8 THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER23, 2020
ILLUSTRATION BY SERGIY MAIDUKOV
Each episode of the new season of KCRW’s music-documentary pod-
cast “Lost Notes” contextualizes a moment in a transformational year of
“future-facing excitement”—1980. Written and performed by the poet and
critic Hanif Abdurraqib, the series is a collection of intricate, revelatory sonic
essays, bursting with melody and insight, about underknown moments in
pop-music history: Grace Jones reinventing herself after disco; a Lesotho
concert by the exiled South African musicians Hugh Masekela and Miriam
Makeba; the phoenixlike formation of New Order. An episode ostensibly
about the Sugarhill Gang’s first record is equally a celebration of d.j.s,
breakbeats, and tightly packed dance parties, where a thrilling sample “might
encourage a leap from a chair or a couch onto the waiting dance floor”; it’s so
rousing and artfully constructed that it’s almost a d.j. set itself.—Sarah LarsonPODCASTDEPT.
professional filmmakers and makes good use
of photogenic locations. The latest crop of vid-
eos, available starting Nov. 18, includes “The
Cycle,” a choreographic effort by the ballet star
turned Broadway guy Robert Fairchild, shot in
a botanical garden. For “Saudade,” set at the
Stoneleigh estate, in Villanova, Pennsylvania,
the Brazilian-born Mariana Oliveira milks the
melancholy in orchestrations by Antônio Car-
los Jobim. And, in Amy Hall Garner’s “New
Heights,” electronic dance music, played by
the classical string quintet Spark, drives a
dance party backed by vibrant Philadelphia
murals.—Brian Seibert (balletx.org)Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Dance Company
“Continuous Replay,” a jittery solo of accumu-
lating gestures choreographed by Zane in 1982,
was expanded into a group piece in 1991, and has
since become a kind of homecoming dance for
company alumni. It served a similar function
this summer, when a scattered cast of forty-four
current and former members—including Arthur
Aviles, Sean Curran, Heidi Latsky, Rosalynde
LeBlanc, and Odile Reine-Adelaide—filmed
themselves performing the dance in isolation.
On Nov. 19, the company streams a collage
of that footage for free, in an event to collect
donations for three racial-justice organiza-
tions.—B.S. (newyorklivearts.org)Boston Ballet
Dance companies have taken to putting lots of
content online, often for free, which is nice for
fans but not viable in the long term. Boston
Ballet is trying a new model—a subscription
series made up of six programs, running through
April. The first program is devoted to works by
the mold-breaking choreographer William For-
sythe, who has a long-standing and fruitful rela-
tionship with the company. Two excerpts, from
the recent works “Pas/Parts 2018” and “Playlist
(EP),” will be recorded in the company’s studios,
which have been in use (with precautions) since
September. Also on the program is preëxisting
footage from “In the Middle, Somewhat Ele-
vated” and “The Second Detail,” and a conversa-
tion between Forsythe and a group of company
dancers.—M.H. (bostonballet.org)“New York Is Burning”
Omari Wiles and his company, Les Ballet Afrik,
which combines West African and Afrobeat
styles with voguing and ballroom, were sched-
uled to perform at the Guggenheim’s “Works &
Process” in March. That live performance never
happened, but the series converted the commis-
sion into a residency at Kaatsbaan during the
summer. The result is “New York Is Burning,”
a joyful dance set to Afropop and filmed on
the Lincoln Center campus. It premières on
Nov. 22 at 7:30 P.M., on the “Works & Process”
YouTube page.—M.H. (guggenheim.org/event/
event_series/works-process)Paul Taylor Dance Company
The company has rethought the model of
fund-raising events for the COVID age. On
Nov. 19, the Taylor dancers, who have been back
in their Lower East Side studios since late Sep-
tember, are featured in a series of excerpts from
Taylor’s vast repertory, filmed at the company’sand mayhem.” Reported, written, and hosted
by Chad and Zach Dundas and Erika and Leif
Fredrickson, the series employs rigorous report-
ing, memorable details (a hook-handed gunman,
a Prohibition-era speakeasy), and sophisticated
sound design (cemetery crickets, archival inter-
views and songs), as well as local flavor: music
by Montana bands, support from a record store
and an ice-cream shop.—Sarah Larson
How to Save a Planet
“I used to conduct tours for schoolkids in Mas-
sachusetts,” a former coal-plant mechanic says
in the first episode of Gimlet’s new podcast
“How to Save a Planet.” “I’d ask them, ‘Who
made their breakfast with coal today?,’ and
they’d all say, ‘Ugh, not me!’ But, in fact, they
all had.” Moments like this make the series,
companionably hosted by the marine biologist
and policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and
Gimlet’s co-founder Alex Blumberg, not just
palatable but rather fun. Via stories, policy, and
science, each episode illuminates some aspect of
the climate-crisis landscape—renewable energy,
the Green New Deal, Greta Thunberg’s move-
ment, the role of the American President—and
provides encouraging takeaways. As the first ep-
isode ends, the coal-plant mechanic has learned
to love wind power, and Blumberg imagines him
leading a turbine tour: “Did you have the wind
for breakfast this morning?”—S.L.
1
DANCE
American Ballet Theatre
The “COVID bubble” is the dance world’s
response to the pandemic: small groups of
dancers quarantine with one another, get tested
regularly, and are thus able to work together
for a few weeks. A.B.T.’s virtual gala unveils
four new works created under these conditions,
by a diverse group of choreographers: Gemma
Bond (a former company member with a bur-
geoning career), Darrell Grand Moultrie, Pam
Tanowitz, and Christopher Rudd. All but Bond
are creating their first pieces for the company.
The Rudd ballet is a pas de deux for the newly
appointed principal dancer Calvin Royal III
and the corps-de-ballet dancer João Menegussi.
Entitled “Touché,” it is an all too rare acknowl-
edgment, in the world of ballet, of the existence
of romantic love between people of the same
sex. The gala is broadcast on Nov. 23 at 7 P.M.,
on A.B.T.’s YouTube channel.—Marina Harss
(abt.org/abttoday)BalletX
For its digital subscription service, BalletX Be-
yond, the innovative Philadelphia-based com-
pany BalletX hooks up choreographers with