Social Buttons

Thursday, April 2, 2020

Recommended Digital Arts & Education Resources for Parents


By Steven McIntosh, BAM’s Director of Education and Family Programming

While they’re not a perfect solution, I’ve come to better accept the necessity of screens as a way to maintain some of our humanity during this particularly isolating crisis, and have come to terms with the important ways they can bring the arts to families in the absence of in-person arts education and live performance. (Watching almost every aspect of my kids' lives become screen-based has helped.) With that in mind, here are a few BAM-approved selections to get you started or add to your arts resource list.

Monday, March 30, 2020

#LoveFromBAM: Podcasts




While our spaces are dark, you can stay connected to BAM by listening to podcasts featuring some of the artists we’ve welcomed in the past or planned to present this spring. Check out a few of our favorites in this list, which includes descriptions from the podcasts themselves. We’ll update as we hear of more. Happy listening!

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Beyond the Canon: Perfumed Nightmare + The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser


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 Kidlat Tahimik's Perfumed Nightmare (1977) with Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974).

By Richard Bolisay

In May 2017, the Cinematheque Centre Manila screened The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) as part of its Werner Herzog retrospective. In attendance was the Filipino filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik, who briefly appears in the film. In the scene his character, along with Kaspar Hauser, is one of the Four Riddles of the Spheres presented to a curious audience as exotic creatures in a freak show. Called Hombrecito, he is described as “an untamed Indian from the sunny shores of New Spain” and “plays his wooden flute night and day” because otherwise “all the people in town will die.” When the ringmaster says that he speaks Indian, the poker-faced Tahimik stops playing the flute and speaks a local Tagalog saying about criticizing someone: “Bato bato sa langit ang tamaan ay huwag magagalit…” At this moment the Cinematheque audience, engrossed in the seriousness of the period film, roared with laughter, the context of which would obviously not occur to non-Filipino viewers who might interpret the scene as a minor narrative detail, or not recognize Tahimik at all. For the Filipino cinephile, however, this short sketch in one of Herzog’s major films affirms what has long been known of Tahimik: he is a presence that never bores, an artist that can make an audience pay attention.

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Monthly Film Digest: March


Dive into this preview of what's coming to our screens in March, featuring original commentary from members of the film programming team.

Friday, February 14, 2020

Never Records Artist Spotlight: ĀJŌ

Photo credit: Ted Riederer


Never Records is an exhibit and installation at The Rudin Family Gallery at BAM Strong that brings together artists and admirers of the arts. Musicians, spoken word artists, and others with something to share via an audio medium have three hours to record with New York-based conceptual artist and musician Ted Riederer, who created the exhibit, and will leave with a freshly cut vinyl record and a digital file of their music. Visitors to the project, which is in its tenth year, can browse vinyl recordings from Liverpool, Derry (Ireland), London, Lisbon, New Orleans, Victoria, Texas, Amman, and now Brooklyn!

ĀJŌ, a Brooklyn-based singer songwriter who has been performing her quirky brand of R&B and hip hop songs around New York City for nearly a decade, and who I first met when we were both undergraduate students at Columbia University, recorded at Never Records on Feb 9. Before her session, I spoke to her about her music and why she’s looking forward to performing at Never Records.

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Morality in Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck

Parasite (2019)
By David Hsieh

Income inequality is often framed as a political and social issue in the United States. But can it be a moral issue? Two very different works—Bong Joon-Hos’ Parasite, currently screening in black and white at BAM Rose Cinemas, and Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck, which BAM audiences can see on February 6 in The Met: Live in HD series—suggest so. [Editor's note: Spoilers follow]

Beyond the Canon: The Hitch-Hiker + Badlands


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 Ida Lupino's The Hitch-Hiker (1953) with Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973).

By Dana Reinoos

By age 29, Ida Lupino had already acted in more than 40 films, and was fed up. Born in London into the Lupino theatrical family, she made her film debut at age 14, eventually rising from Hollywood bit player to, in her own words, “the poor man’s Bette Davis.” While her collaborations with directors like Cecil B. DeMille, Raoul Walsh, and Michael Curtiz earned her critical acclaim and legions of fans, Lupino often clashed with Warners Brothers boss Jack Warner, refusing to take “undignified” roles and chafing at unwanted script revisions. Her contentious relationship with Warner resulted in multiple suspensions and eventually, in 1947, Lupino left the studio.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

A Conversation Between Medea Writer/Director Simon Stone and Producer David Lan




David Lan: Simon, why choose this very old play about things that happened very long ago?

Simon Stone: Because what happens in the play keeps happening. The curse of our humanity is that we keep making the same mistakes. We try to escape this destiny, to learn from history, yet there’s a resurgence of these themes, these acts as though there were some kind of cosmic karma. We do these plays because, unfortunately, women still kill their children—infrequently and far less often than men—but it happens, and despite the fact that there’s this ancient story of Medea as a warning.

Monday, January 13, 2020

Matthew Lopez on The Inheritance and BAM

There's a reason there's more than one reference to BAM in playwright and screenwriter Matthew Lopez's four-time Olivier Award-winning play The Inheritance, which reimagines E.M. Forster's Howards End in present-day New York's gay community and is currently running on Broadway: Lopez himself is a member of the BAM Young Producers, a community of BAM supporters in their 20s, 30s and early 40s shaping the future of the arts in Brooklyn. Fellow Young Producer Liz Denys recently sat down with Lopez to talk about his work, his personal connection to BAM, and how he felt about last year's Next Wave.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

In Context: Medea

Photo: Caitlin Cronenberg
In visionary writer-director Simon Stone’s powerful contemporary rewrite, Euripides’ controversial icon is reborn. Transposing the devastation of Greek tragedy to a modern American home with a husband and wife in the tumultuous throes of an unraveling marriage, Stone’s stripped-bare staging throws the couple’s every raw emotion into stark relief, from jealousy to passion, humor to despair.

After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media! (Use #Medea and tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.)

Program Notes

Medea (PDF)

Thursday, January 2, 2020

A New Year Message From Katy Clark, President of BAM



The paradox of uncertain times is that they can also yield great ideas and new alliances. At BAM, 2019 was a year in which we charted new territory and saw our institution thrive.