Veteran musician Onyx Ashanti’s performance prompted larger questions of how personal, cultural works hold value in commodified spaces of leisure, excess and consumption.
Performance
Posted inPerformance
For Six Hours, Four Performers Freeze in the Act of Falling
In Just a Blink of an Eye, the performers lean backwards, appearing as victims of an unseen violence.
Posted inPerformance
When Artists Recreate Lost Children for Mourning Mothers
While entertaining at first, Reborning, which deals with the phenomenon of hyperrealistic “reborn dolls,” progressively unveils what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.
Posted inPerformance
Mining Robert Mapplethorpe’s Legacy, With Missteps
Though its music, and use of Mapplethorpe’s photographs and texts by Essex Hemphill and Patti Smith were impressive in their own rights, the performance Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) ultimately appeared cheap, forced, and self-congratulatory.
Posted inPerformance
A Strange Loop Stages the Double Consciousness of Being Black and Queer
Michael R. Jackson’s subversive sermon on the conflicted heart of a Black, queer man writing a musical about a Black, queer man details an artist’s fight against society’s expectations of what he should be.
Posted inPerformance
Anne Imhof’s Sex Creates Drama but Not Desire
Imhof’s performance Sex is dramatic, even melodramatic, yet its drama is not sensual; it removes bodily urges from the mix.
Posted inPerformance
A Chamber Choir Musical Takes Aim at Our Tech-Driven Loneliness
The show demonstrates that human connection isn’t dead in spite of the forest of technology that separates us from each other, and that we can have our limbic state reset through music.
Posted inPerformance
Dance Performances in Historic Churches Revive Spiritual Histories
The Grounds that Shout! project put Reggie Wilson in the role of curator as well as choreographer to present his own work alongside the dances of seven Philadelphia choreographers and companies who created the performances.
Posted inPerformance
This Year’s Ten Best German Plays
The work on display at Berlin’s Theatertreffen draws on film, novels, Brecht, and ancient Greek drama.
Posted inPerformance
A Factory that Processes Your Dandelion Wishes
The anonymous art collective simply known as the Art Department transformed a decommissioned building into “a secret wish-processing facility.”
Posted inPerformance
A Performance Festival by and for Disabled Artists
A glimpse into the impressive breadth and variety of performances and lived experiences of disability.
Posted inPerformance
In an Interactive Performance, a Filmmaker Dissects Her Abandoned Debut Feature
In My First Film, Zia Anger explores the humor, anger, and heartbreak she feels about her lost work, all live onstage.