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.

The 40 Most Unforgettable BAM Moments of 2019, According to BAM Staff

Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Before the curtain falls on a truly remarkable year of heartwarming, surprising, shocking, breathtaking, hilarious, or otherwise unforgettable moments and milestones here at BAM, we asked our fellow staff members to take a look back and share some of their favorites. Were you here for any of these, or do you have your own? Share them with us, and please join or support us in making BAM a home for adventurous art, audiences, and ideas in 2020!

24 Hours with Alia Shawkat

Photo: NayMarie

By Alexandra Biss

“The walls feel a little tight today,” remarked Alia Shawkat’s 62nd scene partner in The Second Woman. “Tell me about it,” she replies without missing a beat. This was about hour 17 of the 24 Alia (and I) spent in the Fishman Space of the BAM Fisher. For all but 15 minutes every two hours, Alia was in a small mesh room set with a table, chairs, stereo, and bar cart. While we could see in, she couldn’t really see out. The walls of her world were defined by the repetition of a short scene with different, mostly male-presenting non-actor scene partners. They have a drink, she asks for reassurance, she throws noodles at him, they dance, she asks him to leave. In between each scene, Alia would get down on her hands and knees to clean up the just-thrown noodles, and reset. Set and reset. Nearly 100 times. The walls of my world from 5pm Friday to 5pm Saturday—watching the world in the box—felt more than a little tight, until they suddenly expanded in new ways.

Holidays at BAM: Cabaret and Beyond

Note: BAM's new Artistic Director David Binder chose A Very Meow Meow Holiday Show to kick off an annual holiday block. Check out the seasonal photos after the jump from the BAM Hamm Archives.

Meow Meow. Photo: Magnus Hastings

By Sally Ollove
with contributions by John Jarboe

“What is cabaret?”

Thank you for asking! Cabaret is a musical by Kander and Ebb that once starred Liza Minnelli. It’s a kind of table. It’s a brand of cracker that 70s suburbanites served at key parties. It’s an indulgence, a secret, a cult, a radical experiment in community building, a trust exercise between performer and audience. An ephemeral queering of traditional performance modes. It’s an artform whose audience is living and getting younger.

Even as audiences get younger, the world around them seems to be collapsing. I used to think of cabaret as a place of beginnings, but more and more I see it as a place of endings or, really, of post-endings. Post-narrative, post-theatrical, post-pretension, post-perfection. At its most basic level, cabaret is a performer sitting metaphorically (or literally) in your lap sharing their virtuosity, vulnerability, and some laughs. Cabaret began on the site of the failed Paris Commune uprising and has a history of flourishing as people who don’t fit into the mainstream struggle: in post WWI Germany, in Harlem during the Renaissance, in Midtown during McCarthyism, and downtown post 9/11. As Brecht, a hanger-on of the Weimar cabaret scene, said: “In the dark times. Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.” When everything else has fallen away, we’ll still be huddling around a piano with someone to help us laugh through tears and sing songs that touch us in deep and unknowable ways.

Perfecting the Vibe: Wisdom From Four Brooklyn Barbers

Interviews by Akornefa Akyea
Photographs by Sam Polcer

Written by Nigerian-British poet and playwright Inua Ellams, international sensation Barber Shop Chronicles, which comes to BAM Dec 3—8 for its US premiere—is set in cities across the African continent (Lagos, Johannesburg, Accra, Kampala, and Harare) and London, and conjures the sacred space where men—in this case Black men—come together not only for a good trim, but for necessary and unfiltered discussion on black masculinity, immigration, identity and more.

While the services provided at barber shops around the world are similar, each shop has its own unique atmosphere and distinct character. We visited four shops on Fulton St., home also to the Harvey Theater at BAM Strong, where the play will be performed, to find out how they foster a sense of community.

Africa Unite!: A Playlist Inspired By Barber Shop Chronicles

Photo: Marc Brenner

Set in barber shops across five cities on the African content (Lagos, Johannesburg, Accra, Kampala, Harare) and in a major city in its diaspora (London), Barber Shop Chronicles (Dec 3—8 at the Harvey Theater at BAM Strong) explores unfiltered stories about identity, displacement, and black masculinity. Within this rich tapestry of storytelling woven by playwright, poet, and spoken word artist Inua Ellas, is the popular music from the African continent; as the show pivots from city to city, the music—sometimes coming out of a speaker and other times produced by the actors on stage—reorients and guides us from shop to shop, and serves as a joyful and buoyant force in the production.

The Barber Shop as a Sacred Space

Photo: Marc Brenner

By Matthew Allen

One of the bastions of unfiltered African-American discourse—the barber shop—is the setting for a Next Wave show. When contemplating where a Black man can have a safe space to express his feelings and engage in unbridled debate and dialogue, a business where one gets haircuts may be the last place that comes to mind, but it’s true. Making its New York debut on December 3 at the Harvey Theater at BAM Strong, Barber Shop Chronicles (Fuel/National Theatre/Leeds Playhouse) finds six cities throughout the African Diaspora united by two commonalities—getting a fresh trim and speaking your mind.

Future Unknown: A Conversation with Brett Story

Photo courtesy of Grasshopper Film 

By Lindsay Brayton

Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer based in Toronto. The Hottest August is her third documentary feature and screens exclusively at BAM Nov 15—27.

Beyond the Canon: In the Cut + Klute

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 Jane Campion’s In the Cut (2003) with Alan J. Pakula’s Klute (1971).

By Caden Mark Gardner

At the 70th Cannes Film Festival in 2017, directors of past Palme d’Or winners were invited back to celebrate the Festival’s history. At the center of one photo for this occasion was Jane Campion surrounded by an overwhelmingly male swath of contemporaries—a damning visual of the festival’s historic gender inequality. Sharing the top prize for The Piano in 1993 with Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine), Campion remains the only female director to win the award. The Piano went on to achieve world cinema renown, winning three Oscars, and reaping $140 million in global box office. That type of success is seldom replicated. Since The Piano, Campion’s works have been predominantly female-focused and specifically concerned with portraying femininity in relation to toxic masculinity and patriarchy, an impulse most recently realized in her limited run series Top of the Lake (2013—17).

“Poke fun in a way that makes you feel optimistic”: A Conversation with Maira Kalman

Maira Kalman, Marie-Laure de Noailles in Her Paris Salon, 2019, courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Projects 

By Loney Abrams

Illustrator, author, and beloved BAM artist Maira Kalman generously partnered with Julie Saul Projects and BAM to release a new edition to benefit BAM’s artistic and educational programs; it’s available online through Artspace. Signed and numbered by the artist, the print was produced in an edition size of 75. Artspace’s Loney Abrams sat down with Maira Kalman to discuss Kalman’s most fascinating multi-disciplinary projects, where she finds inspiration, and her newest BAM benefit edition. Condensed highlights from their conversation are shared below.