Contributing Writer
Director Rome Neal and cast By R. Pikser Americans are not great appreciators of satire, especially political satire. Luckily, Ishmael Reed is still out there, showing us how ridiculous our situation is. Ishmael Reed has been a critic of American society and a troublemaker for a long time. Reading his essays can be…
By R. Pikser The Signature Project is an immense (76×36 feet) painting of the sun, the seasons, the universe, nature, and one glowing heart. The painting is composed of many panels, as one might expect of such a large piece. But that is only the most obvious level of this…
Jihae Park Photo Credit:Max Gordon by R. Pikser This theatrical adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story, “Sleep,” is a work of much collaboration: The adaptation is by Naomi Iizuka; The direction, as important as the acting, is by Ripe Time, a group that develops and presents new ensemble-based performance works, and its artistic director…
By R. Pikser Rakugo, the Japanese storytelling art form, dates from the end of the Muromachi period, the second half of the 16th century. The storyteller (rakugoka) appears in the simplest of settings: a dais to sit upon, with nothing more than a fan and a small hand towel as props. The rakugoka’s skill in…
Jos Houben in THE ART OF LAUGHTER; photo by Henry Grossman. by R. Pikser To open its season this year, Theater for A New Audience has invited Jos Houben and Marcelo Magni to perform an evening of two pieces, both dealing with humor, both a bit cruel, like life, and both leaving…
By R. Pikser The high point of the Rioult Dance is the dancers. They move beautifully and they find a way to make each and every transition necessary and clean. Rioult’s lifts, which often stop halfway through their trajectory, are performed effortlessly, the dancers seemingly perched on air. Their energy is filled…
By R. Pikser The Martha Graham Company has an enormous studio space on the 11th floor of WestBeth, the artists’ housing and studio space complex in Greenwich Village. On this weekend, Deborah Zall, a former Graham dancer, presented her homage to three of her teachers, also former Graham dancers, by staging…
By R. Pikser In this latest program of drumming with a bit of metal percussion, Dadan 2017, the 14 male drummers of the troupe Kodo, directed by Tamasaburo Bando, explore sound and timbre, rhythm and movement. In these days of ultra-speed, one is tempted to dismiss repetition as something tedious; on the contrary,…
R. Pikser Anabella Lenzu is an Argentinian of Italian extraction who has had companies in Argentina and Italy. She also has lived and worked in the United States. The performance on this evening, at the elegant home of the Argentinian Consulate, celebrated the ten-year anniversary of Ms. Lenzu’s United States company. Although…
Elizabeth Van Dyke By R. Pikser Not only important history but breathtaking performances A theatrical biography could be tedious, but Laurence Holder’s 20 year old piece about the life of Zora Neale Hurston, mounted again in celebration of the 125th anniversary of her birth, is stunning. As narrated by Ms. Hurston at…