Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – A look back at some of the performing arts festivals that never failed to challenge, enrich (and frustrate) me

• By drediman
• January 5, 2016
• No Comments

For me, one of the most exciting aspects of attending live performance is the prospect of being exposed to new forms of expression, combinations, and perspectives. In the city, no other platform embraces these great possibilities as completely as the crop of increasingly essential performing arts festivals that invariably pop up throughout the year, mainly during the performing arts off-season (i.e., the sweltering months of summer or deep in the dead of winter). Indeed, some of the most stimulating and inventive performances I’ve see have been offerings at these various festivals. I find their absolute disregard of labels (What is opera if just a form of musical theater, or vice versa? If Susan Stroman’s all-dance Contact can win the Tony for Best Musical, then why can’t a piece like Christopher Wheeldon’s acclaimed ballet adaptation of The Winter’s Tale?) not only to be utterly refreshing but should be mandatory beyond the festival setting. Perhaps just as important is the opportunity for these festivals to provide a conduit for several parties, which include theater-makers, performers, producers, and audiences from around the world, to meet, mingle, and synergize. As we face a new year and gear up for this January’s onslaught of performing arts festivals – Under the Radar, Coil, Prototype, and American Realness – it seems like an ideal time to take stock of some of the treasures I’ve come across in recent months at these festivals.

River to River (June)

River to River in lower Manhattan and Governors Island remains one of the most fascinating local festivals that focus on adventurous new choreography, alongside this January’s American Realness. The festival’s commitment to site-specific work (Rachel Tess’s Souvenir Undone, for example, was custom made for the bowels of Fort Jay in Governors Island) continues to be one of its defining and exciting traits. And the focus isn’t just on dance; the revival of John Kelly’s Love of a Poet, another site-specific work first produced in 1990, proved that the festival is just as interested in producing music theater and mounting art installations. During the 2015 festival, I attended the following performances:

• Souvenir Undone
• Dance my life
• Love of a Poet

Lincoln Center Festival (July)

Lincoln Center Festival is perhaps the grand dame of the annual performing arts festivals in the city. Each year, it attracts some of the most renowned companies to perform on its slate. The highlight of the 2015 festival was its absolutely stellar international theater programming, which included the monumental DruidMurphy: The History Plays (Ireland), Cheek by Jowl’s visceral production of Ubu Roi (UK/France/Russia), Ninagawa Company’s mammoth and mysterious adaptation of Kafka on the Shore (Japan), Gabriadze Theatre’s soulful puppet theater piece Ramona, and Theatre of Nations’ vital revival of Miss Julie (Russia). During the 2015 festival, I attended the following performances:

• DruidMurphy: The History Plays
• The Peony Pavilion
• The Red Detachment of Women
• Daphne (Opera-in-concert)
• Ubu Roi
• Kafka on the Shore
• Delusion of the Fury
• Ramona
• Miss Julie

New York Musical Theatre Festival (July)

The 2015 edition of “NYMF” continued to frustrate more than delight. See my thoughts here.

Mostly Mozart (July/August)

One of the things on the classical music calendar I most look forward to is the series of exuberant summer concerts that make up Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart festival. This past year, the festival also included perhaps the most memorable new production of an opera I’ve seen in recent memory: George Benjamin’s brilliant, harrowing Written on Skin, which I was lucky enough to catch (there were only a handful of performances at the Koch). During the 2015 festival, I attended the following performances:

• Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra: Free Preview Concert
• Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra: Haydn & Beethoven
• Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra: Mozart’s 40^th Symphony
• Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra: Joshua Bell Plays Bach
• Written on Skin

New York International Fringe Festival (August)

The scrappy and prolific (over 1,000 performances across 200 shows!) New York International Fringe Festival holds innumerable surprises – of both the good and bad varieties. Of the good kind, I can point to Erin B. Mee and Jessie Bear’s inventive and quietly mesmerizing Ferry Play, Alley Theater’s unadorned staging of Hannah Moscovitch’s haunting and unflinching two-hander Little One, and E. Dale Smith’s highly entertaining if overlong fictitious ramblings on John Water’s iconic muse entitled Divine/Intervention. During the 2015 festival, I attended the following performances:

• The Crack in the Ceiling
• DEX! A Killer Musical
• Ferry Play
• Popesical
• Why I Killed My Mother
• Little One
• Divine/Intervention
• Love Is Like Mud

Next Wave Festival (September-December)

One of the most eclectic, adventurous, and established of New York’s performing arts festivals is surely BAM’s Next Wave Festival. Although I went in most pumped up about Ivo van Hove’s staging of Antigone (starring none other than Juliette Binoche in the starring role) and the dance/opera hybrid Hagoromo (former City Ballet prima ballerina Wendy Whelan’s vehicle for her return to the stage), I came out most admiring James Thierrée unforgettable phantasmagorical piece of brute physical theater Tabac Rouge, Circa’s relentless and gorgeous spectacle set to Shostakovich entitled Opus, and Anne Bogart and Julia Wolf’s hypnotic and unclassifiable Steel Hammer – their meditation on John Henry. During the 2015 festival, I attended the following performances:

• Tabac Rouge
• Antigone
• text&beheadings/ElizabethR
• Umusuna: Memories Before History
• Opus
• Hagoromo
• Steel Hammer
• Continu

White Light Festival (October/November)

In the fall, Lincoln Center presents a third festival called the White Light Festival, which aims to connect performance with our inner lives, in personal and transcendent ways. In 2015, I was only able to catch one offering from this festival, Thomas Adès: Concentric Paths – Movements in Music. Thomas Adès has long been at the forefront of contemporary classical music. Here, a number of his works (stunningly played by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s) have been coupled with newly created dances from some of today’s most exciting choreographers. Of particular note is Crystal Pite’s massive “Polaris”, which employed more than 60 dancers to breathtaking effect. The living, breathing fabric created by Ms. Pite on City Center’s stage is one of the most striking stage pictures I saw in 2015.

World Stages (Fall/Spring)

Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center curates a festival called World Stages, in which it assembles a lineup of thought-provoking productions from around the world. The offering from the United States was Wagner, Max! Wagner!, Stew and Heidi Rodewald’s (of Passing Strange fame) heartfelt and highly entertaining fantasia on Richard Wagner and the blues. Part rock concert, part theater – this richly orchestrated and beautifully performed song cycle defies categorization (like many of the shows discussed here).