Dressing the 81 Dancers in Night Of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event

By Susan Yung

On April 16, Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event marks what would have been Merce Cunningham’s 100th birthday. Concurrently at BAM, the Barbican in London, and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, 81 dancers (25 per city, plus understudies) will perform 100 solos drawn from the choreographer’s body of work; the Event will be livestreamed. Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung (Reid & Harriet Design) designed the costumes. On top of that monumental task, Bartelme—who has danced professionally with numerous companies—will perform at BAM. Here’s what he had to say about this experience.

In Context: Neither

Celebrated choreographer and painter Shen Wei (Park Avenue Armory, 2011; 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony) makes his much-anticipated BAM debut with this danced realization of Morton Feldman’s 1977 anti-opera for orchestra and soprano. 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 #ShenWei.

From Olympics to Neither

Neither. Photo: Stephanie Berger

By David Hsieh 

In 2002, just two years after Shen Wei founded Shen Wei Dance Arts, Anna Kisselgoff wrote in The New York Times: “If there is something to write home about in the dance world, it is the startlingly imaginative work of the Chinese-born choreographer Shen Wei.”

The verdict was prescient. As a dancer and choreographer, Shen Wei has performed on the world’s greatest stages and museums, including one of the biggest—the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, when he choreographed the segment called “Scroll” for the opening ceremony. With a single “qin” (an ancient Chinese plucked string instrument) providing the lean, spare music, a dozen dancers moved on a giant sheet of cotton paper laid at the center of Beijing National Stadium “Bird’s Nest.” As they spun and twisted, their paint-soaked sleeves marked the paper—mysterious until the end, when a giant Chinese landscape emerged.