The New Yorker - USA (2022-04-11)

6 THENEWYORKER,APRIL11, 2022

places Graham classics such as “Appalachian
Spring” alongside new works, including
“CAVE,” by the hard-edged London-based
choreographer Hofesh Shechter, which fea-
tures a guest appearance by the ballet virtuoso
Daniil Simkin.—M.H. (City Center; April 5-10.)

Kyle Marshall Choreography /

Luke Hickey

The opening series of dance performances at
the new Chelsea Factory, presented in part-
nership with the Joyce Theatre, continues. The
up-and-coming choreographer Kyle Marshall
presents a program, April 8-9, of recent work
aimed at joy and wonder, including “Stellar,” a
floating, circling Afrofuturist trip, and “Rise,”
which ascends along the intersection of church
and club. Luke Hickey, an adept and appealing
tap dancer, brings “A Little Old, a Little New,”
April 12-13. It’s a classic-format concert featur-
ing a jazz trio, Hickey, and his fellow-hoofers
Elizabeth Burke and Tommy Wasiuta.—B.S.
(Chelsea Factory; April 8-13.)

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith
For more than fifteen years, Lieber and Smith
have been refining and deepening an artistic
partnership of uncommon intimacy. In “Glo-
ria,” they take on the objectification of women,
revealing how the aerobic or supposedly sexy
is also sad. To James Lo’s brilliant remix of the
Laura Branigan hit, the two perform a dance of
endurance in several senses. The work, which
débuted last year, at Abrons Arts Center, gets
a reprise.—B.S. (New York Live Arts; April 8-9.)

Noche Flamenca
Soledad Barrio, the lead dancer of the New
York-based flamenco company Noche Fla-
menca, was recently awarded the Vilcek Prize,

an ensemble that includes the former Converge

member Stephen Brodsky along with the gothic

singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe and her band-

mate Ben Chisholm brings its collaboration,

“Bloodmoon: I,” an ornately ferocious record,

to life. Among the openers are the post-rock

group Caspian and the Brooklyn black-metal

band Liturgy, which framed its most recent

full-length, “Origin of the Alimonies,” as an

opera.—Jenn Pelly (Brooklyn Steel; April 10.)

DJ Harvey

ELECTRONIC A native of London and longtime

resident of Los Angeles, Harvey Bassett has

always been a d.j.’s d.j. His home style is nomi-

nally house music, but a DJ Harvey set is likely

to go in any number of directions—the wilder

the better—helped along by a sure hand with

effects and EQ. Whether he’s playing selections

so rare that even veteran vinyl-spotters have

trouble identifying them or tracks that every-

body in the room knows by heart, he threads ev-

erything together with a palpably gleeful sense

of mischief—not for nothing did he call one of

his L.A. parties Sarcastic Disco.—Michaelangelo

Matos (Elsewhere; April 9.)

“Gianni Schicchi”

OPERA Before the pandemic, On Site Opera had

a rewarding formula—find an unexpected space

in New York City and stage a work there that

resonates with it—but the ban on indoor gath-

erings forced the company to get creative. (For

“To My Distant Love,” in the summer of 2020,

a singer called individual ticket holders on the

phone and sang Beethoven’s “An die ferne Ge-

liebte.”) Now, for the first time in two years, On

Site Opera presents a complete work in a found

setting. For Puccini’s uproarious comedy “Gianni

Schicchi,” the family of Buoso Donati gathers in

the impressive Prince George Ballroom, in the

Flatiron district, to find out what’s in Donati’s

will, and an audience likewise comes together

around them, to see how it shakes out.—Oussama

Zahr (Prince George Ballroom; April 7-10.)

“Oratorio for Living Things”

MUSICAL THEATRE Heather Christian’s “Oratorio

for Living Things,” commissioned by the Off

Broadway company Ars Nova, telescopes the

evolution of life into a ninety-minute choral

piece. The lyrics explain photosynthesis, delight

in the sweetness of childhood, and add up the

minutes that make up a lifetime. The sheer di-

versity of musical genres feels like an exercise in

unity: the work opens with a Renaissance-style

motet on a Latin text, orienting the audience

within a vaguely distant past, before passing

effortlessly through jazz, Sondheim-style poin-

tillism, and a rollicking soul number that could

be mistaken for a backing track on an Adele

album. The prevailing sentiment is wonder,

which can feel overwhelming, but the cast of

twelve singers, clearly galvanized by the ex-

pressivity and complexity of Christian’s vocal

writing, make a case for the work’s sincerity and

darker reaches. The performers weave through

the audience in a tight theatre-in-the-round

in Lee Sunday Evans’s simple staging.—O.Z.

(Greenwich House; through May 15.)

Regina Spektor

INDIE POP The voice of Regina Spektor, whether

cast in opulent orchestrations or with her soli- ILLUSTRATION BY CAMILLE DESCHIENS

Since releasing her self-titled début,
in 2014, the New Zealand-born sing-
er-songwriter Aldous Harding has made
her songs a space for carefully crafted
scene work. She has referred to herself as
a “song actor,” and her lyrics are cryptic;
the mysteriousness is underscored by a
malleable voice and a spooky folk sound.
Harding’s new album, “Warm Chris,”
widens an aperture that its predecessor,
“Designer,” began opening, seeming
to capture its subjects with more light
than her older recordings. Her songs can
feel like impressions, with singing that
extends from a wraithlike whisper to a
low-toned croon, and many of them por-
tray isolated characters. “Well, you know
I’m married / And I was bored out of
my mind,” she sings on “Passion Babe.”
“Of all the ways to eat a cake / This one
surely takes the knife.”—Sheldon Pearce

FOLK

for her contributions to the art of flamenco.

Her troupe is a tight-knit group: three musi-

cians, two singers, and four dancers, including

Barrio herself and a guest from Jerez, Spain,

Antonio Granjero. The evening, entitled “Ni

Bien ni Mal, Todo lo Contrario” (“Neither

Good nor Ill, Just the Opposite”) is made up

of solos and small ensembles, some improvised,

some precisely choreographed, and all danced

in direct response to the music, performed

onstage.—M.H. (Joyce Theatre; April 5-10.)

Storyboard P

The name suggests stop-motion animation, one

source of the style that Storyboard P calls mu-

tant. Another is the gliding and contortion of

the street form flex. But even more distinctive

than Storyboard’s style is the slippery free-

dom of his imagination. He is one of the most

extraordinary dancers in existence, but, even

as astonishing videos of him abound online,

opportunities to see him live, in a ticketed per-

formance, are very rare. Such a chance is now at

hand: two nights of freestyle in the courtyard

of Performance Space New York.—B.S. (Per-

formance Space New York; April 7-8.)

1

MUSIC

Converge

HARDCORE PUNK Thrashing out of the hardcore

scene three decades ago, the Massachusetts

heavy-music titan Converge has cemented its

status as a subcultural institution across ten

albums of anguished heart, polyrhythmic brutal-

ity, and blistering, unrelenting hooks. With the

vocalist Jacob Bannon’s influential Deathwish,

Inc., label and the guitarist Kurt Ballou’s work

as a highly regarded rock producer, the group

has carried the scene along with it. On this tour,