Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Accessible and eclectic programming: Lincoln Center presents Boy Blue’s CYCLES and Rubén Blades’s MAESTRA VIDA

• By drediman
• April 2, 2025
• No Comments

Since arising from the pandemic, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has reinvented itself as a presenting entity that champions accessible and eclectic programming. Indeed, its current socially-conscious, community-focused, and pay-what-you-will approach is a far cry from the arguably highbrow, festival-driven offerings that once dominated the institution’s presentation calendar (the only programming that seems relatively intact since pre-Covid times is its popular American Songbook series and the evolving “Mostly Mozart” festival, as well as its ongoing operation over at Jazz at Lincoln Center). In the past week or so, I had the chance to take in two of these diverse productions. As always, read on for my thoughts.

CYCLES
Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center

Last week, the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center hosted the U.S. premiere of Boy Blue’s Cycles (RECOMMENDED). Co-commissioned by the Barbican Centre and Lincoln Center, the evening length dance piece is the latest creation by British hip-hop choreographer Kenrick Sandy. Joining him is frequent collaborator Michael Asante, who provided the piece’s driving, euphoric score. Together, they are the co-founders/directors of Boy Blue, perhaps the UK’s most recognizable hip-hop dance company. Much like celebrated U.S. choreographer Rennie Harris, Sandy and Asante use hip-hop dance less as a vehicle for angst and rebellion (sentiments which Far from the Norm embodied in its performances of Botis Seva’s BLKDOG at The Joyce Theater last fall) and more as an emphatic and tenacious statement of identity and community. In essence, the piece is a kinetic, ensemble-driven celebration of hip-hop dance and the genre’s overall aesthetic. Fluidly flowing from one set piece to another, the dynamic work creates a symbiotic connection between Sandy’s dynamic movement and Asante’s endlessly rhythmic music. The work was performed by a company of nine young, idiosyncratic dancers, who took full advantage of the large Rose Theater stage, aggressively seizing and taking up space, and collectively propelling their bodies into an unapologetic expression of themselves.

MAESTRA VIDA
David Geffen Hall

Then just earlier this week, Lincoln Center presented Maestra Vida (RECOMMENDED) by Rubén Blades — a 2024-25 Lincoln Center Visionary Artist and beloved Panamanian Renaissance Man — to a largely sold out audience at David Geffen Hall. Produced in collaboration with the New York Philharmonic, the large-scale song cycle (which was written for a full orchestra of approximately 90 players) loosely chronicles the story of a poor urban family in a fictitious Caribbean island. Told primarily through the eyes of one devoted couple over the course of their long lives, the piece is broadly a celebration of and a meditation on life, love, and family amongst the tight knit — albeit slowly disappearing — Latin working class. In terms of the music, Blades’s score is sprawling and somewhat unruly, but it is exactly this “jam session” aspect that I found captivating. Combining symphonic music with the robust sounds of Latin big band and the rhythms of Afro-Caribbean music, the piece drew in the audience and inspired an endearing sense of community amongst the diverse attendees. The performance was conducted by Diego Matheuz, who conjured the vibrant spectrum of colors of Blades’s compositions. As lead singer, the irrepressible Blades delivered a generous, heartfelt performance — in Spanish, with both English and Spanish titles — that occasionally took on a prayer-like quality when needed. Joining him onstage was his wife, the striking Broadway musical theater actress Luba Mason, as well as a pair of fantastic back-up vocalists and an eloquent orator.