Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story
Marina Harss
Harss has written about dance for Goings On since 2004.
You’re reading the Goings On newsletter, a guide to what we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. Sign up to receive it in your in-box.
Since its earliest days, New York City Ballet has shown contrasting tendencies, each aligned with the temperament of one of N.Y.B.C.’s two founding choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. One (Balanchine) was more abstract, more impersonal; the other (Robbins) had a greater sensitivity to the culture around him, especially that of young people. Each approach complemented the other.
Christopher Wheeldon’s “From You Within Me.”Photograph by Erin Baiano
It’s interesting that, decades on, a version of this is still true. The company’s two current choreographers-in-residence, Justin Peck and Alexei Ratmansky, work in contrasting modes; together they create a portrait—though not the only one—of ballet as it exists today. Following in Robbins’s footsteps, Peck has a knack for tapping into a generational mood (often one of malaise), as he proved in his dance-theatre show “Illinoise.” Ratmansky is harder to pin down, and tends to look inward, to the world of the imagination, or to ballet’s past.
The two works that New York City Ballet unveils this season (at the David H. Koch, Jan. 21-March 2) illustrate this. Peck’s new “Mystic Familiar” (premièring Jan. 29) takes its title from a lyric by the electronic musician Dan Deacon, whose music Peck has used before, most notably in his raucous piece from 2017, “The Times Are Racing.” The score for the new piece is an orchestral expansion of the song “Become a Mountain,” its lyrics invoked by a narrator who, as Deacon has said, “is trying to learn how to be self-compassionate, to live a life in the present while being able to deal with self-doubt and anxiety.” Could anything be more of the moment? Deacon will be in the pit with the orchestra, singing and playing electronic instruments. The dancers will be off pointe, many in sneakers.
In contrast, Ratmansky, whose last ballet for City Ballet (“Solitude”) was a meditation on the devastation of the war in Ukraine, where he grew up, now turns toward the complexities of classical ballet, as embodied by the nineteenth-century ballet “Paquita.” Ratmansky is a lover of archives and intricate steps. In 2014, for a company in Munich, he staged the full “Paquita,” using recondite early-twentieth-century ballet notations as a choreographic Rosetta Stone. Now he revisits just one portion of that work, the “Grand Pas” (premièring Feb. 6), a suite of brilliant dances, each of which tests the dancers’ pointework and technical prowess to the fullest. This suite has been grafted together with Balanchine’s “Minkus Pas de Trois,” from 1948, set to music from the same ballet. The resulting ballet, like the rest of the season—which also includes “Divertimento No. 15,” “Symphony in Three Movements,” “Firebird,” and “Sylvia: Pas de Deux”—will be a conversation between ballet’s past and present.
About Town
Off Off Broadway
If you enjoyed the 2004 horror film “Saw,” or any of its umpteen sequels, but yearned for some song-and-dance numbers to accompany the bloodletting, rejoice. “Saw: The Musical” tricks out the original plot—two men who are chained up in a warehouse bathroom, by a psychopath who subjects his victims to sadistic “games,” must solve their way out or die—with original show tunes, pansexual raunch, and lo-fi lampoonery. (One character is played by a sex doll.) The director-choreographer, Stephanie Rosenberg, leans into the camp of it all—fake blood squirts into the audience as one prisoner saws off his shackled foot while singing—and the performers gamely commit. Those familiar with the source material can admire the jokes’ specificity (“Not another flashback!”) and the shit-smeared toilet replica; others, if baffled, can just feel grateful to be alive.—Dan Stahl (NuBox Theatre; open run.)
Classical
The anatomy of a human mouth boasts many components, and Roomful of Teeth seems to have mastered all of them. For the past sixteen years, the vocal ensemble has proved that the voice is as versatile and malleable as any other instrument, if not more so. Together with the similarly cutting-edge, four-person Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Roomful of Teeth presents a program curated by the renowned Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. The evening includes a world première of Ortiz’s “Canta la Piedra-Tetluikan” (translated as “The Stone Sings”), and also works by Jorge Camiruaga, Leopoldo Novoa, Steve Reich, and the celebrated Roomful member Caroline Shaw.—Jane Bua (Carnegie Hall; Jan. 25.)
Ambient
Photograph by Zoe Donahoe
The compositions of the experimental sound designer and electronic musician claire rousay have always fixated on how the texture of a space can convey emotionality. Until recently, her music largely consisted of field recordings that stretched the limits of what can be considered musical, on tracks that have earned a designation as “emo ambient” for their ability to find the overlap between mood and atmosphere. A prolific run from 2019 to 2022 helped to define a vivid, droning sound that was expressive if not lyrical. That all changed last year with the release of “Sentiment,” which focussed more on rousay’s voice and guitar. The songs have a newfound dimensionality, distorting her singing into another detail of her soundscapes. Even when her music centers her as a performer, there is just as much emphasis on the room she’s in.—Sheldon Pearce (TV Eye; Jan. 23.)
Dance
The Cuban contemporary-dance troupe Malpaso Dance Company—skilled, sympathetic, but still searching for a strong identity—returns to its home away from home, the Joyce, for the tenth time. The most notable feature of the program might be the musical guests: the López-Gavilán brothers, a pianist and a violinist who rarely get to play together, since one lives in New York and the other in Cuba. The company’s artistic director, Osnel Delgado, débuts a duet for himself and Grettel Morejón, of the Cuban National Ballet, alongside New York premières by the company member Esteban Aguilar and the Havana-based Spanish choreographer Susana Pous.—Brian Seibert (Joyce Theatre; Jan. 21-26.)
Gospel
Photograph by Dervon Dixon
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once professed that music is “a mistress of order and good manners [who] makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.” In this coming era—during which fear, corruption, and avarice will stand in prominence—gentleness, morality, and reason must be cherished in whatever form they can be found. On Jan. 20, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, the Harlem Gospel Choir performs a selection of soul-, jazz-, and blues-inflected gospel songs at Sony Hall, commemorating the man who, adding another entry to his list of impacts, was a key inspiration behind the ensemble’s founding. The choir also performs a brunch show at the Blue Note on Jan. 26.—J.B.
Movies
Michael Roemer, who directed the classic independent dramas “Nothing But a Man” and “The Plot Against Harry,” followed them with the similarly original documentary “Dying,” from 1976. It’s centered on three terminally ill patients whom he filmed, with bracing intimacy, in their final decline. Sally, who’s in her forties, is cared for by her mother and seemingly slips away with an eerie placidity. A young couple, Harriet and Bill, provide real-life melodrama: Harriet, terrified of raising their sons alone, wishes the ailing Bill a hasty demise so that she can remarry quickly. Reverend Bryant, the minister of a predominantly Black congregation, mellow in private but fiery in the pulpit, unites a community in death as in life. Roemer’s insistent observational method eschews analytical distance in favor of raw and ferocious emotion.—Richard Brody (Film Forum; Jan. 24-30.)
Bar Tab
Taran Dugal pairs natural wine with Vietnamese-inspired ice creams.
Illustration by Josh Cochran
Like so many of New York’s timeworn thoroughfares, Forsyth Street boasts a complicated history. What is now a string of trendy boutiques and eateries straddling Chinatown and the Lower East Side was home, in the early aughts, to a vicious gang that once beat an informant with pipes “until his bones snapped,” according to one U.S. Attorney. Well, out with the racketeering and in with the ice cream. Lai Rai, a sleek new bar on Forsyth, is an ode to two of life’s greatest pleasures—natural wine and frozen confections. It was designed as an oasis of sorts: a laid-back, Vietnamese-inspired alternative to the stuffy wine bars dotting downtown Manhattan. “Most of the wine world is so white and male-dominated,” a bartender said to two recent patrons. “We're anything but that.” Lai Rai’s twin specialties leave little to be desired. For a rich, fruity kick, pair the Nespola (a vibrant French orange wine) with their refreshing avocado ice cream. Or, for a lighter touch, chase a couple of nutty, banana-leaf scoops with Khá, a tart and slightly nutty Hanoian rice wine. To those pitiable souls lacking a sweet tooth, fret not: a surf clam with coconut milk and the mouthwatering, Indochinese-influenced chicharrones (topped with salt and home-grown pepper from southern Vietnam) should suffice. Beware, however, of the minor disadvantages that accompany such delights. Guests who sit at the marble bar long enough may become unwitting participants in the mise-en-scène of a downtown socialite’s latest selfie, as the two patrons discovered. “I love the vibe here,” a scenester seated beside them squealed, all tooth-bleached elation, as she captured them in a photo. “It’s so European!” It was not, as a matter of fact, but ignorance is bliss, and ice cream certainly helps.
On and Off the Avenue
Rachel Syme on mind-expanding classes around town.
Whenever I consider “taking a class,” as a grown woman living in New York City, my mind immediately turns to “The Ladies Who Lunch,” the show-stopping number from Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical, “Company.” In that song, Joanne, a surly, vodka-pickled woman (originated on Broadway by the late, great Elaine Stritch) delivers a scathing indictment of the Manhattan leisure set, mockingly raising her Martini glass to the “girls who stay smart” by spending their days “rushing to their classes in optical art.” Joanne’s implication—that classes are merely time-wasters for unserious dilettantes—put me off drop-in courses for years, before I realized that it is unwise to heed the life advice of a bitter lush. Non-compulsory education, as it turns out, is one of adult life’s great pleasures. The most stylish people I know are perpetual students who pursue their interests with vigor. There is something very powerful about débuting a fresh skill—artful onion chopping, swooshy penmanship, speaking French—and being able to say, “Oh, this? It’s from a class I’m taking.” I never hear this and think that someone is wasting time—if anything, I think they have realized that time is too precious not to spend it learning something new.
Illustration by Clara San Millan
Once you start poking around, you’ll find that New York City is humming with classes. Here are a few intriguing offerings, but there are hundreds more. You can take a two-hour ikebana class with the master floral arranger Paula Tam ($80) on the Upper East Side or in Flushing, Queens. The Center for Fiction, in Brooklyn, has a wonderful collection of reading groups both in person and online, including one devoted to discussing “Jane Eyre” ($188 for four sessions) and another to reading “1984” in 2025 ($150 for three sessions). At 92NY—which offers a full cornucopia of classes—Elizabeth White-Pultz teaches multi-week beginner calligraphy courses (starting at $260); or there’s a one-day modern calligraphy workshop at the Brooklyn Craft Company ($75). The Art Studio NY offers “Oil Painting for Total Beginners” ($449), whereas the Long Island City nonprofit Biotech Without Borders offers a two-day course in how to grow gourmet mushrooms at home ($108.55). In Little Italy, the Miette Culinary Studio’s bevy of seasonal cooking classes includes one on how to make coq au vin ($135) and another on vegan Italian classics ($135). At the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, you can take “Bebop and Black Modernism: An Introduction to Modern Jazz” ($335 for four sessions), and the buzzy Clinton Hill restaurant Place des Fêtes is offering a class on wine of the Castile and León regions ($125). You can learn to throw a pot at ArtShack in Bed-Stuy ($80 for an introductory wheel class), or on the Upper East Side, at the Crafty Lounge, you can make a chunky velvet tote bag ($150). Here’s to the girls who stay smart—aren’t they a gas?
P.S. Good stuff on the Internet:
- “Margaret,” by Ji Hyun Joo
- Once a prince . . .
- Bob Dylan’s nemesis
Sourse: newyorker.com
