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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

In Context: Shakespeare's Sonnets




Shakespeare's Sonnets, created by Robert Wilson and Rufus Wainwright, runs at BAM from October 7—12. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of original blog pieces, articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

In Context: Not I, Footfalls, Rockaby


Samuel Beckett's Not I, Footfalls, and Rockaby run at BAM from October 7—12. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of original blog pieces, articles, interviews, and videos related to the artists. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Queering the Scandal in Shakespeare’s Sonnets

by Ryan Tracy

Photo: Lucie Jansch


Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
—William Shakespeare, Sonnet 4
Shakespeare’s sonnets have occasioned at least two “scandals.” The first has to do with the purported realization that two thirds of the sonnets are thought to be addressed to a young man. The second scandal appears to lie in the sheer raunchiness and adulterous innuendo of the sonnets that are attributed to a female subject, often referred to as “The Dark Lady.” Much scholarship has added scandals to these two (the scandal of the latter poems’ unabashed misogyny being an important one). While some scholars have succeeded in broadening our contemporary view of the sonnets and their scandalous past, there remain many open questions about the genders represented by and addressed in the sonnets, as well as the erotic relations that exist between speaker and his or her subjects of adoration.

One of the things at stake in debates about the gender and sexuality represented in the sonnets is the availability (or unavailability) of certain literary interpretations which consequently affect the stories we can tell with them today. Too many of the scandalous narratives surrounding the sonnets aim to reduce them to a single, anodyne Man-Loves-Woman narrative. That may sound like an age-old story, but deeper inquiry into the history of sexuality shows us that the erotic narratives told by Shakespeare and enjoyed by Elizabethans were complex, various, and triggered by different sets of values not easily translated to contemporary notions of heroic heterosexual romance.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Justin Peck on Murder Ballades

Murder Ballades. Photo: Laurent Phillippe


L.A. Dance Project brings to the Next Wave Festival repertory by three exciting choreographers who have been in the news lately. Benjamin Millepied, ex-New York City Ballet principal, founded LADP in 2012. He has established a reputation for creating challenging dances in the classical vocabulary while working with unexpected collaborators. He is also the next artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet, which recently premiered a critically acclaimed ballet by Millepied. His work Reflections, with music by David Lang and visuals by Barbara Kruger, comes to BAM Oct 16 to 18.

William Forsythe, an artist well known to BAM audiences for his daring theatrical and movement experimentation, recently announced his upcoming retirement from The Forsythe Company, based in Germany, and will join the University of Southern California as a dance professor in 2015, teaching choreographic process and composition. LADP will dance Quintett—a profoundly moving work to Gavin Bryar’s haunting music, which Forsythe’s previous company, Ballett Frankfurt, performed in the 2001 Next Wave Festival.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

In Context: QUANTUM


QUANTUM runs at BAM from October 2—4. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of original blog pieces, articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

In Context: Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature


Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature runs at BAM from October 1—4. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of original blog pieces, articles, interviews, and videos related to the artists. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

BAM Blog Questionnaire: Joanne Howard, set designer for Alan Smithee

The set's floor in process. Photo: Joanne Howard
Big Dance Theater is known for its engrossing productions that shapeshift between dance and theater, but a constant among its shows is the presence of memorable set designs. Joanne Howard has been designing sets for many Big Dance Theater productions including Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature, coming up at the BAM Harvey Theater from Sep 30—Oct 4. The busy designer shared a few thoughts in a BAM Blog Questionnaire.

You are a close collaborator of Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar. How did you meet?
Annie-B and I were introduced through a mutual friend. I needed a roommate and she needed a room.
 
What are your some of your favorite props from Alan Smithee?
It's a toss up between the fur coats and the telephones.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Laurie Anderson—Storyteller

Laurie Anderson wrote Landfall for Kronos Quartet (Harvey Theater, Sep 23—27), drawing on experiences from Hurricane Sandy. Projected text is triggered electronically, compounding the stories.

Anderson is one of the first Next Wave artists, bringing her epic
United States: Parts I—IV to BAM in 1983, before the series became a festival. Prior to Landfall, 10 BAM performances featured her unforgettable sui generis music-theater, or involved her music. The following is a sidebar which was included in BAM: The Complete Works, an overview of BAM's history.

Laurie Anderson in Delusion, 2010. Photo: Rahav Segev
by Don Shewey

Anytime someone in contemporary culture wants to peer into the future, they usually try to engage Laurie Anderson to serve as consciousness scout. She’s a visionary who can be relied upon to bring curiosity, humor, and intelligence to the question “What’s next?” whether the subject is art, media, technology, spirituality, outer space, the political climate, or the new millennium. She’s a dauntless pioneer who surfs the edge between the known and unknown with a visual artist’s eye, a linguist’s ear, and a storyteller’s tongue, wearing her signature spiky haircut and soft, spangly slippers. She has put a friendly face on the sometimes-forbidding phenomenon we call avant-garde art.

A university-trained sculptor and art historian from a large, affluent suburban Chicago family, Anderson emerged from the fertile, cross-pollinated art garden that was 1970s SoHo to become the world’s first performance-artist-as-pop-star, thanks to “O Superman,” the unlikely hit song from her 1980 performance United States Part II. Its “ha-ha-ha-ha” sampled voice tape-loop has joined the pop pantheon of famous riffs alongside the buzzing guitar of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” or the opening notes of “Billie Jean.” And the accompanying video, album, and concert tours—including the complete four-part United States, unveiled at BAM in 1983 in the second season of the Next Wave series, the first of Anderson’s many appearances at BAM—created a new form of pop performance collage in which DIY graphics, images, electronic sounds, movement, and spoken word could be infinitely recombined, paving the way for innovative art-music-video practitioners from the early days of MTV to innovative contemporary rock-theatrical performers such as Björk and Lady Gaga.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

In Context: Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters



Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters come to BAM September 27 as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM. Context is everything, so get even closer to Plant and band with this curated selection of articles, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Friday, September 19, 2014

BAM Blog Questionnaire: Liubo Borissov of Landfall

Landfall. Photo: Marc Allan


Landfall, inspired by the experience of Hurricane Sandy, was written by Laurie Anderson for Kronos Quartet. Liubo Borissov programmed the software Erst used in Landfall—dense projected texts are triggered musically, lapping and overlapping as Anderson spins stories. Landfall is at the BAM Harvey Theater, Sep 23—27, part of Nonesuch Records at BAM. Borissov was kind enough to participate in a BAM Blog Questionnaire.

How did you meet Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet?
Laurie and I first met a few years ago when she was looking for some ideas redesigning her live performance setup into a more compact and streamlined system. In one of our sessions the collaboration with Kronos came up before anyone knew it was going to become Landfall.

What is unique about the software you have designed for Landfall? 
Typically software design has utilitarian connotations of a general tool with some practical functionality, e.g. a word processor, which is not really what I do. Instead, code is more of a means of expression, and the piece of software that is the result is much closer to a custom-built musical instrument or an open-ended score that one has to learn how to play. In that sense almost everything about it is unique because it serves the purpose of bringing a specific idea to life and is part of the work of art.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

In Context: Caetano Veloso



Brazilian songwriting legend Caetano Veloso performs at BAM September 25—26 as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM. Context is everything, so get even closer to the run with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

In Context: Rokia Traoré


Rokia Traoré performs at BAM on September 24. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the artist. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

NOTE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Toumani Diabaté and Sidiki Diabaté will no longer be participating in this performance.

In Context: ABACUS




ABACUS comes to BAM from September 24—27. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Kronos Quartet's Unlikely Collaborations

Kronos Quartet, photo by Jay Blakesburg

Few string quartets can claim to have been around for over 40 years, small changes in personnel aside. But fewer still—we'll go out on a limb and say precisely zero, aside from Kronos Quartet—can boast of having commissioned over 800 new works and collaborated with so many artists outside of the classical and new-music purview. Maybe no one told Nine Inch Nails, the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks, Tom Waits, Noam Chomsky, or even Kronos itself that the string quartet was born out of the princely courts of 18th-century Austria and not the postmodern schizophrenia of the shuffle mode. But whatever the reason for their open-minded audaciousness, we're grateful for it.

Add Natalie Merchant, Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, and Rhiannon Giddens (September 20), as well as Laurie Anderson (September 23—27) to the list, all of whom are coming to BAM with Kronos as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM. For a little context, here are 10 other Kronos collaborations that have turned preconceived notions of their genre inside out.

In the Wake of Joyce: Five Questions for the President of the James Joyce Society

Editor Danis Rose's personal copy of Finnegans Wake.



Finnegans Wake is likely James Joyce’s most experimental text, boasting a trippy, dream-like narrative and plenty of idiosyncratic language. According to Joyce scholars, it's also best experienced when read aloud. For her show riverrun, (Sep 17—20) actress Olwen Fouéré obliges, transforming the Wake's final book into into a riveting, “life-changing” (The Telegraph) one-woman performance.

To help make sense of both the book and Fouéré's brilliant adaptation, we asked A. Nicholas Fargnoli, president of the James Joyce Society, to answer a few questions.


Give us Finnegans Wake in a nutshell.

Finnegans Wake is one of the most innovative works in all of literature. Published in 1939, the Wake is a masterpiece that culminates a literary output marked by an extraordinary experimental narrative style and artistic techniques that defy classification. With a language simulating the nocturnal world of dreams, the Wake’s nonlinear universe is unconstrained by spatial and temporal limits. One of the characteristics of Finnegans Wake is the dramatic interplay of voice that freely moves in and out of narrative fluidity and that uniquely lends itself to theatrical performance.      


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

In Context: Tweedy


Tweedy comes to BAM September 23. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, and videos related to the artists. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

In Context: Landfall


Landfall comes to BAM from September 23—27. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Borderline Personality: An Interview with Paul Abacus

Photo of Paul Abacus, courtesy of Steve Gunther

















Paul Abacus is a Japan-based international presenter of ideas, and has become well known for his perspective on the workings of contemporary persuasion, particularly the presentation format itself. A disciple of polymath Buckminster Fuller, Abacus is a leader of the movement to dissolve national borders. His live presentation ABACUS was last seen at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and will be at BAM from September 24—27.

We asked Abacus to sit down with us for an interview. He sent us this instead.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

In Context: Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Rhiannon Giddens, Sam Amidon and Olivia Chaney



Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Rhiannon Giddens, Sam Amidon, and Olivia Chaney come to BAM on September 20. Context is everything, so get even closer to the artists with this curated selection of articles, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Friday, September 12, 2014

In Context: Devendra Banhart, Stephin Merritt & Iron and Wine


Devendra Banhart, Stephin Merritt, and Iron and Wine come to BAM September 19. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the artists. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

A Disturbance of Dramaturgy: Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature

by Annie-B Parson

Photo: Mike van Sleen
Annie-B Parson (co-director, Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature, BAM Harvey Theater, Sep 30—Oct 4) founded Big Dance Theater in 1991 with Molly Hickok and Paul Lazar. She has choreographed and co-created more than 20 works for the company, ranging from pure dance pieces, to adaptations of plays and literature, to original works combining wildly disparate materials. Outside of the company, Parson has created choreography for David Byrne's Here Lies Love and St. Vincent's 2014 world tour. Parson discusses the origins of Big Dance Theater’s latest work.



1. Threes:
The plan was to make a triptych, three discrete parts, not overlapping. The sources: three film scripts, three decades, three countries: Terms of Endearment, Dr. Zhivago, Le Cercle Rouge. The piece would be about acting, performance, and about film and film styles, ranging from intimate to epic, each expressive of its own time and place.

2. This Against That:
Not all events and histories speak directly to each other. Juxtaposition, a this against that, is an artificial phenomenon born of both chance and synchronicity. A peeling poster in the subway station that reveals the corner of the previous image sets the discarded voice against the new one, sometimes in comment, sometimes in an inexplicable harmony, sometimes with no affect. How and why these chance elements speak to each other is one of luck, craft, and the muscle of an awake viewer. But oddly, some histories that happen out of context, space, and time seem to inexplicably agree to mutual contemplation.

3. Maybe and Because:
Putin’s Romanov-esque power grab... Cold War feelings re-emerging in the US... Russian literature looming large over our literary psyche... the Russians' sweeping contemplations framing our solipsistic ones... maybe for all these reasons, setting an intimate, suburban 1970’s family drama from a mid-20th-century moment of American history when we were allowed—we demanded—to think only of our comfortable lives... setting this against a mid-20th-century sprawling novel that brilliantly shows how the Russian Revolution dismembered Russian psyches and lives... and then, further and stranger, exploring the too-neat and romanticized English film of this novel made years later, utterly out of sync with the brutal reality the original novel in the best sense messily and muscularly depicts... and maybe then intercutting these sources with the brilliant “staging” of Melville’s classic film, Le Cercle Rouge—its existence validated simply by its craft and artistry... Maybe these various sources were destined to gather into a river of over-abundant materials that reached and pulled at the other materials. But truly, we didn't plan on over-running the riverbanks. It just started happening one day in rehearsal. We don't even remember the moment.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

In Context: Carolina Chocolate Drops



Old-time string band Carolina Chocolate Drops come to BAM on Thursday, September 18. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the artists. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

It’s Relative: The Familial Ties of Nonesuch Records

By Allison Kadin

Jeff and Spencer Tweedy. 


This month we are celebrating the prolific, genre-defying Nonesuch Records, a label that “is a kind of family” according to President Bob Hurwitz. The hundreds of artists who have recorded on Nonesuch and collaborated with each other form a large family tree with a 50-year ancestry. Some of the artists are not just label mates, though; they’re blood. We found Nonesuch sons and fathers who have either inherited or passed on strong music genes.  Some of these dynamic duos will perform together on our stages as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM.

1. Toumani & Sidiki Diabaté  



The world’s foremost kora player Toumani Diabaté has passed his tremendous skill on the 21-string harp to his son Sidiki. Proving that it’s all in the family, Toumani’s own father was renowned throughout West Africa as the “King of the Kora.” Sidiki has made waves as a member of one of Mali’s leading rap duos, but still reserves time to learn traditional tunes from his father, whom he calls his “idol.” The Diabatés perform their recent release of duets in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House September 24.


Wednesday, September 10, 2014

In Context: riverrun



riverrun, actress Olwen Fouéré's exhilarating adaptation of the end of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, comes to BAM September 17—20. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

In Context: Embers



Samuel Becket's radio play Embers comes to BAM from September 17—20. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

About Last Night: Next Wave Festival Kickoff Party

by Allison Kadin

Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, David Cossin, Timo Andres, and Steve Reich perform Four Organs. Photo: Stephanie Berger


The lobby was abuzz hours before the first notes of the first of three Philip Glass and Steve Reich reunion concerts. The all-ages audience waited anxiously at the Opera House doors, bedecked with Nonesuch musicians, for an historic opening evening of the 2014 Next Wave Festival as well as Nonesuch Records at BAM, a celebration of the label’s 50 years in the industry.  Brad Mehldau inaugurated the Harvey Theater across the street with exhilarating improvisations and interpretations of Stone Temple Pilots, Sufjan Stevens, and more.

After rousing encores, guests found their way to the Lepercq Space (aka BAMcafé) to celebrate the evening, Nonesuch and Next Wave.

BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins, Philip Glass, Nonesuch President Bob Hurwitz,
Steve Reich, BAM Executive Producer Joseph V Melillo. Photo: Elena Olivo

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Nonesuch Records at BAM: A September to Remember

by Michael Hill

Alarm Will Sound. Photo: Michael Ramus



BAM’s Next Wave Festival is a fitting home for this three-week celebration of Nonesuch Records’ 50th Anniversary. Like BAM and its Kings County home, the label had occupied an overlooked outer borough of the music industry, but it’s now where an increasingly wide range of artists and savvy listeners choose to reside. Nonesuch is a rare record company whose imprimatur alone makes an emerging performer or new project from an established artist worthy of a spin. Like leaping into the unknown at the Next Wave Festival—where many Nonesuch artists have performed over the last 32 years—one is bound to discover something challenging, revelatory, even downright life-altering.

From its start in 1964, Nonesuch had a counter-intuitive approach to the record business—“a label without labels.” Founder and Elektra Records head Jac Holzman envisioned Nonesuch as a vehicle to market classical recordings licensed from European sources to the same American audience buying classic literature in cheap, smartly presented paperbacks, which proved profitable. He brought in as label coordinator Brooklyn-born pianist Teresa Sterne, who left performing for the business side. Through Sterne’s vision, Nonesuch became a singular purveyor of adventurous classical, new, and world music, surpassing Holzman’s original plan. She brought a consistency of tone to all releases, demanding high standards of visual, as well as audio, presentation. That philosophy endures: contemporary Nonesuch CDs are as much art objects as album sleeves.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Shakespeare Light & Dark

by Bonnie Marranca

Deja Bucin and Krista Birkner. Photo: Lucie Jansch

“Shakespeare is full of time. He is not ‘timeless,’ but ‘full of time.’ It seems ridiculous when people try to update Shakespeare. It is simply not possible.” Robert Wilson’s view of the author is reflected in the free-spiritedness of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which he and composer Rufus Wainwright created in 2009 for the renowned Berliner Ensemble, founded by Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigle in 1949, in then East Berlin. This music-theater work features more than two dozen of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, each unfolding in its own aural and visual setting. If all the world is a stage, Wilson’s stage includes much of our world—telephone, bicycle, car, video screen, gas pump, and floating bed. Birdsong is in the air. A child’s voice.

Wilson describes his artistic process: “I first made a structure. It’s two acts with seven scenes ... Once we were in agreement with the formal structure, Rufus had complete freedom to fill in the form. The form was merely a frame. It was the frame of a building. It was a megastructure. An architectural building he and others filled in.” Wainwright has written wildly imaginative, edgy music that draws on traditions of cabaret, rock, pop, folk, classical, and early English styles, while absorbing the Brechtian manner of blurring speech and song. Shakespeare’s Sonnets is a musical work that elaborates a theatrical vision worlds apart in visual style and timbre from presentations of Shakespeare in the English-speaking theater.

Friday, September 5, 2014

In Context: Youssou NDOUR



Youssou NDOUR comes to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House from September 12—13. Context is everything, so get even closer to NDOUR with this curated selection of articles, and videos 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.

In Context: Alarm Will Sound


Alarm Will Sound performs at BAM September 12 & 13. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the group. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Old Is New Again: George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children

By Robert Wood



On Thursday, September 11, soprano Dawn Upshaw and pianist Gilbert Kalish come to BAM to perform George Crumb's milestone composition Ancient Voices of Children as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM. Here's a brief introduction to the work in ten parts. 

1. Hauntingly evocative and brimming with unconventional textures, George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children (1970) transforms the mystical poetry of Federico García Lorca into an incantatory musical seance. It is scored for soprano, boy soprano, oboe, harp, amplified piano, toy piano, mandolin, and various percussion, including prayer stones and Japanese temple bells.

2. Crumb was attracted to what García Lorca referred to as duende—"all that has dark sounds." "This 'mysterious power that everyone feels but that no philosopher has explained' is in fact the spirit of the earth," García Lorca writes. "All one knows is that it burns the blood like powdered glass, that it exhausts, that it rejects all the sweet geometry one has learned."

Thursday, September 4, 2014

In Context: Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish





















Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish perform at the BAM Harvey Theater on September 10. Context is everything, so get even closer to the music and performers with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

In Context: Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau Duo


Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau collaborate at BAM on September 10 as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the artists. After you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

In Context: Brad Mehldau


Brad Meldhau comes to BAM on September 9 as part of Nonesuch Records as BAM. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the show. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

In Context: The Philip Glass Ensemble & Steve Reich and Musicians



The Philip Glass Ensemble and Steve Reich and Musicians come to BAM from September 9—11 as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, audio interviews, and videos related to the artists. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

10 Facts About Alarm Will Sound

By Robert Wood

Alarm Will Sound sounds


There's a reason that New York Magazine called Alarm Will Sound the "seal team six of new music": they're creatively fearless, they're up to any technical challenge, and we can only assume that they'd look svelte in Navy-issued diving gear. The members also have tons of personality and individual talents, which go far beyond being able to play Steve Reich and John Adams exceedingly well. Here are ten things you might not know about the group and its crack musicians, who play the BAM Harvey Theater in September as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM.


1. Sometimes, they play in exotic locales, like beneath the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.