Weekend Arts Planner: An adventurous January in New York
Traditionally, December is the month when arts organizations wheel out their crowd-pleasing favorites - from "A Christmas Carol" to "The Nutcracker" to Handel's "Messiah." But things change in January. What used to be a quiet stretch before the spring season has become a bonanza for audiences who crave adventure. WNYC's Culture and Arts Editor Steve Smith joins Weekend Edition host David Furst to explain.
January used to feel like a dull, dark break in the performing arts calendar - kind of a gap between fall and spring offerings as the echoes of holiday programming faded into memory. But within the last two decades, New York impresarios have filled that annual gap with some of the most ambitious events of any given year – ideally timed to coincide with the annual Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference, where presenters from across the country come to New York City to talk shop and shore up their own future seasons. And one of those events is the theater festival Under the Radar.
It was founded in 2005 by Mark Russell, and it brings to town adventurous theater and performance-art companies from all over the world. After two years of inactivity prompted by the pandemic, the festival returns to in-person performances this year at the Public Theater and a fistful of partner venues. Some of the hottest buzz surrounds an acclaimed Royal Court Theatre production of Jasmine Lee-Jones's provocatively titled "seven methods of killing kylie jenner." But in a conversation with Gothamist in November, Russell urged would-be audience members not to miss "Are we not drawn onward to new erA," a palindromic paean to a challenged planet, and "Moby Dick," a condensation of the Melville novel populated by puppet actors and an oversize whale. The festival runs through Jan. 22, and you can find a complete schedule at The Public Theater.
If you still think of opera as a fusty old art form mired in oversize stages populated with singers in horned helmets, you haven't experienced Prototype. The youngest of New York City's cutting-edge affairs was established jointly by Beth Morrison Projects and downtown arts center HERE in 2013. In no time at all, the upstart fest cemented a reputation for brave, audacious operas and music theater works spanning the broadest conceivable range of subject matter: history, mystery, Grand Guignol, camp horror, the Book of Revelation and so on.
This year's hot ticket is "In Our Daughter’s Eyes," a one-man vehicle for baritone Nathan Gunn composed by Du Yun whose Pulitzer Prize-winning "Angel's Bone" was a Prototype affair. But don't overlook promising offerings by Gelsey Bell, Silvana Estrada and Emma O'Halloran. The festival runs through Jan. 15; learn more at Prototype Festival.
3. New Standards at City Winery
The drummer, composer, bandleader and educator Terri Lyne Carrington has played a major role in fighting for gender equity in jazz, a notoriously male-centric art form. Last fall saw the release of a book titled "New Standards," which includes lead sheets for 101 jazz compositions written by women: Alice Coltrane, Abbey Lincoln, Carla Bley, Maria Schneider and so many more. An album called "New Standards, Vol. 1" followed soon after, with a superstar band interpreting some of the material from the songbook.
Now, a concert at City Winery on Thursday, Jan. 12, showcases the book, the album and, most importantly, the players: Carrington will be joined by major figures like Michele Rosewoman, Linda May Han Oh and Kris Davis. It's also one of the kick-off events for this year's Winter Jazzfest, a citywide celebration that runs through Jan. 18 – find out more at Winter Jazzfest.
