I was in Ithaca New York on Monday, on tour with Isaiah and actors Rita Wolf and Daniel Alexander Jones. We’d been invited to present an evening of stories by Cornell-affiliated writers in celebration of the University creative writing program’s Centennial Plus Five celebration. We tour with Selected Shorts all over the U.S., but this trip was special for me since I was an English major at Cornell and hadn’t been back in many years. I spent Monday afternoon walking around the arts quad and visiting building after building as memories of my college experience flashed back to me: going to 8 am Italian language lab, grabbing coffee with friends at the English building’s Temple of Zeus cafe, the annual architecture school ritual of creating special packaging for a single egg and dropping the packages out of the top floor windows of the architecture school. At dinner before the show, our friend, the writer Melissa Bank, teaching writing at Cornell this semester, dropped by to eat with us and share stories of her upstate adventures. And off to the show — stories by Kurt Vonnegut (an engineering major when at Cornell, I learned), Lorrie Moore, and Victor La Valle — which was enjoyed by a very enthusiastic audience of students, professors, and Ithaca residents (including a former NY Selected Shorts subscriber!). Click “Read more” to see a photo of a couple of the younger audience members with our cast, taken by Kathy Morris.
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On January 14, 2008, pianist Jeremy Denk wrote this blog entry about his preparations for his performance of the Goldberg Variations at Wall to Wall Bach last May—which he will reprise on May 7.
The Goldberg Variations are (intake of breath, flip of hair, reluctant uprise of gesturing arm) … is there any way out of this? … the Goldberg Variations are … wait, hold on a moment, we needn’t bother to say, it transcends saying, it’s effing ineffable! and don’t you know that in place of speech we should roll our bloodshot eyes at the infinities we receive through our retinae and via vibrations rammed up our ear canals … does anyone have a Q-tip? … but here we go, out with it now, the Goldberg Variations are (don’t just say it you idiot, slight pompous lift to tone, now, give it some heft, some vavoom!): sublime, perfect, divine, magnificent. Whew. Don’t you feel better, now? Pat me on the back, I may have burped meanwhile. Read More »
One of my favorite events every year at Symphony Space is the Gala, where we dedicate the night to special honorees and Symphony Space supporters. I love the anticipation leading up to the event, the craziness of setting up the space, getting dressed up before the evening, having the opportunity to work with a wonderful team as we all come together in support of the night, and then seeing the honorees and gala attendees flood through the door, anticipating an exciting celebration. Working at a performing arts center is particularly wonderful because you get to actually see the fruits of your labors everyday in the form of great performances. Other people create spreadsheets and budgets in a typical workday. Well … of course we create those too, but we also help create wonderful experiences for patrons. Each time I watch audience members enjoying an event it makes my job worthwhile. The Gala is a perfect example of this.
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I was just talking with our production manager a few minutes ago and he mentioned that a video of Robyn Hitchcock’s L.A. performance of “I Often Dream of Trains” was up on CNN’s website. I can safely tell you that while Robyn did perform this show in L.A., the video in question was actually shot here at Symphony Space. I have sent a note to CNN asking them to correct this, and included a short video of the Symphony Space marquee to run before it to make up for the error. Regardless, it was truly an amazing show! Check out his new album if you haven’t heard it yet.
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Getting ready for Wall to Wall Broadway, we’re asking people to name The Musical that Changed Your Life. Isaiah asked me, and my answer was immediate: West Side Story. I was about ten or eleven years old, slogging through the usual beginner/intermediate piano repertoire with my wonderful teacher, Hadassah Sahr. I was not a particularly inspired piano student, to say the least. Until one day, she presented me with the piano score for West Side Story. I fell in love with it and would play practically nothing else for the next year. The rest of my family probably once loved this music, too, but after 12 months of unrelenting “Tonight,” “Maria,” “Somewhere,” “Something’s Coming,” etc., I think they haven’t been ready to hear it again until the current revival—and I won’t say how many years that’s been. Read More »
For Symphony Space’s annual Dance Sampler on April 25, twelve choreographers were asked to create short works on the theme “Blues in the Night.” Here’s what that inspired in Nick Seligson-Ross.
Until Blue, a sextet set to music played by the Vitamin String Quartet, will be driven by the athleticism that has become Nicholas Andre Dance’s signature style of movement. An exhilarating, fast-paced work, Until Blue will test the physical boundaries and limits that are an essential part of the joy of dancing.
Well it was a wild ride last night; somewhere between a crazy cruise ship and downtown burlesque show. I loved it. It was such a treat performing with these crazy characters. Fifteen of us. Lots of skin and Lots of laughs. I think of our kabaret work as Keigwin + Company’s alter ego – a chance to get a little wrecky…..wrecky in the best sense. I’m a fan of mistakes. I’m a fan of mishaps. I’m a fan of mischievous behavior. I know tonight (Friday, April 3) is sold out, but there is always Saturday night and the next two weekends. Come join the zaniness. Up, Up and Away.
For Symphony Space’s annual Dance Sampler on April 25, twelve choreographers were asked to create short works on the theme “Blues in the Night.” Here’s what that inspired in Owen Marks.
The Blues in the Night theme is incorporated into my work very abstractly. The woman dancer in my piece wears a blue leotard (though that is not very abstract), but what I identify as “blue” is the chilling nature of the music. The music depicts, to me, a deep, velvety, navy blue sky with wisps of icy coolness blowing over the listener’s ear. The majesty of the music can be seen in natural examples, such as the ocean or “purple mountains majesty”… to name a few. Also, since the piece explores the various states of a relationship, from tender beginnings to tensile endings, I suppose you could also attribute the color blue as the metaphorical bruises one experiences in the throes of love.
For Symphony Space’s annual Dance Sampler on April 25, twelve choreographers were asked to create short works on the theme “Blues in the Night.” Here’s what that inspired in David Parker of The Bang Group.
For years I’ve been making a series of dances without music in which the sounds and rhythms made by the dancers provide their own musical accompaniment. To accomplish these pieces, the dancers rely on elaborate, memorized, counted scores. They are also only very rarely in unison, making accuracy of timing paramount. In other words, these pieces are held together through sheer mental force. I call this new work Bluestockings, which is an old fashioned word for erudite or scholarly women. I wanted to turn the expression on its head and celebrate the prodigious intelligence of Amber, Nic, and Jeff, my three bluestockings of the evening. Despite the title, they will perform barefoot, without music, to their own amplified footfalls.
