2024-04-16 13:00
Not too long ago I had what I call a “They Live moment”. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the film, They Live is a John Carpenter movie from 1988 featuring the wre… Read More
Blog Directory > Arts & Entertainment Blogs > Culturebot – Maximum Performance arts-and-entertainment Blog >
Culturebot – Maximum Performance Blog
culturebot.org
Culturebot.org is an online arts magazine devoted to the live arts: dance, theater, performance and music.
2024-04-09 14:15
In December 2003 my friend Chris and I were at the Performance Space 122 holiday party lamenting our single, celibate status. As we got drunker we started sharing stories of the worst sex we… Read More
2024-04-02 13:00
In the fall of 1995, after five years in Seattle, I moved to NYC to be a writer and performance artist, and I basically had to start all over again.
I had passed through NYC over the summer… Read More
2024-03-27 13:08
“Part of the license of anachronism is a permission to fold one thing into another.”—The Lydian Gale Parr by Karinne Keithley Syers
*
Recently, Karinne Keithley Syers, Alai… Read More
2024-03-26 14:00
On April 17, 1991 at the OK Hotel in Seattle, Nirvana played Smells Like Teen Spirit live for the first time. At the time I was working in a book warehouse in Georgetown, an industrial area… Read More
2024-03-22 21:33
Jesse Freedman, Artistic Director of Meta-Phys Ed.
“Banality of Evil, as a phrase,” Jesse Freedman the Artistic Director of Meta-Phys Ed. told me on the phone last week, each of… Read More
2024-03-20 19:27
If it weren’t for my erudite Anglophile cousin, I would never have known to see Lucy Prebble’s The Effect at The Shed (from March 3-March 31). An early Prebble fan, she one day… Read More
2024-03-19 17:47
Grab your passport, NYC! Something rhythmic, thought-provoking, and profound is happening in the Arts District of Jersey City.
Currently mounted at Nimbus’s Firmament Gallery +… Read More
2024-03-19 14:24
My first time was in a storefront gallery and performance space on 19th Ave East in Seattle in 1992 with a girl named Kristen Kosmas. The space was called Room 608, my friend Matt had starte… Read More
2024-03-15 19:29
Photo by Nir Arieli.
There is a photograph of my grandad and three of his brothers taken in Dublin in the early 1930s; the brothers stand in a row and pose with their arms firmly placed by t… Read More
2024-03-10 12:40
“Vas and Perri” photo by Rebecca Jimenez
The downtown theatre comedy The Sketchy Eastern European Show, a new play by Naren Weiss, directed by Vas Eli (formerly Vasile Flutur)… Read More
2024-03-07 05:10
The first time I saw David Greenspan perform was in Adrian Einspanier’s Lunch Bunch this past spring at the 122 Community Center in the East Village. I didn’t know… Read More
2024-02-20 14:25
Photo by Steven Pisano
It was a mid-January evening in an old New York Playhouse that conjured up the spirit of the Gilded Age. If I turned my head, I half-imagined that I’d spot Boss… Read More
2024-02-04 18:29
In Elvia Wilk’s “Death by Landscape,” she describes writing as a practice in biodiversity. She quotes Wai Chee Dimock’s idea that literature provides explosive contag… Read More
2024-02-02 05:08
John Maria Gutierrez, photography by Maria Baranova
What if we were able to get off of this disappointing ride of White Supremacist American Capitalist Patriarchical Heteronormative Psychot… Read More
2024-01-26 18:10
Complexity often frightens people from engaging with the critical context and history that informs our current realities. So, what you will read is [not] complex. It is current and… Read More
2024-01-19 15:08
Originally premiering at La MaMa Experimental Theatre’s Downstairs Theater last spring, Fri, Apr 21, 2023, I suddenly remember hearing from maura nguyễn donohue, a fellow CULTURE… Read More
2023-12-23 18:03
I recently found myself in something of a reunion. I met up with an old friend from elementary school who happened to have transferred to my (our) college, but despite the shared experience… Read More
2023-11-23 18:09
This fall, NYCB kicked off the celebration of their 75th anniversary dedicating the entire season to the work of George Balanchine, the company’s co-founder and artistic realizer. On… Read More
2023-10-19 21:24
Photo: Maria Baranova
Waiting outside the Howard Gilman Performance Space for the Baryshnikov Arts-commissioned Rest Within The Wake, a multi-medium soundscape piece, I scarfed down an apple… Read More
2023-10-11 19:03
It’s been almost a year since on October 13th 2022 American experimental composer, author of the concept “propositonal music”, David Rosenboom, gave a concert at the School… Read More
2023-10-02 11:25
Photo by Maria Baranova
Abrons Arts Center’s Playhouse Theater has been in continuous operation since 1915. Originally founded as the “Neighborhood Playhouse,” it is a lege… Read More
2023-09-16 13:49
I first learned of Alex Edelman through a series of Instagram Reels created by the Jewish feminist publication called Hey Alma. No, actually that’s a lie. I first encountered Alex Ede… Read More
2023-09-16 11:53
“Language, and the different uses of that language, can completely obscure the thing that’s there.”
— Jerry Lieblich
Recently, Jerry Lieblich, Steven Mellor, Meghan… Read More
2023-09-16 11:53
“Language, and the different uses of that language, can completely obscure the thing that’s there.”
— Jerry Lieblich
Recently, Jerry Lieblich, Steve Mellor, Meghan F… Read More
2023-09-13 21:04
It’s twelve years since I saw my last Prague Quadrennial, the international exhibition, festival and symposium of Performance Design and Space (PQ).
By its own description, the PQ has… Read More
2023-09-12 17:28
Shortly after I saw Julie Mayo’s evening-length dance work Bluefire Sleepwalking, we discussed the possibility of my writing about it. The piece, which had a three-night run at Brookl… Read More
2023-07-01 17:21
Okay. I wrote a really long discursive essay about The Theater(s) We Need Now – and I didn’t even dive too deep into the arts admin weeds – but I know how things are… Read More
2023-06-29 17:33
In the spirit of the works performed in the May 19th program of the SIGHTLINES residency showing, allow me to tell you three things that happened to me the day of the performance:
I was bit… Read More
2023-06-14 20:36
The flower we touch as children in awe
burns. The only chide needed to withdraw.
With undeniable power to flaw, fire will still flicker and die.
For it lives, as do You and I.
…a heap… Read More
2023-06-04 10:55
Photo by Maria Baranova
For a play with the word “Authentic” in its title, it’s extremely theatrical. There’s a giant furry egg; talking roaches; kibitzing ants… Read More
2023-06-03 17:48
It’s somehow fitting that the news that the Under the Radar Festival was being cancelled was buried in a New York Times article that one could be forgiven for thinking was about Alici… Read More
2023-05-27 15:15
Jessica Alexander, Tatiana Barber, Kayla Farrish & Kerime Konur in the (in-development) presentation of “Put Away the Fire, dear pt. 2 at La MaMa Moves. Photo by Steven Pisano
Put… Read More
2023-05-26 21:32
“Shadowland” by choreographer Kari Hoaas at La MaMa. Light sculpture by Gard Gitlestad. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
Vastness. Immensity. The Ellen Stewart Theater.
I do not know if… Read More
2023-05-25 20:29
When I ventured out to see Misconceptions, a collaboration between Jessica Burr’s theater company Blessed Unrest and veteran theatric pedagogue and playwright Stephen Wangh, I didn&rs&helli…Read More
2023-05-24 03:14
This weekend at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the art and history of Ghana will heat up the 46th year of DanceAfrica, the nation’s largest festival dedicated to African diasporic danc… Read More
2023-05-18 10:58
photo by Sylvia Plachy
María Irene Fornés’ Evelyn Brown (A Diary) will have its second production ever at LaMaMa on May 19–June 4, 2023, with an opening night set f… Read More
2023-05-18 02:17
A week after tearing my calf muscle attempting a cabriole in full cramp, I hauled myself, on crutches, to Bobbi Jene Smith’s Broken Theater at La Mama. It was 7:06, the actors already… Read More
2023-05-16 22:13
Federico Restrepo, Hope Kroog, Marina Celander and Carolina CorreaPhoto by Richard Termine
Cory Villegas rinde homenaje a la oratoria en una respuesta de audio para el programa en espa&ntild&hell…Read More
2023-05-10 19:54
Intergenerational Vibing in Chicago Theater: Young Krones and A DRAMA IN ROGERS PARK
by Kallan Danaphotos by Luke Brodarick
Jarvis Square is a town within a town within a town, a fairy-lit… Read More
2023-05-10 18:53
T.I.T.S., Forced Beauty
La Mama Experimental Theater | Downstairs Theater | April 7, 2023
By Darvejon A. Jones
Lærke Grøntved, Photo by Steven Pisano
when does pleasure become p… Read More
2023-05-10 18:52
By Austin Marquez
Nora Alami and Jadd Tank in “3rd Body”, Photo by Steven Pisano
The Ellen Stewart Theatre was buzzing with artists pondering identity and “other-ness&rdquo&hell…Read More
2023-05-08 12:03
Photo by Maria Baranova
I recently had the chance to catch up with two of my favorite creators, playwright/performer extraordinaire Lisa Clair and director Shannon Sindelar, to discuss their… Read More
2023-04-03 21:51
There are those cultural events that feel too good to be true – many stars align to create a perfectly satisfying contribution, almost all-encompassing in its thoughtoutness. On sugge… Read More
2023-03-14 16:25
Alexandra Tatarsky: Sad Boys in Harpy Land, 10–18 March 2023. Photograph by Maria Baranova. Image courtesy of Abrons Arts Center.
The best and only East Village gallery with an Irish p… Read More
2023-03-04 19:56
Anyone talk to any rampant, obsessive, pubescent “thinking machines” lately? As Kevin Roose’s transcript of his two hour exchange with Microsoft’s AI’s chatbot… Read More
2023-03-01 15:00
An earlier version of this article was far less sympathetic, but on hearing the latest episode of The Turning: Room of Mirrors, where the host Erika Lantz describes her own complicated rela… Read More
2023-02-25 13:40
Photo by Russ Rowland
As if veterans of the Iraqi War don’t have enough problems when they come home. Those who arrive with arms and legs intact often suffer from depression, anxiety… Read More
2023-02-06 20:08
A Celebration of the Life & Art of Mikeah Ernest Jennings from Jared Mezzocchi on Vimeo.
This Monday, Feb. 6 at 5:30 p.m. eastern, the Chocolate Factory Theater is hosting a celebration… Read More
2023-02-01 19:53
I have seen the 1971 film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof more than almost any other film. In recent years I have begun to hear increasing anti-Fiddler sentiment from fellow Jews who have… Read More
2023-01-17 15:23
American Ghoul at Suite/SPACE 2022December 10, 2022
created by: Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson and loveconductorsperformed by: Madeline Warriner, Light McAuliffe, Samantha Lysaght, Shil… Read More
2023-01-14 20:29
Heading into BAM’s Fishman Space for Ontroerend Goed, part of the Public’s 2023 Under the Radar Festival, felt like finally getting to a long-delayed date. I’d been looking… Read More
2022-12-23 13:36
Photo by Gerry Goodstein
In Des Moines (running through Jan 8 at Theatre for a New Audience), Jimmy, an eerily ebullient trans woman who was paralyzed in an instance of medical malpractice d… Read More
2022-11-30 13:47
Photo by Sam Max
Kind of like a Black Friday sale on valium, a drowsy but nonetheless eager line forms in the dim stairwell leading up to Pageant on Sunday evening. The narrow studio-apartme… Read More
2022-11-21 11:21
My mother died in May and it really fucked me up. Or woke me up. It depends on your perspective, I guess.
Mom had advanced dementia and cancer, specifically follicular lymphoma. I don’… Read More
2022-11-10 20:25
“Dr. G’s Bingo Extravaganza”Created by For You and co-produced by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and For YouReviewed by Julian Carter and Evan Lutz
In the third week of J… Read More
2022-10-30 13:34
choreographed by Shannon Yuperformed by Shannon Yu and Sarah Zuccherosoundtrack by Arabelle Luke aka Airloom Beats
Paper scraps frame the doorway to the cathedral which houses The Center at… Read More
2022-10-30 13:27
Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art
You would have thought the National Gallery was a nightclub if you were walking on DC’s Constitution Avenue on the evening of September 8t… Read More
2022-10-28 11:20
Photo by Diana Baranova
Jacob Perkins is one of my favorite writers. His plays feel like spare spells, for the marshaling of particular and delicate energies. I often find myself blindsided… Read More
2022-09-06 16:53
BOFFO Festival at the Fire Island PinesAugust 13-14, 2022
Installation: Joseph MC Shea and Edgar MosaFood: SolsipsSoundscape: SecondsightPerformances: Tess Dworman, Nic Kay, Gage Spex… Read More
2022-07-12 19:07
It was a Friday night in New York, I was looking for something to do. I scrolled through my Instagram to see if anyone I know was doing anything of interest I could try to write about. I rem… Read More
2022-07-12 17:20
In an open window in Tallinn, Estonia, adorned with Ukranian flags, standing atop a classically deep windowsill, a series of Russian-speaking Estonian artists recently sang songs, read poems… Read More
2022-06-19 16:34
listen to the audio version here
We are in the midst of a great remembering. We’re remembering what it would be like to live in a world where there is ecological justice, where other s… Read More
2022-06-15 18:50
Balancing disparate ideas felt central to Francesca Dominguez’s Galvanizing Steel, a Hunter College MFA/dance thesis work, which premiered at Gibney’s Agnes Varis Performing Art… Read More
2022-06-14 16:47
Hyperfantasia at The Brick TheaterJune 10, 2022
Music, Text, Video, & Performance by Evan Silver aka TiresiasCo-Produced by Irene LazaridisHeadpiece created by Carnation
Edibles by Amun… Read More
2022-04-26 15:07
MAIN CHARACTER SYNDROME
Choreographed, Designed, Edited and Performed by Kelsey Rondeau for Hard/Femme Dances
All Videos shot by Steve Prue
Gown by Timothy Westbrook
Featuring the voice of S… Read More
2022-01-18 22:55
P I N EJanuary 16 + 22, 2022Beach 81st, Far RockawayCreated by: m i c c a
Performed by: Madeline Robertson, Kristi Cole, Sarah Chien, Therese Ronco, m i c c aLead Installer: Breeze
Insp… Read More
2022-01-17 16:20
Photo by Emilio Madrid
Rita Kalnejais sits with a black and white cat on her lap, in a self-described “massive covid fog,” and proceeds to spout the wisest truisms about life, lo… Read More
2022-01-17 00:23
Photo: Shunyao Zhang
THIS PROJECT WILL BE PRESENTED ON YOUTUBE ON JANUARY 16 AT 8PM
Departure Study of Mother/land Fabric is a multimedia performance about the story of Annie Heath… Read More
2022-01-04 19:35
“I aim to be a balance between a healer, a dictator, and an anarchist” – Sophia Cleary
Sophia Cleary by Paula Court
Sophia Cleary used to be a birth doula and that informat… Read More
2022-01-03 17:22
Sha Creative Outlet at Triskelion Split Bill
December 3, 2021
Performed by Shannon Yu and Sarah Zucchero
Soundtrack by Arabelle Luke aka Airloom Beats
In an effort to capture the inner wo… Read More
2021-12-08 14:57
I recently had the opportunity to listen to Pleasure Machine, a nine-episode adventure in aural storytelling created by Colt Coeur in association with creative producer Emma Orme, director T… Read More
2021-12-02 14:58
Daniel Alexander Jones is a tremendous artist. Whether he is channeling guardian angel / Orisha / chanteuse / messenger Jomama Jones, writing fierce, strange, and poetic plays (recentl… Read More
2021-11-29 21:11
I’ve never been one to blow on my soup. I taste food as I’m cooking directly from the pan even as my partner tells me dinner will taste better without a burnt tongue. I want to f… Read More
2021-11-17 21:19
Photo by Isaak Berliner
There’s a game I like to play with plays, especially those that scramble the routine plot templates into more complicated systems and harder-to-recognize shapes… Read More
2021-11-15 14:41
Photo by Maria Baranova
In the early goings of Hillary Miller’s Preparedness, playing at HERE Arts Center in a partnership production between Bushwick Starr and HERE through December 1… Read More
2021-10-27 15:57
Photo by Sammy Tunis
When Culturebot asked if I would sit down with Zoë Geltman and Julia Sirna-Frest about their latest collaboration, I jumped at the chance. Full disclosure: We&rsquo&hell…Read More
2021-09-28 16:22
Jimena Paz (Photo by Maria Baranova)
For further information about the day’s events, the organizations, and bios of all performers and speakers, visit https://www.movementwithoutborder… Read More
2021-07-24 12:50
Photo by Ashley Garrett
Ben Gassman invited me to preview a run-through rehearsal of his new play, Botte di Ferro, in its environmental staging at The Good Fork in Red Hook Brooklyn, directe… Read More
2021-06-14 19:42
“Movements are born of critical connections rather than critical mass.”
― Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
F… Read More
2021-05-07 21:35
Over the course of the past month or so, I absorbed the Playwrights Horizons Soundstage miniseries production of The MS Phoenix Rising, created by Trish Harnetiaux and Katie Brook… Read More
2021-04-19 15:08
Credit: ZANNI Productions
On Friday, a battle against nightmares. On Saturday, the struggle to accomplish one basic task. On Sunday, a dinosaur trying to jump-rope. And on Sunday, the crushi… Read More
2021-04-13 20:07
What persists in times of ubiquitous death?
Mary Shelley’s apocalyptic The Last Man (1826) describes an inexplicable, unstoppable plague wiping out human civilization. The book rested… Read More
2021-03-04 12:00
Photo by Estefanía Fadul
When I think of my life one year ago, I remember feeling busy and fatigued. I moved to New York to see shows and so I saw shows. I slogged out of opening shif… Read More
2021-03-02 19:08
Edward Einhorn
“I’ve been trying to play games with my nieces over Zoom,” Untitled Theater Company #61’s artistic director Edward Einhorn was telling me over a recent… Read More
2021-02-16 12:30
This post has been collected and edited by Piehole (Tara Ahmadinejad, Allison LaPlatney, Alexandra Panzer, Emilie Soffe, Ben Vigus, Jeff Wood)
photo by Eileen Meny
Just before New York City… Read More
2021-02-12 15:03
Square image with black background and hot pink text centered in the image. The text reads # (hashtag symbol) No More Harm. The hashtag symbol and the words No More Harm are next to each ot… Read More
2021-02-04 17:02
January 21, 2021
www.theexponentialfestival.org // www.pioneersgoeast.org
Featuring performance artists Anabella Lenzu (choreography/devised writer – episode 1); Daniel Diaz (choreogra… Read More
2020-12-09 11:56
Tarfia Faizullah in conversation with Shayok Misha Chowdhury on his ongoing project, VICHITRA. Register for the free premiere of episode four, In Order to Become, at The Bushwick Starr, in… Read More
2020-11-19 00:11
BREAKTIME at ARTS ALIVE (Arts on Site)6’Created and performed by Holly Sass and Jonathan Matthews / BREAKTIMEOctober 24, 2020
Sound: The Magnetic Fields, “Three-Way,” Eliza… Read More
2020-10-28 20:13
This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:
Password: Read More
2020-10-27 17:33
Photo by Emily Hewitt Photography; Graphic design by Alexandra Lenihan
When Creator/Writer/Performer Hannah Aliza Goldman’s one-person show In the Kitchen got cancelled this sprin… Read More
2020-09-29 01:44
I haven’t been an active participant in the Zoom “theater” scene. Maybe partly out of a hope that it would all be temporary, that the brief spark of innovation required to… Read More
2020-09-21 21:58
Out of An Abundance of Caution Volume 27The Brick Theater (Live on Twitch)
Hosted by Maya SharpeFeaturing Lydia Mokdessi and Jason Bartell, Emilyn Kowaleski and Diane Chen, and Jenny Seaston… Read More
2020-09-10 23:31
Photo: Maria Baranova
We sit like middle schoolers at lunch, cliques separated by social barriers. People chat. “Did you get the job?” “The one at TikTok? No, it was a no… Read More
2020-07-23 18:45
Black Dance Stories is exactly what it sounds like and precisely what we need right now. It’s a distillation of insightful moments in post-performance talkbacks spliced with casual con… Read More
2020-07-16 14:05
Black Dance Stories is exactly what it sounds like and precisely what we need right now. It’s a distillation of insightful moments in post-performance talkbacks spliced with casual con… Read More
2020-07-14 20:18
For this video rendition of 5 Questions, enjoy this chat with Marga Gomez and Mateo Hurtado.
Is she on a radar? Is she herself a moving target? The timeless, classic Cubana Rican p… Read More
2020-04-30 14:00
So much has happened in the space between Work Up 6.1 and today. So much that I almost can’t remember a world where I attended performances in person, breathing in the air shared by th… Read More
2020-03-16 17:59
4:15 p.m. A couple more livestreaming resources. First, there’s the Social Distancing Festival. Organized by Toronto-based lyricist and book writer Nick Green, the site is collect… Read More
Subscribe to Culturebot – Maximum Performance
Get updates delivered right to your inbox!