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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013 BAM Blog Awards


The Nesquik bunny takes on the Apollonian Greek chorus in Alexandre Singh's The Humans


It wouldn't be a proper year's end at BAM without acknowledging, in award form, the onstage moments that gave us pause, wowed us completely, or reminded us that yes, sometimes what theater calls for is a flatulent Nesquik bunny that rules one half of the post-lapsarian universe. Without further ado, we present the 2013 BAM Blog Awards.

Best performance of a Gnarls Barkley song within an Ibsen play:
The actors in Thomas Ostermeier's An Enemy of the People

Best filmed portrait of an overlooked Nova Scotian island:
We Have An Anchor

Best fall from grace by a statuesque Greek chorus:
The Humans

Best big-band tribute to a boxing star:
The Sweet Science Suite, a tribute to Muhammad Ali

Best cryptic use of text from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
A Piece of Work (runner up: Sider)

Best performance by a piece of furniture in a lead role:
The table in The Table (runner up: the piano in Dark Theater)

Best performance by a dancer wearing a film projector:
Vicky Shick (Trisha Brown Dance Company) in Homemade 

Best use of a B.B. King sample by an Egyptian rapper:
El Deeb's "Masrah Deeb," performed in Mic Check: Hip-Hop from North Africa and the Middle East

Best enigmatic use of cardboard:
Sider 

Best accompaniment to a series of Rube Goldberg contraptions:
Goldberg’s Variations

Best circular breathing technique by a flutist in a dance piece:
Flutist in Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Cesena

Best onstage kneading of bread while speaking gibberish:
Not What Happened

Best evocation of post-coital languor by 25 naked men:
Powder Her Face

Best extremely elaborate metallic headdresses:
The Legend of Apsara Mera (runner up: And then, one thousand years of peace)

Best performance by a four-legged creature or two:
The sheep in And then, one thousand years of peace (runner up: the German Shepherd in An Enemy of the People

Best performance by a piece of clothing in a supporting role:
The suit in Peter Brook’s The Suit

Best use of magenta- and periwinkle-colored lasers in tribute to heavenly bodies:
Planetarium

Best use of moving walls to evoke varied psychological states:
David et Jonathas

Pinkest production:

Anna Nicole

Monday, December 23, 2013

BAMcinématek's Best of 2013

As at most film institutions, the tradition of the best-of-the-year list is alive and well at BAMcinématek, and this year we have a whole lot to celebrate. Our version of every cinephile's favorite parlor game does away with the usual listological parameters, so below you'll find us expressing a loose, free-floating love for the moving image with shout-outs to everything from repertory favorites and new releases to GIFs, TV, and Beyoncé's visual album. Enjoy!


Gabriele Caroti, Director
  1. Model Shop, Jacques Demy (Film Forum). I only rent convertibles—sorry, cabriolets—when I visit LA, and this movie is precisely why.
  2. Saxondale. I can’t believe I went eight years without watching this and I am thankful that this was the year. Steve Coogan plays an ex-70s arena rock roadie that runs a small pest control operation in an mid-size English town. He also goes to an anger management group and drives a muscle car. A TV show that aired for two seasons—and a mere 12 episodes.
  3. Without You I’m Nothing, John Boskovich (BAMcinématek). Sandra Bernhard’s one-woman show put on film in 1989—hilarious, moving, complex, difficult, probing, weird, of its time (yet timeless!), and most of all, badass.
  4. Computer Chess, Andrew Bujalski (BAMcinemaFest). I know everyone talks about the cinematography, but whoever production- designed this should get a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy.
  5. We Are The Best, Lukas Moodysson. 12-year-old pro riot grrrls in Sweden. Need I say more?
  6. Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach. I resisted seeing this film for whatever reason and it really struck a chord with me when I did. I think it was a G diminished 7th.
  7. Robert Palmer’s “Looking For Clues” video. Just watch it straight through and try to argue that 80s designer drugs didn’t go into making this—seriously. Also, this aired on MTV’s first day of broadcasting.

  8. Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, Richard Pryor (BAMcinématek). The most self-lacerating and frank autobiopic I’ve ever seen (and the only film Richard Pryor directed).
  9. The Night of the Following Day, Hubert Cornfield (92 Y Tribeca). The title sequence is outta sight—and the movie ain’t so bad either. Why this film is not more well known is… understandable, actually. Thank you, Nic ‘n’ Nick.
  10. The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer. I wanted to take a 10-day-long shower after seeing this. And this is coming from someone who takes long showers!
***



Andrew Chan, Marketing Coordinator
  1. Before Midnight, Richard Linklater. Makes most films about the trials of long-term grown-up relationships from the past decade or so (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Blue Valentine) look like child's play. It's hard to think of another contemporary romance that balances the equally legitimate desires, resentments, and anxieties of its characters with as much grace and lightness of tone. And I love the perversity of setting a film against a gorgeous Greek backdrop, then holing it up for its climactic 20 minutes in a drab hotel room.
  2. Museum Hours, Jem Cohen. With the influence of John Berger and Bruegel among its guiding lights, this little masterpiece is an uncommonly sensitive act of observation that finds an unlikely intersection between melodrama, art criticism, and travelogue. Cohen's richly textured mix of DV and 16mm deserves to be seen on the big screen.
  3. Stray Dogs, Tsai Ming-liang. This movie haunts my dreams. While most fans are enraptured by the agonizingly long final shot, my personal favorite occurs near the beginning of the film and features Lee Kang-sheng clutching a real-estate advertisement at a traffic median in the middle of a rainstorm, bitterly singing in classical Chinese as his nose drips with snot. Heavy, heady stuff, Stray Dogs is Tsai's most intensely moving work since What Time Is It There? more than a decade ago.

Friday, December 20, 2013

2013 Winter Reading List


An image from Ed Piskor's Hip-Hop Family Tree

You probably already have a lot to read this holiday season: at least three day’s worth of critic’s top 10 lists, weird holiday kale recipes, instructions for assembling your nephew’s new toy (which, let's be honest, isn't half as cool as Legos). But for those cherished moments of idle time, during which your thoughts, we hope, will drift towards BAM, you’ll need something more substantial on hand. Enjoy this list of books, each related in some way to one of our upcoming Winter/Spring productions.



A Lover's Discourse: Fragments | By Roland Barthes
Recommended for: Jeffrey Eugenides / Eat, Drink & Be Literary
A major inspiration for novelist Jeffrey Eugenides, who comes to BAM in February as part of Eat, Drink & Be Literary, Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse is the most seductive and hilarious entry point imaginable into the often impenetrable world of French theory. Arranged as a chain of fragmentary musings on the most ridiculous totems, symbols, and gestures of unrequited love, this slim volume breaks down the melodrama of amour fou so methodically, you hardly know whether to laugh or cry. In prose that somehow manages to attack its subject with surgical precision while also mimicking the intoxicated illogic of infatuation, Barthes accomplishes a feat unprecedented in semiotic theory before or since: allowing the reader to stand both inside and outside a complex web of human emotion. —Andrew Chan


Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Danil Kharms
Translated by Matvei Yankelevich | Recommended for: The Old Woman
On February 2, 1942, in the psych ward of a Soviet hospital, Russian writer Daniil Kharms died of hunger. Had he concealed his belief (and others like it) that one could hide one’s thoughts simply by wearing a hat, he might have never been confined there. But such was the eccentric mind of this recently rediscovered master of the absurd. Kharm’s writings are dark, quizzical, and often hysterical, typically lasting no longer than a page. Pushkin trips over Gogol, men forget whether or not seven or eight comes first, and old women die inconveniently while losing their dentures. Experience the latter as interpreted for the stage by Robert Wilson, Willem Dafoe, and Mikhail Baryshnikov in The Old Woman, at BAM this June.  —Robert Wood


My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey 
By Jill Bolte Taylor | Recommended for: Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
Taylor, a brain researcher at Harvard, used her own recovery from a massive stroke as fodder for her research, and offers up her findings in this popular memoir (and equally popular TEDtalk ). Filled with lines like“My spirit soared free like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria” (which choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, inspired by Taylor’s text,  actually has his dancers speak in the work Orbo Novo), the book can verge on Dr. Feelgood. But all in all it’s a fascinating firsthand look at the two ways your one brain processes information: linear judgements and future worries on the left, here-and-now revelations and instinctive responses on the right.  —Jessica Goldschmidt


Hip Hop Family Tree | Ed Piskor
Recommended for: Poetry 2014: Birth of a Hip-Hop Nation
Ed Piskor’s Hip-Hop Family Tree, crammed with vignettes featuring the founders and luminaries from the world of rap, is a detailed comic-book history of one of the most popular genres in the world. Piskor’s graphic style is classic—the layout and coloring are like old-school newsprint—and his clarity and detail make the book rich and readable when it could be overwhelming. He puts his story in a precise socio-political context while offering funny anecdotes about how rappers and DJs teamed up, as well as hilarious caricatures of icons like Russell Simmons, diligently spelling out the latter’s lisp in cartoon bubbles as he records “the firtht gold rekkid in hip hop hithtory” with Kurtis Blow. —Nate Gelgud

"Christian Rizzo In Conversation with John Jasperse"
Recommended for: Lyon Opera Ballet
Two choreographers walk into a bar and...actually, they sit down and talk. Christian Rizzo, who choreographed the work ni fleurs, ni ford-mustang, to be performed by Lyon Opera Ballet at BAM in May, chats with fellow choreographer John Jasperse (Canyon, BAM 2011) in this interview for the website Movement Research. Rizzo is a French native known for working in visual art and fashion as well as dance, and here we learn about his views on art history (it goes much further back than Cunningham and Rauschenberg), about how there might be more talking about dance than actually doing it, and more. —Susan Yung


My Autobiography | By Charlie Chaplin
Recommended for: Charlie's Kid
Charlie Chaplin’s 1954 autobiography, recently reissued as a handsome paperback by Neversink, makes an excellent companion piece to the BAMkids production Charlie’s Kid, coming up in May. The book is a thick account of the screen icon’s life, but it moves quickly, powered forward by Chaplin’s crisp, humorous, self-aware way with words. In Bosley Crowther’s New York Times review of the book upon its original publication, the critic maintained that Chaplin wasn’t entirely truthful, so who knows if the funny and surprising anecdotes that pack the book actually happened. The important thing is that Chaplin tells his stories well, and readers get to spend enjoyable time with Chaplin the artist, not just the on-screen Tramp. —Nate Gelgud

The Interestings | By Meg Wolitzer
Recommended for: Meg Wolitzer / Eat, Drink & Be Literary
The title of this bestselling novel refers to sibling friends of protagonist Jules, among a group of lifelong pals who meet at an idyllic summer camp, which later morphs into a darker iteration of the rural. Jules struggles to define her modest, undistinguished life as successful and fulfilling by societal norms, despite being the emotional anchor of her clique. Wolitzer explores the lasting bonds, and occasional devil's bargain, of close relationships, as well as infatuation, fate, and the seduction of wealth. She comes to BAM in May as part of the Eat, Drink & Be Literary series. —Susan Yung

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Film
By Raoul Walsh | Recommended for: BAMcinématek's Walsh/Scorsese series
This March, BAMcinématek presents a week-long series charting the influence of still-underappreciated classic Hollywood auteur Raoul Walsh on Martin Scorsese. One of the most ardently cinephilic of American directors, Scorsese has spent the last few decades as a leader in championing and preserving film culture. Walsh’s lavishly illustrated, lovingly annotated 1997 book A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies—a companion to his sprawling TV documentary of the same name—is a testament to his encyclopedic knowledge of the art form, filled with passionate and sometimes idiosyncratic readings of everyone from Kubrick and Fuller to lesser-known directors Ida Lupino and Edger G. Ulmer. —Andrew Chan



Thursday, December 19, 2013

The Producers Council, and Fisher Award, Celebrations

The night of December 10th was an evening of recognition at BAM, celebrating both the opening night of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the great patrons who make such a show possible.

Producers Council patrons sit down to dinner after the show. Photo by Beowulf Sheehan
The Producers Council Celebration is an annual event in which BAM gives something back to the members of one of our most important patron programs. In an attempt to combat the snow outside, the night began with hot cocktails in the lobby of the Harvey Theater before the doors opened. Then came the show: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a stage adaptation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem. Leaving no line left un-rhymed, the great film and stage actress—and BAM vet—Fiona Shaw stars as the suffering mariner, lost at sea, and without a crew.

The Producers Council members weren’t the only ones being honored that night. Minutes after Shaw took her final bow, she climbed onstage once again, this time in a slightly different capacity. BAM President Karen Hopkins presented Shaw with the 2013 Richard B. Fisher Next Wave Award, represented by an artist-designed walking stick, for her artistic accomplishments, continued excellence, and commitment to the institution. 

Fiona Shaw accepts the Fisher Award. Photo by Elena Olivo.
After the awards ceremony, it was off to dinner at the Leperq Space, where all sat at tables awash with shells and sea-themed centerpieces. Among the crowd were a few notable names, including Shaw herself, show co-star Daniel Hay-Gordon, and set designer Chloe Obolensky, who received shout-outs throughout the night for her design not only of Rime, but of BAM’s first show in the Harvey: iconic BAM artist Peter Brook's legendary staging of The Mahabharata. Obolensky literally set the stage for the high quality of theater that has taken place in the Harvey’s brief but dense history. 

Daniel Hay-Gordon at dinner after the show. Photo by Elena Olivo.
From the first Hot Toddy in the Harvey, to last plate laid in front of a patron, the night was a huge success. BAM would like to thank Fleurs Bella for the décor, Elena Olivo and Beowolf Sheehan for their photography, and, most importantly, the members of the Producers Council for their continued support of the institution.

Take a look at the full gallery of photos from the night here and here.

Friday, December 13, 2013

A Crowd-Sourced Rime



Ladies and gentlemen, there are master orators in our midst.

In conjunction with Fiona Shaw's performance of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic tale of supernatural misadventures on the high seas, we put out an open call for readings of a particularly juicy part of the poem, and you answered. Brilliantly.

Submissions rolled in from Malaysia, Antarctica, and Wales, Santa Fe, Portland, and Harlem. Reading styles were just as diverse, tapping into everything from the stentorian to the whispered to the shouted-vigorously-across-the kitchen.

Hear a handful of the voices in our edited version of the poem (above), stitched together from selected readings and animated by our brilliant in-house team. Or browse through and listen to the individual submissions here on Soundcloud.

Don't forget that Tony Award nominee Fiona Shaw, who undoubtedly has the reading of readings, will be inhabiting Coleridge's woebegone sailor until December 22 at the BAM Harvey Theater.

Merce Cunningham for Camera

By Rhea Daniels

Courtesy of EAI


"The use of camera has extended the sense of what dance can be, how movement behaves, and further how we see it. The two media do not compete. Each abides in its own territory.”
—Merce Cunningham

The psychological preoccupations of choreographer Merce Cunningham were not evident in his dances for the stage. In his collaborations for film, however, we can do a bit of hacking into the mind of Merce. At their essence experimental and non-narrative, Cunningham and filmmaker Charles Atlas choreograph the movement of dancers and images that inspired future multimedia artists. Through the dance of camera and human body, a potential filament of narrative could be pieced together. Often in a Cunningham work for stage, though beautiful and incredibly artful, the concept of “What was Merce thinking?” does not even play a part in the experience.

Merce was famous among other things for “chance dance.” Elements of the dance came together through procedures like the roll of dice, for example. In Cunningham for film, we can imagine a different kind of inspiration that is less about chance process. Are those particular scenes of dance and art smashed together just by chance? Watching these films, I wondered, “Is he trying to tell us something that is not just about movement? The locations—a highway, a beach, then suddenly a dance studio, a dimly lit hallway, provide a peek into the larger context of the worlds in which Merce may have envisioned his dances. Whatever storytelling that may emerge is Merce-y in style: delightfully obtuse.

Courtesy of EAI

The Cunningham works for the camera may cleave the closest to Merce’s vision as time goes on. Now that Cunningham and his company are no longer with us, even skilled artists staging faithful reconstructions of Cunningham’s work won’t be able to capture all that Merce intended. And any dancer who has tried to learn a dance from archival video can probably express the frustrating experience of, say, when the dancer they were studying moves out of frame, or an unnecessary close-up on a random body part. The films Merce by Merce by Paik (1978) and Channels/Inserts (1982) are seminal experiments in dance for camera. Everything we see is what the artists wanted us to see at the angle and in the space we are supposed to see it. The filmic transitions cleverly capture the non-sequitors that often characterize Merce’s movement style. Seeing it on film it all makes even more sense. The “meta” experience of Merce by Merce by Paik is dance film strange and wonderful—Merce himself dancing in and seemingly on top of the film, at times. The film is an unconventional work of semi-biography; it’s possibly the most unadulterated Merce we have today.

Co-presented by Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), Merce by Merce by Paik and Channels/Inserts screen as part of Migrating Forms on Sunday, December 15 at 2pm. The screening will be followed by a discussion with artist Charles Atlas and Rebecca Cleman of EAI.

[Corrected December 17, 2013]

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Meet a Friend of BAM: Shelley


This month in Meet a Friend, we become acquainted with Shelley, a Prospect Heights local and, it turns out, a whiz with obscure dessert metaphors.

Member since: November 2012

Where are you from? What neighborhood do you live in now?
I grew up in Louisiana, moved around the US and abroad, and now live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

If you had to describe BAM to someone who had never heard of us using only metaphors that involve dessert, what would you say?
If reality TV is like a candy bar (and don't get me wrong, I enjoy a candy bar from time to time and almost anything on HGTV) then BAM is like a mixed berry pie. There's a variety in there, but every bite is both indulgent AND good for you. And when you're a member, the pie basically pays for itself (or makes itself)? It's as if BAM becomes your grandmother. The one that makes you put down your phone and engage with the world and then serves you pie to help you cope with the new things you've learned. Thanks, BAMma.

If the world was ending and you could only save one Iconic BAM Artist, who would it be and why? 
Reggie Wilson [whose Moses(es) was at the BAM Harvey last week]. I hardly have to think about it. I saw him perform in his show A Revisitation earlier this year at New York Live Arts and was mesmerized. I feel confident he could tell a creation story to build a new world I'd want to live in.

How far would you travel to see a show or film you really loved? What show/film would it be?
If I could travel back in time, I'd see the live 1977 performance of The Nutcracker with Baryshnikov. I watched the video on repeat as a little girl and if I could see it live, the dream would come alive for me as it does for Clara in the story.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Rime—Casting Nets and Spells

by Stan Schwartz

 Daniel Hay-Gordon and Fiona Shaw. Photo: Robert Hubert Smith
“I’ve found in the last 20 years of performing poems, audiences still love the direct connection of the unmediated human voice. I’m not sure if anything actually will ever match that as being the primary theatrical experience.”

The speaker is famed Irish actor/director Fiona Shaw, and although her voice was indeed mediated by the trans-Atlantic phone system, it still came through loud, clear, and with charm in a recent conversation from London where she was busy directing Benjamin Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia. True, Shaw has recently been directing opera, but she is still mostly known as the superb film and stage actor who, in addition to playing in classical theater (BAM audiences will recall her in the 2011 John Gabriel Borkman), has also made a side business of performing epic poems on stage. In 1996, Shaw wowed New Yorkers with her mesmerizing interpretation of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, and she returns to the BAM Harvey December 10—22 with her performance of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic 18th-century poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The production is directed by Phyllida Lloyd.

Coleridge’s poem concerns the tale of the titular and tortured mariner who kills an albatross which has guided his ship lost at sea, and the strange, supernatural events which ensue as a result: Death claims his entire crew but the mariner is condemned to continue living a life of haunted guilt, hence the proverbial albatross around his neck. The poem features a curious framework in which the mariner has stopped a guest on the way to a wedding and has forced him to listen to his tale. But that is only one of the poem’s many oddities, all open to multiple interpretations. One thing is indisputable however, and that is the poem’s visceral and hallucinatory qualities, rendering it ripe for theatrical adaptation. And there’s no doubt that Coleridge’s rhythms of repeated rhymes give the work an incantatory quality.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

In Context: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


Photo: Fiona Shaw, courtesy of Phyllida Lloyd

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner runs at BAM through December 22. Context is everything, so get even closer to Coleridge's famous ill-fated ocean voyage, the amazing Fiona Shaw, and more with this curated selection of articles, videos, and original blog pieces related to the show. For those of you who've already seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.


Monday, December 9, 2013

Are You As Smart As a High Schooler? Rime edition

by Jessica Goldschmidt


Remember close reading? Thematic analysis? The difference between simile and metaphor?

Sure you do.

In preparation for this week's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (unofficially the first-ever poem in the English Romantic canon, for those of you taking notes), we invite you to pit wits with school kids and see where you fall. Below are a few sample questions from our Rime study guide, which we offer free to every class attending the performance at BAM (the complete and beautifully designed guide is available here).

English majors and Rime ticket holders, it's time to cram. And see how you fare with this sampling of questions. "Fear not, fear not thou Wedding Guest ... "

BAM Blog Questionnaire: Tere O'Connor

by Rhea Daniels



Tere O’Connor has been a major influencer on the American dance scene since the 1980s. He continuously finds inventive ways of creating and presenting work. Next week his company performs the last dance work of the Next Wave Festival with BLEED, the culmination of a two-year endeavor that collapses three of his dance works—Secret Mary, poem, and Sister—to form a new choreographic language. Tere took the time to answer a few Next Wave questions as the company prepares for its debut in the Fishman Space.

What is it about your works Secret Mary, poem, and Sister that made you want to blend and explore their themes in BLEED?

I don't look at "themes" necessarily in my work. I am interested in the specific ways that information accrues in a dance or through a series of dances, constantly blending and braiding potential readings. What rings through from memory as a dance continues? What lasts? How does what one expected to happen in the early parts of a dance hold up at the end? These ideas apply from dance to dance as well. In BLEED I am creating a situation where I can ruminate about this area of choreographic poetics and value it.

Which artist do you admire from a field other than your own?
Pier Paolo Pasolini (one of many).

What's the biggest risk you've taken?
Becoming a choreographer who works with a movement-centered practice in a non-commercial vein. For some reason, dance is perplexing for many, many people. But for me it is an escape from pragmatism, materialism, and a need that some of my fellow humans maintain—to believe there is an order to things. It is a risk because a choreographer who works with abstraction as a generative force needs to walk a fine line between explaining the work against a barrage of misunderstanding or letting the work be and hoping audiences will understand that dance might have other objectives beyond the explanatory.

Friday, December 6, 2013

ABT—Off Center: Nutcracker Memories

Kenneth Easter and Justin Souriau-Levine. Photo: Gene Schiavone
Giant gingerbread cookies? Skiing rats? It’s all part of a dancer’s annual Nutcracker ritual. Here, four Nutcracker veterans share some of their fondest and funniest memories.

Rachel Moore, ABT CEO
During the mid-1980s, American Ballet Theatre performed The Nutcracker at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for three weeks each December. On New Year’s Eve, ABT dancers would take “liberties” with the choreography, with the idea that it would be a “Nutty Nutcracker.” One year, when I was a member of the corps de ballet and in the Snow Scene, Larry Pech, a member of the corps playing the role of one the Rats, made a special appearance. Dressed in his rat costume, Larry donned a pair of roller skates and ski poles, and went gliding through the snow scene, dodging us “Snowflakes.” It was a moment to remember!

Fiona Shaw Reads Eliot, Yeats, and Patti Smith

by Robert Wood


For those of you who think that poetry is better read than heard, or that our age is too cynical for public recitations of rhymed verse, or that those who feel differently must sleep in a beret and with a copy of Ginberg’s “Howl” under their pillow, we offer you… Fiona Shaw, coming to BAM next week to perform Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ("Water, water, everywhere," etc.).

Fans of Harry Potter will know her as the irascible Aunt Petunia Dursley. Fans of searching for meaning in a godless world will know her as Winnie, the woman buried up to her neck in mud from Beckett’s Happy Days (BAM 2008 Winter/Spring Season). All should know her as one of the most commanding actors they're likely to see on a New York stage.

Here, get to know her as sufferer of the cruelest month in Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” the laboring lover-poet in Yeats’ “Adam’s Curse,” the heartbroken wailer of Patti Smith’s “Wilderness,” and the celestial dreamer in Yeat's "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”

1. “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot



Monday, December 2, 2013

Introducing the BAM + NADA Portfolio

by Jessica Goldschmidt

In 1987, BAM began commissioning artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Barbara Kruger to create limited-edition benefit prints. Now, we’re creating a benefit portfolio for the 21st century in collaboration with NADA—New Art Dealers Alliance—which is most definitely not nothing. It’s something. It’s a big deal, actually.

NADA was founded in 2002 as an alternative, nonprofit collective of contemporary art professionals. Together, BAMart—the visual art component of our organization—and NADA commissioned 12 of today’s most exciting visual artists to create a limited-edition print portfolio to benefit both organizations.

The portfolio itself is a work of art, housing prints in a variety of media in a beautiful archival linen folder. Check out the website to learn more about the project and the artists (in alphabetical order): Joshua Abelow, Sascha Braunig, Sarah Crowner, Alex Da Corte, Michael DeLucia, Christian Holstad, Zak Kitnick, Margaret Lee, Sam Moyer, Ulrike Müller, Zak Prekop, and Michael Williams.

To offer a glimpse into the process of these up-and-coming artists, we asked two of the portfolio’s participants (Zak Prekop and Sascha Braunig) to introduce themselves and their work to the BAM community. They graciously complied: