Performance Picks: Boat Comedy, Puppetry, Being Very Online

July 25, 2018 By Cassidy Dawn Graves

WEDNESDAY

producer Catherine Woodard, playwright Stefani Kuo, and director Theo Maltz (image courtesy of Corkscrew Theater Festival)

delicacy of a puffin heart
July 25-August 5 at Paradise Factory, various times: $24 (pay what you can on July 28)

Presented as part of the second annual Corkscrew Theater Festival, a festival of new plays and readings showcasing up-and-coming artists, this play by writer, poet, and performer Stefani Kuo tackles the weighty topic of how female friendship and love perseveres in the midst of loss, lies, and decades of time. It does so by telling two stories: one of a lesbian couple trying to conceive in 1990s San Francisco, and one of their daughter 20 years later living in that same apartment and coping with illness. It can be hard to be a person who is consistently both living life and loving people, and this play seems to serve as a reminder of that. More →

Tags: bam, basil twist, Bushwick, comedy, corkscrew theater festival, east williamsburg, here arts center, puppetry, theater, Vital Joint

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Art This Week: Miyazaki Tribute, 1,000 Pigeons, And More

September 26, 2017 By Cassidy Dawn Graves

Photo: Siebren Versteeg, Daily Times, 2012, courtesy of the artist (via BAM)

2017 Next Wave Art
Opened Monday, September 25 at BAM, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through December 22.

If you are involved in media or even know someone involved in media, you have probably heard frequent mentions of the phrase “pivot to video.” This typically means deciding your digital media company is going to focus on making videos instead of producing written editorial content, and frequently means writers getting fired. Many argue that this new focus on short-form video content that’s prone to autoplaying all over Facebook is happening because it’s an easier way for advertisers to make money in an unstable industry. It could also signal a change in how people want to consume content. More →

Tags: bam, chelsea, Duke Riley, gallery openings, Lower East Side, Magnan Metz, parsons, spoke art

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Alex Ross Perry On His ‘Very Personal,’ ‘Very Local’ New Film, Golden Exits

June 27, 2017 By Daniel Maurer

Alex Ross Perry (middle) and cinematographer Sean Price Williams (right).

“There’s no one here that we accidentally filmed in one of the crowd scenes, is there?” Alex Ross Perry quipped after a screening of his latest movie– his third to play at BAMcinemaFest over the years. “Because this is the screening where we would have to deal with that.”

Golden Exits is a “very local movie,” the 32-year-old director had noted while introducing the film Saturday night. Unlike Listen Up Philip and Queen of Earth, which were shot partly outside of the city, this one occurs almost entirely in brownstone Brooklyn, not far from BAM— with the notable exception of a scene at Anthology Film Archives in the East Village.

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Tags: alex ross perry, Arts + Culture, bam, bamcinemafest, Beyond, brooklyn, golden exits, Listen Up Philip

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Performance Picks: Fainting Clowns, Doom Spirituals, and So Much More

September 14, 2016 By Cassidy Dawn Graves

(photo via BAM)

WEDNESDAY

Portrait of myself as my ~~father~~
Continues through September 17 at BAM Fisher, 7:30 pm: $25.
Choreographer Nora Chipaumire, born in Zimbabwe and based in Brooklyn, takes the medium of traditional African dance and dresses it up in the masculine garb of a boxing ring in this piece that explores and explodes traditional notions of black masculinity through the spirit of her estranged father. He will appear in multiple forms, symbolically summoned as a “specter” through two dancers, Kaolack (also known as Senegalese dancer Pape Ibrahima Ndiaye) and the Jamaican-born Shamar Watt. The three performers will step into the ring, don their gloves, and fight it out. Or dance it out. Or maybe there’s less of a difference than we think.

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Tags: bam, becca bernard, burlesque, clown, dixon place, jessy yates, LES, M. Lamar, metal, miriam kongstad, moma ps1, next wave festival, Nora Chipaumire, ny art book fair, opera, Panoply Performance Laboratory, queens, the brick, Williamsburg

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Gather Your Coven, This Witchy Film Series is Required Attendance

January 25, 2016 By Nicole Disser

You better believe “The Craft” is a part of this lineup. (Film still via BAM)

It’s no wonder February is shaping up to be the perfect time to binge on witchy happenings– the start of the month is marked by an important pagan festival, Imbolc, a time of “weather divination” (Groundhog Day!) and looking out for the first indications of spring and omens. No better way to help you seek out those good omens than an esoterica art show, curated by Pat Grossman of Phantasmaphile, a blog chronicling the fantastical. But to avoid the rather hellish indications that winter will continue from here until eternity (guys, that snow is going absolutely nowhere until July) we suggest you hole up at BAM, which will play host to another Phantasmaphile effort, “Witches’ Brew“– a series spotlighting the major cinematic witch tropes throughout film history.

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Tags: and Beyond, bam, Bell, Book & Candle, brooklyn academy of music, films, Häxan, Hocus Pocus, movies, Phantasmaphile, SCREENINGS, The Craft, the witch, william s. burroughs

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I Am Curious (Yellow) About This New Book and Film Fest Honoring Grove Press and Evergreen Review

January 14, 2016 By Daniel Maurer

Cover of Evergreen Review, January 1970 (Via Grove Press)

Most people know Grove Press and its onetime sister journal, The Evergreen Review, as the pioneering publishers of Burroughs, Beckett and Brecht, just to name some of the Bs. Grove gave us seminal (in every sense of the word) books such as Valley of the Dolls (the 50th-anniversary edition of which will be published in July) and Please Kill Me (the 10th-anniversary edition of which comes out in April). What’s not so well known is that Grove’s firebrand publisher, Barney Rosset, was a cinema buff who launched a trailblazing film division in the mid-’60s. In May, to mark a new collection of Evergreen essays, BAM will screen 29 titles distributed by Grove and/or championed by Evergreen, including rarities by Godard, Genet, Warhol, and Robbe-Grillet (late husband of that 85-year-old dominatrix) .

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Tags: Arts + Culture, bam, Barney Rosset, black panthers, brooklyn academy of music, dale peck, Dennis hopper, East Village, Godard, Grove Press, grove/Atlantic, I am curious (yellow), Jean genet, John Oakes, Lionel Rogosin, Malcolm x, on the Bowery, Susan Sontag, the evergreen review

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NYC ID Card Benefits Expanded, Downtown Gains Another New Enrollment Site

December 17, 2015 By Kavitha Surana

(via IDNYC program)

We kind of nerded out here at B+B when we heard news that an IDNYC enrollment station was popping up in the East Village through the month of December. The municipal identification program — the groundbreaking pet project of Mayor Bill de Blasio and the largest program of its kind across the country — gives all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, the right to an ID card. Of course, there are all kinds of perks to get us to develop some loyalty to these things and actually carry the cards around. Or maybe our lanky Mayor just loves us.

And actually, you might be inclined to think the latter now that we’ve been given the greatest holiday gift ever. The Mayor announced an extension of the free membership program linked to the card for at least another year. And just when we thought things couldn’t get any better, another IDNYC registration center is launching in Chinatown.

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Tags: bam, brooklyn academy of music, city id card, discounts, East Village, enrollment sites, id nyc, identification, joe's pub, metropolitan opera, moma, moma ps1, the guggenheim, The Library, the metropolitan museum of art, the public theater

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NYC ID Enrollment Site Pops Up in East Village, Hit It Before the Goodies Are Gone

November 24, 2015 By Daniel Maurer

If you’re a downtowner who’s been lazy about trekking uptown to get a city ID card, heads up: an IDNYC enrollment site is popping up at Middle Collegiate Church during the last three weeks of December.

You’ll want to move on this, too: December 31 is the last day you’ll be able to sign up for free year-long memberships at 33 museums and cultural institutions. After you’ve snagged the card, you’ll have to apply separately with each place for membership, but it’s worth it. Perks include discounted tickets at the Public Theater, 20% off food and drink at Joe’s Pub and The Library, half off movie tickets and same-day tickets to performances at BAM, and free admission to The Met, MoMA PS1, and Brooklyn Museum.

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Tags: bam, brooklyn academy of music, city id card, discounts, East Village, enrollment sites, id nyc, identification, joe's pub, moma ps1, The Library, the metropolitan museum of art, the public theater

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Week in Film: Piranhas With a Messed Up Palate and Homicidal Teen Idols

July 23, 2015 By Nicole Disser

This week in film get ready for uber cheesy, ultra trashy Troma films and attractive teen murderesses. If documentaries are more your speed, don’t miss one that explores the so-called “gay voice” and another that takes a look at Williamsburg’s Southside (aka Los Sures) way back in 1984.

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Tags: bam, brooklyn academy of music, David Thorpe, Do I Sound Gay, east williamsburg, film, film screenings, ifc center, jawbreaker, los sures, movies, The Paper Box, Troma Films, TromaDance, videology, Williamsburg

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Week in Film: Blue Tops Filming Blue Tops and Kidnapping at the Hands of Crazed Makeup Man

May 7, 2015 By Nicole Disser

Sup film lovers? We’ve got some new things and old things for you this week, as usual. But this time around even our new film selections have a heavy gaze toward the past, whether it’s a 93-year-old woman who still reigns as a style sultan for women of all ages or a Mexican film that looks like it could have been made by Jean Luc Godard in 1968. Time is elastic y’all we know but stop wasting it sitting in front of your laptop and shell out a few bones to support your local independent Cini Mini and see reels on the big screen. It’s worth it, believe us.

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Tags: Albert Maysles, and Beyond, bam, brooklyn academy of music, david bowie, film forum, fort greene, Gueros, Iris, Iris Apfel, Lower East Side, Mexican film, Mickey Rooney, spectacle theater, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Manipulator, Williamsburg