Despite the regular way it ticks by, time doesn’t always seem to move at a logical pace. Days blur gradually from one to the next, yet it can also feel like years have escaped in a sudden flash. This paradox of time is central to Sprat Theatre Company’s One Day in the Life of Henri Shnuffle, which is currently transporting audiences to the experience of time for the elderly.
Performance
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DJ Spooky’s Civil War Symphony
The Civil War is still an irrevocable wrent through America’s indelible fabric. As part of The Met Reframed, a new artist residency program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid) teamed up with Jeff L. Rosenheim, the curator of photography and organizer of the Photography and the American Civil War, to present a multimedia interpretation of the exhibition accompanied by violinists, a cello, drummer, and vocalist.
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The Emotive Musculature of Resurrection
Stephen Petronio has been a creative force in the dance world for nearly 30 years. The most compelling aspect of Petronio’s career, and most intriguing for me, is his desire to collaborate, inviting composers, musicians, and visual artists to take on an idea and expand it within and beyond the dance. For his current season at the Joyce, Petronio offers “Like Lazarus Did,” and with it heavy ideas of reincarnation and resurrection.
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Spectral: The Ghost Dance of Butoh
Despite the setting — a small stage filled with nine dancers — there was a feeling of separateness and sadness. The Vangeline Theater, a Butoh dance group, celebrated its 10th anniversary on February 1 and 2 at the Triskelion Arts Aldous Theater; both nights were sold out, with more people waiting in line for standby tickets. On the second night, Saturday, the 74-person-capacity theater had viewers sitting in the aisles, brushing against those in the rows of seats, with still more people with their backs against the walls of the black box.
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What Happened at Les Ballets de Faile?
Last Friday’s launch of the New York City Ballet Art Series was a confusing affair. I was not the only person to arrive at Lincoln Center expecting that art collective Faile’s “collaboration” with the New York City Ballet would be more than lobby art.
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Enduring Meaning in an Old Medium
Despite cold, rainy weather, a large audience turned out for “… towards meaning in a plural painting world,” a panel discussion moderated by Katy Siegel at Hunter College’s MFA building. The room was filled with young artists and MFA candidates eager to participate, and the place swelled to standing room only. Siegel explained that the modus operandi for the evening was driven by questions from and conversations had with students, and that it was only necessary to cross the hall or walk downstairs to view artwork from the Hunter MFA Thesis Fall 2012 exhibition.
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The Art Fair for Contemporary Performance
Many readers of Hyperallergic know about the art fairs that serve the visual arts community, which seem to expand and replicate themselves at an ever-increasing rate around the globe. But readers may not be aware of the corollary in the world of performance. Of course, a dance work or a work for the stage can’t be bought and sold in quite the same way, and certainly not for remotely the same price tag, as a Jeff Koons or an Agnes Martin. Yet, there is still a clear marketplace around contemporary performance works, even if most performers participating stand to profit very little from it. And one of the hubs of that marketplace is the annual conference in New York City of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP).
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A Report from Cyberfest: Russia’s New Media Festival
Cyberfest, the first and only yearly festival of international media art in Russia, was founded in 2007 by artists and curators Anna Frants and Marina Koldobskaya. Since that time they have brought hundreds of international media artists to St. Petersburg, and in the process raising its international profile.
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REMIX! Is the Magic Still There?
Fitting for an event exploring the transformation of existing material into new work, the RE/Mixed Media Festival last Saturday offered any number of unique experiences depending on which panel, performance, or music event you decided to sample. There was Greek theater colliding with hip hop, classical literature transfigured through comics, politics mashing with performance art, battling remix-DJs, and discussions on copyright, authorship, and appropriation.
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The Invention of the Teenager
It’s strange to be reminded in the 21st century that there was a time before “teens” and “tweens,” before those years between childhood and adulthood, i.e. adolescence, had a name and now, a stereotype. All of us who attended the Books & Talks lecture Friday night, however, at Artists Space’s new offshoot on Walker Street, were reminded that before the 1950s teenagers as we know them didn’t exist.
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A New Kind of Theater Space Opens BAM to More Aggressive Work
Standing at the corner on which Jay-Z and Barbra Streisand helped anoint the new Barclays Center at the southern edge of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, it’s possible to feel an air of controversy around the 19,000-seat sports arena and concert venue that opened its doors for the very first time just weeks ago. Meanwhile, over at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the 150-plus-year-old arts institution that has long helped to anchor the area, began inaugurating a new space of its own in September.
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Picasso at His Most Surreal
Last night and tonight, the Guggenheim is staging two special, performance-like readings of Pablo Picasso’s obscure play, “Desire Caught by the Tail,” as part of the museum’s Works & Process series.
