Alice Herz-Sommer, 110

Alice Herz-Sommer, Who Found Peace in Chopin Amid Holocaust, Dies at 110
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, February 27, 2014

Kimberly Bartosik's intriguing duets at New York Live Arts

Roderick Murray (left) and Kimberly Bartosik
in You are my heat and glare
(photo by Ian Douglas)

Singers Dave Ruder (left) and Gelsey Bell
in You are my heat and glare
(photo by Ian Douglas)

Last night, I joined the second wave of audience members led up to the studio space at New York Live Arts to see You are my heat and glare, a U.S. premiere by Kimberly Bartosik/daela. After the first group took the elevator up, my group followed vocalists Gelsey Bell and Dave Ruder by the stairs and found seats as our guides, dressed in casual white clothing, continuously sang and circled the performance area. I tried to capture the lyrics, many slipping away even as they repeated and repeated. But, as Bell and Ruder moved in their gentle gait, I felt their voices--especially, Bell's softly soulful one--sowing themselves into another part of my awareness, and I caught one strong line: "Love is the mystery inside this walking."

You are my heat and glare, inspired by Anne Carson's writing, presents a landscape of love, mystery and risk. Moving, often in darkness, a lover might encounter danger or grace. Bartosik and her husband and lighting designer Roderick Murray carve out a space charged with intense lighting and physical energy and suggestions of erotic and volatile emotional states. Sharing that space at close quarters feels raw, almost too much to bear.

They made the right decision to present this evening-length piece in the studio, not the ground-level theater, and I can see this strategy working well for other dance groups with finished pieces best appreciated in a less formal setting, not just studio works-in-progress. It would be interesting to see more of these types of presentations at New York Live Arts.

The couples interacting here may be facing the end of the world--referenced in Bell and Ruder's haunting song--or the end of the world as they know it. At times, to this New Yorker's ear, the soundscape--roar of aircraft engines?--seems "extremely loud and incredibly close." But instead of distracting specifics, Bartosik's creative team dwells in the poetic--pitch-black darkness disturbed by shards of light or warmed by human breath and song; a planet in its long, lonely orbit of a star; a heron striding through the twilight stillness of a marsh; a spider climbing an orange web of electrical cording; a prisoner under interrogation; a most precious jewel set apart in a container of startling light, protected and constricted. In one stunning, slow-motion duet, Joanna Kotze and Marc Mann, with muscles trembling in furious tension, unleash a silent and truly terrifying argument.

You are my heat and glare is both intimate and harshly revealing, tender and aggressive, minimalist and monumental--a work of intriguing beauty.

You are My Heat and Glare runs now through Saturday, March 1 with performances at 7:30pm. For information and ticketing, click here.

Thursday, February 27, 6:30pm: Come Early Conversation: Comprised of Duets: Considering the Performance of Intimacy, moderated by Nicole Birmann Bloom (Program Officer, Dance and Theater, French Cultural Services)

Friday, February 28, post-performance: Stay Late Discussion: Creating You are my heat and glare moderated by Dean Moss in conversation with Kimberly Bartosik

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
212-924-0077
(map/directions)

Daniel Curry, injured "Spider-Man" dancer, speaks out

Injured ‘Spider-Man’ Dancer Discusses His Lawsuit
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, February 26, 2014

Bill T. Jones asks "When did the avant-garde become black?"

Bill T. Jones

Bill T. Jones 

and New York Live Arts

invite you to

Bill Chats

When did the avant-garde become black?

at New York Live Arts

Sunday, March 23, 5pm

In this talk, noted panelists including Ralph Lemon, Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Adrienne Edwards, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Diane McIntyre, Bebe Miller and Charmaine Warren will inquire as to when it became acceptable for a person who defines themselves as avant-garde to also say “I’m black.”

Admission: FREE

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
212-924-0077
(map/directions)

Bill Chats will be live streamed in collaboration with live streaming startup 2ndline.tv.

Ivan Nagy, 70

Ivan Nagy, Star of American Ballet Theater, Is Dead at 70
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, February 25, 2014

Paco de Lucia, 66

Spanish Flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia dies at 66
BBC News, February 26, 2014

Paco de Lucia, Renowned Flamenco Guitarist, Dies at 66
Reuters, The New York Times, February 26, 2014

Storme Webber: "Nothing that is NOT music can touch me...."

Listen to writer/performer Storme Webber reading "Grace"

from Jack Staw SoundPages podcast

(December 30, 2009)

Actor teaches scientists how to communicate with the rest of us

Do I think artists sometimes need similar training in how to communicate with civilians? Yes, I do!

Alan Alda, Spokesman for Science
A conversation with Claudia Dreifus, The New York Times, February 24, 2014

Harold Ramis, 69 [UPDATE]

Harold Ramis, Alchemist of Comedy, Dies at 69
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, February 24, 2014

Remaking Film Comedy With a Straight Face
by Jason Zinoman, The New York Times, February 25, 2014

The jazz photography of Aram Avakian

Keeping Jazz’s Rhythm With a Shutter
by Alexandra Avakian, The New York Times, February 24, 2014

Chris Berry and Maija Garcia's "Legend of Yauna"

Chris Berry,
writer/composer, The Legend of Yauna
(photo by Jamie Soja)

Maija Garcia, 

director/choreographer, The Legend of Yauna 

(photo courtesy of the artist)

The Legend of Yauna, which ran for two nights this weekend at BAM Fisher, is a sprawling work of storytelling through theater, dance, music and visual art. Its collaborators--Grammy-winning world music artist Chris Berry and director/choreographer Maija Garcia, best known for her work with Bill T. Jones's FELA! on Broadway--aim to teach the kind of curiosity and unstoppable courage people need in order to heal their lives and communities. It's a noble mission that I wish I could fully support. Unfortunately, the work is undermined by uneven casting and overall quality as well as issues of cultural appropriation.

Produced by Berry's Banakuma organization, this work draws from the musician's attraction to an eclectic range of philosophies, symbols and ritual practices, primarily his experience of the ways of the Shona of Zimbabwe. A white American born in California, the musician believes that a vision and subsequent synchronicities led him to discover a profound spiritual connection to the mbira (thumb piano) and drums of southern Africa. Inspired by his exploration, he has devised an intricate metaphysical system related to the four elements of Air, Water, Fire and Earth. (Watch Berry's tutorial on Vimeo. See also World music artist Chris Berry goes digital, Quibian Salazar-Moreno, Boulder Weekly.)

Visualizing Chris Berry's Black Panther Queen (above)
and hero Yauna (below)
(artwork by Leif Wold)

Leif Wold's fantasy-style illustrations of Berry's mythic characters add visual gravitas and charm to Legend's production, but their intricate collaging of symbols from African, Hindu, Northwest indigenous and perhaps other traditions too strongly evokes a New Agey cherry-picking tendency. Everything--from traditional stories to ritual dance styles--gets tossed into Berry and Garcia's post-racial, colorblind blender. The appearance of Zap Mama herself--vocalist Marie Daulne portraying the Black Panther Queen dressed in Catwoman-style getup--is a missed opportunity. Daulne's much-heralded participation is what made me take a chance on Legend, but Daulne appears for one song (with poor sound quality) and a quick dispatch up a flight of stairs past the audience and out of sight.

Legend is a classic Hero's Journey, where the hero's disobedience to his wife ("Don't open the forbidden door!") leads to loss, disorientation, failure, tragedy and...well, you know. At two hours, including an intermission, it could stand judicious trimming, and elements of its staging--especially its frequent use of balcony scenes that are hard to see or properly hear--can be awkward and frustrating. But the live music often has warmth and, among the many cast members, Benjamin Sands (Yauna), Oscar Trujillo (Great White Eagle), Laurie M. Taylor (Sula and Gurthusula) and Naoko Arimura (Sah-i-Sah) bring distinction to their performances.

Ballerina Misty Copeland's memoir coming in March

A Singular Ballerina’s Multiple Paths
Misty Copeland Prepares for Release of Her Memoir
by Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, February 21, 2014

Saying yam in African: Working collectively towards the Whitney

Singular Art, Made by Plurals
Yams Collective Brings Work to Whitney Biennial
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, February 21, 2014

Dancing, dancing machines: "Twinned" at the Metropolitan Museum

As specific sites for site-specific dances go, you can't get much classier than the Metropolitan Museum of Art after dark--site-specifically, The Charles Engelhard Court with its surround of sparkling, glassed-in balconies. Last evening, in this dramatic setting, contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound (directed by Alan Pierson) and Heginbotham Dance (directed by John Heginbotham) premiered Twinned, their collaboration to compositions by Edgard Varèse, Aphex Twin and Tyondai Braxton with charming transitions between sections by Raymond Scott.

Each set of performers engaged--a little--in the other's art form. At times, musicians could be found standing solemnly or lying supine beside or beneath their instruments or scampering about as if their instruments, or music itself, were forms of contraband or weaponry; a dancer might stand behind a music stand, waiting for his moment to strike a gong or noisily crumple sheets of clear, glinting plastic. This whimsical overlapping of roles, at best, suited the playfulness of the electronic scores; at its less than best, it seemed tame and a bit silly. But it did help de-stuffy-fy an event that--at $60 a ticket, certainly--could have come off as stuffy but did not.

The Varèse Intégrales opened on a rising woodwind note; a percussive flourish of drums, bells, chains, tambourine, clackers; a shock of brass, with musicians alerting us to their presence all around the court. The space was seized, the capture announced to all.

Past the Varèse, light projections of chains of 1s and 0s splashed the container of the court. Musicians beat a temporary retreat to their separate half of the performance space, and two dancers, dressed in black-and-white Op Art leotards, stepped forward. Peppy movements carried the jagged, electric look of their costumes's prints. They trotted, flapped and twisted their limbs, and rigidly twerked like mechanical targets or clockwork figures, joined by two other dancers and finally by the wonderful John Eirich, luminous and airy in a long, cream-colored skirt. Under dramatic lighting by Nicole Pearce, the dancing looked well-placed among the court's sculpture and architecture.

In Twinned's conclusion, the new Fly By Wire, set to a Tyondai Braxton first presented by Alarm Will Sound in 2012, the dreamy/ borderline nightmarish undertone of previous sections broke into a clever, full-on horse race with dancers jockeying for position. Dancers certainly can make music, if they choose. But the skill of the Heginbotham dancers made me glad that, most of the time, they stuck to their own side of the fence.

Dancing by Winston Dynamite Brown, John Eirich, Lindsey Jones, Courtney Lopes, Weaver Rhodes, Sarah Stanley and Andrea Weber

Alarm Will Sound: Erin Lesser (flutes), Alexandra Sopp (piccolo), Christa Robinson (oboe, English horn), Campbell MacDonald (clarinet, saxophone), Elisabeth Stimpert (clarinet, bass clarinet), Michael Harley (bassoon, contrabassoon, voice), Matt Marks (horn), Jason Price (trumpet), Mike Gurfield (trumpet), Michael Clayville (trombone), Timothy Albright (bass trombone), Joe Barati (bass trombone), John Orfe (piano, keyboard), Chris Thompson (percussion), Luke Rinderknecht (percussion), Yuri Yamashita (percussion, keyboard), Mellissa Hughes (voice), Courtney Orlando (violin, voice), Caleb Burhans (violin, electric guitar), Nadia Sirota (viola), Brian Snow (cello), Miles Brown (bass)

Nigel Maister (staging direction for Intégrales)
Maile Okamura (costumes)

Alarm Will Sound in a performance of Cliffs by Aphex Twin

Bowling Green State University, March 28, 2012 

arranged by Caleb Burhans

staging by Nigel Maister

For more information on special events at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, click here.

The end of Washington's Corcoran?

"One now-retired museum director once told me that one of the hardest parts of his job was teaching new trustees from Wall Street that a museum is not a business in the sense that they understand the term." -- Eric Gibson

Clueless at the Corcoran

by Eric Gibson, The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2014

Washington's Corcoran Gallery to Be Taken Over

by Jennifer Maloney, The Wall Street Journal, February 19. 2014

Elijah Staley (Carolina Slim), 87

He Played Blues Concerts Where the Admission Price Was Subway Fare
by James Barron, The New York Times, February 20, 2014

Martha Graham Center receives Mellon funds to digitize its archives

Graham Center Gets $1 Million for Dance Archive
by Michael Cooper, The New York Times, February 20, 2014

Kimberly Bartosik discusses her new work for New York Live Arts

Hunger And Rage, Heat And Glare
By Brian J. McCormick, Gay City News, February 19, 2014

Revived work by choreographer Donald Byrd addresses American racism

How Trayvon Martin brought a dance work back to new life in Seattle
by Florangela Davila, Crosscut.com, February 20, 2014

Paul Colby, 96

Paul Colby, Owner of Club That Helped the Rise of Greenwich Village, Dies at 96
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, February 10, 2014

Apply for choreographic commission at Temple University

The Dance Department at Temple University invites choreographers to submit proposals for its 2014 Reflection:Response choreographic commission. THE FUTURE OF THE BODY & DANCE: WITHIN & BEYOND CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY AND NATURE. 

Whether you locate your work in somatic investigation or socio-political inquiry, we welcome dance- makers from all backgrounds. For further information about the Reflection:Response series, this year’s theme, or the proposal guidelines, please see the accompanying sheet.

The Commission Brief:

You are asked to create a new work that speaks to the theme of Reflection:Response/ THE FUTURE OF THE BODY & DANCE: WITHIN & BEYOND CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY AND NATURE that will be presented on October 24 and 25 at 7:30 PM.

Although it is not obligatory, we welcome any opportunities to include Temple students as part of this choreographic commission. Students may be selected through audition and numbers included are entirely at the discretion of the choreographer.

You will be given a $5000 grant and you will have regular access to rehearsal space in Temple University Department of Dance studios throughout June-August 2014. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to offer travel, accommodation or per diem.

You have the option to stage the work in the Conwell Theater at Temple University Main  Campus, or at an alternative site within the Main Campus or North Philadelphia area. We can provide stage management, lighting and sound technicians if you choose to present the work in Conwell Theater. In addition to the performance, you will also be asked to offer a master class and lecture demonstration to students in the Dance Department in mid October 2014.

New this year, we are offering an exciting opportunity to connect with a dance scholar from Boyer College of Music and Dance. A dance scholar/theorist will be assigned to work with the commissioned choreographer in a mutually agreed upon capacity which could range from dramaturgy to writing a critical text on the artist's work. Choreographers should note in the proposal how they might envision working with an author.

Proposal Guidelines: 

Please submit a 2-page application as an email attachment (with your full name in the subject heading) that states:

    Name, address, telephone and e-mail address 

    A short performance biography 

    A brief description of the artistic aims of your proposed work with a clear articulation of how it speaks to the theme of Reflection: Response/ THE FUTURE OF THE BODY & DANCE: WITHIN & BEYOND CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY AND NATURE 

    A brief description of how you might envision working with an author. 

    A breakdown of your budget (include expenses and projected income) 

    Anticipated technical requirements 

In addition to the written application, you are asked to provide a 5-minute sample of your work (please send a link to You Tube or Vimeo - No DVDs) with a brief statement outlining why you would like us to look at this particular section (150-word max). 

Deadline for proposals: MARCH 24, 2014 

Please send your proposal to:

Julie B. Johnson: reflectionresponse@gmail.com 

Please note that the Selection Committee will meet to review applications in mid-April and you will be notified about the outcome of your application by: April 28, 2014. 

2014 Reflection:Response

Merián Soto, Committee Chair

Julie B. Johnson, Graduate Assistant 

Please send any questions to reflectionresponse@gmail.com
-- 
Merián Soto, Professor 
Esther Boyer College of Music & Dance 
Temple University

BAX announces new Teaching Artist in Residence program

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange 

invites dance and theater artists to apply for

The Teaching Artist in Residence (2014-15)

Pilot Year: July 1, 2014 – June 30, 2015

NOTE: Letter of Intent due Friday March 7 at 5pm. 

In 2014 we are thrilled to announce a new residency – THE TEACHING ARTIST IN RESIDENCE. Recognizing that NYC is home to countless talented generative artists in dance and theater who are also gifted and dedicated teachers, we seek to work with ONE artist in this pilot year (July 2014 – June 2015) who will create an original work with student artists (that may also include professional artists) and will develop their own teaching artist practice through interaction with established BAX educational programs. This opportunity is open to residents of all five boroughs of NYC.

For complete details and application, continue reading here.

Julie Sokolow makes YouTube documentary on artists and health care

A Crusader on What Ails Artists
by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, February 18, 2014

Bob Casale, 61

Bob Casale, Guitarist in Devo, Dies at 61

by Peter Keepnews, The New York Times, February 18, 2014

Mavis Gallant, 91

Mavis Gallant, 91, Dies; Her Stories Told of Uprooted Lives and Loss
by Helen T. Verongos, The New York Times, February 18, 2014

Brazilian feminist makes music her own way

Joyce Does It Her Way
by Joe Nocera, The New York Times, February 17, 2014

Hudson, 63

Hudson, Gallerist and Nurturer of Artists, Dies at 63
by Roberta Smith, The New York Times, February 16, 2014

A valentine from David Parker at Joe's Pub

Jeffrey Kazin (left) and David Parker in Head Over Heels
at Joe's Pub
(photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

"I used to think of myself as a song-and-dance man manqué," said choreographer David Parker, as he welcomed a huge Valentine's weekend crowd to his latest show, Head Over Heels, created expressly for Joe's Pub and DANCENOW. "I've been able to realize my dreams here." Parker and his gang, The Bang Group, are perfectly happy to cram themselves into the Public Theater's little pie-wedge stage, and the cheerful nightclub setting serves them well.

The timely theme, this time, is love in all its ups and downs and uncertainties. That theme--surely you've noticed--owns lots of real estate across the artistic landscape and certainly plays out across all areas of great attraction to Parker: classic show tunes and romantic comedies, tuxedo-ed tap dance numbers and the like. Head Over Heels, with its intense "musical chairs" couplings--enacted in close quarters by Parker, Jeffrey Kazin, Amber Sloan and Nic Petry--marries conventional entertainment values to unconventional, and continuously shifting, romantic configurations.

Parker (left) with Nic Petry and Amber Sloan
(photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

Made for the Joe's Pub space-time continuum--that pie wedge, those 60 minutes, that audience serviced with food and drink and then quickly ushered out before the next crowd arrives--Head Over Heels compresses a lot into its limitations. There are ten numbers, all linked to the letter "R": Restlessness, Retrenchment, Replacement, Reconciliation, Reconsideration, Recrimination, Resolution, Resilience, Relapse, Restoration. A little too cute, this, and I lost track of which "R" was which in any given moment, but that probably does not matter. The "What's New, Pussycat?" section of "Replacement" showed the tightest example of Parker's clever intricacy of craft, with Kazin and partner Petry confined to and spinning around an axis as if dancing and figure skating atop a turntable.

More generous and bubbly in nature than subversive, Head Over Heels is, nevertheless, every openly gay-positive show--on television, in the movies, on Broadway, on the ballet stage and on ice--that folks from my generation should have been fortunate enough to see when we were growing up. Parker goes back to go forward.

Head Over Heels has closed. Keep up with The Bang Group's activities by clicking here. For information about upcoming events at Joe's Pub, click here.

Black Artists Retreat, Chicago 2014, invites proposals

2014 [B.A.R.] OPEN PROPOSAL Research/Advocacy/Criticism/Exhibition

Following our first gathering in 2013, Theaster Gates, Carrie Mae Weems, Sarah Workneh, Marlease Bushnell, and Eliza Myrie came together to share what we had heard from participants and our own feelings on what could continue to happen with the Black Artists Retreat. As we prepare for [B.A.R.] Chicago 2014 we are seeking proposals that explore a range of topics related to black cultural production in its many forms.

We identified four focus areas that can lend structure to the concerns of the community without overdetermining what the community itself thinks is important. Proposals, while open, should fall under one of the following four categories: 

Research/Advocacy/Criticism/Exhibition

This open proposal is an opportunity for individuals to share their own thoughts on where our cultural production stands. What are the issues that we now face? What are the themes, concepts, and ideas that underscore critical thought and artist’s production?

Assembling a diverse and intergenerational group of proposal reviewers will allow us to assess where there is consensus. The invited panelists will meet in New York City to review proposals and select the presenters for [B.A.R.] Chicago 2014. Those proposals selected will have the period from May to August to expand their abstract in order to more fully present their ideas during the August retreat.

Please consider how your proposal can contribute to and foster the discussion of concerns facing the entire [B.A.R.] community, your proposal may consider individual presentations or group presentations and panels.
At this time there is no funding for the realization of proposals.

March 31: Proposals Due

April: Proposal review and deliberation

May: Chosen proposal authors contacted

August 21-23: Proposals presented as part of [B.A.R.] Chicago 2014

For complete information, including application and proposal guidelines, click here.

B.A.R. (Black Artists Retreat) Web site

NYU to host panel on contemporary dance in China, February 18

Building a Movement: 

A Conversation on Contemporary Dance in China

panel discussion

at NYU Tisch School of the Arts

February 18, 6-7:30pm

Contemporary dance in China, its history and evolution, its relationship to traditional Chinese dance, and its current role in Chinese society

Panelists:

Patricia Beaman, Dance History, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Tao Ye, Artistic Director, Choreographer and Founder of TAO Dance Theater
Alison M. Friedman, Founder and Creative Director, Ping Pong Productions
Aly Rose, Producer and Choreographer
Xiaoxiao Wang, Dance MFA Candidate, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Stephen Xue, Company Manager, Shen Wei Dance Arts
Hou Ying, Choreographer / Artistic Director, Hou Ying Dance Theater

Free and open to public with required RSVP to skirball.education@nyu.edu

NYU Tisch School of the Arts (Dean's Conference Room, 12th Floor)
721 Broadway (between Waverly Place and Washington Place, south of 8th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

******

Also of interest:

In New York, a Showcase for Chinese Performers
by Rachel Lee Harris, The New York Times, February 14, 2014

Souleymane Badolo's "Benon" premieres at Danspace Project

Souleymane Badolo
(photo by Peggy Jarrell Kaplan)

In a manner of speaking, Benon, the new hour-long duet from Souleymane Badolo at Danspace Project, has a foot in one world and another foot entirely elsewhere. Yes, Badolo, originally from the West African nation of Burkina Faso, flourishes at an intersection of strong cultural tradition and searching innovation. He has done so for a few decades within his own choreography as well as the work of Nora Chipaumire, Reggie Wilson and other artists. But what I'm thinking about now has nothing to do with what's age-old and what's contemporary but rather the crucial difference between what's extraordinary and what's merely ordinary.

The title of the piece alludes to the harvest celebrations of Badolo's homeland. But the piece begins not with displays of abundance and communal joy but with the ominous sight and grating sound of discarded commercial plastic. Crates crammed with empty spring water bottles occupy polar corners of the space. Scrunched-up lengths of plastic trash bags form a vest-like mesh around Badolo's bare torso, and he clutches a stack of plastic cups in his arms. Charmaine Warren wears a full, flowing hooded cape of translucent plastic with a trailing skirt made of black trash bags, a costume of surprising regal beauty. She wears it well. With Warren firmly attached to his back and following his every move, Badolo gravely treads the space, dropping or tossing cups onto the floor.

This, then, is our harvest, our plenitude. The thought arises: "You will reap what you sow." Badolo has turned the idea of harvest upside down and ventures into the realm of the prophetic, the extraordinary.

Warren's extended solo work in this duet is indeed extraordinary, her severe manner and gaze perfectly recalling Symbolist portraiture. From the placement of her feet to the raptor-like expanse and dry, decisive swirls of her arms, she brings focus and grandeur and a compelling weirdness to each movement in the space and each moment. And the returning Badolo, donning braces of blond straw that extend from his back like a body halo, seems ready to set a new, solemn phase of action and meaning in motion.

But as the work continues, the spell breaks. Once broken, there's no return. Badolo appears to move farther from his purpose and farther from the extraordinary into a regrettably ordinary plane.

Why walk up and stare into an audience member's eyes, as Badolo does, twice? Those stares should pack more power than they do here. The gesture recalls the way a ritual dancer, possessed of a god or spirit, might transmit the energy of that ethereal being to the gathered assembly. But here the jump of electricity from dancer to watcher goes missing. We don't feel it. We don't learn from it. We merely wonder, Why did he do that? What does it serve?

Overall, the presence and contributions of saxophonist Jeff Hudgins do not appear to be well defined. Why layer his bleats and honks over recordings of Burkinabé songs? Why, as the dance moves into its later passages, have him drift into the space and around the dancers? He is not dancing, nor is he adding anything to the dancing. This maneuver, in itself not especially fresh, reveals no significance unique or essential to Badolo's project.

Benon's initially tight coil loosens, and--rather than presenting a definitive ending--the end dancing becomes engulfed by darkness in a way that suggests an artist's resignation rather than choice.

Lighting: Carol Mullins
Costumes: Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya
Set design and construction: Tony Turner

Benon concludes tonight at 8pm. For program and ticket information, click here.

Danspace Project

131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue), Manhattan

(directions)

All you sinners and saints, come to a staged reading of INDIGO

SINNERS AND SAINTS FESTIVAL

curated by

Imani Uzuri

presents a special musical staged reading of

INDIGO, A BLUES OPERA 

by Karma Mayet Johnson

at Jack

Thursday, February 27, 7:30pm

At the intersection of ancestral conjure, herstorical fact, and raw ritual, INDIGO, A BLUES OPERA investigates the lesbian roots of the Blues through the lens of two lovers who refused to remain enslaved. Take the journey back to 1853 and remember...ONE NIGHT ONLY!!!

Followed by artist talk with playwright, composer and performer Karma Mayet Johnson moderated by composer, vocalist, cultural worker Toshi Reagon

Advance purchase strongly recommended. For ticket information, click here.

Jack
505 1/2 Waverly Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Uzuri's Sinners and Saints Festival (February 26-March 1) celebrates "Black American vernacular culture (Ring Shouts, Spirituals, Blues, early Gospel, Line Singing, Praise Houses, Jazz) and their contemporary counterparts" and "improv as an ecstatic tradition and the ways in the ways in which secular and sacred often intertwine in these cultural systems."

For complete information about the Sinners and Saints Festival, click here.

Limón Dance Foundation on the passing of Alan Danielson

Alan Danielson
1954-2014

The José Limón Dance Foundation sadly announces the sudden passing of Alan Danielson on February 12, 2014.

A beloved teacher, mentor, colleague and friend, he will be greatly missed by all.

Executive Director, Juan Jose Escalante, says "Yesterday we lost a dear friend and an amazing human being.

Already an accomplished musician, Alan discovered dance at age 22 and subsequently moved to New York to study with Ruth Currier, who performed in the Limón Dance Company for many years and became the Company Director after José Limón’s death. Ten years later he was approached by the Director of the Limón Institute, Norton Owen, to help found the Limón School. Under Alan’s guidance, the Professional Studies Program was created 2001, which is an intensive nine-month program in the Limón technique and repertory that continues today.

Alan was an internationally acclaimed choreographer and master teacher, committed to the contemporary relevance of the Humphrey/Limón movement principles and philosophy. He will be greatly missed at the Limón School, based at Peridance Capezio Center in New York. In addition, Alan was on faculty at New York University and the Alvin Ailey American Dancer Center, and taught extensively in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, and Central America.

His impact on the thousands of students he reached throughout his career is immeasurable and has left us with an incredible legacy of exceptional dancers and teachers. He was asked once“What would you like to offer young dancers today?” His response was extraordinary: “I would like to share my love for movement – what it feels like and what it projects to those who are watching. I would like to share my joy in working with music and creating with other dancers. I’d like to show them how dance is life, and how it communicates our existence as human beings."

Rest in peace dear friend – we will love you and miss you forever!"

Queens Library youth celebrate the legacy of Alvin Ailey

Alvin Ailey

Alvin Ailey Tribute

for teens

Saturday, February 15, 2:30pm

Free admission

Teen Center at Central Library
Queens Library
89-11 Merrick Boulevard, Jamaica, Queens
718-990-0700

Directions: F train to 169th Street. Numerous buses go to the 165th Street bus terminal.

Click here for a listing of other special events at Queens Library branches this weekend.

Ralph Waite, 85

Ralph Waite, Patriarch in TV Series ‘The Waltons,’ Dies at 85
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, February 14, 2014

Kauffman Center's Jane Chu nominated to chair the NEA

Jane Chu
(photo: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts)

Obama picks low-profile arts center executive to chair the NEA
by Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times, February 12, 2014

Maggie Estep, New York Times obituary

Maggie Estep, Slam Poetry Performer, Dies at 50
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, February 12, 2014

New Ground Zero arts center plans, hirings announced

London Director to Draft Arts Vision for Ground Zero
by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, February 12, 2014

Gabriel Axel, 95

Gabriel Axel, Director of ‘Babette’s Feast,’ Dies at 95
by Paul Vitello, The New York Times, February 12, 2014

Sid Caesar, 91

Sid Caesar, Comic Who Blazed TV Trail, Dies at 91
by Mervyn Rothstein and Peter Keepnews, The New York Times, February 12, 2014

Poet, performance artist Maggie Estep dead at 50

RIP Maggie Estep

EV Grieve, February 12, 2014

Lou Reed died

by Maggie Estep

October 27, 2013

March 11: I'm coaching dance artists who need to "Write It!" Free!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
(photo by D. Feller)

I love to write and edit, and I've seen lots of dancers' written materials--good, bad or indifferent--over nearly 40 years in this field. If you'd like an expert pair of eyes on your bio, artist's statement, press release or more, check out this opportunity. It's absolutely free!

Dance artists: Sign up now for your free, 30-minute coaching session with me in the Greenroom at Gibney Dance Center!

Write It!

Bring a written draft (250 words maximum) about your artistic mission or an upcoming project. I'll suggest ways to turn this raw material into a clear, energetic and appealing tool that represents you at your best!

Guess Who's in the Greenroom: Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Write It!

Tuesday, March 11, 11am-2pm

30-minute slots available

free with required registration (click here)

Guess Who’s in the Greenroom offers members of the dance community free one-on-one sessions with artistic and administrative innovators and leading artist service organizations. Sessions are 30 minutes each. Participants sign up in advance on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Greenroom
Gibney Dance Center
890 Broadway (between 19th and 20th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Nancy Holt, 75

Nancy Holt, Outdoor Artist, Dies at 75
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, February 12, 2014

If work hangs in a gallery or museum, the art gets made for the spaces that were made to enclose art. They isolate objects, detach them from the world. -- Nancy Holt

Shirley Temple Black, 85

Shirley Temple Black, Screen Star, Dies at 85
by Aljean Harmetz, The New York Times, February 11, 2014

Shirley Temple Black, actress and diplomat, dies at 85

by Claudia Levy, The Washington Post, February 11, 2014

The Life and Career of Shirley Temple Black (slideshow)
The Washington Post, February 11, 2014

Image to movement: Kosoko's "Black Male Revisited" at Danspace Project

Whitney V. Hunter
(photo by Sylvain Guenot)

The challenge of representing and questioning the image of the black male is great. Black masculinity suffers not just from overrepresentation, but oversimplification, demonization, and (at times) utter incomprehension.

I wanted to produce a project that would examine the black male body as body and political icon.

--Thelma Golden, curator, Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art, Whitney Museum of Art, 1994

Our challenge...is how to widen the conversation within the aesthetic, again."

--Greg Tate, Danspace Project Conversations Without Walls panel on "Revisiting Black Male Today: A Look 20 Years Later"

I'm revisiting the catalogue I bought in 1994 at the Whitney's multi-media Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art show. Its dramatically matte-black card cover contains and confines a multitude: "pretty" Muhammad Ali in his prime, white towel slung over his perfect, gleaming chest; Emmett Till, dead, his ruined face for all to see in that open coffin; an anonymous slab of muscular thighs and genitals, courtesy of Robert Mapplethorpe; a homeless man revealed as if by Rembrandt's light; O.J. Simpson awaiting judgment; King and Malcolm clasping hands while gazing anywhere but at each other.

Each time I lift this book, I'm surprised anew by its heft and its stiff, awkward, locked-in feel; the small type of its text hinting at how very much there is to say and all that is still not said.

In its time, Black Male triggered confusion and strong objections. Some in the Black community felt that curator Thelma Golden's choices--including works by artists who were not Black, not male or not heterosexual--dangerously reinforced racist stereotypes. Others thought that the Whitney's first Black curator had missed a significant opportunity, that the show was not extreme enough to be truly subversive. When Golden later brought Black Male to Los Angeles (UCLA Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center), community groups mounted alternative exhibitions devoted to imagery they considered more representative and positive.

Now, twenty years on, performance artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko has taken Thelma Golden's controversial project as a springboard for his own inquiry into Black masculinity. For Danspace Project, Kosoko curated a three-evening, multi-genre program, Black Male Revisited: experimental representations through the ephemeral form, "incorporat[ing] voices from trans and queer artist communities and situat[ing] their work inside an experimental dance context."

I attended two of Kosoko's Saturday afternoon panels where most of the panelists admitted only tenuous, if any, personal experience with the 1994 exhibition. But in the era of Obama and racist backlash, of stop-and-frisk, of obsession with what's on--not in--Dante de Blasio's head, and when a Black man might become the NFL's first openly gay active player, there remains good reason for new generations to explore the images and meanings of Black masculinity in American society. The Black-Dominican transgender performer niv Acosta--whose recent piece, i shot denzel, I reviewed here--is an interesting example. [Listen to Acosta, introduced by panel moderator Thomas Lax, here.]

On Friday evening, I attended a performance featuring solo turns by Rafael Sanchez, i n d e e, Whitney V. Hunter and IMMA/MESS (Jarrod Kentrell).

Taking a portion of space in Peter Stuyvesant's sanctuary, Rafael Sanchez (Con-Sume me/Con-Sume You) constructed a contrarian altar, setting before us a protective clear plastic drop cloth and a variety of kitchen aids and produce.

Splatter of sliced and puréed produce. Mess of hypersexual hip hop. Burlesque of feral masturbation of butter- and chocolate-smeared cucumbers. I'll see you, Karen Finley, and raise you....

Time and again, a frenzied Sanchez took a machete to his own fake phallus, replaced the slippery prosthesis and set about massaging or mangling it again. Blending a potion of green-tinged phallic juice, he poured it into a bottle shaped like a crystal skull and offered it. Some audience members willingly raised this elixir to their lips.

The wide, vaulting space of St. Mark's Church seemed hushed, untouched, drawn back, like a pearl-grey hem, from the riot of sound and action. And when Sanchez was done, how quickly, how efficiently every trace of was whisked up in the plastic and carted away. A sense of I'm throwing the worst of it in your face followed closely by That never happened. Just how much force does it take to make change? St. Mark's Church floor--held sacred by Christians and dancers alike--was once again empty, spotless.

The performer i n d e e describes themselves as "a queer evolutionary transmasculine multi-gendered femme" who investigates "non-normative gender expressions found amongst black females in the performance realm." In the concise Oh MiMi My, they shed clothes and spin/wrap/firmly bind their entire torso in cling film--plastic containment again--before donning high heel boots and a wig and launching a lipsync and dance routine.

Whitney V. Hunter, entering the space in D.R.O.M.P., could be any guy on his way to do manual labor. He's dressed in pristine white coveralls and carries a white bucket and a big roll of white paper under one arm. In short order though, he approaches a mic and addresses his onlookers. With a warm smile, he tells us "don't be shy; don't be embarrassed" if we're called upon to give him a hand.

A voice recites single words, one by one--cool, strong, vulnerable, independent, well-spoken, restrained, sexual, reflective--and Hunter becomes its scribe, unrolling a stretch of paper and laying one end of it over his body. As he scribbles each word on the paper's surface, he slides sideways beneath it. The rustling paper accepts these words that, otherwise, might be projected upon his Black body. He controls the paper, cutting and, if necessary, ripping it into sections. But why do this alone? In a playful spirit, he races towards the audience, pulling up a group of folks to help speed the work.

Like i n d e e and Sanchez, Hunter finds that sweet spot where confinement gives way to possibility. Those coveralls, it turns out, conceal gold-spangled bikini briefs and some inexplicable plastic patches stuck to his bare skin. He spins in joy as his "assistants" make a hash of the torn, crumpled paper. (D.R.O.M.P. stands for "Don't Rain on My Parade," the song heard on his soundtrack.) In his exuberant resistance, all of those labels--cool, strong, well-spoken, restrained--become liberated and fluid, disposable or recyclable, at his will.

Hunter scoops up every shred of paper to stuff inside his discarded coveralls. This belongs to you, I imagine him thinking. Here, you take it! The white cloth swells to receive the paper and takes the shape of a body, not so much a person as a man of straw, and I envision that straw man burning.

Finally, Hunter carefully feels around his legs, shoulders and back for the mysterious patches. Monitor patches, perhaps? Whatever they are, he makes sure to peel each and every one of them from his body.

Imma/Mess (Jarrod Kentrell)
(photo courtesy of the artist)

In Ordinary Love, which closed the program, Jarrod Kentrell (aka Imma/Mess) worked within a rectangular box of light (shades of Sanchez restricted to his rectangular, plastic altar). He werked Beyoncé's "Haunted" (All the shit I do is boring, all these record labels boring/I don't trust these record labels, I'm torn/All these people on the planet working 9 to 5 just to stay alive) with his real face obscured and with super-pliable and spastic movement.

Performance creates a space of transparency and focus, a space of ritual, which is about doing the work that makes a future possible. Of these four rituals, Hunter's D.R.O.M.P. offered me the clearest sense of forward movement--of breaking out and going somewhere of one's own choosing.

Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art is closed. For information on upcoming Danspace Project programs, click here.

BRIC House welcomes musician Leyla McCalla tomorrow night

The Stoop Series: Leyla McCalla

Tuesday, February 11, 7pm

Stoop at BRIC House

Admission: FREE

Multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla (Carolina Chocolate Drops), celebrates her new album release featuring music reflecting her Haitian roots and eclectic life experiences. Dialogue with Régine M. Roumain of Brooklyn’s Haiti Cultural Exchange follows the performance.

Information

BRIC House
647 Fulton Street (Enter on Rockwell Place), Brooklyn
(map/directions)

K. Lamar Alsop, 85

K. Lamar Alsop, Violinist and Ballet Concertmaster, Dies at 85
by Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times, February 8, 2014

Blondie says NO to Putin

Blondie’s Debbie Harry reveals they refused to play Sochi over human rights
by Andrew Potts, Gay Star News, February 10, 2014

Terry Adkins, 60

Terry Adkins, Artist, Musician and Educator, Dies at 60
by Andrew Russeth, The Gallerist, February 9, 2014

Maxine Kumin, 88

Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer-Winning Poet With a Naturalist’s Precision, Dies at 88
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, February 7, 2014

Rene Ricard, 67

Rene Ricard, Art Arbiter With Wildean Wit, Dies at 67
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, February 6, 2014

Find your courage: some tips from performing artist Suzana Stankovic

Suzana Stankovic
(photo by Amanda Bohorquez)

What I’ve learned so far is that great performing artists are ballsy. They dare. They are brave and audacious and because of it, they blaze in our memory long after the performances have ended. 
I’ve also learned that the choices we make as artists on a daily basis, both the pivotal and seemingly insignificant, lead us either toward greater courage and empowerment or toward fear and smallness.

Bottom line is, without courage we can never dare to discover ourselves, dare to take risks, or dare to share with the world who we are, truly and uniquely, as human beings and performing artists.

--Suzana Stankovic

Read more at...
7 Ways to Be More Courageous
by Suzana Stankovic, Backstage, February 5, 2014

Readings from new anthology of Tina Satter plays, February 17

Join OBIE award-winning playwright Tina Satter and members of Half Straddle theater ensemble for a reading from Satter's new anthology, Seagull (Thinking of you) on February 17, 6:30pm, at McNally Jackson.

Pete Simpson, Susie Sokol, Becca Blackwell, Erin Markey, Emily Davis, Eliza Bent and Julia Sirna-Fest will perform readings of Satter's works. Caleb Hammons will moderate a panel discussion on the ideas currently shaping experimental theater, especially the exploration of surface and superficiality.

McNally Jackson Books
52 Prince Street (between Lafayette and Mulberry Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Desert days and nights of Tinariwen

Tinariwen
(photo by Marie Planeille/courtesy of the artists)

The desert is a place of hardship and subtle beauty, a stark world that reveals its secrets slowly and carefully. Life in the desert is resilient and strong, and the people are gentle giants among the sand, storms, and sun. For saharan blues band tinariwen, the desert is their home, and their hypnotic and electrifying guitar rock reflects complex realities of their homebase in North West Africa. -- from Tinariwen bio

Listen to the beautiful new album, Emmaar, 

by Saharan music ensemble Tinariwen.

Click here:

First Listen: Tinariwen

About Emmaar

NPR Music

William "Bunny Rugs" Clarke, 65

William 'Bunny Rugs' Clarke Dead: Lead Singer Of Third World Dies At 65
by Howard Campbell, The Huffington Post, February 4, 2014

La MaMa plans fundraiser for theater journalist Randy Gener

Randy Gener

La MaMa's February 12 presentation of Lloyd Suh's The Wong Kids, performed by Ma-Yi Theater Company, will be a special fundraiser to help cover medical expenses for Randy Gener. The theater critic suffered severe head trauma in an attack in midtown Manhattan on January 18 and has been recovering in the Neuro ICU. All net box office proceeds will go to The Randy Gener Fund.

Read more about The Wong Kids (full title: The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!) here.

Activate your own superpowers by getting tickets for the February 12 (7pm) performance! Click here.

La MaMa (Ellen Stewart Theater)
66 East 4th Street (between Second Avenue and Bowery), Manhattan
(map/directions)

New fellowship for women in theater announced by The Drama League

Drama League Fellowship to Support Female Writer-Directors
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, February 4, 2014

A birthday valentine to tap legend Gregory Hines

Gregory Hines (1946-2003)
(photo by Greg Gorman)

Join the American Tap Dance Foundation (ATDF) at the American Tap Dance Center for Happy Birthday, Gregory! on Valentine's Day, Friday, February 14 (7:30-9pm), which would have been the tap master’s 68th birthday.  

Happy Birthday Gregory!--hosted by Tony Waag, ATDF artistic/executive director--will feature film clips and discussion reflecting on Hines’ life and talent.

$5 admission. Free to ATDF members. For information on this program and other features of ATDF's Winter Intensive, click here.

American Tap Dance Center

154 Christopher Street, 2B (at Washington Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

Photography by Carlos Cruz-Diez at Americas Society

Carlos Cruz-Diez. Los diablos de Yare, San Francisco de Yare, estado de Miranda, Venezuela, 1951. Image courtesy of the artist.

Americas Society (Council of the Americas)

presents

Within the Light Trap: Carlos Cruz-Diez in Black and White

February 4 - March 22

Wednesday-Saturday, 12-6pm

Curated by Gabriela Rangel and assisted by Christina De León

Venezuelan-born, Paris-based artist Carlos Cruz-Diez’s longstanding research in color has won him an international reputation as one of the most important figures of Latin American modernism.
Cruz-Diez’s empirical exploration of photography is further grounded on social preoccupations the artist developed in the 1940s, when he became aware of the rapid demographic and economic transformations caused by modernization in his native Venezuela.

Since then, he has documented everyday life rituals linked to the vernacular, such as local folklore festivities in rural communities and the viral emergence of shantytowns in Caracas. He has portrayed important intellectual figures linked to popular culture and music who were key interlocutors for him and his generation. Cruz-Diez’s interest on local popular culture through photography also laid a foundation for a number of realist paintings that conveyed social concerns he later redefined with the use of color as a participatory element. 

Americas Society (Visual Arts Gallery)
680 Park Avenue (between 68th and 69th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Dance it out at BAAD!

BAAD! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), in its brand new home at Westchester Square, invites you to dance your hearts out this month with two new class series:

CAPOEIRA: Moses "Bronx" McCarter

Moses "Bronx" McCarter leads a class for dancers of all levels in capoeira, an amazing and energetic folk dance from Brazil that ritualizes movement from martial arts, African dance and acrobatics.

Fridays, February 7, 14, 21 and 28 (6-7pm)
$5 (special rate)

BOMBA: Milteri Tucker

Milteri Tucker, director of the Bronx-based Bombazo Dance Company, leads the all level class through the basics of Bomba, a joyous Afro-Puerto Rican dance and music style that is a communal activity celebrating the relationship between the dancer and the drummer. Class includes her skirt technique open to women and men. Bring your practice skirt and practice skirts will also be provided.

Sundays, February 9, 16, 23 (4-5pm)
$5 (special rate)

Get information on all BAAD! programming here.

BAAD! 
2474 Westchester Avenue, Bronx
(map/directions)

Jean Babilée, 90

Jean Babilée Dies at 90; Ballet’s Acrobatic Star
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, February 3, 2014

Speaking truth to power in the Woody Allen issue

Choosing Comfort Over Truth: What It Means to Defend Woody Allen
by Jessica Valenti, The Nation, February 3, 2014

In celebration of Celia Cruz

Celia Cruz

Celia the Queen

film screening and discussion

El Museo del Barrio

Wednesday, February 5, 7pm

Free admission

Celia the Queen, a film produced by Joe Cardona, is a loving look at the amazing life and legacy of a woman whose voice symbolized the soul of a nation and captured the hearts of fans worldwide. Erupting onto the Cuban music scene as the lead singer for La Sonora Matancera, Celia Cruz broke down barriers of racism and sexism.

With the powerful weapon of her voice and the warm tolerance of her heart, Celia soon became all things to all people.

The film shows the diversity of the people whose lives she touched, from stars like Quincy Jones, Andy Garcia and Wyclef Jean, to ordinary people all over the world who loved not only her music but her incredible spirit.

El Museo del Barrio
1230 5th Avenue (between 104th and 105th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

A Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute presentation in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio, the Apollo Theater and the National Black Programming Consortium

Joan Mondale, 83

Joan Mondale Dies at 83; Was Wife of Vice President
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, February 3, 2014

A call for leadership among women in ballet

Spectral Ballerinas: On a Pedestal, Written Out of History
by Emily Coates, The Huffington Post, January 27, 2014

Miklos Jancso, 92

Miklos Jancso, Who Directed Stylized Films of War and Tyranny in Hungary, Dies at 92
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, February 1, 2014

Philip Seymour Hoffman, 46 [UPDATE]

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Actor, Dies at 46
by Bruce Weber and J. David Goodman, The New York Times, February 2, 2014

The story of "A Change is Gonna Come"

Sam Cooke And The Song That 'Almost Scared Him'
by NPR Staff, NPR Music, February 1, 2014

Maximilian Schell, 83 [UPDATE]

Maximilian Schell, Oscar-Winning Actor, Dies at 83
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, February 1, 2014

Oscar-winning actor Maximilian Schell dies
by BBC News, February 1, 2014

How are the mighty fallen: Langella's "King Lear"

Harry Melling, Frank Langella, Steven Pacey
in Chichester Festival Theatre's King Lear
(photo by Richard Termine)

Yes, it's certainly Frank Langella's King Lear, as one would expect it to be and, perhaps, as it should be. But if everything revolves around the grave, magnetic center of Chichester Festival Theatre's production at the intimate BAM Harvey Theater, that doesn't mean that the show's satellites lack their own pull.

First to meet our eyes and impress is a simple but variable set design by Robert Innes Hopkins--variable not only in what can be done to it but also what we can imagine through it. It creates a rugged, rustic, elemental environment, but even the general winter's chill throughout BAM's theater--tip: don't divest yourself of your sweater--feels in character with the chilling events onstage.

Vibrant performances are especially offered by Max Bennett as Edmund, by turns, devious and a hoot ("Gods, stand up for bastards!") and Harry Melling as Fool with sizzling, infinite energy over sustained engagement. Of the three contentious women setting off the tragedy to come, Catherine McCormack, Lear's scheming Goneril, seems most her father's daughter. Regrettably, Isabella Laughland's Cordelia leaves me wondering. Promising flickers of expressiveness play across her facial features from time to time, but the performance lacks stable focus and embodied authority. Whenever she spoke her lines while not facing my direction, the lack of a face to try to figure out only served to further diminish her.

When Langella, 76, made his first royal entrance through a thicket of wooden planks, I watched him as I might watch a dancer. The rewards came quickly. I immediately saw a battered battle ship heading into more fire, too big and unwieldy to turn itself around in time. Ultimately, he will indeed run out of time.

He enters stooped, rigid, harboring rage. His body is one big tangle, but don't dare glance away: He's not dead yet. 

With every encounter and every directive, he uses whatever power is left in his body to dominate. He gets in your face. Further along, he grabs Goneril in a maneuver so swift and decisive, I missed it. He's a raptor diving, striking some hapless creature on the forest floor; those creatures can die from fear alone.

Langella looks ready to pop McCormack's arm right out of its socket as he curses her. ("How sharper than a serpent's tooth...") For good measure, he spits in her palm. Later in the play, he will enact a scene of perverse misogyny, once again, showing that, no matter how decrepit and out of his wits, this king can still depend upon anger to fuel life. Now he can move quite well, thank you. Hate is amazing that way.

I imagine the young actors sharing the stage with this monster--this master--and thinking to themselves, Damn! Pinch me! But I'm thinking the same: I got to see Frank Langella rocking King Lear. I must be dreaming.

King Lear, directed by Angus Jackson, runs through February 9. For schedule details and tickets, click here.

BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
(map/directions)