THE HANGOVER REPORT – PARTY IN THE BARDO: Laurie Anderson and Jason Moran’s assaultive sonic memorial for a city in painful transition

Laurie Anderson and Jason Moran’s “Party in the Bardo” at the Park Avenue Armory (Photo by Amr Alfiky).

Last weekend, I got the opportunity to attend the final performance of the short sold out run of legendary musician-cum-performance artist Laurie Anderson and jazz pioneer Jason Moran’s Party in the Bardo. The stylized “concert” is part of the Park Avenue Armory’s Social Distance Hall series, which has already presented David Byrne, Steven Hoggett, and Christine Jones’s SOCIAL! the social distance dance club, and concludes this week with Bill T. Jones’s Afterwardsness. Thanks to the Armory’s expansive real estate, these artists have been given the opportunity to conjure theatrical visions of breathtaking scope in a safe environment.

So what exactly is Party in the Bardo? It’s part improvisational jam session, part sonic installation, and part avant-garde performance. Taken together, the work amounts to an assaultive sonic memorial to the New York City of our current troubled times. Building on the guitar-driven LOU REED: DRONES, the hourlong work is loud, layered, and relentless. The organic composition may initially strike many as an impenetrable wall of sound. But if you allow yourself to immerse in the work’s meditative qualities, it gradually reveals a swirling black hole of immense sorrow, loss, and pain that’s been induced by the pandemic and an overall wholesale reckoning. The thunderous rhapsody also evokes evokes the rumbling shift of tectonic plates, indicating a city in painful transition.

The work is also highly theatrical – utilizing dancers and the contributions of invited guest artists – which is a hallmark of co-creator Laurie Anderson’s shows. The central visual feature of Party in the Bardo is the constantly spinning constellation of lights reflected from a centrally positioned mirrorball, which suggests history in motion and a continual “stirring of the pot”. Although audience members are seated, they’re also provided with floor pads, allowing them to experience the show to their own accord.

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PARTY IN THE BARDO
Concert / Sound installation
The Park Avenue Armory
1 hour
Closed

Categories: Music, Other Music

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