Staff Picks No. 92
Healing Is Over : River Ramirez
Open Door at Center for Performance Research
April 18th-19th 2025
In these improvised performances you are guaranteed a sardonic and delightful adventure. River is a hilarious and genuinely insightful artist. This performance declares "no more tarot, astrology, or meditation retreats, there are bills to pay." I agree, sometimes the only thing holding you back, IS YOU!
Staffer: Travis Amiel
Unstable Sky : Chloe London
Triskelion
April 10th-12th 2025
Confession: I first started paying attention to Chloe London because all the dancers I had crushes on danced for her. Her work is physical and spacious, the kind of dance that's clearly made by someone who loves to move. The cast is a mix of performers who have worked with London for almost a decade and first timers, and I'm excited to watch these beautiful performers share weight, lock eyes, and dance together.
$17 tickets are available for Queer, Trans, BIPOC audience members!
Staffer: Noa Rui-Piin Weiss
Music from Bayano: An Afro-Panamanian Odyssey : Darrel Alejandro Holnes
Joe’s Pub
Monday April 14th 2025
The fun words in the title should be alluring enough, but let's say some more: original and folkloric songs come to Joe's Pub, sung by Broadway talents on and Off, and you can hear them in a dazzling display ahead of the show's world premiere at True Colors Theater in Atlanta. Enjoy a later night out and check it out!
Staffer: Billy McEntee
The Flowers of Evil : Nathan Brown, David Grubbs, Lara Allen
The Francis Kite Club
Friday April 11th 2025
Book Launch for Nathan Brown’s new translation of Charles Baudelaire's proto-Modernist, form-breaking, delightfully indecent, funny, erotic, uncompromising poetry collection “The Flowers of Evil”. The evening opens with a set of experimental guitar works by brilliant composer/musician/thinker David Grubbs (Squirrel Bait, Gastr del Sol), followed by Brown reading from his new book, and a DJ set by vocalist/sound collagist Lara Allen (Sailor Beware). At the very best vibes bar/venue the Francis Kite Club. Come through!
Staffer: Joshua Dumas
The Obligation to Live : Bread & Puppet Theater
Judson Memorial Church
April 15th-16th 2025
Avast! Peter Schumann's Bread & Puppet Theater returns to New York City with their latest, THE OBLIGATION TO LIVE. I've seen two of their previous works, both astounding in their own right (and so different in terms of source material, one an adaptation of The Persians and the other a collab with fellow lefty puppeteers Boxcutter Collective). You'd be a fool to miss cheap art that is good art that is art with a heart. And there's free bread w/aioli after. Tickets start at 10 clams, with an RSVP required. But - no one turned away for lack of funds!
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
?!:New Works - Week One! : Jen Diaz, Thomas Tait, Yehuda Hyman, Mystical Feet Company, Radical Evolution, A.A. Brenner & Rani O'Brien, Jing Dong & Xiao Liu, Isa Spector, hillary bonhomme, Sophie McIntosh, Hannah Mitchell, Meaghan Robichaud, Seth Bockley/Make New Species, Rae Su & Paolina Gómez Gonzales, Dan Hasse, Jo Warren
Brick Theater
April 8th-15th 2025
It is the best time of year. ?!:New Works time. The artists listed above are only the ones presenting between now and next Tuesday! I will make a freshy Pick every week, because it is 3 weeks of incredible artists doing wild experiments on different split bills every night. You gotta go. As much as you can. Up until now, I am the only person that has been at every single ?!:New Works night since 2016. It is absolutely magical and weird as hell to go to everything. It is all performance mediums. Artists and audiences connect and become lifelong collaborators. Or witness something they have never seen before and will never see again. ?!:New Works (pronounced "interrobang new works") started in 2016 at The Silent Barn, in the tiny space under the loft in the North Garage. Since then, it has been at Vital Joint and The Brick. You can check out the entire history on my personal site - theresabuchheister.com.
The artists presenting between now and Tuesday are so fascinating. I know about half of them, which is also the point. There is no way you will know everyone! I can say for certain, Hannah Mitchell, Meaghan Robichaud and Jo Warren are gonna do some shit that will make you devoted to every next thing they do. I first saw Hannah as a Mabou Mines resident artist pre-pandemic in a piece choreographed by Lisa Fagan, who just stunned and delighted everyone with Friday Night Rat Catchers at NYLA. I will never forget that Mabou Mines piece. It made me emotional and nervous and so so happy, even though I was gutted. I first saw Meaghan in collaboration with Matthew Antoci at ?! a couple of years ago. Meaghan's mermaid piece last year had me laughing too hard to run tech, honestly. Their boob humor in Babies on the Street in July 2024 and cigarette humor in MEOW! this past January will live in my heart forever. I have seen Jo perform many times with Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein and friends have texted me non-stop about how great they were in Faye Driscoll's WEATHERING. Jo always uncovers something for me, about the space they are in or the space of my own existence... often both.
I am sad to miss out. I would especially love to see Yehuda. I will figure out how to encourage this project to continue development so that I can be there for next iterations.
This Pick is already too long lol. Oops! Just go to ?!:New Works. And send me photos and videos and have a great fucking time.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister