In Context: texts&beheadings/ElizabethR

texts&beheadings/Elizabeth R, Karin Coonrod’s inventive deconstruction of Queen Elizabeth’s writings, comes to BAM on October 21. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles and videos related to the show. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #textsbeheadings.

Refuse the Hour—Time, Indulgent Muse

Dada Masilo and William Kentridge. Photo: John Hodges

By Susan Yung

Refuse the Hour, like artist William Kentridge’s production of The Magic Flute (2007 Winter/Spring), can be referred to as opera, but it sits restlessly within one genre. This multilayered performance by Kentridge is a collaboration with composer Philip Miller, choreographer Dada Masilo, video artist Catherine Meyburgh, and dramaturg Peter Galison. Unpacking the layered, engaging work (October 22—25, Harvey Theater)—in which a running monologue by Kentridge alternates with sections of music, song, dance, and film—is a rewarding experience.

Building Bridges—Muslim Stories

Amkoullel and Yacouba Sissoko. Photo: Mike Benigno

Under the programming umbrella of Global BAM, BAM has had a long and dynamic history of presenting transnational events that connect artists and audiences from around the world. From the annual DanceAfrica Festival to the countless international artists who headline the Next Wave Festival and Winter/Spring Season every year, BAM is committed to serving as a forum not only for excellent art across disciplines, but also for innovative work that furthers cross-cultural dialogue and understanding.

In Context: Helen Lawrence

Helen Lawrence, the hi-tech experiment in film noir from visual artist Stan Douglas and writer Chris Haddock, comes to BAM on October 14. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles and videos related to the show. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #HelenLawrence.

Mapping Intersensory Domains

This Friday and Saturday (October 9 & 10), Portland-based indie group Other Lives teams with Steppenwolf Theatre Company co-founder Terry Kinney for Reconfiguration: An Evening with Other Lives—playing the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House at 7:30 PM. Intricately mapping live video, lighting, and projections to meticulously arranged songs from their recent releases, Kinney creates an engrossing audio-visual narrative wrought from the band’s lyrics and Oklahoma origins. At the core of this image-saturated foray lies original animation by Matt Huynh and projection design by Daniel Brodie. We sat down with the two visual masterminds to learn more about their processes, creative practices, lives in Brooklyn and so much more.

Brodie's work for Kanye West at Lollapalooza.

What classes, moments, or other projects have been the highlights of your careers thus far?

DANIEL BRODIE: I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with some tremendous artists and collaborators. I’m especially proud to have worked with legendary puppeteer and recent MacArthur fellow Basil Twist. We’ve worked together on four or five shows, including his new show, Sisters’ Follies, running now through November 7 at Abrons Arts Center. I mostly work in Broadway theater and I’ve also designed video effects for some giant acts like Kanye West and Mariah Carey.

MATT HUYNH: I'm very proud of an interactive comic I've just released with Australian TV station SBS—The Boat. It's based on the acclaimed short story by Nam Le and we spent a year researching and developing an original online, interactive format for comics from the ground up. It incorporates sound design, animation, archival film, and photography with traditional ink and brush illustration. It also let me explore a very personal part of my family's history—post-Vietnam war migration—and speak to contemporary issues in Australia's asylum seeker and refugee issues.

I've also been a regular contributor to The New York Times, have had my illustrated reportage of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations exhibited at the MoMA and had my comics presented on the Sydney Opera House stage.

In Context: Hallo

Swiss choreographer Martin Zimmermann’s acrobatic one-man show Hallo comes to BAM on October 15. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles and videos related to the show. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #HalloMartin.

In Context: All Vows

Cellist Maya Beiser’s All Vows, featuring music by Led Zeppelin, David T. Little, Nirvana, Janis Joplin, Michael Gordon, and others, comes to BAM on October 14. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles and videos related to the show. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #AllVows.

Helen Lawrence—Dreaming in Art

Hrothgar Mathews and Lisa Ryder in Helen Lawrence. Photo: David Cooper

By Rob Weinert-Kendt

From its contrived sets to its stark lighting, from its stylized costumes to its still more stylized dialogue, vintage film noir has a vivid unreality that’s positively dreamlike, though it’s hard now to untangle whether our films resemble our dreams or vice versa. After all, what did human dreams look like before movies? Like paintings or plays? Or is this the wrong way to peer through the lens—should we instead rightly think of our time’s visual arts as renderings of our dream lives?

Blurring Circus Frontiers

Tabac Rouge's dynamic ensemble. Photo: Richard Haughton

By Roy Gómez-Cruz

The fifth creation by the Compagnie du Hanneton, Tabac Rouge, directed and choreographed by virtuoso performer James Thierrée, is the first of several physical theater performances in the 2015 Next Wave Festival at BAM. The piece, which opens in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House tonight, explores the porous boundaries between theater, dance, and contemporary circus. With a cast of world-class dancers and high-level acrobats, Tabac Rouge represents the erratic desires of a capricious tyrant through the mesmerizing and whimsical physicality of his people.

Reconfiguration—A Visual Transformation of Music by Other Lives

L-R: Josh Onstott, Jesse Tabish, Jonathon Mooney. Photo: Amanda Leigh Smith/YONDER

By Jane Jansen Seymour

Indie rock band Other Lives brings a cinematic expansiveness to music, and now a team of theatrical designers is providing a setting on stage befitting the sound. Conceived by producer Rebecca Habel and director Terry Kinney of Mixtape Productions, Reconfiguration: An Evening with Other Lives will be presented October 9 & 10 in the majestic Howard Gilman Opera House, as part of the Next Wave Festival. With a format similar to a symphony, ballet, or theater piece, the performances offer an inventive way to experience a band in concert.