LIVE CULTURES 002
A redemption arc, program notes, May picks + a sneak peek at our June field trip!
The lord giveth and the lord taketh(…but he giveth again...)
TL;DR I am once again asking (read:imploring) you to grab your tickets for R.O.S.E.!
Remember when I told you Sharon Eyal’s September performance of R.O.S.E. at The Park Avenue Armory would sell out? Well, it did so in just 2 weeks (a whole 5 months ahead of the show itself!). I too was a victim of my own procrastination BUT(!) the Park Avenue Armory has expanded capacity and released additional tickets. I bought tickets for Friday, September 6th (my birthday) and will be co-opting the evening as my birthday party. Get your tickets here!
With that, I’d like to introduce Program Notes: a briefish debrief on some noteworthy performances I enjoyed in April.
PROGRAM NOTES
MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY GALA PERFORMANCE (feat. Gala Honoree FKA Twigs) at New York City Center.
When FKA Twigs calls, you answer. And that was how I ended up at the Martha Graham Dance Company Gala Performance, the first instalment of a 3-year long celebration that culminates in 2026 with the company’s 100th anniversary. Despite being a foundational pillar of American modern dance and the oldest modern dance ensemble in the U.S., I had never seen Martha Graham Dance Company live. My only reference being the one or two very humbling Graham technique classes and the occasional YouTube run in. I was primed to witness serious technique that makes your joints groan and your glute twitch involuntarily, and to pensively furrow my brow in gallery-level silence as I beheld an “American Giant”. To all of these preconceptions, the night’s program responded with knowing wink.
A spritely FKA Twigs opened the show with Satyric Festival Song, a self-reflexive solo, original performed by Martha Graham herself, satirizing the staunch modernist sensibilities synonymous with Graham’s work. Where Graham’s movement language often demands precision and decisiveness, Satyric Festival Song allowed room for playful melodrama and oddity, making FKA Twigs a perfect canvas for the work; she can be anything and everything.
The inside joke continued with Maple Leaf Rag performed by the Martha Graham Company. The piece was another celebration of Graham’s idiosyncrasies (including rounds of applause with Graham’s quintessential cupped hands) reminding us the theater need not be so serious all the time and that yes, you are permitted to laugh out loud.
Putting all jokes aside, the night concluded with The Rite of Spring, considered one of Graham’s masterworks, where all the references and motifs sprinkled into the first two pieces came full circle. For those who aren’t familiar, The Rite of Spring has been staged by a number of famed choreographers beginning with Vaslav Nijinsky for Ballets Russes (1913) and later reimagined by Pina Bausch (1975) and Martha Graham (1984). The piece revolves around a pagan ritual in which a young woman is chosen as a sacrifice to dance herself to death in order to bring about a bountiful spring. Stravinsky’s weighty score was performed live by the Mannes Orchestra creating a visceral sonic experience that left no doubt that sound is inherently movement. The gargantuan score was matched by architectural compositions, geometric physicality (DaVinci would be quaking), all underscored by devastating theatricality. Of note, principal dancer Xin Ying, displayed a unique ability to convey large, climactic expression even through the smallest increment of motion be it a quivering leg, the tightening of a fist or the rise and fall of her sternum. The Rite of Spring is lasting testament not only to Martha Graham’s artistic vision and innovation, but to the sheer strength and dynamism of her dancers who continue to breathe life into her work almost half a century later.
Get acquainted with more of the company’s work through Martha Graham Dance Company’s Studio Series - an up close look at the work hosted in their private rehearsal space. Next Studio Series will be Fri, May 10 and Sat, May 11 ft. Graham 2 and guests. (Tickets $20-30)
ENUF by Dominica Greene at Triskelion Arts Center
If you follow the right people, Instagram can actually lead you out of the content cesspool and into some wonderfully creative pastures. One such pasture is the world of Dominica Greene, a conceptual movement artist and dancer based in New York. With a sold-out, three night run, I was fortunate enough to be able to squeeze into the theater (I literally sat on a floor cushion tucked right up against the stage) to see 'ENUF', an autobiographical, multi-disciplinary solo created during her time as a Research Resident at Triskelion Arts. Though we had never met, Greene reached out on Instagram greeting me with “I’m Guyanese too!”, as every person of Guyanese heritage tends to do when they meet another Guyanese person. The kinship is immediate and unquestionable so, of course I speed biked from Flatbush to Greenpoint and folded myself into a corner of the stage to catch her final performance.
The piece was a meditation on ancestral legacies and embodiment told through movement, soil, spoken and written word, and archival video. Greene’s movement was deeply grounding, and laced with intention from her breath to her footsteps. The piece flowed seamlessly between mediums and meditations on femininity, identity, family and land, and ended with Greene constructing a tent-like space that hosted an assemblage of videos of her grandparents and their home in Guyana. Greene closes the piece sat embedded in the soil she had laid down on the stage, enveloped in and embraced by the spaces, voices and images of her ancestors. ENUF embodied independent theater making at its finest — a deeply personal and intimate portal into the artists’s worlds.
Dominica will be performing at Open Studios curated by Sarah Michelson at the Center for Performance Research on Wednesday May 22 (Pay-what-you-can $0-25). You can also view more of her work and upcoming performances here.
DWELLERS by a.k. payne at Vineyard Theater
If you’ve ever wondered what theater making can be at it’s most honest, look no further than a.k. payne’s (she/they) Dwellers. The work-in-progress reading was staged as part of Vineyard Theater’s Works in Progress series showcasing, work from the theater’s 2023-2024 Artists-in-Residence. Dwellers tells a story of 9 Black people on the deck of a ship headed back to ‘that infamous site of rupture and memory’. To borrow a well-worn (read:overused) literary term, in this ‘liminal space’ the stories and characters are given room to be fantastic and surreal and real all at once, neither held captive by the conditions they came from, nor defined by an arrival ‘somewhere’. As many of us are, they were figuring ‘it’ and themselves out.
What I loved about the play was its steadfast irreverence for tradition or expectation (in the best way), both in its overall composition and within the narrative and dialogue. The play is very much fluid and interweaves the stories, relationships and musings of 9 characters who I struggled to pin down in past, present, or future. I later learned that the play’s scenes can be rearranged in any order around an anchoring beginning and end, and wondered what new possibilities might have emerged in another configuration. a.k. payne was able to convey a rare honesty in the characters through moments of devastating breakdown, idiosyncratic Black-people humour, memories and vignettes of the Black folk we know and maybe are. Where commercially produced depictions of Black life feel pressured to resolve and offer a neatly packaged ‘teachable moments’, in Dwellers, you’re forced to accept that there will be misunderstanding, confusion, ‘mess’, unresolved tensions; to meditate in these ellipses.
You have two more chances to catch the Works in Progress series ending May 20.(Claim your FREE tickets here).
MAY 13: The Haunting at Camp Winona by Mara Nelson-Greenberg
MAY 20: Rise and Beings by Rudi Goblen
Needless to say, April’s offerings treated me well. Here’s a look at a few performances that have piqued my curiosity for May, PLUS a sneak peak at a June field trip I have in the works for you!
LIVE CULTURES: MAY PICKS
El Niño at Metropolitan Opera (until May 17)
Bursting with colour, and a carnival of movement and staging, El Niño promises to be a feast for the senses. The opera, formed out of English, Spanish and Latin sacred and secular texts, is a meditation on the meaning of a miracle, told through the dual lens of the Nativity and the migrant experience. The production boasts trailblazing talent including Tony-nominated director Lileana Blain-Cruz and eminent American composer John Adams.
New York City Ballet: Contemporary Choreography II at Lincoln Center (May 15-24)
All you need to know is that Kyle Abrahams’ Love Letter (on Shuffle) is a MASTERPIECE (special mention to James Blake for the music). Just trust me on this one.
Nora Chipaumire: ShebeenDUB at Harlem Stage (May 17 and 18)
I’m a sucker for immersive theater experiences, and ShebeenDUB promises just that. Staged as part of Harlem Stage’s signature E-Moves series, ShebeenDUB takes over the Harlem Stage Gatehouse for three-part experience. A sonic and visual statement of radical Black indictment of Empire, the evening begins with an immersive radio opera, followed by a dub-fueled dance performance and closing with a dance party for all to participate in, featuring dub music by a DJ Luz Mob.
Field Trip 002: Invasive Species at The Vineyard Theater (~mid June, Pricing TBC)
Invasive Species is a dark comedy executive produced by Jeremy O’Harris (of Slave Play fame). A true story about lying to live, and living to lie, the play follows an Argentinean actor who immigrates to the U.S., playing the role of a lifetime as they say and do whatever is necessary to achieve their American Dream.
I’m working with the theater to secure a group booking (and discount) in mid-late June - more to follow. I’ve tentatively asked for a block of 20 seats (it’s a relatively small theater). Please register your interest below so I can get a better picture of demand.