Big Dance Theater, as always

The week is finally winding down with some glorious weather. But, hey, I still think you should spend at least some of it in a theater!

If you can manage to get a ticket, do check out Big Dance Theater's Comme Toujours Here I Stand--now at New York Live Arts--a 2009 work sourced in filmmaker Αgחès Varda's Çléο de 5 à 7 (1961). With its cheeky narrative fragmentation and visual splintering, Comme Toujours deals less with how things go in life than how they go in our heads when the world presses forward while we stress out and grasp at anything that could make momentary sense or soothe or distract. BDT founding member Molly Hickok is stellar as the central character who--like Varda's beautiful, vapid Parisian pop star, set adrift by a scary Tarot reading and impending medical test results--becomes a magnetic hub for phenomena that continuously remind us that we're watching a movie, an entertainment, something artificial that we construct and control and invest with a power not necessarily intrinsic to it.

Directed and choreographed by Annie-B Parson, co-directed by Paul Lazar. With Hickok, the cast includes Tymberly Canale, Chris Giarmo, Jeff Larson, Aaron Mattocks, Ryutaro Mishima, Aaron Rosenblum and Kourtney Rutherford.

Now through Saturday at 7:30pm. For more information and ticketing, click here.

And take in a screening of Varda's Çléο de 5 à 7 at NYLA on Saturday, May 19 at 3pm. Details here.

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)