Ongoing State of Siege

Photo: Jean Louis Fernandez

By Brian Scott Lipton

R-E-S-I-S-T. While a commonplace word, it has come back strongly into the American linguistic vogue this year—seen every day on badges, Twitter walls, and protest signs—as many believe that our recently-elected federal government is impinging on, or taking away, our long-held freedoms.

But, truth be told, this word has been uttered countless times throughout history, most notably during the 1930s and 1940s during the reigns of such dictators like Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler. Equally true, the question has remained on the minds of many in the four corners of the world if resistance can be anything more than a mere word in the wake of a truly fascistic regime.

Unsurprisingly, this conundrum fascinated the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, who put the query front and center in his highly allegorical 1948 play State of Siege. BAM is co-producing acclaimed French director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota’s visually stunning and emotionally complex production of this little-seen work at the Howard Gilman Opera House, November 2—4. (Camus, for reasons of his own, set the scene in Cadiz, Spain, although the work is written in and performed in French.)

Richard III—Prototypical Villain

By Christian Barclay

Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485, at the age of 32, in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. And, if centuries-old stories are to be believed, he was one of the great villains of English history. Shakespeare’s Richard III depicts his Machiavellian rise and reign. The play, written during the early 1590s, shaped and cemented Richard’s reputation as a “rudely stamp’d” hunchback, “subtle, false and treacherous,” guilty of “stern murder in the dir’st degree.”

What is it then between us?

Photo: Stefan Killen

In the fifth stanza of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry—from which Matthew Aucoin’s new American opera takes its name—Walt Whitman asks, “What is it then between us?” First published in 1855, the poem speaks powerfully to the importance of solidarity in a national moment plagued by rivalry and violence.

Last week, we partnered with pinhole photographer Stefan Killen to capture unique, dreamlike portraits of Crossing’s cast and creative team. The deliberately lo-fi process engages the camera obscura phenomenon to create images with a nearly infinite depth of field—all without the use of a proper lens on the camera box. After the photoshoot, we asked each of them to answer Whitman’s prompt—to define, in their own words, what it is then between us, and what that phrase might mean presently in 2017. Their thoughts and portraits are shared below:

In Context: Mon élue noire (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2

Senegalese dancer Germaine Acogny's scenically minimalist, emotionally maximalist solo, comes to BAM Fisher Oct 4—7. 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: Crossing

Composer Matthew Aucoin makes his BAM debut with Crossing—a chamber opera taking inspiration from Walt Whitman’s Civil War diary, directed by American Repertory Theater artistic director Diane Paulus. 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: A Letter to My Nephew

Choreographer Bill T. Jones sets a portrait of his beloved nephew Lance T. Briggs against the political landscape of the present in A Letter to My Nephew, an intimate, impressionistic collage for nine dancers.

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.

I Am With You: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Illustrated

When Matthew Aucoin's new opera Crossing comes to BAM next Tue, Oct 3, audiences will be treated to a new side of 19th century poet Walt Whitman: alive—on stage—with a booming baritone. Drawing inspiration from the diary Whitman kept while volunteering as a Civil War nurse, Aucoin places America's seminal poet (sung by Rod Gilfry) at the narrative heart of his opera—and draws titular inspiration from one of Whitman's most treasured texts. “The one poem that I couldn’t avoid is Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," notes Aucoin. "[Whitman] is obsessed with this question of what it is that links him to his fellow human beings...He has this insane instinct to speak to the future and say 'I've been there.'"

To celebrate Whitman's Brooklyn homecoming, we partnered with illustrator Nathan Gelgud to visually depict the first three sections of the prescient poem. Peruse the illustrations below before seeing the poet face-to-face when Crossing comes to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Oct 3—8.

Uniforms Transform into Paper

This week, My Lai—Jonathan Berger and Kronos Quartet's fevered character study featuring tenor Rinde Eckert and Vân Ánh Võ—comes to the BAM Harvey Theater from Wed, Sep 27—Sun, Sep 30. Reflecting on a decisive moment when breaking rank in the name of human decency forever changed the public perception of a war, the piece interrogates the ethics of disobedience in the face of atrocity. During the development of My Lai, the show's creators worked with artist, veteran, and creator of Combat Paper Drew Cameron to generate new visual work inspired by the performance. Below, Cameron describes his process—and what first inspired this transformative creative practice.

Drew Cameron in Iraq, 2003

By Drew Cameron

I am a veteran of the war in Iraq. I entered the military not because of effective advertisements or hero films, not even college money or idealized patriotism. No, I feel that I entered the military because our society needs soldiers and has always found ways to force or entice us into service. I ran guns in the war, I occupied and criminalized strangers and wondered in the summer of 2003 if the people in Iraq would be better off after all of our invasions. Returning from the war I found other veterans and artists and began to make paper from our old uniforms.

In Context: Principles of Uncertainty

In this dance-theater collaboration, choreographer John Heginbotham brings author and illustrator Maira Kalman’s candy-colored musings on travel, beauty, and mortality to life. Inspired by the various walks the two acclaimed artists took together over many months, The Principles of Uncertainty is a meditation on the objects, memories, friends, and strangers that fill our days.

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.

Wendy’s Subway returns

Wendy’s Subway returns to BAM for the second year with a newly envisioned Reading Room.

The space, as part of Next Wave Art, is located in the BAM Fisher Sharp Lobby and houses a collection of over 300 books, including titles selected by Next Wave Festival artists for their relevance to their shows on the BAM Fisher stage and their artworks on view throughout BAM’s campus this fall. Readers will also find a small collection of titles suggested for further reading on other Next Wave Festival performances happening this season.

This year, Wendy’s Subway has also invited 25 international, independent, and artist-run libraries and organizations to recommend titles from their own collections, broadly related to the field of performance. These titles expansively reflect the specific collections of each participating library or organization, and it is our hope that their involvement fosters a platform for sharing resources, references, and forms of knowledge across many publics, within a convivial and intimate reading context.

Below, peruse annotated reading lists from Next Wave Festival artists Maira Kalman and John Heginbotham, whose The Principles of Uncertainty comes to the BAM Fisher this Wednesday, September 25.