For Ahkeem
For Ahkeem is an affecting coming-of-age documentary that shines a light on what it means to grow up poor and black in 21st Century America. Below, former White House Social Secretary Deesha Dyer...
View ArticleNotes on Crossing
Composer Matthew Aucoin's Crossing, a new American opera directed by American Repertory Theater's Diane Paulus, comes to BAM on October 3. A note from Aucoin follows.by Matthew Aucoin “But for the...
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Performing Gender
by Nora TjossemA gentle voice fills the courtroom: “If you stop thinking of yourself as a stable identity, it changes the whole game.” Two figures in suits face the cavernous space of the Borough Hall...
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Wendy’s Subway returns
Wendy’s Subway returns to BAM for the second year with a newly envisioned Reading Room.The space, as part of Next Wave Art, is located in the BAM Fisher Sharp Lobby and houses a collection of over 300...
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In Context: Principles of Uncertainty
In this dance-theater collaboration, choreographer John Heginbotham brings author and illustrator Maira Kalman’s candy-colored musings on travel, beauty, and mortality to life. Inspired by the various...
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Uniforms Transform into Paper
This week, My Lai—Jonathan Berger and Kronos Quartet's fevered character study featuring tenor Rinde Eckert and Vân Ánh Võ—comes to the BAM Harvey Theater from Wed, Sep 27—Sun, Sep 30. Reflecting on a...
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I Am With You: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Illustrated
When Matthew Aucoin's new opera Crossing comes to BAM next Tue, Oct 3, audiences will be treated to a new side of 19th century poet Walt Whitman: alive—on stage—with a booming baritone. Drawing...
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In Context: A Letter to My Nephew
Choreographer Bill T. Jones sets a portrait of his beloved nephew Lance T. Briggs against the political landscape of the present in A Letter to My Nephew, an intimate, impressionistic collage for nine...
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In Context: Crossing
Composer Matthew Aucoin makes his BAM debut with Crossing—a chamber opera taking inspiration from Walt Whitman’s Civil War diary, directed by American Repertory Theater artistic director Diane Paulus....
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In Context: Mon élue noire (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2
Senegalese dancer Germaine Acogny's scenically minimalist, emotionally maximalist solo, comes to BAM Fisher Oct 4—7. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated...
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What is it then between us?
Photo: Stefan KillenIn the fifth stanza of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry—from which Matthew Aucoin’s new American opera takes its name—Walt Whitman asks, “What is it then between us?” First published in...
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Richard III—Prototypical Villain
By Christian BarclayRichard III was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485, at the age of 32, in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the...
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Ongoing State of Siege
Photo: Jean Louis FernandezBy Brian Scott Lipton R-E-S-I-S-T. While a commonplace word, it has come back strongly into the American linguistic vogue this year—seen every day on badges, Twitter walls,...
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Reconsidering Richard's Rep
Portrait of King Richard III. Collection of National Portrait Gallery.By Christian Barclay In late August 2012, a collection of bones were uncovered and retrieved from beneath a parking lot in...
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In Context: Saudade
Vancouver-bred, New York-based choreographer Joshua Beamish pays tribute to saudade—a nostalgic yearning for an elusive past—which is said to be the essence of the Portuguese soul. Context is...
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In Context: Richard III
Dragging his clubfoot and hunchback across a clay- and glitter-caked stage, Shakespeare’s most wretched villain weaponizes his ugliness against a kingdom ravaged by its own elite infighting. In this...
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Me First
Photo: Jan VerweysveldBy David Cote By his own admission, Ivo van Hove had never heard of Ayn Rand or The Fountainhead. But on opening night of Roman Tragedies at the 2008 Avignon Festival, an...
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In Context: La grenouille avait raison (The Toad Knew)
James Thierée and Compagnie du Hanneton return to BAM Oct 12—14 with La grenouille avait raison (The Toad Knew), a physical theater work in which two restless siblings are trapped in a dank...
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17c — Writing the Self
Big Dance Theater returns to BAM Nov 14—18 with 17c, a dizzy intertextual romp through the diaries of Samuel Pepys, weaving music, dance, video and text into a spectacularly outré portrait of the famed...
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In Context: Mementos Mori
Combining analog craftsmanship and digital dexterity, the Chicago-based performance collective Manual Cinema engineers a live movie before the audience’s eyes in Mementos Mori, a meditation on death...
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