Author: Eve Bromberg
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On Porous Artistic Designations: In Conversation with Tess Howsam, Culture Lab LIC’s Artistic Director
One of the miraculous things about New York City is how much goes on without your ever knowing about it. Every day a piece of art is made, a performance is rehearsed and mounted, or a writer sits to start what could be their magnum opus. That feeling– of joyous frenzy– that creation is both…
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A Conversation with Architectural Historian and Balletomane Thomas Mellins on “Excellence and Innovation: New York City Ballet at 75”
I’ve always known that the David H Koch Theater, once known as The New York State Theater, was made to George Balanchine’s specifications. Still, until sitting down to speak with Thomas Mellins, New Yorker, urban and architectural historian, and professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, I never realized how intentionally Philip Johnson’s…
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In Colt Coeur’s “Still,” Politics Aren’t Quite Personal Enough.
My interest in theater, and acting, came from what I perceived as an intellectual limitation in ballet, where training is relegated to silence. While discussions of technique and aesthetic preference exist, they’re usually outside of the classroom, reserved for classmate bonding, or a rare moment of closeness with an instructor. Dialectical engagement does not…
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In Conversation with Cam Cronin on Geraldine Realigned At The Brick Theater: Scrappiness, Gayborhoods, and a Close Collaboration with Billy McEntee.
Geraldine Realigned Drives from Gay Place to Gay Place and You’re in the Car Too ostensibly follows a drag queen, Geraldine, on a road trip working her way through a list of great American gayborhoods (Austin, Texas and Asbury Park, New Jersey). However, performer Cam Cronin and his co-creator Billy McEntee, friends since college, use…
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On The Associates’ “Redemption Story.” In Conversation with Peregrine Teng Heard and Sarah Blush
A few pages into the script of Peregrine Teng Heard’s– playwright and artistic director of The Associates Theater Ensemble– newest play Redemption Story, I could sense its implicit political message: institutions can be propelled forward by the people least represented by them. In the case of Heard’s play, that person is a post-career Asian-American actress…
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An Interview with Jesse Freedman on “The Banality of Evil” at The Brick
“Banality of Evil, as a phrase,” Jesse Freedman the Artistic Director of Meta-Phys Ed. told me on the phone last week, each of us speaking from our respective Brooklyn apartments, “is more popular than its source material. We spoke about his current show at The Brick Theater which opened on Thursday, March 21st. The…
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The Effect: The Sublimity of Performance
If it weren’t for my erudite Anglophile cousin, I would never have known to see Lucy Prebble’s The Effect at The Shed (from March 3-March 31). An early Prebble fan, she one day turned on I Hate Suzie during one of our cousin hangs– usually involving a pronounced intake of processed foods– and despite consuming…
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Joey Merlo’s On Set With Theda Bara: An Embodied Physical Performance and A Window Into An Artist’s Mind
The first time I saw David Greenspan perform was in Adrian Einspanier’s Lunch Bunch this past spring at the 122 Community Center in the East Village. I didn’t know of him or his lore, but in the one scene in which he appeared, it was apparent he was a veteran theatrical performer with a…
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Annie Wang’s “had my mouth” Offers Self-Protection Through Lyrical Movement
Were they bearing their teeth in preparation to kill? Screaming silently in agony? Conjuring lost joy of their youth?
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“When The End Becomes The Beginning:” Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born’s adaku part 1: the road opens
Adaku’s forced departure forever alters her connection to reality — she is absorbed into the unknown, which marks the start of our inquiry. Her trauma, epistemically, is our starting point.
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On NYCB’s 75th Fall: Leadership, Youth, and Deviation
This fall, NYCB kicked off the celebration of their 75th anniversary dedicating the entire season to the work of George Balanchine, the company’s co-founder and artistic realizer. On the night of October 11th, to memorialize the first-ever performance of The New York City Ballet at New York City Center, the company put on the exact…
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James Allister Sprang at Baryshnikov Arts: Seeking Active “Rest Within the Wake”
Active reflection and associations should comprise our meditative state. If there were moments during the piece that disturbed us, we should return to the breathing exercise to find calm.