Nudity and the Work of Dimitris Papaioannou

By Jess Barbagallo

Dimitris Papaioannou—creator of The Great Tamer and other works of virtuosic dance-theater spectacle since 1986— employs nudity in his live performances. Among other things. His stagecraft, in the lineage of Pina Bausch and Robert Wilson, could be described as anthropomorphic; he treats his sets like bodies too. Ideal in their beauty and mutant in their potential, his floors are always gamely ready to be stripped. They keep coming undone, erupting in raised anomalies designed to unmoor his dancers. I don’t normally conceive of stages as flesh, yet all metaphors point in this direction.

RIOPOP: An Inoah-Inspired Playlist

Inoah, a gravity-defying work from the mind of Brazilian choreographer Bruno Beltrão, comes to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Oct 31—Nov 2. His company, Grupo de Rua, was founded in Niteroi, a municipality of the bustling state of Rio de Janeiro. With a mix of street style, athletic hip-hop, and weightless physicality, they express the energy of this region in a 50-minute, heart-stopping experiment. Before immersing yourself in this intoxicating, urban work, prep your mind and soul with the sounds of Rio de Janeiro!

Fantástico! Your Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Playing Like a Brazilian in NYC Before and After Inoah

Beginning October 31, the dancers of Grupo de Rua make their BAM debut at the Howard Gilman Opera House with their gravity-defying work Inoah. The group hails from Rio de Janeiro and was co-founded by Bessie Award-winner Bruno Beltrão, who the The Guardian (UK) calls “one of the most intelligently creative choreographers.” He, along with the 10 male dancers of his company, spent six months together in the countryside outside Rio de Janeiro developing the stunning choreography of Inoah. The result is a visceral display of tension and release that expresses a unique, contemporary Brazilian perspective. The experience doesn’t have to begin and end with the performance, however. Here’s how to celebrate Brazilian culture all week long right here in NYC.

A Preview of the 2019 BAMkids Movie Matinee and Music Series

By Sam Polcer

Our BAMkids programming, which inspires young audiences with a delightful and diverse lineup of concerts, workshops, movie matinees, and live performances for kids ages 2—11, begins October 20 and runs through December 7. We spoke with Steven McIntosh, the lead curator and BAM’s Director of Family Programs, about what he’s looking forward to this season.

Plotting a Journey Through Race and Time: Programming Garrett Bradley’s America

By Ashley Clark

At some point, most film programmers working in theatrical exhibition will be confronted with a
question: what, exactly, to do with a film of unconventional length? It’s hard to give a concrete answer. At BAM, we’re proud to showcase short films at our annual BAMcinemaFest. We’ll sometimes slot a short or mid-length film alongside a feature, or include multi-artist shorts programs in our curated series. We might also dedicate an evening to celebrate the short- and mid-length work of a single filmmaker, as we’ve done recently with brilliant artists like Sky Hopinka, Ephraim Asili, and Kevin Jerome Everson⁠.

Larry Ossei-Mensah & Glenn Kaino: A Conversation

Larry Ossei-Mensah (Left) and Glenn Kaino (Right) in front of Blue

Larry Ossei-Mensah, Ghanaian-American curator and cultural critic, is guest curator of The Rudin Family Gallery at BAM Strong, BAM’s first dedicated visual art space. Larry sat down with the inaugural gallery artist, Los Angeles-born conceptual artist Glenn Kaino, to talk about the exhibition.

Darkness and Delight: The Choreography of Michael Keegan-Dolan

Photo: Marie-Laure Briane

By Susan Yung

The highest compliment to Michael Keegan-Dolan’s choreography? It makes you want to get up on stage and dance alongside his company, Teaċ Daṁsa. Its kinetic simplicity and emotional lucidity are irresistible and highly relatable. Swan Lake/Loch na hEala (Harvey Theater at BAM Strong, Oct 15—20) presents a rare chance to catch this internationally praised director/choreographer’s work stateside.

Beyond the Canon: Girlfriends + Husbands

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 Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978) with John Cassavetes’ Husbands (1970).

By Chloe Lizotte

At the beginning of Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978), Susan (Melanie Mayron) bursts into a laundromat to tell her best friend Anne (Anita Skinner) that her photographs were selected for a gallery show. Riding on Susan’s high, Anne shares her own personal news: she’s engaged to her bland suburbanite boyfriend (Bob Balaban). “How can you be sure when you’re so unsure?” Susan asks Anne, as their mundane surroundings clash with the fragility of imminent change.

Beyond the Canon: Invisible Adversaries + Invasion of the Body Snatchers

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 Valie Export’s Invisible Adversaries (1977) with Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).

By Courtney Duckworth

Women are always doppelgängers. Critic John Berger wrote that a woman is “almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself” through a prickly self-surveillance. Such double vision imbues the oeuvre of Austrian artist-agitator Valie Export—an alias she adopted to shed the encumbering surnames of father and ex-husband—who gummed up masculine voyeurism with her puckish, impertinent performances of the 1960s and ’70s. Export’s energetic experiments infuse Invisible Adversaries (1977), her debut feature, a brisk bricolage of improvised dialogue, sight gags, (re)staged performances, grainy documentary footage, and reenactments of her studio practice that together, she said, “put alternative artistic media into a discourse with conventional film.”

Beyond the Canon: Wadjda + Alice in the Cities

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 Haifaa al-Mansour’s Wadjda (2012) with Wim Wenders’ Alice in the Cities (1974).

By Simran Hans

The bicycle is Christmas tree–green and shiny, its ribbon-festooned handlebars wrapped in new-toy plastic. It is the bike of 10-year-old Wadjda’s (Waad Mohammed) daydreams, so perfect it’s as though she wished it into existence. It appears like a dream, too, seeming to cycle itself along a brick wall. The bike, it turns out, is being carried by a truck; it’s not a magic trick after all. She follows the bike to find it for sale, priced at a very real 800 riyal.