2013 BAM Blog Awards

The Nesquik bunny takes on the Apollonian Greek chorus in Alexandre Singh's The Humans

It wouldn't be a proper year's end at BAM without acknowledging, in award form, the onstage moments that gave us pause, wowed us completely, or reminded us that yes, sometimes what theater calls for is a flatulent Nesquik bunny that rules one half of the post-lapsarian universe. Without further ado, we present the 2013 BAM Blog Awards.

Best performance of a Gnarls Barkley song within an Ibsen play:
The actors in Thomas Ostermeier's An Enemy of the People

Best filmed portrait of an overlooked Nova Scotian island:
We Have An Anchor

Best fall from grace by a statuesque Greek chorus:
The Humans

Best big-band tribute to a boxing star:
The Sweet Science Suite, a tribute to Muhammad Ali

Best cryptic use of text from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
A Piece of Work (runner up: Sider)

Best performance by a piece of furniture in a lead role:
The table in The Table (runner up: the piano in Dark Theater)

Best performance by a dancer wearing a film projector:
Vicky Shick (Trisha Brown Dance Company) in Homemade 

Best use of a B.B. King sample by an Egyptian rapper:
El Deeb's "Masrah Deeb," performed in Mic Check: Hip-Hop from North Africa and the Middle East

Best enigmatic use of cardboard:
Sider 

Best accompaniment to a series of Rube Goldberg contraptions:
Goldberg’s Variations

Best circular breathing technique by a flutist in a dance piece:
Flutist in Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Cesena

Best onstage kneading of bread while speaking gibberish:
Not What Happened

Best evocation of post-coital languor by 25 naked men:
Powder Her Face

Best extremely elaborate metallic headdresses:
The Legend of Apsara Mera (runner up: And then, one thousand years of peace)

Best performance by a four-legged creature or two:
The sheep in And then, one thousand years of peace (runner up: the German Shepherd in An Enemy of the People

Best performance by a piece of clothing in a supporting role:
The suit in Peter Brook’s The Suit

Best use of magenta- and periwinkle-colored lasers in tribute to heavenly bodies:
Planetarium

Best use of moving walls to evoke varied psychological states:
David et Jonathas

Pinkest production:
Anna Nicole