As the audience entered, the tightly bunched group of performers walked very slowly around the periphery of the stage, quietly demanding all attention. Everything was white—the marley, the curtains that lined the walls, the columns (with pleated skirts around their bases), the dancers’ costumes, crafted of quilted fabric with Ace bandage accents. White lace even trimmed all of the industrial audience chairs. Lenore Doxsee designed the superb lighting; Emmett Ramstad the costumes; the two with Thorson designed the visual setting. (more…)

You had a residency at WNET a long time ago?

The first time I did something at WNET was in 1976; I did a piece called Four Songs that had to do with the passage of time, death, resurrection, but in a slightly different way than I deal with those topics now. It was broadcast on television. The first time my work was seen by large numbers of people, it was not in a museum, it was on NET, then it got syndicated and went to other public TV stations. I was involved with the TV Lab from around ‘75 thru maybe ‘81. That’s how I learned how to edit with high end professional equipment.

So many people have large format HD screens at home now… it’s a readymade format for your work.

I totally agree. The advent of flat screens have reconnected video to the art forms that since the beginning of video I’ve felt it was connected to. The flat screen confirmed all that, and the connection between the moving image and painting. That’s what plasma screens have allowed. And people like Jim and Jane Cohan (of James Cohan Gallery) get artists’ work on a wall in a portable format, which is what the original notion of painting was—frescoes, or cave paintings. People in the late middle ages were able to travel much farther than ever before, and they wanted to take their little icons with them. So artists painted icons, and the paintings started to grow, and eventually it eclipsed fresco. (more…)

Today, a quickie with someone below you in social status is not a shocker, but an exercise in branding—a step on the celebrity ladder of success. In our world of sex tape “scandals” and Levi Johnson posing for Playgirl (one year after standing on the podium of the Republican National Convention next to Sarah Palin) how can we seriously buy the morning-after angst of Julie and her father’s valet? Regardless of whether its set when Miss Julie was written (1888 Sweden) or updated in Marber’s version to 1945 England, the only dramatic question for modern audiences is: will she text her snooty friends and brag about shagging the help—or whether he’ll slip the news to the Post or TMZ in the hopes of a long career of snogging rich debutantes? (more…)

Last Thursday morning, Steel and Martins—the general director of New York City Opera and Ballet Master in Chief of the New York City Ballet—invited members of the press to a preview of the newly renovated David H. Koch Theater (a.k.a. the New York State Theater), which is finally set to re-open on November 5 with American Voices, a program of American music. The gala reopening will honor Koch, who gave a $100 million lead gift to the joint capital campaign of the two companies, which both perform at the theater. Also at this morning’s preview was New York City Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin—the city of New York also donated $26.9 million toward the rebuilding project. Steel joked that the opening-night gala will be an opportunity to hear “ballet, opera-theater, and Rufus Wainwright—all at one low price.” Martins quipped that the theater’s 40-foot legroom space would be maintained, and the theater’s changes meant that Tchaikovsky could now be heard “as he was meant to be heard.” After the jump, you can see some pictures of the newly renovated space. (more…)

Last February, George Steel began his tenure as New York City Opera’s new General Manager and Artistic Director. Building on the company’s core mission of artistic excellence and accessibility, Steel’s plans include broadening the company’s adventurous approach to repertory, supporting the careers of promising artists and continuing to develop the company’s education and outreach programs. November 5th will see City Opera’s return to the stage of the renovated David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center. The repertory will be all-American music entitled American Voices.

Each dance’s visual environment sets parameters for the choreography, whether it be mood or physical limitation. The opening dance, Corners, is just that—six mobile cutaway room corners that constrain the dancers or challenge them to escape and enter from above. Whether by intent or not, the womens’s slick gyrating movements and stiletto heels conjure images of go-go dancers. Men replace them (not wearing stilettos), eventually climbing upon the units and jumping down from what appears to be an alarmingly high distance. The dated music adds to the pseudo-club atmosphere that quickly becomes repetitive and is distinctly lacking in irony. (more…)

Adams’ work stands out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. Because of his ability to integrate different styles, including American popular forms, his standing today has been of compared in importance to American musical expression to that of Aaron Copland in the forties and Leonard Bernstein in the fifties.

In this SundayArts Profile, Paula Zahn interviews the famous composer about his piano works and his artistic struggles.

Keith Huff’s two-hander is a serviceable piece of theater. I hesitate to call it a play since it’s basically two monologues, intercut without much style or grace. (The production values are top notch at least: the moody lighting courtesy of Hugh Vanstone, the ghostlike sets by Scott Pask, not to mention John Crowley’s sure-handed direction.)

The plot is solid but feels more like the draft of a pilot for new Primetime cop show (CSI: Chicago, anyone?). Both men tell their side of the story concerning a wild evening that begins with a blind date and bullet hole in 52-inch plasma screen. (more…)

Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas (to Scarlatti) led off. (more…)

The Poisson Rouge concert mixes new and old music, but it’s of particular interest to me because it will feature two movements from Cookbook, a suite for clarinet and piano by the Brooklyn-based composer Kenji Bunch, who is also a violist. Both Neiman and Bunch are very active in the new-music scene, so if you’re free, this concert is worth checking out.

José, originally from Spain but now based in Philadelphia, sounded jazzed-up about the Poisson Rouge event—which includes works by Brahms, Poulenc, Chopin, Arturo Marquez, Neiman, and Bunch—and he e-chatted with me briefly about the music. (more…)

Following Baez on her 2008/2009 world tour, the filmmakers captured Baez in performance as well as in intimate conversations with individuals whose lives parallel hers. From a stop in Sarajevo, Bosnia to revisit the scene of Joan’s courageous trip to that war-torn city in the middle of the 1993 siege, to Nashville, Tennessee, where she joined Steve Earle to talk about their collaboration on Joan’s 2008 Grammy-nominated album Day After Tomorrow, the film allows viewers an unprecedented level of access to Ms. Baez.

Shot in high definition with a natural, filmic look, Joan is also joined on screen by, David Crosby, Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn and Reverend Jesse Jackson, among others, to illuminate this extraordinary life. Rich historical archival footage – Baez’ controversial visit to North Vietnam, where she is seen praying with the residents of Hanoi during the heaviest bombing of the war; Martin Luther King Jr. outside a California prison where he visited Joan to offer his support after she was jailed for staging a protest; Joan at her first Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and Joan as a teenager performing at the historic Club 47 – is woven into the story so viewers can experience scenes from Joan’s life that have never been uncovered.

The grit of the film is Baez’ power as a musician – from her tentative teenage years in the Cambridge, Mass coffee houses to her emergence onto the world stage and the 50-year career that followed – Joan Baez is a musical force of nature and this film captures her strength as a performer and the influence she has brought to bear on successive generations of artists.

Terrance McKnight sounds pretty happy and proud of the fact that an all-classical station has been preserved in any form in the city of New York. (more…)

Childs was one of the major figures in New York’s dance boom that took place in the 70s and 80s. She formed a company in 1973 which performed her rigorous, dense, graceful dances. (more…)