In Context: Unbound: Malala Yousafzai

BAM welcomes Nobel Peace Prize laureate and New York Times bestselling author Malala Yousafzai (I Am Malala and Malala’s Magic Pencil) to discuss her powerful new book, We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World. New York Times journalist Rukmini Callimachi leads this powerful discussion about the displacement of millions worldwide through the lens of Yousafzai’s own stunning account of the girls she’s met in refugee camps and cities—girls who have lost their community, relatives, and often the only world they've ever known. Context is everything, so we’ve provided some articles to read and videos to watch.

Singing the Snowflakes

Photo by Richard Termine

By David Hsieh

In a ballet as full of magical moments as The Nutcracker, the Waltz of the Snowflakes may just be the most magical. Our heroine (Marie or Clara, depending on the version) just helped fend off the Rat King in an act of desperation. Then the wooden Nutcracker turns into a handsome cavalier to take her to a magical snow kingdom full of winter wonder. This moment of transformation with a sense of wonder is conveyed through every element of the staging. The scene shifts from domestic interior where rodents lurk to a forest covered in pristine white. The atmosphere changes from a real world to an imagined one. The dance style changes from social (and mime) to classical ballet on point. The characters change from kids to adults. And Tchaikovsky’s music suddenly adds in a vocal part—the only one in the entire score.

In Context: Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw

A lone governess caught between memory and nightmare weaves a chilling tale made startlingly relevant as her sanity comes into question. Truth, it appears, is relative. A seductive retelling of the Henry James classic by The Builders Association, Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw brings technological stagecraft to the traditional theater format. Context is everything, so we’ve provided some articles to read and videos to watch. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #StrangeWindow.

In Context: The Hard Nut

Mark Morris Dance Group’s beloved retro-modern reimagining of The Nutcracker, The Hard Nut, comes back to BAM for the holidays, playfully preserving the warm spirit of an essential holiday tradition Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

How a 1937 Lifeguard Manual and Other Found Texts Became The Good Swimmer

A pop requiem for lives lost at war, The Good Swimmer is a visceral music theater piece by composer Heidi Rodewald (Passing Strange), lyricist Donna Di Novelli, and director Kevin Newbury. The show follows a young beach lifeguard who grapples with the legacy of the one she could not save: her brother who died in Vietnam.

Seven years in the making, The Good Swimmer started at a bookshop in Connecticut, where Rodewald and Di Novelli found a 1937 American lifeguard manual that somehow struck a chord. After reading only a few lines, they knew they had discovered something truly great—and Di Novelli got to work composing a libretto.

The Governess or the Ghosts?

Sipiwe Moyo, Hannah Heller, Sean Donovan. Photo: James Gibbs.

By Harry Haun

Blood will tell—and did: Henry James—writer/brother of the “Father of American psychology,” William James—crisscrossed the psychological with the supernatural, slyly added a pinch of sex to keep you riveted, and invented the cerebral ghost story.

His farthest reach at this, The Turn of the Screw, unraveled in 12 magazine-serial installments in Collier’s Weekly (Jan 27—Apr 16, 1898) and later that year in one lump sum with another James yarn published together as The Two Magics.

Dreadful Knowledge

Oh, the Oedipus complex. A story recapitulated over centuries and made particularly popular thanks to a simultaneously concerning and endlessly intriguing Freudian interpretation. When Mark Anthony-Turnage’s seminal opera Greek comes to BAM in a bawdy new production next Wed, Dec 5, audiences will experience the infamous story as never before. Greek transposes antihero Oedipus to 1980s Thatcher-era London, where police brutality, social upheaval, and economic crises reign. Based on Steven Berkoff’s play Greek, the opera elevates Oedipal themes of fate, family, escape, love, and the unknown—offering an unexpected and bold conclusion to a tale many assume they know all too well.

To prepare for this reinvented Oedipus, we partnered with illustrator Nathan Gelgud to break down the pivotal themes and moments for audiences both familiar and new to this thought-provoking tale. We predict you’ll have a new outlook on knowing your fate and fortune.

In Context: Greek

From composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and director Joe Hill-Gibbons, Greek is an in-your-face operatic retelling of the Oedipus tale set in 1980s London. Coursing with sharp and scathing political commentary, Greek maintains its shock value, social relevancy, and cultural weight 30 years after the original premiere. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

In Context: NERVOUS/SYSTEM

From interactive media artist Andrew Schneider, NERVOUS/SYSTEM interrogates what we miss in a world ruled by distractions. By utilizing technology to create an immersive experience that is both visual and physical, Schneider and his collaborators push the boundaries of traditional theater and performance to decode the stories we miss each time we blink. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

In Context: The Good Swimmer

Heidi Rodewald composes propulsive music to accompany Donna Di Novelli’s powerful lyrics for The Good Swimmer, a project seven years in the making. A young lifeguard grapples with the legacy of the one she could not save, her brother in Vietnam. This music-theater pop requiem transcends time and brings to the forefront the senselessness of war, begging the question, how do we truly honor our fallen soldiers? Context is everything, so we’ve provided some content for you to read and watch. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #GoodSwimmer.

In Context: Elemental

Electrifying tap dance company Dorrance Dance makes its BAM debut with a new site-specific work co-choreographed by Michelle Dorrance and Nicholas Van Young. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

In Context: The White Album

Lars Jan’s multi-layered vision of Joan Didion’s essay juxtaposes the author’s searing text—performed in its entirety—with a glassed-in microcosm of social unraveling. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

“The country’s in a state of plague.”

Greek and the Tragedy of Thatcherite Individualism

Photo Credit: Jane Hobson.

By Chris Tyler

In Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek–coming to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Dec 5–9–audiences will find themselves transported to a dystopian 1980s London plagued by police violence, racism, and socioeconomic decay. If this litany of ills feels close to home, it’s likely because the U.K. under Thatcher shared quite a bit in common with the U.S. under Trump.

Beyond the Canon: Wanda + Bonnie and Clyde

Wanda (1970), courtesy of Janus Films; Bonnie and Clyde (1967), courtesy of Warner Bros/Photofest

It is no secret that the cinema canon has historically skewed toward lionizing the white, male auteur. Beyond the Canon is a monthly series that seeks to question that history and broaden horizons by pairing one much-loved, highly regarded, canonized classic with a thematically or stylistically-related—and equally brilliant—work by a filmmaker traditionally excluded from that discussion. This month’s double feature pairs Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970) with Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) screening Sat, Nov 24 at 4:30pm.

By Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

In Context: Voyage of Time

Voyage of Time, director Terrence Malick’s love letter to the universe, is a visually expansive, emotionally impactful meditation on the origins of human life, creativity, and connection. The #BAMNextWave screening will feature an immersive live score from Wordless Music Orchestra and narration from Baby Driver actress Lily James. Context is everything, so we’ve provided a curated selection of articles and videos for you to engage with before seeing the piece. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

A 20th-century Everyman

Photo: Jane Hobson

By Tim Ashley

This article was originally published in the Edinburgh International Festival programme, where the Next Wave Festival presentation of Greek (Dec 5-9) premiered in 2017.

Sigmund Freud first posited the idea of the Oedipus complex in The Interpretation of Dreams, published in November 1899. In a move itself riddled with significance, however, he insisted that the date on the title-page be changed to 1900: psychoanalysis was to be a new science for a new century; Oedipal theory, in which a child’s first sexual and aggressive instincts are turned towards its mother and father respectively, rapidly emerged as its central tenet; and Oedipus himself, who unwittingly acted on impulses normally repressed out of moral revulsion, in consequence became a 20th-century Everyman.

Under Our (BAM Film) Umbrella

Photo: courtesy of BAM Hamm Archives

By Gina Duncan, Associate Vice President, Film

Film is just one of the many art forms BAM employs in its mission to provide a home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas. And while the moving image has been featured in BAM’s programming since the very early days of the medium, it wasn’t until November 1998 that film had a dedicated and permanent home at BAM. Twenty years later, it is a major, and growing, part of Brooklyn’s cultural landscape.

Forever Young

Mark Morris (Mr. Stahlbaum), Lauren Grant (Marie), and John Heginbotham (Mrs. Stahlbaum). Photo Susana Millman

Mark Morris Dance Group’s The Hard Nut returns to the Howard Gilman Opera House (Dec 14—23). We spoke with some dancers who have held longtime roles.

Greek: History, Repeating

Allison Cook, Susan Bullock, Andrew Shore. Photo: Jane Hobson 

Mark-Anthony Turnage’s groundbreaking and profane 1988 two-act opera, Greek, was set in Britain’s Thatcher era. Based on the in-your-face stage play by Steven Berkoff (adapted by Turnage and Jonathan Moore), Greek’s bleak humor and exploration of social and political unrest continue to resonate. Scottish Opera/Opera Ventures’ acclaimed new production is presented in its New York premiere—the engagement also marks the New York premiere of Greek (Dec 5—9), now a cult classic in the contemporary chamber opera repertoire. Director Joe Hill-Gibbins answered some questions about Greek.

In Context: Circus: Wandering City

Adventurous string quartet ETHEL pays tribute to the legends behind the Circus, featuring archival imagery and firsthand accounts from contemporary circus performers. Context is everything, so we’ve provided a curated selection of articles and videos for you to engage with before seeing the piece. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

In Context: Halfway to Dawn

David Roussève/REALITY (Love Songs, Next Wave 1999) returns to BAM for the first time in almost two decades with the NY Premiere of Halfway to Dawn, a jubilant dance-theater work celebrating the life of composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn, best known for his standard, “Take the ‘A’ Train,” and as Duke Ellington’s collaborator. In this recent work, the Guggenheim fellow and Bessie award-winning choreographer Roussève meditates on the life and legacy of Strayhorn, layering dance, text, abstract video imagery, and sound design to create a portrait of the jazz virtuoso. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

The Greek Legacy

By Andrew Clements

This article was originally published in the Edinburgh International Festival programme, where the Next Wave Festival presentation of Greek (Dec 5-9) premiered in 2017.

In March 2018 the Royal Opera gave the first performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s latest stage work, Coraline, an ‘opera for family audiences’ based on the 2002 fantasy novella by Neil Gaiman. It was Turnage’s second commission from the Royal Opera. The previous one, Anna Nicole, had its premiere at Covent Garden in 2011 to the accompaniment of more hype and razzamatazz than any other new work introduced there in the previous 30 years. Anna Nicole had its US premiere at the 2013 BAM Next Wave Festival to similar fanfare. Turnage has travelled a long way from the operatic debutant who composed Greek in the mid-1980s and who at the time wondered whether he had been wise to get involved in such an artistically treacherous art form. ‘I didn’t want to write an opera at all’, he has said of his feelings then. ‘I agreed with Boulez about burning down the opera houses... Opera was not a natural thing for me and I had no interest in it until I decided to do Greek.’

The White Album Comes Alive

By Nicole Serratore

Photo: Lars Jan

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

With that succinct opening sentence in her essay, The White Album, Joan Didion probes the identity of the artist, the act of writing, and our compulsion towards narrative. But is her storytelling an artistic venture or a cry for help—or both?

Interview with Satyagraha director Tilde Björfors

A conversation between dramatist Magnus Lindman and director Tilde Björfors

Lindman: So, how much is a circus director enjoying opera?

Björfors: I have come to appreciate that Glass’ music is perfect circus music. There’s something about this sense of the ecstatic, that the music is continuously reaching new heights with minor tweaks that suit the circus we are making here. There are plenty of similarities between circus and opera. They are two incredibly virtuosic art forms. Both try to make the impossible possible and cross the physical and perhaps mental borders of what we humans are capable of doing. We have a center for weightlessness in our brain that develops in the womb as we float around. And it is activated when we see people flying. A physical sensation that we otherwise have forgotten about.

In Context: Interpassivities

Classical ballet dancers and migrant workers walk alongside the crowd in this shape-shifting ballet by Danish artist and filmmaker Jesper Just. A modern experience inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, this performance rethinks the meaning of maps, who makes them, and the artificial borders we create. Context is everything, so we’ve provided some articles to read and videos to watch. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #Interpassivities.

In Context: Falling Out

Falling Out is is both a conclusion and a beginning: the final work in Phantom Limb Company’s decade-long trilogy about climate change, the piece strives to spark conversation and action on environmental issues. Context is everything, so we’ve provided some links below for you to contribute, read, watch, and listen to content that will enhance your understanding of the show and the issues. Add your perspective to the conversation by leaving a message with the Memory Telephone, or posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

Less-Than-Strange Window: A Hunt for the Supernatural at BAM

By Claire Greising

Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw, an inventive adaptation of Henry James’ gothic ghost story, is coming to BAM from Dec 12—15. It tells the story of a young governess who has become convinced that there are evil ghosts lurking in the remote estate where she cares for two children. In a spectacular marriage of past and present, The Builders Association’s new production combines the classic narrative with modern technology and experimental theater practices. Told from the perspective of the governess, the production points out the relativity of truth—leaving the audience to decide if the governess is insane or if the ghosts are real.

Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw premiere at Krannert Center earlier this year. Photo courtesy of Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In Context: Savage Winter

Director Jonathan Moore’s Savage Winter paints a vivid portrait of a man at the end of his rope. Set to Douglas J. Cuomo’s electric score, which reinterprets Franz Schubert’s brooding Winterreise for our contemporary moment, the opera investigates human emotion in its most raw state. Savage Winter is a fiercely evocative opera, asking both its protagonist and its audience to confront the depths of despair and possibilities for redemption. Context is everything, so we’ve provided a curated selection of articles and videos for you to engage with before seeing the piece. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

What Can Puppets Teach Us About Climate Change—And Ourselves?

By Robert Jackson Wood

Photo of Dai Matsuoka, courtesy of Phantom Limb Company

If you’ve seen the work of Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko—who come to BAM November 7–10 with their latest work, Falling Out—you know the sense of leaving a theater perplexed. You feel enchanted but also unsettled, as though haunted by the work’s subconscious. You feel stuck—pleasantly, productively—in the inbetween.

In Context: Satyagraha

Photo: Markus Gårder  

Cirkus Cirkör lends its signature acrobatic grace and wit to Philip Glass’ mesmerizing operatic account of Mahatma Gandhi’s experiments with civil disobedience in this new production from Sweden's Folkoperan. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

In Context: Kreatur

©Sebastian Bolesch

Kreatur is famed choreographer Sasha Waltz’s newest exploration of the human body and how it grapples with domination, technology, and the darkness within. With costume design from Iris van Herpen and an original score by Soundwalk Collective, Kreatur investigates how we relate to each other and to structures of power. Context is everything, so we’ve provided a curated selection of articles and videos for you to engage with before seeing the piece. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

Women at Work: The Domestic Is Not Free

By Natalie Erazo

The third iteration of Women at Work shifts to the subject of domestic labor. As homemakers, caretakers, and familial partners, women shape the well-being of our personal, professional, and cultural milieus, though these efforts often go unseen and are erased from history. Women at Work: The Domestic Is Not Free highlights the persistent efforts of women to create, challenge, and subvert domesticity around the world.

The Day I Became a Woman (2000), photo courtesy of Makhmalbaf Film House/Photofest

Seeing every Next Wave Festival show

Tell us about yourself! What do you do for fun? Do you have any interesting facts about yourself?

I'm Liz! I moved to New York City 7 years ago and to Brooklyn 5 years ago, and I and have been going to BAM frequently since. I use some of my fun time to host a podcast about making good computer security for everyone called Loose Leaf Security (I promise this is fun for me!), but I spend most of it with the arts - either devouring performances at BAM and around NYC or dabbling in a variety of creative pursuits.

In Context: Everywhere All the Time

Photo: Travis Magee

Seán Curran Company comes alive to the beat of a drum in celebration of their 20th anniversary. With live accompaniment from Grammy Award-winning ensemble Third Coast Percussion, this landmark evening of Curran’s new and classic choreography highlights the primordial nature of percussion. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles, videos, podcasts, and more. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

In Context: Watermill

This rarely performed piece by Jerome Robbins was premiered by New York City Ballet in 1972 at Lincoln Center. Different from any Jerome Robbins piece to date, it elicited reactions that ran the gamut. The New York Times critic in attendance at the premiere wrote: “This is the kind of innovative theater that needs a mixed blessing at its birth. And, in my opinion, the boos were from fools, the cheers were from heroes, and the coughs were from that strange and disinterested subscription audience that City Ballet wears round its elegant neck like an albatross.” Context is everything, so we’ve provided some articles to read and videos to watch and listen to, to help you prepare for the upcoming show. After you've attended the performance, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #Watermill.

In Context: I hunger for you

Kimberly Bartosik’s I hunger for you explores the human body using light and its stark absence. Restless, tender, and violent, this modern piece delves into the heart of losing yourself in ecstasy, ritual, and desire. Context is everything, so we’ve provided some articles for you to read and videos to watch. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #ihungerforyou.

Kreatur’s Creators

By Susan Yung

Kreatur. Photo: Ute Zscharnt

Berlin-based choreographer Sasha Waltz has shown her daring breadth in dance-theater at BAM—from the formal eloquence of Continu (2015) to the operatic madness of Gezeiten (2010), which literally set the house on fire. The members of her company alternately thrive, band together, or challenge the parameters given by each distinctive production.

In Context: Measure for Measure

London’s Cheek by Jowl and Moscow’s Pushkin Theatre propels Shakespeare’s “problem play” into a timely juggernaut of political critique. Context is everything so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you’ve attended the show, let us know your thoughts by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWaveFestival.

In Context: JACK &

Theater artist Kaneza Schaal joins forces with actor Cornell Alston and artist Christopher Myers to consider reentry into society after prison in the NY Premiere of JACK &. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles, videos, podcasts, and more. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

Share your thoughts on love, water, nature, and loss

Phantom Limb Company

This November, BAM presents Phantom Limb’s new production Falling Out, a theatrical exploration of love, loss, and healing in response to the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster. The company is inviting you to participate in the creation of this work, by recording a message in response to the prompts below. Read on for more details, then call (646) 535-7528 to participate.

Insider Perspectives on Watermill

Photo by Jerome Robbins

By Susan Yung

Jerome Robbins’ Watermill, at the BAM Fisher from Oct 24 to 27, is reimagined in a new, site-specific production by choreographer Luca Veggetti. When the hour-long, Noh-inspired dance premiered at New York City Ballet in 1972, it elicited wide-ranging audience reactions. Here, three people provide fascinating insights on varying aspects of Watermill: Veggetti, about the 2018 iteration and how it differs from the original; Hiie Saumaa, a scholar, on insights from the rich trove of Jerome Robbins’ meticulous journals, specifically sections on Watermill; and lead role originator Edward Villella, on working with Robbins on the creation of the piece. —Susan Yung

In Context: Place

In Place, composer Ted Hearne, poet Saul Williams, and director Patricia McGregor consider the difference between space and place, from manifest destiny to modern appropriation, in this rich mix of music, memoir, and mapmaking. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave and @BAM_Brooklyn.

Beyond the Canon: Body and Soul + The Night of the Hunter

Paul Robeson in Body and Soul (1925) and Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter (1955), photos courtesy of Kino Lorber/Park Circus

It is no secret that the cinema canon has historically skewed toward lionizing the white, male auteur. Beyond the Canon is a monthly series that seeks to question that history and broaden horizons by pairing one much-loved, highly regarded, canonized classic with a thematically or stylistically-related—and equally brilliant—work by a filmmaker traditionally excluded from that discussion. This month’s double feature pairs Oscar Micheaux’s Body and Soul (1925) with Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955) on Sat, Oct 13 at 4:30pm.

By Ashley Clark

In Context: Alice Coltrane

Celebrate the sublime musical and spiritual legacy of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda in this special one-night engagement led by Surya Botofasina and the Sai Anantam Ashram Singers. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles, videos, podcasts, and more. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

Performing Place

By David Hsieh

I am lying in bed with him / He is asleep / I am lying in bed with him, my son / He is breathing regularly

I am staring at his birthday balloons / They have lost their lift / He is five years old / They lightly graze the ceiling

Stuck and strung up / Not knowing where I will live

My son / Does he know where I end and he begins?

Listen to this excerpt

Ted Hearne’s new vocal work Place starts with these intimate, gentle, almost painful words. It is a father owning up to his responsibility to his son. For this 36-year-old composer, one of the best-regarded of his generation and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Place is a questioning, a reckoning, and an inward look at his proper “place” as a father, as an evolving artist whose past interests often centered on national issues (Katrina Ballad, The Source, Sound from the Bench), as a highly educated middle class moving into a gentrified neighborhood, and as a white man living in a country that is finally coming to terms with that privilege. It is certainly his most personal work to date, of which BAM is honored to give the world premiere on Oct 11 (it continues until Oct 13 in the Harvey Theater). The work is scored for six singers and 18 musicians; many of them come from non-classical backgrounds, as the diverse music requires. Two of them, Josephine Lee and Steven Bradshaw, share their experience of working on this brand-new work.

In Context: Trisha Brown Dance Company

Trisha Brown Dance Company performs rarely seen early works of Trisha Brown, one of the most prolific and inventive post-modern choreographers, at the Fishman Space. The theater will be transformed as dancers navigate the space with ropes and harness, as they originally did in Brown’s SoHo loft in the 1970s. To provide further insight into the production, we’ve compiled resources below, and after you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #TBDC.

There's 30something about Mary Reilly

By David Hsieh

(From left) Joseph V. Melillo, Mary Reilly, and Pina Bausch in 2001 for Masurca Fogo 

“For three decades, Mary Reilly has been BAM’s secret weapon. Working shoulder to shoulder with her is a pleasure as she creatively, imaginatively, and perceptively structures support mechanisms for the artists that I have curated for our main stages and ancillary programs. A vast range of sensitivities balanced by the most joyous humanity guarantees that each individual artist feels tremendous support before and during their work here and as they depart for home or other professional obligations. We are a respected cultural institution because of Mary’s professional contribution.” —Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer of BAM

In Context: The Bacchae

The Bacchae, Euripides’ cautionary parable of hubris and fear of the unknown thrashes to new life in the hands of Anne Bogart, the renowned SITI Company, and translator Aaron Poochigian. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #TheBacchae.

In Context: Humans

Australian troupe Circa returns to BAM (Opus, BAM Next Wave 2015) with an awe-inspiring acrobatic journey and love letter to our species. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles, videos, podcasts, and more. After you’ve attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using#BAMNextWave.

Your Guide to The Fisher this Next Wave Season

By Vilina Phan

So you’ve purchased tickets to Jack &, or maybe tickets to I hunger for you or Trisha Brown Dance Company? That’s it, right? It can be, or it can be much more—based on the experience you want. We have a cornucopia of free events and activities happening in the Fisher Lower Lobby this season, many in conjunction with the shows at the Fishman Space. It can be a little difficult to navigate with so much going on, so we’ve laid out a few suggestions, but this is a self-guided adventure, so take these recommendations as jumping off points and happy Next Wave!