit lighthearted at times for such a serious topic, while Drama Desk–nominated director Carolyn Cantor (Fly by Night, Indian Summer) ably uses sound (by Bray Poor) and light (by Eric Southern) to smoothly transition between time periods. However, a subplot involving Dr. Campbell’s mother’s identity as a “survivor” feels like a forced tribute to those who have paved the way for gender equality. Jones, who once declared, “The revolution will not happen between these thighs” (the late Gil Scott-Heron was a family friend), gives a superb performance, instantly taking control of the audience; she has a natural confidence as a teacher that is intoxicating. Sell/Buy/Date offers a lively and timely look at a controversial subject that has continued to raise eyebrows throughout the centuries.
LIVE IDEAS 2019
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St.
May 8-12, $10-$20 newyorklivearts.org
New York Live Arts’ seventh annual Live Ideas humanities festival explores artificial intelligence with five days of art, dance, discussion, music, lectures, and more, asking the question “AI: Are You Brave Enough for the Brave New World?” Inaugurated in 2013, the festival previously focused on Dr. Oliver Sacks and James Baldwin; social, political, artistic, and environmental issues; a nonbinary future; and strengthening democracy. Among those participating in the 2019 edition are Bill T. Jones, Nick Hallett, Yuka C Honda, Scorpion Mouse, Kyle McDonald, Patricia Marx, and Eunsu Kang, delving into technological dreaming, coding, mental illness, drones, and the truth. Tickets for most events are between ten and twenty dollars; below are some of the highlights.
Wednesday, May 8 What Is AI?, keynote/performance with Nick Hallett, Meredith Broussard, Patricia Marx, Baba Israel, and Ragamuffin, $15, 6:00
Wednesday, May 8
through
Saturday, May 11 Rhizomatiks Research X ELEVENPLAY X Kyle McDonald: discrete figures, performed on stage designed for interactivity between performers, drones, and AI, $36-$45, 8:00
Thursday, May 9 Future of Work, panel discussion with Arun Sunderarajan, Matthew Putman, Carrie Gleason, Madeleine Clare Elish, and moderator Ritse Erumi, $20, 6:00
Rational Numbers: Music and AI, performance by Yuka C Honda and Angélica Negrón, $10, 9:00
Friday, May 10 Does Truth Need Defending?, panel discussion with Ambika Samarthya-Howard, Hilke Schellmann, Jeff Smith, and moderator Malika Saada Saar, $10, 6:00
Algorave: LiveCode.NYC, rave featuring AI experiments and live performances by Scorpion Mouse, CIBO + Ulysses Popple, Colonel Panix + nom de nom, ioxi + Zach Krall, and Codie, $10, 9:00
Rhizomatiks Research, ELEVENPLAY, and Kyle McDonald collaborate on interactive performance piece discrete figures (photo by Tomoya Takeshita )
Saturday, May 11 Symposium: AI x ART, including “Body, Movement, Language: AI Sketches” with Bill T. Jones, “Between Science & Speculation: Technological Dreaming” with Ani Liu, “AI in Performance: Making discrete figures” with Kyle McDonald, “Yes, AI CAN help you develop a new relationship with your audience” with Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford, “Livecoding Traversals through Sonic Spaces” with Jason Levine, “GANymedes: Art with AI” with Eunsu Kang, “Emergent Storytelling with Artificial Intelligence” with Rachel Ginsberg, and “Creating in the Age of AI” with Ani Liu, Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford, Eunsu Kang, Kyle McDonald, and Bill T. Jones, $15, 4:30
Sunday, May 12 Class: How to Question Technology, Or, What Would Neil Postman Say?, with Lance Strate, $15, 1:30
HACK-ART-THON: ACT LABS, “Breaking the Stigma Around Mental Illness,” prototype presentation, jury deliberation, and award ceremony, with Katy Gero & Anastasia Veron, Artyom Astafurov & Beth Graczyk, Jennifer Ding & Dominika Jezewska, Ishaan Jhaveri & Esther Manon Siddiquie, Keely Garfield & Cynthia Hua, Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang & Nia Laureano, Jared Katzman & Rachel Kunstadt, and Marco Berlot & Zeelie Brown, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Oskar Eustis and Bill T. Jones will talk about their roles as artistic directors on February 11 at NYLA
Who: Bill T. Jones and Oskar Eustis What:Bill Chats Where:New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves., 212-924-0077 When: Monday, February 11, $8-$10, 7:00 Why: New York Live Arts artistic director Bill T. Jones sits down with Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis for the next edition of his “Bill Chats” series, taking place February 11 at 7:00. Jones, an award-winning choreographer — among his many prizes are the Tony, the Obie, the 2013 National Medal of Arts, the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors, and the 1994 MacArthur Genius Award — and Eustis, who directed the controversial 2017 Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar that turned the Roman leader into Donald Trump, will discuss the current sociopolitical climate and how it impacts their decisions as artistic directors.
Jack Ferver collaborates with Reid Bartelme as well as James Whiteside, Lloyd Knight, and Garen Scribner in the world premiere of Everything Is Imaginable at New York Live Arts (photo by Jason Akira Somma)
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
January 7-12, $15-$35, 8:00 or 10:00
212-924-0077 americanrealness.com newyorklivearts.org
Jack Ferver’s Everything Is Imaginable returns this week to New York Live Arts as part of the multidisciplinary American Realness festival. Below is our review of the work’s world premiere in April 2018; don’t miss this second chance to catch this extraordinary piece.
A few weeks before the world premiere of Everything Is Imaginable, New York City treasure Jack Ferver tore his calf while preparing a piece for Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung at the Guggenheim. But leave it to the Wisconsin-born actor, writer, dancer, choreographer, teacher, and director to incorporate the injury into the narrative of the two-act, seventy-minute show. As the audience enters the theater at New York Live Arts, the curtain is down, a rarity at the venue, upping the growing sense of anticipation that accompanies every Ferver work. The curtain soon opens on Jeremy Jacob’s playful set, consisting of four white cardboard columns with drawings of leaves on them, along with a central cardboard chandelier hovering at the top of a screen in the back. It immediately immerses the crowd into the wonders of Ferver’s imagination while exposing the artifice behind staged productions in general. The first act features four queer men in sheer, butt-revealing outfits dancing solos inspired by their childhood memories and one major role model: American Ballet Theater principal James Whiteside, in a short, glittering dress of silver sequins, pays tribute to Judy Garland, dancing to Garland’s version of Cole Porter’s “I Happen to Like New York”; Martha Graham principal dancer Lloyd Knight honors Graham, moving to a recording of the legendary choreographer speaking about dance; dancer and actor Garen Scribner slides across the stage in socks and does spins like his hero, champion skater Brian Boitano, to the sound of ice skates being sharpened and gliding across the ice; and longtime Ferver collaborator Bartelme, a former ballet dancer and current costume designer (as part of Reid and Harriet Design, who made the costumes for the show), wears a long orange mane and dances with horse movements, since his idol is My Little Pony. Each solo combines humor with beautiful movement, taking advantage of each dancer’s strengths while adding the charm and whimsy that are mainstays of Ferver’s choreography. The four star turns are followed by a solo about sunglasses and then an ensemble piece danced to “club music,” including a Martha Graham–esque sexualized orgy that is uproariously funny.
After a ten-minute intermission (with the curtains closed), the second act begins with Ferver (Chambre,Night Light Bright Light) by himself onstage, standing over a miniature version of the set from the first act, evoking Stonehenge from This Is Spinal Tap. In a sheer bodysuit recalling Michelle Pfeiffer’s garb as Catwoman in Batman Returns, the compact Ferver towers over the tiny columns and chandelier, emphasizing his power as a creator while also poking fun at it. Ferver talks about his calf injury, explaining how that limited his ability to dance — his doctor advised him not to move forward, which is not part of his vocabulary, literally or figuratively — and forced him to reimagine the work, and discusses his difficult childhood, friendless and bullied for his overt homosexuality; growing up gay is a regular theme in his oeuvre. As always, his stage persona is that of a devilish cherub, wild and wacky one moment, making the audience roll around their seats with laughter, and then deadly serious the next, raising disturbing elements from his life that may or may not be true, causing everyone to reconsider their reactions. He’s joined by Bartelme, who looks lovely in a fringe dress, and the two dance together to heartbreaking effect while Ferver, soldiering on despite his injury, goes on to describe his process of writing a memoir, which took place alone, terrified, in a strange house, in the dark. Ferver is no longer friendless or alone, as evidenced not only by the crowd response to the supremely personal show but by the long line of well-wishers who waited to hug and congratulate him for giving them yet another unique, meaningful, and vastly entertaining experience, shining a light on his life, and ours, as only he can.
Jack Ferver’s Everything Is Imaginable was one of the best shows of 2018 (photo by Maria Baranova)
AMERICAN REALNESS
Abrons Arts Center and other venues
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
January 4-13 americanrealness.com
Since 2010, Abrons Arts Center has presented American Realness, a multidisciplinary festival of dance, music, theater, discourse, literature, and more. The 2019 lineup features a stellar lineup of creators, including Marjani Forté-Saunders, Jack Ferver, nora chipaumire, Reggie Wilson, Julian F. May, Miguel Gutierrez, Gillian Walsh, and the Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble staging works across four boroughs, at such venues as Performance Space New York, the Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, La MaMa, and Gibney. Below are only some of the highlights.
Moon Fate Sin, by Gillian Walsh, location and ticketing TBD, January 4-6
100% Pop / Shebeen Remix, by nora chipaumire, Jack, January 4-6 and 10-12, $25
Everything Is Imaginable, by Jack Ferver, New York Live Arts, January 7-12, $15-$25
The Bridge Called My Ass, by Miguel Gutierrez, Chocolate Factory Theater, January 8-19, $20
Folk Incest, by Juliana F. May, Abrons Arts Center, January 9-12, $21
