All right, so today I’m violating one of my editorial rules and writing about performing arts criticism. I try to avoid this because I think it’s ridiculously navel-gazing for people to write about what they do, particularly when the field itself is so ridiculously impoverished (as I’ll explain in a moment). Surely all us critics could be writing about better things than what we do. But critic and playwright George Hunka recently wrote something that irritated me just that much that I had to respond.

The quick backstory is that the Times‘ Jason Zinoman recently wrote a nice post (well worth reading) on ArtsBeat about the value of writing bad reviews. Parabasis followed up, and you should glance that over, too, and it was that which led me to Hunka. I’ve never met Hunka, but he seems nice enough, and though I don’t agree with everything he writes, he’s undeniable smart, insightful, and passionate about theater. However, quoting himself from the comments on Zinoman’s article, he wrote this:

“It’s not so much a matter of whether a critic who gives a bad review to a show has a vendetta or seems to engage in abuse. It is, however, a matter of whether or not the reviewer has the thoughtfulness or the knowledgability to render such a review valid. Especially with plays that seek to extend the form, the critic should be able to differentiate between a bad play and those which do not yield their pleasures as easily as others.” The contentious and rude review often enough calls attention to itself and the reviewer, not the play and the artist, which does a disservice to reader and artist alike. It also might serve as a cover for ignorance. The same can be said for rude and contentious political arguments, for that matter, whether from Noam Chomsky or Ann Coulter. True, sometimes readers find these reviews fun — but that’s only to cater to the lowest common denominator. Perhaps in a world of 140-character Tweets and Facebook status updates, this is to be expected, but the serious reader should want more than this, the serious critic or reviewer should want to write it, and the serious arts editor should want to publish it. That such criticism and reviews can be provocatively and entertainingly written is proven by the writings of critics from George Bernard Shaw to Eric Bentley, Robert Brustein, and many many others.

Ok. Insofar as the first part makes an argument (the middle is just a bunch of suppositions, and the end a list of critics who conveniently no longer write), it’s complete bollocks. With all due respect. And furthermore–and this is why it really irritated me–it actually argues against good criticism. Read the quote within the quote again. Now let me paraphrase. This is nothing more than a verbose version of the complaint I’ve gotten from everyone I ever wrote a bad review of who thought to argue with me: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Needless to say, the artists I give good reviews to, particularly those I notice coming up in their careers, at least occasionally think I’m a rather insightful critic. One can, apparently, be both at once, if my own experience is to be believed. But for those on the receiving end, who I’m concerned with now, I’m not properly educated (as Hunka provides for) to pass judgment on their oh-so-visionary work, the brilliance of which I failed to note due to my benighted ignorance. This particularly occurs when I write about dance, because I studied theater and comparative literature, not dance (as has been pointed out to me more than once). My standard response to this sort of drivel, in short, is: “Exactly how educated in the form do you expect your audiences to be to enjoy or experience the work?”

In the case of dance, for instance, while I don’t have formal training as a dancer nor an academic background in it, I do talk with choreographers about the form regularly, I read about it as much possible, and in the past year, by my rough count, I’ve seen between 50 and 60 distinct pieces of choreography. If all of that actually left me still unqualified to offer a personal impression of whether or not a given piece is interesting or demonstrates some form of accomplishment, who in God’s name is your target audience? And furthermore, if dance is actually only something that can be understood through personal participation and/or academic work in the field, I have to tell you, the art form has bigger problems than a couple bad reviews.

All of this applies equally well to theater, which, as it happens, I did study. But for Hunka, that may still leave me unqualified to critique work that seeks “to extend the form.” Fundamentally I don’t dispute that there’s a big difference between Art Theater, experimental work, devising, etc., and your standard Broadway or mainstream fare, but as a yardstick for policing the police, as it were, this is stupid. If “extending the form” is the definition of success, than I’d say the work actually has to do so in practice, by actually influencing and inspiring work in the future. Short of being a seer, only time will tell. And furthermore, there are always multiple traditions of work at any point in time. There are plenty of works in the past that did “expand the form” that I’d still argue are not good, not a good influence, and better forgotten or consigned to the pages of a theater history textbook. Influence alone is not a sign of quality; breaking new ground is not always a sign you’ve done something well, or important.

And finally, I want to make one last point. In the world of books or music–which have much healthier critical fields than performing arts–critics are not seen as arbiters of taste or quality who can speak with god-like authority. True, plenty of writers complain that certain critics, like Michiko Kakutani, have too much influence on the buying public, but fundamentally, book criticism isn’t a matter of passing judgment, it’s a form of intellectual discourse and engagement. The essay, as a form, is dead in American publishing. Aside from literary magazines, the only mainstream publication that features them that I can think of is Harper‘s. Otherwise, we’re left with book reviews in which to discuss and engage with ideas in substantive form shorter than an actual published book.

The performing arts, on the other hand, seems to yearn for the sort of recognition a god-like critic can supposedly confer (solace or consolation, perhaps, for a sad lack of other sorts of rewards in the field, such as money or meaningful support). Whereas writers of books (novels or non-fiction) see themselves as equals of their critics (possibly even superior) and think nothing of writing essays and reviews themselves, performing artists seem to prefer a separation between the two fields, and refuse to engage. For them, writing about the form is usually the aforementioned matter of conferring value, not part of a broader discourse about the art. That’s sad, because it actual retards meaningful discussion. It’s not that artists don’t have opinions, mind you; two drinks and even the cheeriest booster of the idea of community will let loose with a fusillade of complaints and criticisms of his or her fellow artists, faulting ideas, aesthetic, execution, whatever. But all too rarely do artists themselves choose to even voice them, even mildly, in a public forum, let alone overcome their own sense of victimization enough to take part in a broader discussion as an interested party, rather than just to rebut this or that thing someone else said that they didn’t like.

So my advice is first, don’t listen to George Hunka (in this circumstance, at least); second, treat yourself with the dignity and respect to air your own arguments and thicken up your skin enough to be able to deal with the fact not everyone will agree with you (like Hunka does); and third, stop trying to convince yourself that a critic’s acceptance or rejection is the end-all, be-all, and accept that criticism and reviews are, at best, part of a broader discourse about arts and society. In short, read this from Zinoman and take it to heart; your work is worthy of being talked about as part of something bigger than itself, and you should help by being part of that conversation:

Of course, fairness is important in criticism. Critics are human and a negative review can go off the rails and veer into cruelty and personal attacks. The temptations of the witty put-down are real, and when it comes to the Fringe, seeing five shows in a day can also play a role. We should take our responsibility seriously. But I would rather live in a theater culture where discussions about plays can get as contentious (and occasionally rude) as those about politics. Theater may be known as the fabulous invalid, but artists and critics who go into this low-paying, highly competitive field are tougher than you think.

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Catherine Sluser in Swim Pony's "Lady M". Photo by Mark Valenzuela.

Coming up this weekend, Philadelphia Live Arts kicks off (Sept. 2-17), the contemporary performance showcase that unfolds opposite the Philly Fringe. The line-up features a variety of artists, some familiar to New York, some less so, with a selection of Philadelphia’s top theater and dance companies.

One of the most unique events of the festival will most likely be Play (Sept. 15-17), a new dance commissioned by Live Arts in its only US appearance. Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and French choreographer Shantala Shivalingappa come at dance from differing perspectives: Cherkaoui is a trained contemporary dancer, while Shivalingappa is a classically trained Indian Kuchipudi dancer. In Play, the two essentially riff off of each other’s distinctive styles and approaches, producing a transcultural experiment in form and content. Both artists will also be presenting work separately, with Shivalingappa showing the traditional piece Namasya (Sept. 11-12), while Cherkaoui, along with Gilles Delmas, have brought in an installation piece called Zon-Mai (throughout the entire run), which presents video of dancers from around the world performing in their own homes.

On the theater front, one of the most interesting shows promises to be The Devil and Mr. Punch (Sept. 8-16), a world premiere from London’s Improbable, the same company behind Shockheaded Peter, the pulpy, prurient operetta based on a 19th century pop-up book satirizing moralistic children’s lit. The Devil and Mr. Punch likewise shows an interest in the intersection of violence and children’s art, taking Punch and Judy shows as its subject.

Improbable's "The Devil and Mister Punch."

Philadelphia’s arts community is represented through several pieces. Headlong Dance debuts a new work, Red Rovers (Sept. 2-10), an interactive piece on the intersection of art and science, which explores robotic investigations of Mars. Swim Pony Performing Arts is premiering Lady M (Sept. 1-9), an adaptation of Macbeth. Pig Iron, Philadelphia’s most accomplished devising company, return with Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Sept. 1-17), a chaotic adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. And finally New Paradise Laboratories, the people who brought us Freedom Club last year, return with Extremely Public Displays of Privacy (throughout), a performance that occurs both in reality and online.

Otherwise, Live Arts features a roster of top artists from the US who are currently on tour. Austin’s Rude Mechs are bringing the incredible The Method Gun to town (Sept. 2-4). And New York dance is represented by both John Jasperse with Canyon (Sept. 9-11), appearing later this fall at BAM, and Kyle Abraham’s in town The Radio Show (Sept. 16-17), which will also be at Portland’s TBA Festival this month, and is part of On the Boards’ season in Seattle. International artists include Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner, French choreographer Xavier Le Roy (who brings the piece to New York for Crossing the Line in September), and Montreal-based circus company 7 Fingers.

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So we’re a little late in noting this, and the sort of people who pay close attention to these sorts of things (which generally describes Culturebot’s readers) no doubt have already noted it, but NYC’s own The TEAM are one of the best reviewed shows at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Fest, where Mission Drift played the Traverse.

Lyn Gardner’s review in the Guardian:

What a blast. Economics has never been more playfully dissected than it is in this latest piece from The Team, the young American experimental company whose previous outings on the fringe have included Particularly in the Heartland and Architecting. Those examinations of America’s myth-making have been energetic and eager, but also chaotic and undisciplined. Yet the company fulfil all their much-hyped promise in this gorgeous, gaudy musical that considers the frontier mentality and the lust for expansion that gave birth to America’s rabid capitalism and the “shining city” in the desert that is Las Vegas.

From the Independent:

Among many other things, Mission Drift is that rare beast, a musical in which the music is really cool – jazz, blues, gospel and a little Elvis of course, all performed by a powerful cast of five with panache and soul. The performances are excellent, though Libby King’s tour de force as the century-striding Catalina deserves mention. Just at the very end it starts to lag, but the ambition here is breathtaking and the energy intoxicating.

From the List blog:

Setting the whole enterprise to bluesy, gospel-tipped song, led by showgirl and beauty queen Miss Atomic, the razzlin’, dazzlin’, manipulative spirit of Las Vegas, the company finally achieve the huge, soaring size of their ambitions. The (collectively-done) writing is crisply poetic, and each performance sharp, focused and beautiful – composer/band-leader Heather Christian, doing double duty as husky platinum blonde sex-pot Miss Atomic is a standout, because she seems to be having the most fun.

All of which is great, because I’ve been eagerly awaiting this show since I caught a work-in-progress showing at last year’s Ice Factory at the old Ohio Theater, and was blown away, not just because of the quality of the performances, but because it’s such a smart piece of political theater. The TEAM aren’t polemicists, a rare thing in American political theater. Instead of beating you over the head with a story on the evils of unbridled capitalism, Rachel Chavkin and co. offer up a complex portrait of the competing visions of the American ideal that produce sometimes disastrous results, ideals that don’t fit easily into our standard left-right, liberal-conservative binary categories. Mission Drift was supposed to open in New York last spring at PS 122, but scheduling conflicts delayed it. Now it’s debuting in NYC as part of PS 122′s COIL Fest in January 2012, along with a host of other fantastic shows.

Also I have to note that another New York company has gotten plenty of good press too. The lovely people from Banana Bag and Bodice took Beowulf to the Fringe this year, and Lyn Gardner of the Guardian was also duly impressed. So congrats all around!

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Jumping off the Earth from José Miguel Jiménez on Vimeo.

To take a break from New York season news, today I thought I’d turn to what’s happening early this September in the fair city of Dublin, which I visited earlier this year, and where the Dublin Fringe Festival opens Sept. 10, for fifteen days showcasing mainly up-and-coming Irish artists.

Okay, to be fair, pretty much all the Irish artists I’ve spoken to about it (including the ones in it) have the same impression of their own fringe fest that everyone else does: it’s at best a mixed basket of occasionally brilliant, sometimes interesting, and often disappointing work, that’s hard to navigate. Still, I’ve been paying more attention to the contemporary Irish scene over the past year, and there’s a number of companies on the forefront of Irish performance who are bringing shows to the festival, some of which, at least, are well worth the attention of the broader arts community.

First off, it’s worth noting that two alumni of The Company are bringing shows to the festival. The Company’s reputation has been taking off in the last few years, particularly on the strength of As you are now so once you were, a recreation of James Joyce’s Ulysses in the location of the performance, which recently was highlighted at Radar LA. At the Dublin Fringe this year, director Jose Miguel Jimenez returns with Jumping Off the Earth, a project done in collaboration with Rough Magic Theatre’s SEEDS developmental residency program. Fellow Company member Nyree Yergainharsian is bringing a solo performance, Where Do I Start? to the festival as well that explores her struggle to balance her Armenian heritage with her Irish reality, all too familiar territory for American audiences, at least, but we all know that such shows are just as capable of being revelatory as they are of seeming pat.

THEATREclub is one of the more interesting young devising companies in Dublin, and in Twenty-Ten they bring one of the latest projects to the stage. Every day throughout 2010, the company invited people to email them something they learned that day. The show takes those responses and performs two months’ worth each night, re-treading one of the hardest years in modern Irish history (if you want to know how hard, read this recent letter to the Irish Times).

Adrienne Truscott's and IMDT's "maKe, I mean"

Other notable shows include THISISPOPBABY‘s The Year of Magical Wanking, a queer Pilgim’s Progress through contemporary Irish society, from an innovative young theater company working in diverse forms. Irish Modern Dance Theatre is collaborating with New York’s own Adrienne Truscott on maKe, I mean, a show about collaborative creation and the tensions group-work entails, which reflects back on the process with which it was created. And then there’s junk ensemble, a dance/performance group headed by twins Jessica and Megan Kennedy, with Bird With Boy, a performance installation on the subject of “things that end before they should,” performed onsite in the basement of an old jail.

Out of Australia comes Ranters Theater, with Intimacy. Ranters brought Holiday to New York this last January as part of PS 122′s COIL Festival, and though they’re bloody nice people, I was a little underwhelmed by the show, as I wrote at the time. It felt like a gimmick to generate interest in something that meandered through its potential to ultimately go nowhere, on purpose, and I left feeling something between irritation and disappointment. Still, it would be wrong of me to give the impression that the artists who made the piece were lacking in talent; in fact, the performances were brilliantly crafted and the concept was well-realized in terms of design. I may not have liked the piece, but I’d definitely check them out again.

And there’s plenty more; I don’t pretend that this constitutes a complete or even thorough preview. But over the last year I’ve become aware of what seems to be a new urgency on the Irish performance scene, moving Irish theater away from the domination of the text owing to Ireland’s too-healthy history of playwrights, and furthermore it seems that contemporary artists are responding with an increased sense of urgency to the horrifying economic conditions as the nation suffers through a recession, real estate bubble burst, and EU enforced austerity. These are hard times for the Irish, but if the line-up of the Fringe is any indication, its artists are rising to the occasion.

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Brazilian artist Michel Groisman, part of PS 122's fall line-up.

FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival: In September, the French Institute Alliance Française‘s Cross the Line Festival kicks off, featuring literary, music, art, and performance from nos amis across the pond. The entire line-up is online, so I’m going to concentrate on the big performance events. First up is polymath choreographer Xavier Le Roy, with two pieces two days in a row. On Monday, Sept. 19 brings us More Mouvements für Lachenmann, Le Roy’s deconstruction of a chamber opera, by choreographing movement onto the musicians. As odd as it does sound, I’ve seen artists work wonders by taking musicians out of their comfort zones–Heiner Goebbels’s Songs of Wars I Have Seen is one of my top 10 performances, and I expect Le Roy could be just as compelling. Then on Tuesday, Sept. 20, he follows it up with Product of Circumstances, a lecture-performance on his transition from molecular biologist to choreographer. The lecture-performance is, likewise, a promising if odd and under-utilized form. But hey–it’s Xavier Le Roy. The guy can apparently do, like, anything.

Performance-lecture is, in fact, one of the curatorial programs FIAF built into Crossing the Line, and Le Roy finds himself in good company. Similarly diverse choreographer/performer Ralph Lemon offers up A Paradance: The inherent protest and émigré nature of performance (and how it could belong nowhere) (Oct. 6), the title being pretty much all we have to go on; Gérald Kurdian brings us 1999 (Oct. 12), an installation/musical composition based on the British sci-fi series 1999; and Jos Houben gives us the Art of Laughter (Sept. 27), an explanation of what’s funny. That last one I’ve heard tons of praise of, so be sure to check it out.

Performance Space 122: Poor PS 122 has begun its homeless period while the actual PS 122 is being renovated, so this fall they’re only presenting two shows, one of which–choreographer Cuqui Jerez’s The Rehearsal (Oct. 12-15, at the Performing Garage)–is co-presented with Crossing the Line. There’s an old Polish expression that roughly translated is, “The lights go down, and the world disappears,” referring to the experience of being in a theater. The Rehearsal, it appears, is roughly working the opposite way. Jerez uses your average studio rehearsal process to re-engage the audience with the experience of a dance performance. And before that, Brazilian artist Michel Groisman is bringing a variety of pieces to the Invisible Dog in Brooklyn (Sept. 21-25). Groisman’s work, often featuring body-based sculptural elements, is all about exploring the limits of the human body. Just check out the pic–how can you miss this?

Anyway, if that feels a wee bit sparse, don’t worry–the line-up for the 2012 COIL Festival in January is already up, and it’s amazing: Young Jean Lee‘s Untitled Feminist Multimedia Technology Show, The TEAM‘s Mission Drift, which has been killing in Edinburgh, Temporary Distortion‘s Newyorkland, Every House Has a Door‘s long-delayed Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never, and a re-staging of Heather Kravas’s fantastic The Green Surround, which we reviewed last spring. So just hold tight. And head over to defile Gawker’s rooftop on Sept. 13 for their season launch party, where you can get epically debauched all up in Nick Denton’s shit with downtown’s finest performance folk.

Ruth Zaporah. Photo by Kate Russell.

Danspace Project: Much like the good folk at PS 122, Danspace Project is also co-producing a show that’s part of Crossing the Line, so let’s kick off from there. It’s Sept. 22-24, it’s by Kimberly Bartosik, and it’s called I Like Penises: A Little Something in 24 Acts. I assume the title alone is intriguing enough to sell tickets.

Other stand-outs in the season include new works by the aforementioned Heather Kravass (with Jeremy Wade; Oct. 6-8) , the marvelous Tere O’Conner (with Cover Boy, Dec. 8-15), and Culturebot’s own Maura Donahue (with Vanessa Anspaugh; Oct. 13-15). On top of that, Danspace is also co-presenting with Performa 11, with a series of duets from Jonathon Burrows and Matteo Fargion (Nov. 3-5).

And then there’s a pair of very special one-night-only pieces: Ruth Zaporah, one of the founders of Action Theater (Oct. 27), and Deborah Hay (Dec. 17), the both of them icons of presence-based performance.

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Over in Dublin, it looks like Gavin Quinn’s Pan Pan has worked wonders with Samuel Beckett’s 1956 radio play All That Fall. Irish Theatre Magazine has both an interview with Quinn as well as a glowing review of the show, which plays at Project Arts Centre though Sept. 2, both of which are well worth reading.

It’s a fascinating concept, because, as previously mentioned, it’s a radio play, and the Beckett estate being notoriously tight-fisted about any production that deviates from the established norm, it’s hard to imagine a production that’s not, as I recently described it, a Masterpiece Theater-version. As even ITM‘s critic Patrick Lonergan notes:

[P]erhaps the second important point [about the production] is how refreshing (and unusual) it is to be surprised by an Irish production of a play by Beckett – a writer whose works are usually treated so reverentially that they’re in danger of becoming museum pieces. While this is a very faithful rendition of the play, Pan Pan provide an experience that is genuinely different from anything you’ll have encountered in the theatre before.

Photo by Ros Kavanaugh

Overly protective literary estates should take note–preventing innovation in theatrical presentations of old plays is killing the oeuvres they purport to defend. The idea that an intelligent critic could be saying that about Samuel Beckett is a distressing thing; Beckett was one of the most innovative dramatists of the 20th Century, and was a product of a combative avant-garde that opposed canonization. Whatever the merits of his draconian prescriptions during his life (he once compared having  a woman perform in Godot to having a soprano sing a baritone part), by my recollection, he’s been dead for more than 20 years. If white directors like Bart Sher can now stage August Wilson, surely Mabou Mines should get to have their subway-car Endgame.

Anyway, the point is that under those circumstances, it’s hard to breathe life into Beckett, but Pan Pan has done it, apparently. It turns out that Pan Pan has staged a recording of the performance, in a room replete with rocking chairs and a charming if be-numbing lighting scheme. As Lonergan describes it:

[T]he surprise – and the real pleasure – of this production lies in the design by Aedín Cosgrove. As we enter the Project Space, we’re confronted not with a conventional performance area but with a room full of rocking-chairs. On the wall to the right of the entrance, there’s an enormous bank of lights, which flood the auditorium with a soft yellow and gold haze; on the left a smaller cluster of blue lights soften that mood. To sit between the two sets of lights creates the impression of occupying a space somewhere between an intense and interrogative sunlight and a comforting moonlight – and indeed as the performance progresses, the lights seem to shift us gradually from day to night…What Pan Pan have done, then, is to create a space that is almost entirely free of sensory distractions, allowing us to listen to the play with a profound concentration. That technique allows for a better appreciation of the text, but it also imposes upon the audience many of the sensations that are described by Maddy and the other characters: a sense of blindness, a feeling of isolation despite being surrounded by others, perhaps even a sense of abandonment in space.

Anyway, the entire review is well worth reading, as is Fintan Walsh’s interview with Quinn. Unfortunately I know of no plans for the show to head elsewhere once it finishes its run at Project, Dublin’s historic and rather lovely contemporary arts space, but New York won’t be lacking for Beckett this season. Not only will Dublin’s Gate Theatre be bringing in a production of Krapp’s Last Tape for BAM’s Next Wave, starring John Hurt (which, sadly, I suspect will be overly reverential–how could it not?), but Baryshnikov Arts Center is hosting Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord/Peter Brook‘s Fragments in November, which is surely one of the can’t-miss-it events of the season.
Update: It’s come to my attention (thanks to Sarah Bishop-Stone, thank you!) that Pan Pan will in fact be in NYC in November with The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane at the Skirball Center in November.

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Leaving for work this morning, I was shocked to give just a little bit of a shiver as I stepped outside into the courtyard of my building. For the first time in what felt like ages, it could be reasonably described as “cool,” if not downright chilly in the shadow of my apartment building. And that can only mean one thing: fall is right around the corner.

Not that I’m sure we won’t have a good six to eight weeks of summery warmth left, but it’s true: we’re in the last full week of August, and next month is September, when the kids go back to school, the nights get cool and long, and finally, at long last, the fall performing arts seasons kick off.

For the next couple weeks, we’ll be profiling the upcoming seasons here, but it only made sense to start with BAM’s Next Wave Festival, for all intents and purposes the pinnacle of contemporary performance in the US. Beginning in mid-September though the holidays, BAM plays host to not only the standard set of globally noteworthy artists, but this year, also a couple very unique shows, once in a lifetime opportunities that shouldn’t be missed.

The performance series itself kicks off on Sept. 21, with Kronos Quartet‘s “Awakening: A Musical Meditation on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11″ (through Sept. 24). So yes, it’ll be cheery. The performance features twelve compositions, ranging from an Iranian lullaby to a new arrangement of Einstürzende Neubauten’s “Armenia,” to Kronos commissions from composers like Michael Gordon, John Oswald, and Terry Riley. In proper Kronos fashion, it’s a global musicological response to inexpressible tragedy. Interestingly, though, it does not feature any of Steve Reich’s compositions from WTC 9/11, the album, recorded by Kronos, that recently caused a stir over its cover art.

Also notable in the series this year is the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on its farewell tour. Dec. 7-10, they present three separate programs of work spanning the iconic choreographer’s career, from 1968′s RainForest to 2003′s Split Sides. The shows demonstrate Cunningham’s breadth of collaborators, ranging from John Cage to Radiohead, Jasper Johns to Andy Warhol. It’s the third to last stop on the legacy tour, with the company heading across the pond to Paris before returning to New York for the final blow-out at New Year’s in the Park Avenue Armory.

But aside from that pair of truly unique events, the Next Wave program features plenty of amazing dance and theater. In October, the Berliner Ensemble brings Robert Wilson’s version of Kurt Weil/Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera to town (BE’s website, in German), which certainly counts as a can’t-miss, Robert Wilson and the Berliner Ensemble each being something any self-respecting performing arts lover has to see in his or her life (and, considering I’ve never been convinced Wilson is actually worth all the praise, it kills two birds with one stone–though final judgment has to wait until next year, for the re-staging of Einstein on the Beach, in the 2012 Next Wave Festival).

Big Dance Theater is presenting Supernatural Wife (Nov. 29-Dec. 3), an adaptation of Euripides’ Alkestis. Choreographer John Jasperse is back with Canyon (Nov. 16-19), a show that “plays with engineered disorientation, sensory overload, spaciousness, fractured connectivity, and rapture.” I can count two or three dance pieces I’ve seen in just the last year on the same (or similar) topics, so it’ll be interesting to see how the always imaginative Jasperse tackles it. But the really exciting dance presentation (aside from the obligatory Cunningham) is William Forsythe, who will be bringing I don’t believe in outer space (Oct. 16-29), an exploration of “absence made present,” if the description is to be believed. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, honestly, but Forsythe is, well, Forsythe. Love him or hate him, he’s one of the most distinctive choreographic voices on the planet, and I don’t believe in outer space promises to be a stunner.

Finally, I can’t help but end this little (and certainly incomplete–see here for the whole line-up; I didn’t even get to the Bergman or Ivo van Hove pieces) wrap-up by calling out what is personally my most anticipated show: the Gate Theatre (Dublin) presenting Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, with John Hurt (Dec. 1-17). Yes, it’s giving Beckett the Masterpiece Theater treatment, to be sure, but Krapp is still an amazing show, Hurt a strong actor, and hell, I love Beckett.

Anyway, discounts are still available on season packages for Next Wave through the 29th, when the ticket prices jack up, so be sure to check it out by this weekend.

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As someone who spent quite a while engaged with the world of Seattle’s performing arts, I’m always excited to see it–and particularly the dance scene–get the recognition it deserves. That happened in a fairly big way Monday, when the Princess Grace Foundation awarded both of its choreography awards to Seattle choreographers (PDF): one to Zoe Scofield, and the other to Olivier Wevers. As I understand it, a Seattle artist had never won that award previously, so for both to go to Seattle artists the same year is saying something.

Wevers has been the golden boy of Seattle dance since his days as a principal at PNB, but his star has really taken off since the launch of his own contemporary-inflected company in January of last year, when the charming and crowd-pleasing 3Seasons won accolades (you can see my review at the time here; for Wevers’ later work, my former editor has written a particularly fine piece). Since then, Wevers has continued winning attention, and Whim W’Him seems to be trying to replicate in Seattle the popular embrace Trey McIntyre enjoys in Boise, Idaho. The company is supported by a small but intense fan-based who’ve dubbed themselves (or, equally likely, been dubbed by overly fawning press) “Whimmers.”

Photo by Ty Cheng.

Comprised of dancers from both PNB and Donald Byrd’s modern Spectrum Dance Theater, Whim W’Him is a decidedly athletic and sexy company (albeit occasionally Party Monster-esque, for some reason). Wevers has decidedly moved away from classical ballet as a choreographer, but his work remains rooted in academic movement, which goes no small way to explaining its popularity and accessibility.

Still, for my money, Zoe Scofield is the more impressive choice. Her work–in collaboration with her husband, visual artist Juniper Shuey–is as complex and cerebral as Wevers’ is charming and accessible, and while Wevers’ vocabulary remains comfortably within tradition, Scofield–who, as a dancer, moves like virtually no one else–has gone a long way towards creating her own distinct dance vernacular, wedded in a physical deconstruction of classical movement. Her most recent piece, A Crack in Everything, recently played to strong reviews at Jacob’s Pillow, and I’ll be catching it in September at the TBA Festival in Portland. Next year, it plays New York Live Arts (formerly DTW) in April.

But both are definitely deserving of praise, and in fact, the differences between the two speak to health and diversity of Seattle dance. Congrats all around!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, there’s an interesting essay over at Howlround, by John Olive, deceptively titled “The Gaming Challenge to Theater for Young Audiences.”

Deceptive because even though it’s couched as a story about video games and theater, rather surprisingly, Olive comes to some different conclusions than what you might expect. Instead of going for what I assumed would be the standard “Let’s make theater more interactive!” approach, Olive does at least a little homework and comes up with a different interpretation.

To outside observers, players seem like brain-dead automatons, pausing to take occasional bites of cold pizza as their fingers blur over their controllers. But in their heads, something marvelous is happening. Their brains respond to the probing, the making of hypotheses, the reprobing, the exploring with a solid shot of dopamine (there is plenty of neurological evidence to back this up; check out psychologyofgames.com and follow the many links). This is what allows players to game for hours: it’s addictive, literally.

Applying these concepts to the theater, he asks, “Can plays match the be-dopamined probe/hypothesis/reprobe/rethink appeal of video games?” before admitting, “Probably not. Plays are communal. Group-experiences. Linear. Story-centric. Games are non-linear, violent, with silly story lines.”

What he suggests instead, for children’s theater, is a much more practical set of ideas that, frankly, don’t even require the videogame analysis to reach. Make the plays darker, and stop condescending to children who adults tend to idealize as precious innocents. Make stories about things that children and young audiences would care about, rather than what parents think they–or want them to–care about. Make theater that’s more engaging, surprising, non-traditional. And make new work, don’t rely on classics for name recognition alone.

Now, the practical limitation in terms of children’s theater is, of course, that children don’t get to buy the tickets themselves, nor (usually) go to the theater alone. The parents are making the decisions, which is why, in practice, this would be hard to pull off. Children can always be exposed to books or music or videogames by visiting friends’ houses, which is one of the ways they bring those wants back to their parents who ultimately pay the tab. Theater, given the cost, I suspect will have a much harder time becoming a must-have sort of thing among kids. That of course is why so many children’s theaters make the sort of work Olive correctly sees as condescending to children, the moralistic, unsophisticated, rosy-eyed parables and fables based often on the classics: because these shows aren’t being marketed to the children they’re putatively being made for, but rather the parents who, as Olive himself notes, would be the ones expected to shell out $200 for four tickets to a professional show. And on top of that, let’s not forget that most children’s theater is produced by local non-profits. Imagine trying Olive’s suggestion that theater-makers tap in to the fact that “children have dark, frightening and often violent imaginations. Their inner worlds are not cute and simplistic.” You’d have every mollycoddling, gray-haired busybody in town who volunteers for the company screaming bloody murder about the theater no longer being a safe space for kids.

Which is sad, because pretty much everything Olive says has the potential to work. A few years ago, for instance, Seattle Children’s Theater staged a fairly gory version of Night of the Living Dead aimed at the ‘tween and early teen market. It was well received but from what I understand performed below expectation, probably because parents weren’t as interested in sending their kids to something the kids might actually like.

But with all that said about children’s theater, I’d propose that everything Olive has to say applies equally well to most mainstream theater in general, which popular opinion amongst artists and practitioners holds is suffering just as bad as the stuff for the kids. Let’s face it–no matter how good you think a show like Ruined is, for instance, everyone who goes in chooses at the outset to subject themselves to its violent and brutal story and to accept the moral lesson (or unresolved moral ambiguity, which has become our lazy excuse for “sophistication” in theater, TV, and film) at the end. Not so different from the average children’s theater’s latest adaptation of a Roald Dahl novel.

Indeed, pretty much everything Olive says applies just as well to adult theater. The question is why isn’t this happening for the adults, then? It’s something I’ve been mulling over in my head for the last several years as I made the transition from being fascinated and engaged by more mainstream offerings towards the sort of “weird” or “experimental” performance we typically cover at Culturebot (which is going the opposite direction as most people as they age). At first I assumed that, like I had, most theater artists saw plays by the likes of Neil LaBute or Lynn Nottage or Paula Vogel or whatever as challenging works worth bringing to an audience. My opinion has certainly changed: again, we never “surprise” our audiences coming into the theater, and rarely does a play actually challenge their assumptions; instead, we all just rely on the idea that seeing the show has a cathartic effect, a value raised to a quasi-spiritual excuse for why we do what we do. But still, even if I came to the opinion that such logic is mistaken, I always assumed it was honest and in good faith.

But over the years, as I realized how little theater practitioners were artistically challenged in actually making their shows, I realized that the real problem is that–quite the opposite of what I’d always told myself–far from being daring or willing to push boundaries, most theater artists, including myself, were extremely risk averse. Sure, we’ll gleefully put any sort of verbal or physical obscenity onstage–from Mamet’s curse-filled racist misogyny to Shepherd’s or Bond’s dead babies–all the while assuring ourselves we’re holding a harsh mirror up to the world. We’ll take some risks with content, but the business model? Hell no. From the top to the bottom, most American theater is as conservative, threatened by change, and frightened of risk as every other dying form of media, from book publishers to newspapers to record labels.

This really hit home a few weeks ago when I was having an online discussion with some artists in Seattle, again about the demise of the Intiman and what should come next (part of it, but not the part I’m referring to, was published here). I won’t quote from it directly, as it was off-the-record, but an artist with a long history at one of Seattle’s oldest “fringe” theaters made the odd argument that most of what the pie-in-the-sky dreamers, who were hoping for new production opportunities, were talking about was not feasible. The Intiman’s house was too big (I would agree and suggest the answer is a smaller house, but that’s me) for most of this sort of work and that the real problem was that they’d taken too much risk already. Scale back, do popular plays, balance the books, and bam!, you’re set (I paraphrase). When I suggested that the present circumstances actually allowed for a radical re-thinking of how to make work, I was informed in no uncertain terms that I was being unrealistic. Referencing a noted local experimental theater artist and director, he suggested that it was fine for his fringe theater (which doesn’t pay) to produce one of this guy’s versions of Shakespeare in an alley for no budget, but when money’s in play, we have to be realistic.

Got that? Risk is only for shows with low or no expectations; otherwise, even a long-time advocate of new theater will bow down before the mysterious Market God that’s failed to support the theater time and time again. It’s about butts in seats, he and virtually everyone else in the theater says, nodding along like Very Serious People expressing a hard and harsh realist sentiment. Never mind that the Intiman that had collapsed into bankruptcy was producing commercial non-profit theater that was acclaimed and popular. We’d rather second-guess the bookkeeping that helped skyrocket Bart Sher’s reputation into the stratosphere rather than ever countenance the possibility that it was too little–rather than too much–risk that got us into this mess.

This is, of course, ridiculous. It’s certainly not backed up by numbers, which, again, haven’t rewarded this artistic conservatism in the theater anymore than they have the non-traditional work disdained by our own as “experimental” and therefore of little interest to anyone. Never mind that Elevator Repair Service can turn a seven-hour recitation of a novel into a hit show, or that Nature Theater’s Romeo and Juliet is patently hilarious and more intelligent than most Shakespeare productions at a fraction of the price. VSP’s in the theater are convinced of their wrong-headed realism; if only we try to do the same thing again but harder, this time it will work. This is why America is not producing companies like Punchdrunk, because the very idea strikes our own artists as dangerously outside the box, despite the fact that 99% of people would prefer their immersive experience in Sleep No More to virtually any other production of Macbeth.

So I’d say that Olive’s points apply just as well to the grown-ups. The theater needs to stop condescending to its audiences and accept that maybe that’s why they’re not showing up as much. Theater also needs to get over its knee-jerk reaction to anything that falls outside the proscenium space and stop writing it off as weird or off-putting and accept that there are other ways to make enjoyable, fun, and engaging theatrical experiences for people. And in general, it needs to get over its naive belief that being more businesslike means taking less risk; businesses takes risks all the time, and indeed, some of them fail. But if the theater wants to see itself as half as creative and energetic as private industry, it needs to learn to roll with punches and take bigger risks (for the sake of bigger rewards) or hurry up with shriveling up and dying.

Popularity: 10% [?]

SIXTH-ANNUAL BRING A WEASEL AND A PINT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD FESTIVAL TO FEATURE FOUR NEW ADAPTATIONS: EAST 13TH ST THEATRE, AUGUST 4TH-AUGUST 6TH

Mac Wellman’s groundbreaking Brooklyn College MFA Playwrights Caitlin Brubacher, Alexandra Collier, Sara Farrington and Ariel Stess adapt selections from Norbert Davis’ hard-boiled mystery novel, Sally’s in the Alley, and translate Wittgenstein’s philosophic brilliance for the stage.

New York, NY – July 6, 2011 – The sixth-annual Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival is excited to present four original plays at the East 13th Street Theater from August 4th to August 6th. Solely produced and written by playwrights from Mac Wellman’s groundbreaking Brooklyn College MFA program, this year’s Weasel festival features talented alumni Caitlin Brubacher, Alexandra Collier, Sara Farrington and Ariel Stess with director Sarah Rasmussen. Three playwrights will draw from different sections of Sally’s in the Alley – the 1943 hard-boiled detective novel by Norbert Davis – and one will investigate why this writer was so beloved by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The unlikely but inspiring combination of the 20th Century philosopher, Wittgenstein, and witty detective novelist, Davis, will be joined together for a night of theater, at last. Chock full of corpses plus a whiskey swilling detective with a disapproving Great Dane sidekick, and a desert road trip under the watchful eye of wise-talking vultures, Sally’s in the Alley is the perfect inspiration for a festival of rapid-fire plays by wholly original playwrights working outside the canon.

LOCATION: East 13th Street Theatre, 136 East 13th St (btwn. 3rd & 4th Ave – 4, 5, 6, N, R train to 14th St, Union Sq)
DATES/TIMES: Thurs. August 4, Fri. August 5 & Sat. August 6 @ 8 pm
TICKETS: $18/15 students, reserve tickets at bringaweasel@gmail.com

Each night features four new plays:
KUUTNUU: Written and Directed by Caitlin Brubacher
A sometimes lonely quest for certainty in four parts.

The Red Letterbox: By Alexandra Collier; Directed by Sarah Rasmussen
A detective and his sidekick dog take a road-trip on secret business, until they meet a sexy hitchhiker who puts a glitch in the natural order of things.

The Vultures: By Sara Farrington; Directed by Sarah Rasmussen
Damn Vultures. ‘sif I had a dead body in the trunk…

Highlights in Hollywood: By Ariel Stess; Directed By Sarah Rasmussen
A special agent of the Department of Justice surprises our soft-boiled investigator – of the Carstairs and Doan Detective Agency – during bath time.

The experimental Brooklyn College MFA program, led by the celebrated playwright Mac Wellman, has decisively shaped New York downtown theatre over the last 10 years. Alumni of the program include Thomas Bradshaw, Annie Baker, Young Jean Lee and Ken Urban. The program has spawned the annual Weasel Festival, now in its sixth year, as a vital breeding ground for new work. Previous playwright/producers include Normandy Sherwood, Erin Courtney, Kate Ryan, Scott Adkins, Sibyl Kempson, Richard Toth, Bianca Bagatourian, Susan Dunlap, Trish Harnetiaux, Laura Jones-Katz, Karinne Keithley, Matt Korahais, Kristen Kosmas, Valerie Work, Corina Copp and Kobun Kaluza.

Popularity: 9% [?]