Connecting Through Dance

Mark Morris leads a workshop in Cambodia. Photo: Johan Henckens

By R. Michael Blanco

One pilot year and four seasons later, DanceMotion USA^SM (DMUSA)—the US State Department’s cultural diplomacy program produced by BAM—continues to work its magic around the globe. By the end of 2016, the program will have sent 20 dance companies to 47 countries, reaching more than 100,000 people directly in workshops and performances and over 20 million people through digital platforms and social media.

Conceived in 2009 by BAM Executive Producer Joseph V. Melillo in response to a Department of State request for proposals, DMUSA brings its extensive network of national and international dance contacts to work with the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in choosing dance companies to send on missions of cultural exchange throughout the world.

Richard Eyre's Notes on Ghosts

Lesley Manville in Ghosts. Original photo: Hugo Glendinning

Ibsen said of Ghosts (coming to the BAM Harvey Theater April 5—May 3) that “in none of my plays is the author so completely absent as in this last one.” Nine years later, when he was 61, Ibsen met an 18-year-old Viennese girl and fell in love. She asked him to live with her; he at first agreed but, crippled by guilt and fear of scandal (and perhaps impotence as well), he put an end to the relationship. Emilie became the “May sun of a September life” and the inspiration for the character of Hedda Gabler, even if Ibsen himself contributed many of her characteristics with his fear of ridicule, his apparent repulsion with the reality of sex, and his yearning for emotional freedom.

Space is the Place: Afrofuturist Music Videos

By Ashley Clark

The term "Afrofuturism" was coined by cultural theorist Mark Dery in his 1994 essay "Black to the Future." While championing the work of pioneering African-American authors of speculative fiction including Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, Dery expressed surprise at the relative lack of African-American sci-fi literature. This absence was curious, he said, because “African-Americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies.”

Rethinking Robeson

Daniel Beaty. Photo: Don Ipock

By Brian Scott Lipton

Tackling Paul Robeson’s tumultuous life story in one theatrical show is a monumental endeavor. Nonetheless, this Herculean undertaking has been taken on by two of America’s most gifted theater artists, writer-performer Daniel Beaty and director and Tectonic Theater Project co-founder Moisés Kaufman, in The Tallest Tree in the Forest, which receives its long-awaited New York premiere at the BAM Harvey Theater, March 22 to 28. (The show has played previous theatrical engagements in Washington, DC; Kansas City; La Jolla; and Los Angeles.)

Indeed, Robeson, who died in 1976 at age 77, can hardly be defined by any one description or any one accomplishment. This extraordinary African-American, born at the end of the 19th century, was a true groundbreaker—a son of a former slave who went from being valedictorian of his class at Rutgers University to a member of the National Football League, a Shakespearean actor on Broadway, a movie star, an internationally acclaimed singer, and a revered political figure.

Mark Morris' Jazzy Spring

Spring, Spring, Spring. Photo: Peg Skorpinski

By Susan Yung

Mark Morris Dance Group returns in April with two rich programs of repertory, including his vivacious interpretation of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; Words, a lauded recent work seen briefly in New York before an international tour; and a world premiere entitled Whelm, to Debussy. Not only that, the troupe performs one of MMDG’s all-time favorites, Grand Duo; its soft-slipper rendition of Pacific, most often performed by ballet companies on pointe; and more.

In Context: The Tallest Tree in the Forest

Daniel Beaty celebrates legendary performer and political activist Paul Robeson in The Tallest Tree in the Forest at the BAM Harvey Theater March 22—29. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

In Context: Kodo One Earth Tour: Mystery

Japanese taiko drum ensemble Kodo comes to BAM with Kodo One Earth Tour: Mystery March 19—21. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

BAM Illustrated: The United States vs. Paul Robeson

Legendary performer and political activist Paul Robeson is celebrated in Daniel Beaty's solo show The Tallest Tree in the Forest opening this Sunday at the BAM Harvey Theater. Illustrator Nathan Gelgud looks at Robeson's radical politics and turbulent relationship with the US government:

The Many Faces of Paul Robeson

Daniel Beaty as Paul Robeson in The Tallest Tree in the Forest. Photo: Don Ipock

Daniel Beaty's The Tallest Tree in the Forest, playing the BAM Harvey March 22—29, celebrates the dynamic life of legendary performer and political activist Paul Robeson. He is best known for his iconic baritone and leading roles in The Emperor Jones, Show Boat, and Othello—a remarkable accomplishment despite the fact that his star rose at a time when segregation was legal. But his life trajectory took many turns and Robeson wore many hats as a public figure and outspoken champion of peace and justice:

Eat (Sandwiches), Drink & Be Literary: Michael Cunningham

Eat, Drink & Be Literary, presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation, is back this week with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Cunningham. With a new season comes a new batch of food, beverage, and book-related questions for our featured authors. (Read responses from other EDBL writers here.)

When you write, do you write by hand or on the computer (…or typewriter)? 
I write on my computer. I love my computer. I love the way the words on a computer screen occupy a halfway zone between consciousness and paper. They exist but don’t exist; they’re more than stray thoughts but at the same time they’re still just blips of light; you can push a button and POOF it’s as if they were never there at all.

What is your favorite Brooklyn-based novel? 
Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn.

When you read, are you an e-book or a paper book person? 
I’m fine with both. I love a bound book, but at the same time don’t really understand the objection to e-books. I mean, a little glowing box that holds thousands of stories? What’s not to like?

Two Shake Shack cheeseburgers (with fries). Photo: burgerdays.com

What is your favorite sandwich? 
Shake Shack cheeseburger. Twice a year.

What is your favorite Brooklyn restaurant? 
Franny’s. Or no, wait Roman’s. Or Roberta’s. Or Berlyn...

What is your go-to beverage? 
I’ve been trying for years to overcome an addiction to Diet Coke.

What is the last live performance that really moved you? 
Ivo van Hove’s production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.

Michael Cunningham will read from his most recent novel, The Snow Queen, and talk with moderator Deborah Treisman at Eat, Drink & Be Literary on Wednesday, March 11.

Backstage Confessions of a Temple Sweeper

Semele's Temple Sweeper, Eveline Chang.
Photo: Eveline Chang

By Eveline Chang

If you asked me a couple of weeks ago if I ever thought I’d have the chance to perform on the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House stage with world-renowned artists, I would have said you were cruel for teasing me. So when the call came up for an extra, or supernumerary, for the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Semele (closing tonight!), I did a double-take. As a program manager for BAM Education, I spend much of my time in the studio, backstage, or front of house. This new role—Temple Sweeper—needless to say, uncovered a completely different side of BAM for me.

During rehearsals with the COC, I learned the mysterious story of the woman I was portraying: the real-life keeper of the 17-ton, Ming Dynasty temple from rural China. Ruan Jinmei is featured in Director Zhang Huan’s documentary film and ash painting that bookend the opera, bringing a contemporary Eastern dimension to the mythology of Handel’s Semele.

“I knew ‘em all": Eugene O'Neill and the Iceman

By Elliot B. Quick

Visual artist Charles Demuth and Eugene O'Neill in
Provincetown, MA, 1916. 
Photo: Provincetown Playhouse.

A superficial glance at Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, playing the BAM Harvey Theatre through March 15, can leave a modern reader with glazed eyes. I’ll cop to reeling back from terms like “French Syndicalism” and “The Boer War,” which have the vague ring of something I once learned for a high school history test. Hearing old white men talk of Wobblies in the thick accents and archaic speech patterns that O’Neill meticulously records in his dialogue, it’s tempting to class The Iceman Cometh as a historical case study in old men dreaming of old things. Who remembers what an iceman is, anyway?

But if we can penetrate the surfaces of O’Neill’s language and peer outside the grimy windows of Harry Hope’s stale-aired barroom, the summer of 1912 trembles with modern resonance: a turbulent American economy; a contentious presidential election bogged down by party rivalry; glad-handing politicians juggling allegiances between Wall Street and the worker; inflated grassroots leaders shouting inflammatory rhetoric; a rumbling working class striving to articulate the ways they are held off from the American Dream.

Haunting Ghosts

Will Keen, Jack Lowden, Lesley Manville in Ghosts. Photo: Hugo Glendinning

By Alicia Dhyana House

The revolutionary and Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828—1906), radically changed the history of the stage by writing about the real problems in life. Ibsen’s affinity for tearing the veil off late 19th-century hypocrisies and defiantly exposing the dirty underbelly of human nature eventually garnered him the title, “Father of Modern Drama.” Ghosts, which comes to the BAM Harvey Theater April 5—May 3, tackles social conventions and their harmful consequences on domestic life, revealing a woman caught in a repressive society. It centers on widow Helene Alving who spent her life suspended in an emotional void after the death of her cruel but outwardly charming husband.

Eat (Sandwiches), Drink & Be Literary: Tiphanie Yanique

Tiphanie Yanique. Illustration by Nathan Gelgud.

Eat, Drink & Be Literary, presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation, is back this week with Caribbean writer Tiphanie Yanique. With a new season comes a new batch of food, beverage, and book-related questions for our featured authors. (Read responses from last year's writers here.)

When you write, do you write by hand or on the computer (…or typewriter)?
By hand, by computer... but lately I've been sort of writing a lot in my mind. Just composing things in my head on the go... and hoping I remember them later! But also being okay with forgetting.

What is your favorite Brooklyn-based novel?
Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall.

When you read, are you an e-book or a paper book person?
Total paper. I am as analog as can be.

Pilar's grilled cheese. Photo from Serious Eats.

What is your favorite sandwich?
Grilled cheese with sweet plantains. They make it as the Cuban place called Pilar in my hood.  So good.

What is your favorite Brooklyn restaurant?
Pilar!

What is your go-to beverage?
Water, sparkling if it's available.

What is the last live performance that really moved you?
Saul Williams at BAM. My husband and I still talk about it. It was transporting and transformative.


Tiphanie Yanique will read from her most recent novel Land of Love and Drowning, and talk with moderator Lorin Stein at Eat, Drink & Be Literary on Tuesday, March 3.