Happening Type: Performance

Rather than cancel a planned performance at the Tate Modern’s Tanks, Congolese choreographer and dance artist Faustin Linyekula decided to reinvent his site- specific work as an online-only experience. The autobiographical My Body, My Archive has Linyekula and his collaborators moving through dance and music to explore ideas of community, human relationships, and the limits of the human body. Filmed in a vacant performance space, it was transformed into a timely meditation on isolation and the ways the body records memory.

Filmed in an empty Hollywood Bowl, this series of virtual concerts by a socially distanced LA Phil considers how music resonates with the current moment, from a performance by singer Andra Day of an unofficial Black Lives Matter anthem to expressions of grief and love with mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Released weekly, each of the nine concert films is joined by contextual work such as essays, art, and interviews. All are available to watch for free and offer a reflection on the way music can speak to our collective experiences, whether it’s Beethoven or the psychedelic soul of LA locals Chicano Batman.

After canceling much of their 2020–21 programming, the Houston Grand Opera reimagined its performances for a virtual space. HGO Digital presents a full season of productions, including a recital series featuring opera stars such as soprano Tamara Wilson and tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz; digital productions like the one-woman Bon Appetit! in which Julia Child—played by mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton—bakes a chocolate cake; and the Finch Opera on the obscure sport of finch-calling. Although the free-to-watch events are staged more humbly than the company’s usual offerings—recorded outdoors or in the artists’ own homes—they bring the visceral thrill of opera to anyone anywhere.

The longest-running and largest international dance festival in the U.S. returns with a packed summer of performances, workshops, and special events. More than ten weeks in the atmospheric Berkshire Hills, companies from around the world will take to the indoor and outdoor stages, from the San Francisco Ballet, making its first visit since 1956, to the Akram Khan Company, presenting its final touring production, inspired by Indian classical dance. Programming will mark the one hundredth year of the Martha Graham Dance Company, the oldest American dance company, including landmark works like Graham’s collaborations with sculptor Isamu Noguchi and a new piece based on an incomplete project she started with Leonard Bernstein.

For its thirty-fifth season of bringing together some of the greatest classical musicians, Bravo! Vail is presenting six weeks of concerts that showcase its support of new music, including three world premieres of works by Chris Rogerson, Katherine Balch, and Carlos Simon. With four of the leading orchestras in the country—the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic—summering in the mountains, this annual festival has become a destination, with both large-scale concerts and intimate outdoor chamber performances providing something for everyone.

Musical artist David Byrne of Talking Heads and writer Mala Gaonkar consulted with neuroscientists to create this immersive journey into perception. The participatory production’s debut with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts is part of its Off-Center initiative. Small groups of audience move through a series of environments in a sprawling warehouse, engaging in sensory experiments and together delving into the mysteries of the mind and how it shapes our sense of self.

In 2015, New York City Ballet’s resident choreographer Justin Peck reinvigorated composer Aaron Copland’s Rodeo with electric movement, humor, and innovative choreography for male dancers. Now he’s tackling more of the American composer’s iconic music in his first full-evening work for the company. The performance has been created in collaboration with painter and sculptor Jeffrey Gibson, who infuses his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage in this new take on Americana. May 12, 14, 20, 24, 25, 2023.

Although it started in 1979 as a film festival devoted to work about mountaineering, Mountainfilm now showcases a breadth of indie documentary nonfiction from across the globe focused on the environment, adventure, and social justice. It includes a speaker series with thought leaders ranging from scientists to artists along with feature and short documentaries all envisaging a better world. This marks its forty-fifth year of promoting a more positive future through film amid the stunning backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. May 25–29, 2023.

The longstanding Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival returns with a global roster of performances following the past few years of pandemic restrictions. Indoor and outdoor venues will host performances by the Dutch National Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Compagnie Käfig of France, and many others. A special focus will mark the fiftieth anniversary of hip-hop. This year will also include the Jacob’s Pillow debut of Tulsa Ballet—the first Oklahoma company to perform at the festival—as well as a David Bowie tribute, circus theater, and an homage to Burt Bacharach.

All museum visits are structured by interactions, but in a Rirkrit Tiravanija show, those exchanges are playfully put on display. His art is a social experience, whether it’s joining strangers in games of ping pong or offering space for people to sit down together for a meal of curry. This retrospective includes reconstructions of participatory pieces from the 1980s and 1990s that the Thai artist has stated are a way to “bring people in,” as well as works on paper and photographs.

In 2005, singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens released Illinoise, with twenty-two tracks all referencing the people and places of the Land of Lincoln. Now the critically acclaimed album is a full theatrical music event, adapted with a story by choreographer Justin Peck and playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury. After debuting last summer at Bard College’s Fisher Center in New York, Illinoise the performance is presented in the state that inspired it, ready to immerse audiences in dance, music, and movement, together expressing the many layers of the American heartland.

After famously being adapted by Francis Ford Coppola in a 1983 film, S. E. Hinton’s coming-of-age novel The Outsiders (1967), set against a simmering Tulsa gang rivalry, has arrived on Broadway as a musical. Will the brotherhood bonds of Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darrel stay gold on a new stage? A Tony nomination for Best New Musical promise an engaging rumble of teenage growth and strife.