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      Calling All Tap Dance Kids (It’s Not the Acting Kid or the Singing Kid)

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      The challenge of casting the Encores! revival of “The Tap Dance Kid” exposes some of the complications of tap, show business and Black history.If you’re going to stage a revival of the seldom performed but dearly remembered 1983 Broadway musical “The Tap Dance Kid” — as Encores! at New York City Center is doing, Wednesday through Sunday — one of the main challenges is to find someone to play the title role.That character is Willie Sheridan, a 10-year-old boy whose dream is to become a Broadway tap dancer and who has the talent to do it. The performer who plays him has to be like Willie: a young Black boy who can act and sing and tap dance at the center of an old-fashioned musical. And in recent decades that particular combination hasn’t been very common.Some reasons are right there in the show’s story. It’s about a family — an upper-middle-class Black one, groundbreaking for a Broadway musical in 1983 — and the main conflicts are generational. The principal obstacle to Willie’s dream is his father.Hinton Battle in a scene from “The Tap Dance Kid” in 1984.Martha Swope/New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsTo the father, a lawyer, tap is not just antiquated but also shameful, tied to slavery and the racial humiliations from which he has worked to insulate those he loves. To the boy and his dancing uncle and the ghost of his dancing grandfather, tap is beautiful, something to be proud of.This is an argument about the past and progress, and it reflects some of the real-life attitudes that continue to affect the popularity of tap, especially among Black people, and the potential pool of tap dance kids.“I knew that it was going to be tough to find a Willie,” Jared Grimes, the choreographer of the Encores! revival, said in an interview.“I knew that it was going to be tough to find a Willie”: Bello and Grimes, rehearsing at City Center. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDuring auditions, Alexander Bello stood out — for his acting and singing. His tap skills weren’t quite up to the level that Grimes was expecting. “I was not going to settle,” Grimes said. “This show isn’t called Acting Kid or Singing Kid.”But Bello — who once put “Broadway audition” on his Christmas list and is already a Broadway veteran at 13 — was determined to get the part. “I was amazed that almost all the creatives were Black,” he said. “I had never seen a room so melanated and I wanted to be in that room.” And so, while attending school and doing eight shows a week of “Caroline or Change” on Broadway, he squeezed in a month of tap boot camp with DeWitt Fleming Jr. (who plays Willie’s grandfather).“Alex earned that role,” said Kenny Leon, the director of the Encores! production.Bello, here with Trevor Jackson, squeezed in a month of tap boot camp. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesIn certain ways, this was an echo of the 1980s. Danny Daniels — who won a Tony Award for choreographing the original production and who, like most of the original creative team, was white — once told me about the trouble that team had finding a Willie.“I asked the producers, ‘Where are you going to find the Black kids? Black kids don’t tap anymore,’” said Daniels, who died in 2017. “So we put out a call for Black kid tap dancers. Nobody showed up.’”More precisely, nobody showed up who didn’t need tap training. Daniels started a tap boot camp. The first Willie it produced was Alfonso Ribeiro, who soon left for a successful TV career (and later showed off his tap skills as Carlton on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”). Among the many to follow during the show’s two-year run and national tour was Dulé Hill, whose own successful TV career, most recently in “The Wonder Years” reboot, is keeping him too busy to appear in the Encores! revival.Savion Glover in the 1980s Broadway production of “The Tap Dance Kid.” PhotofestAnother Willie was Savion Glover, the tap dance kid who most changed what it meant to be one. Under the guidance of Gregory Hines and older Black tap dancers, Glover became the heir apparent to their tradition in the Broadway shows “Black and Blue” and “Jelly’s Last Jam.”The 1996 show “Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk,” which Glover choreographed and starred in, reclaimed tap as Black history, both polemically and rhythmically, and brought it into a hip-hop present that people his age could see as their own. In a monologue, when Glover rejected Broadway styles as “not even tap dancing” but “arms and legs and a big ol’ smile,” he could have been describing Daniels’s choreography for “Tap Dance Kid”: the sequins and high kicks, more razzle-dazzle than rhythm.After “Bring in ‘da Noise” closed, tap on Broadway mostly reverted to its old ways. But Glover, with his unsurpassed virtuosity and more streetwise image, had inspired a generation of young hoofers. While deeply connected to tap’s roots in jazz, they made the form contemporary and pushed it to new technical heights — and largely away from the singing and acting of “Tap Dance Kid.” Among this cohort was Grimes, now 36.Bello, rehearsing with the actor Adrienne Walker.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAs Grimes demonstrated in the 2013 Broadway production “After Midnight,” he is a tap dancer of astonishing head-to-toe ability. But, unlike many Glover inspired hoofers, he also sees himself in the all-around entertainer line of Hines. Alongside his flourishing performing career — he’s in the upcoming Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” — he’s found acclaim as a choreographer of regional productions, including an updated “42nd Street.”Grimes said that he jumped at the chance to revisit “Tap Dance Kid,” which he called “the musical that every tap dancer dreams of getting a hold of.”The context has changed from the early ’80s, and from the late ’90s, too: “When I was coming up,” Grimes said, “if I looked to my side, there were other Black kids that were already tap kings and queens, but now almost none of my students are Black.”Kenny Leon lifting Bello after a rehearsal.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesSpeaking for kids today, Bello said tap is the dance style they “are most likely to overlook.”“Because you either think of it as Shirley Temple or as something guys did in the ’70s,” he said. “To other kids, it seems like tap never really modernized, but that’s not true.”Ayodele Casel, a tap dancer of the post-Glover generation whose career has been soaring lately, said that pockets of young Black tap dancers exist but that they don’t necessarily see themselves on Broadway because opportunities have been scarce. Yet, speaking more broadly, she noted the significance of someone like her, steeped in tap culture, being specially hired to handle the tap choreography for “Funny Girl.”“There is still a gap,” she said, “between the actors and singers, who have long been able to get by with tap basics, and the serious tap dancers, who haven’t had much incentive to train in acting and singing. But I think people, artists and producers, are starting to think about tap differently now.”Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAlong these lines, the background of the creative team, more than of the cast, might be the most significant change in the Encores! revival. The music remains the same, by Henry Krieger in a mode similar to his “Dreamgirls.” But Lydia Diamond, who has adapted the book for the Encores! production, has shifted the story from the 1980s to the 1950s — when the lines of racial struggle were more legible and tap was losing its place at the center of American popular culture.“We’re trying to show how something as precious as the history of tap is affecting this family who’s fighting to find a place in the ’50s,” Grimes said. He said that he’s been helping to get more accurate (and Black) tap history into the script and a sense of tap in transition into the choreography.“I want to show tap as storytelling and crazy rhythms,” he said, “but also tip our hat to vaudeville and comedy and what might be seen as what we had to do to get into the door. We can do that with integrity.”Grimes said this after a long day of rehearsal, eager to rehearse some more. “The security guards have to kick me out,” he said. “That’s love, man. I hope that ‘Tap Dance Kid’ will get a whole new crop of people to feel like that about tap.” More

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      Chita Rivera’s Book Will Introduce Fans to the Real Her

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      Over the last seven decades, the Broadway star Chita Rivera has taken on and defined some of American musical theater’s most iconic roles: Anita in “West Side Story,” Rose in “Bye Bye Birdie,” Velma Kelly in “Chicago.”In her forthcoming memoir, Rivera introduces her fans and readers to a character she has rarely played in public: her alter ego of sorts, Dolores. And Dolores, which is Rivera’s given name, can be a little prickly, according to Rivera’s co-author, the journalist Patrick Pacheco.When they first sat down to discuss the memoir in the summer of 2020, Pacheco asked Rivera what people didn’t know about her.“She said, ‘Well, I’m not nearly as nice as people think I am,’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Great, let’s introduce the public to her.’”In her still-untitled book, which is due out in 2023 from HarperOne and will be released simultaneously in English and Spanish, Rivera describes her unlikely path to stardom. Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in 1933, Rivera grew up in Washington, D.C., where her mother worked as a government clerk and her father was a clarinet and saxophone player for the U.S. Navy Band.She was so rambunctious and theatrical at home that her mother enrolled her in ballet school. She won a scholarship to George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and went on to land roles in musicals like “Call Me Madam,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Can-Can” and “West Side Story,” where she delivered a breakout performance as Anita in the musical’s original production. Over the decades, she has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards and has won twice, and received a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2009, President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Early in her career, Rivera, who is of Puerto Rican descent, worked to defy the stereotypes that were imposed on her in a largely white creative industry.“She was always very empowered from the beginning to play anything she felt she was capable of playing,” Pacheco said.Some of the theater world’s most influential composers and choreographers were drawn to Rivera’s magnetism and perfectionism. In her memoir, she describes working with Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Bob Fosse, Hal Prince and Fred Ebb, and her experiences with stars and castmates like Elaine Stritch, Dick Van Dyke, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr.Rivera, who turned 89 this month, has done career retrospectives before, including “The Dancer’s Life,” a musical celebrating her career. But while friends and colleagues had nudged her over the years to write a memoir, she never felt compelled to until recently.“I’ve never been one to look back,” Rivera said in a statement released by her publisher. “I hope my words and thoughts about my life and career resonate and readers just might discover some things about me they never knew.”Though she’s had a lasting influence on theater as a performer, Rivera is not a writer, and Pacheco was a natural collaborator — he first met her in the 1970s and had already interviewed her extensively in 2005 when he was brought on as a researcher for “A Dancer’s Life.”He and Rivera would meet or talk on the phone once or twice a week as they were working on the book, and he urged Rivera to open up about her private life and to be candid about her not-so-nice side, Pacheco said. “Let’s put them in the room with Chita,” he remembered telling her, “but let’s also put them in the room with Dolores.” More

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      Lawsuit Says Faculty at a Top Arts School Preyed on Students for Decades

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      Dozens of people who studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts during a period of more than 40 years say they were sexually, emotionally or physically abused there as minors.The breadth of the 236-page complaint is as stunning as its details are disturbing.A total of 56 former arts students say dozens of teachers and administrators participated in, or allowed, their sexual, physical and emotional abuse when they were in school. Overall, the misconduct spanned more than 40 years, beginning in the late 1960s, according to the lawsuit, and included assaults in classrooms, private homes off campus, a motel room off a highway, and a tour bus rumbling through Italy.Respected figures in the dance and performing arts world who worked at the school are said to have participated.The lawsuit, filed late last year, accuses faculty at the prestigious University of North Carolina School of the Arts of a range of abuses including rape. Court papers describe student complaints of being groped, of being fondled through their leotards and of alcohol-fueled dance parties where students as young as 14 were told to completely disrobe and perform ballet moves.“We were children, and we were brave enough to come forward and not one single adult that represented the institution was as brave as we were,” said Melissa Cummings, 42, who described in an interview and court documents being invited to such parties as a student in 1995. She said she reported the abuse to the police and school officials when she was a senior there in 1997, but little changed.“Your teenage years are so formative,” she said. “It destroyed me.”Former students at the arts school, Chris Alloways-Ramsey, left, Melissa Cummings and Frank Holliday, are three of the 56 plaintiffs in the lawsuit.Janet Linup; Chris Cummings; Rafael SalgadoSome of the teachers characterized in the lawsuit as the worst offenders are now dead. Others have yet to respond in court papers; still others declined or did not respond to requests for comment.But the school itself, which is the lead defendant in the case, has expressed concern about the seriousness of the allegations and sought to assure the public that it has changed.“I was personally horrified when I was made aware of the allegations in the complaint,” Brian Cole, the chancellor of the School of the Arts, said in a statement. “I respect the tremendous courage it took for our alumni to come forward and share their experiences, and we are committed to responding with empathy and openness in listening to their stories.” He also noted that “U.N.C.S.A. today has systems in place for students to report abuse of any kind.”The school was the nation’s first public arts conservatory when it opened in the 1960s as the North Carolina School of the Arts in a quiet neighborhood just outside downtown Winston-Salem. According to court papers, the residential high school and college recruited students as young as 12, to study ballet, modern dance, music and other disciplines on a campus that included summer programs. It became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972.Some former students, teachers and school administrators have said throughout the years that their experience at the institution had been formative and enriching. But the plaintiffs depict a setting of rampant misconduct, and their lawsuit, filed in Forsyth County Superior Court, says it occurred, not for one year or two, but for decades, at one of the country’s most renowned arts schools.The lawsuit seeks damages from 29 individuals named as defendants, eight of whom are accused in court papers of having directly abused students. In addition, the court documents say, 19 former administrators are said to have done nothing to stop a culture of exploitation so widespread that some students invented nicknames for two dance instructors described as the most prolific abusers — Richard Kuch and Richard Gain. They were known as “Crotch” and “Groin,” according to the court papers, which say the teachers often invited their minor students to a rural home, known as “The Farm,” where students said they were abused.Mr. Kuch and Mr. Gain resigned from the arts school in 1995 after the school’s chancellor initiated termination proceedings against them. Mr. Kuch died in 2020, according to public records. Attempts to reach Mr. Gain were unsuccessful.The suit was filed under the terms of a look-back law adopted in North Carolina in 2019 that opened a window for adult victims of child sexual abuse to sue individuals and institutions they hold responsible, even if the statute of limitations on their claims had expired. (The law is currently facing legal challenges.)Similar laws are in place in roughly two dozen states, including California and New York following high-profile cases of sex abuse by authority figures that led lawmakers to rethink the wisdom of legally imposing time limits on the reporting of sex crimes.“Our lawsuit against U.N.C.S.A. is an important example of a national trend,” said Gloria Allred, who is among the lawyers representing the victims in the case. “We are very proud of our clients for speaking truth to power and finding their courage to hold accountable those whom they believe have betrayed them.”Some of the allegations had emerged publicly in a 1995 lawsuit brought by Christopher Soderlund, who is also a plaintiff in the current case. Mr. Soderlund’s lawsuit was eventually dismissed on the grounds that the three-year statute of limitations on his claims had expired.At that time, the U.N.C. Board of Governors formed an independent commission “to review and respond to the concerns vocalized,” and produced a report that found “no widespread sexual misconduct at U.N.C.S.A.,” Chancellor Cole wrote in a letter to the campus community last fall.In the current case, former students say that they endured the abuse in part because their tormentors sat on the juries that had the power to decide who to readmit each year. The court papers say the students were groomed to accept the abuse by teachers who suggested they were worthless, that their chosen professions in the arts would be cruel and that only by doing whatever their elite instructors demanded would they be able to succeed in their careers.“It’s a very hard thing to explain,” said Christopher Alloways-Ramsey, one of the plaintiffs who has accused a ballet teacher, Duncan Noble, and others, of abusing him. (Mr. Noble’s work as an arts instructor was praised in his obituary in The New York Times in 2002.)“You’re 16 years old and you really desperately want a career in ballet. The person you idolize is telling you, ‘I can give you that.’ The underlying subtext is that there will be something in exchange,” Mr. Alloways-Ramsey, 53, added. “But as a young person, you don’t actually understand what that might be.”The court documents say that in the 1980s teachers held mandatory “bikini” days in modern dance class. In later years, teenage drama students were told to “seduce” their professors and were instructed to kiss each other lustfully for extended periods of time. Former students said instructors including Mr. Kuch, Mr. Gain and Melissa Hayden, the now deceased former star of New York City Ballet, often told them they needed to have sex in order to benefit their performance as dancers. Ms. Hayden was described in court papers as a verbally and physically abusive instructor, who, for example, beat a student on the leg with a stick and slapped another on the back so hard it knocked the student off her feet.Some of the most egregious abuse occurred in private settings, according to the complaint, which said a ballet instructor once sat on a toilet in his hotel room and watched a student as she bathed. In another instance reported in the suit, a trombone teacher is said to have led a 16-year-old student into a dark room during an off-campus party, unzipped his pants and assaulted her.The school had been the subject of a similar lawsuit in 1995 but the case was dismissed on statute of limitations grounds. The former student who was the plaintiff in that case has joined the new lawsuit. Julia Wall/The News & Observer“It was soul crushing” said Frank Holliday, 64, of Brooklyn, who described the trauma of having to crawl through a dorm-room window after having sex with Mr. Kuch to avoid notice and embarrassment.One former instructor accused in the suit, Stephen Shipps, who taught violin and left in 1989 for the University of Michigan, pleaded guilty in 2021 in federal court to one count of transporting a minor across state lines to engage in sexual activity. Mr. Shipps retired from the University of Michigan in February 2019, according to multiple news reports. His sentencing is set for Feb. 17.In the current lawsuit, Mr. Shipps is accused of having summoned a 17-year-old student to his school office where he engaged in inappropriate sexual relations with her every day of the workweek.Reached by telephone, Mr. Shipps declined to comment.The suit also accuses the so-called defendant administrators of failing to protect the students, asserting they “clearly knew or should have known of the sexual exploitation and abuse of minor and other students that was occurring” and that they “unconscionably allowed this egregious and outrageous conduct to continue.”Ethan Stiefel, a former American Ballet Theater star who later became a dean at the arts school, is one administrator listed as having held a position of responsibility at the time of some of the alleged abuse.Attempts to reach Mr. Stiefel by telephone and email were unsuccessful.When Mr. Soderlund’s lawsuit was filed years ago, and in recent months as the new court case drew attention, some former faculty members and school administrators have said they had no knowledge of the sort of misconduct described in the case.In a telephone interview, Joan Sanders-Seidel, 88, a former faculty member who taught ballet and worked in the dance department for more than 20 years, described the students as among the most talented and industrious in the country, and a joy to teach.“It was very special,” she said of the school, adding that she “loved every minute” of working there.Ms. Sanders-Seidel’s own daughter attended the school and they only recently discussed the allegations of abuse, she said.“I’m surprised about how stupid I was — how unaware,” Ms. Sanders-Seidel said. “I was never a naïve, innocent little dancer myself. So if I suspected anything, I probably just brushed it off.”Kirsten Noyes contributed research. More

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      How Disney Created the Hit Single 'We Don't Talk About Bruno'

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      “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from “Encanto” is a surprise chart topper and TikTok darling. Here’s how Disney created its biggest smash since “Let It Go.”“A seven-foot frame! Rats along his back!” a curly-haired teenager draped in a cloak lip-syncs for the camera.“I associate him with the sound of falling sand,” a busy mom nods appreciatively, bopping along with a vacuum as she embarks on a kitchen dance break.“I’m sorry, mi vida, go on!” a pair of sisters screech, perilously off-key.“Encanto” cautioned against talking about Bruno, but a whole lot of people are obsessed with a song about him.Since that animated Disney film opened in theaters in November and arrived on Disney+ on Christmas Eve, its playful song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” has steadily grown into an international hit. Unlike most Disney breakouts, “Bruno” is not a wistful hero’s solo or a third-act power ballad. It’s a Broadway-style ensemble track that revels in gossip about a middle-age man.Yet the song recently topped the Spotify, Apple Music and iTunes charts in the United States, reached No. 1 on the global YouTube music videos chart and currently sits at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 — the first original song from a Disney animated film to rank that high since the “Frozen” anthem “Let It Go” in 2014. Other “Encanto” tracks, like “Surface Pressure” and “The Family Madrigal,” are also rising. And this week, the film’s soundtrack bumped Adele’s “30” from the top spot on the Billboard 200.“Bruno” has been bolstered by its popularity on TikTok, where tribute clips from the likes of that cloaked teenager, those screeching sisters and that bopping mom have racked up millions of views.“I could look at the TikToks all day,” one of the “Encanto” directors, Jared Bush, said in an interview. “Everyone is finding a different entry point, whether it’s a specific moment or character dynamic. There’s something in it for everybody and, honestly, it’s just delicious.”Explore the World of ‘Encanto’Disney’s new film, about a gifted family in Colombia, pairs stunning animation with spellbinding songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.Review: “Encanto” charms with its focus on family dynamics, fantastic feats of wizardry and respect for Latino culture, writes our film critic.The Voice of Mirabel: Stephanie Beatriz, who won over fans with her role in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” discusses taking on the lead role in the film.An Enchanting Soundtrack: The film’s album of music recently climbed to the top of the Billboard 200, displacing Adele’s “30.”A Slice of His Homeland: A Times reporter watched “Encanto” with her Colombian father. Here’s what they thought.In the movie about a Colombian teenager named Mirabel Madrigal (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz) and her supernaturally gifted family, Bruno (John Leguizamo) is a mysterious, outcast uncle whose ability to see the future earns the abject scorn of all those receiving bad news. His family and the townspeople share their colorful, often bitter, anecdotes about his prophecies in the song.Germaine Franco provided the “Encanto” score, while “Bruno” and the rest of the songs were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who had worked with Disney on the soundtrack of the 2016 film “Moana.” The “Encanto” filmmakers said he had delivered the infectious “Bruno” virtually on command.In spring 2020, the directors Bush and Byron Howard; the co-director Charise Castro Smith; and Tom MacDougall, then head of music at Walt Disney Animation Studios, hopped on one of their weekly video chats with Miranda to brainstorm an ensemble track about Bruno that could provide a jolt of energy midfilm.“We could see Lin thinking, and he looked at us and said, ‘It feels like a spooky ghost story, like a spooky montuno,’” Howard said, referring to a Cuban musical pattern. “And he turns to the piano and plays the first three chords. We literally saw him put it together and compose in that very moment. I’ve never had that happen before.” (Miranda was unavailable for an interview.)The character of Bruno had already evolved during the film’s creation. In an early iteration, he was much younger, someone Mirabel’s age. He was also originally named Oscar, but Bush said a legal snag over the existence of a number of real-life Oscar Madrigals in Colombia, led them to explore other name options. He sent Miranda a list of five alternatives, to which the songwriter replied, “Definitely Bruno.”“I couldn’t figure out why he was so definitive,” Bush said, “until two days later when we heard, ‘Bruno, no, no, no.’”Miranda then recorded a demo track in which he sang all 10 parts. “It was like Lin-Manuel on steroids,” said Adassa, the singer-songwriter who voices Dolores, the Madrigal cousin with exceptional hearing. (That demo has not been released, though a popular Miranda impressionist has taken a stab at what it might sound like.)With only storyboard sketches and Miranda’s audio to guide them, the film’s choreographer, Jamal Sims, and his team spent about two weeks in a Los Angeles studio creating the “Bruno” dance moves for the animators to render digitally. Incorporating elements of cumbia, the Colombian national dance that features African, Indigenous and European influences, along with salsa and rumba, they mapped out every moment of the song and shot a reference video in one take as if part of a live musical. Even Bruno’s rats perform intricate steps. (The animation team would later film the dancers from different camera angles.)“We had to build this all from our imagination,” the assistant choreographer, Kai Martinez, said. “What helped make this piece unique is that we had a group of Latinx dancers from Colombia, from Cuba, from Puerto Rico — people who understood the assignment.” (Clips of their choreography shared by Martinez on TikTok have amassed more than 23 million views.)Martinez, who is a first-generation Colombian American, also served as an animation reference consultant and provided the filmmakers with crucial insights into cultural nuances and mannerisms.“It was bigger than a job,” she said. “Being a Colombian woman, this is the kind of film that I would have wanted to watch when I was a kid.”Meanwhile, because of Covid precautions, the voice actors recorded their parts separately in studios across the United States and Colombia. Rhenzy Feliz sang the shapeshifting cousin Camilo’s lines in a rented space near San Luis Obispo, Calif., and said he channeled “theater kid” energy in his character’s dramatic delivery. Adassa recorded in her home studio in Nashville.“At first my rap was going to be an octave higher,” she said of her whispery bars. “I thought, she’s such an intimate speaker, I’m going to do it an octave lower. And it worked.”Despite its huge popularity, “Bruno” won’t get any Oscar love: The studio submitted only “Dos Oruguitas,” an emotional Spanish ballad performed by Sebastián Yatra, for awards consideration. That song, while not as ubiquitous as “Bruno,” made the academy’s best original song short list last month. Should it go on to take the statuette, it would make history as Disney’s first non-English-language winner.“‘Dos Oruguitas’ was so central to the emotional theme of the movie,” Howard said when asked if they had considered submitting “Bruno.” He added, “It’s probably the most critical bit of musical storytelling in the whole film because it has to do with the history of the family and Mirabel understanding her grandmother.”In fact, betting on “Bruno” would have been a bold strategic departure. You’d need to look as far back as “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid” (1989) to find a Disney Oscar winner with a similar theatrical quirkiness. Since then, when the studio has wowed the academy, it has been overwhelmingly for ballads, including “A Whole New World” (“Aladdin”), “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” (“The Lion King”), “Colors of the Wind” (“Pocahontas”), “Let It Go” (“Frozen”) and “Remember Me” (Pixar’s “Coco”), along with the occasional Randy Newman ditty.Besides, multiple submissions could have risked the possibility of splitting votes, and Miranda lacks only an Oscar to achieve the rare career E.G.O.T. This wouldn’t be his first nomination: His “Moana” track, “How Far I’ll Go,” lost to “City of Stars” from “La La Land.” (In addition to his work on “Encanto,” he also directed “Tick, Tick … Boom!” and could potentially land a nomination for that film.)Beyond awards season, the “Encanto” directors said they were open to the possibility of a sequel, stage show or spinoff series. “I would love for there to be continuing stories of these characters because they’re real people to us,” Bush said. “Ninety minutes is not enough time to spend with the Madrigals.”And despite some fans’ theories that “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” — and the repeated reprimand “Silenzio, Bruno!” in the Pixar film “Luca” — show Disney has an anti-Bruno agenda, the filmmakers insist it isn’t so.“At the end of ‘Encanto,’ Bruno turns out to be a great guy,” Bush said. “So, you know, we’ve resurrected that name. I think Bruno should be proud of that.” More

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      7 Ways to Remember Martin Luther King in New York

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      From in-person and virtual performances to exhibitions and tours, the city offers plenty of options for honoring the civil rights leader this year.Since 1983, just 15 years after his death, the third Monday in January has been designated as a federal holiday in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. This year, on Jan. 17, cultural institutions all over New York have planned concerts, exhibitions, service opportunities and tours, both in person and online. (Bring your vaccination card, and check mask-wearing and ticketing policies online beforehand.)Here are seven ways to commemorate the legacy of the civil rights leader and learn more about Black history in New York.An Annual Bash in Brooklynbam.org.The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 36th annual tribute to King, held in person and streaming live at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, will feature a dance piece by Kyle Marshall, set to the oratory of King’s final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” and performances by the singer Nona Hendryx with Craig Harris & Tailgaters Tales and the Sing Harlem choir. A keynote address will also be delivered by Imani Perry, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University. Following the event, visitors can view a display of digital billboards inspired by the writings of bell hooks or attend a free screening at 1 p.m. of the documentary “Attica,” about the violent 1971 prison uprising.The choreographer Kyle Marshall, who created a dance piece set to the oratory of King’s final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.”Steven SpeliotisActivism and the Artsapollotheater.org.The Apollo Theater and WNYC’s 16th annual celebration will hold two virtual broadcasts on Monday, at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., engaging WNYC radio hosts, scholars and community leaders in a discussion about how the struggle for social justice has affected artists like Nina Simone and John Legend. Guests include the Rev. Al Sharpton, the sports journalist William C. Rhoden and Trazana Beverley, who won a Tony Award for her role in “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” The free event can be streamed through the Apollo’s Digital Stage.Learn More About the Metropolitan Museum of Art$125 Million Donation: The largest capital gift in the Met’s history will help reinvigorate a long-delayed rebuild of the Modern wing.Recent Exhibits: Our critics review a masterpiece “African Origin” show, an Afrofuturist period room and a round-the-world tour of Surrealism.Behind the Scenes: A documentary goes inside the Met to chronicle one of the most challenging years of its history.A Guide to the Met: From the must-see galleries to the lesser-known treasures, here’s how to make the most of your visit.Discover Seneca Villagecentralparknyc.org; metmuseum.org.Take a tour of Central Park that conjures Seneca Village, the largest community of free African American property owners in early-19th-century New York. Beginning at Mariners’ Gate near the West 85th Street entrance at 2 p.m. on Saturday, your guide will share how the area, once home to around 1,600 residents, provided a respite from the racial discrimination and crowded conditions of downtown Manhattan — until residents were forcibly displaced in 1857 to make way for Central Park. That history is also the subject of a new, vibrant installation across the park, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room” imagines the home of a Village resident as it might still exist if the family had been left to live undisturbed.Make a Craftwavehill.org.Just before leading the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, King passed through the hamlet of Gee’s Bend and encouraged its 900 residents to vote. They would go on to establish the Freedom Quilting Bee, a group that allowed women of the town to earn an income by making quilts that were sold at Saks and Sears; some textiles have entered the permanent collection of the Met. You can put your own sewing skills to the test on Saturday or Sunday at Wave Hill House in the Bronx, where plentiful squares of fabric will be on hand.Quiltmaking at Wave Hill House in the Bronx. Joshua BrightChoose a Causeamericorps.govSince King’s birthday was first observed, it’s been a tradition for volunteers across the country to devote the day to service. Whether you commit to a few hours or a whole month, the website of the federal public-service organization AmeriCorps has a directory where you can search for volunteer opportunities (including ones specific to the holiday). There are virtual options, too, like tutoring or transcription for the Smithsonian Institution and National Archives.A Streaming Sermontheaterofwar.com“The Drum Major Instinct,” a sermon King delivered in 1968 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, will be presented on Zoom on Monday at 7 p.m. by Theater of War Productions and the office of Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate. Along with the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, and the city police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, Williams will take part in a dramatic reading of the text, which challenges people to channel justice, righteousness and peace into acts of service and love. Accompanying them will be performances of music composed in honor of Michael Brown Jr., the 18-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.‘Activist New York’mcny.orgAn ongoing exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York chronicles 350 years of social activism in the city, including civil rights, immigration, transgender activism and women’s rights. It begins with the struggle for religious tolerance during the Dutch colonial period, encompasses debates over nudity, prostitution and contraception in New York, from 1870 to 1930, and ends more recently, with the Movement for Black Lives. New material is added regularly, so it’s one to revisit. More

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      Britney Spears Has Always Fought Back. By Dancing.

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      Before, during and now after the conservatorship that oversaw her life for 13 years, the pop star has used dance to assert her power and connect with her audience.When Britney Spears spoke out in June during a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court, she talked about how those in charge of her conservatorship had strictly governed her life for 13 years, calling the arrangement “abusive.” But she also emphasized one way she had held on to some control.She kept on dancing.She “actually did most of the choreography,” she said, referring to 2018 rehearsals for her later scuttled “Britney: Domination” residency in Las Vegas, “meaning I taught my dancers my new choreography myself.”There was “tons of video” of these rehearsals online, she said, adding: “I wasn’t good — I was great.”It was a powerful way of reminding those listening of the confidence she conveyed as a performer throughout her career. Onstage, Spears maintained control over her body, otherwise the subject of constant scrutiny — about her virginity, her weight, her wardrobe. Through movement, she conjured a world of her own making in which she really was the boss.With her expansive arm gestures, rapid-fire turns and abdominal dexterity, Spears has always used dance to communicate her strength. Brian Friedman, the choreographer responsible for some of Spears’s most famous routines, noted that there was a visible change in her approach to dancing after the conservatorship was put in place in 2008.“I feel like that was her way of being able to be in control of something, because she didn’t have control over so much,” Friedman said in a phone interview. “So by being able to step into the studio and say ‘I don’t want to do this, I want to do this, I’m going to make up my own thing,’ it gave her some kind of power.”When Spears announced “an indefinite work hiatus” in early 2019, she began posting videos of herself dancing to Instagram. Most of these clips show her twirling alone, in a loose, visibly improvised style, on the marble floor of her California home.In the videos, she looks straight at the camera, breaking her gaze only for the occasional turn, or to flip her hair. This isn’t the movement of the practiced stage performer and pop star; it’s more exploratory, as if she were searching for the right step or feeling instead of trying to nail it.Under the conservatorship, Spears’s videos became the subject of debate and speculation. While some fans cheered her on, others were bothered by her lack of polish and level stare. “Does anyone ever feel awkward or uncomfortable watching this?” someone asked in the comments of a post in February.For Spears, though, the point was simple. It’s about “finding my love for dancing again,” she wrote in a March post. In others, she said that she moves like this for up to three hours a day, taping her feet to avoid getting blisters.For dancers and choreographers who have worked with Spears, her Instagram’s focus on dance made sense. “In a period of time when she did not have freedom, that gave her freedom,” Friedman said.Sharing her improvised dance sessions also allowed her to connect directly with fans. Brooke Lipton, who danced with Spears from 2001 to 2008, said in a phone interview that Spears’s “dancing told the world she needed help — without saying anything, because she couldn’t.”If Spears can still show off the occasional fouetté turns, in which she spins on one leg, it’s because of a lifetime training in the dance studio. Lipton, Friedman and others say that Spears matched the range and commitment of professional dancers, with a preternatural knack for picking up choreography on the fly.“She grew up dancing,” said Tania Baron, who started performing at shopping malls with the budding star in 1998. “There are artists who dance certain parts of a show. There are artists who are just natural movers. Then you’ve got people like Britney, who can really dance just like her dancers.”Spears’s care and attention to how she presented herself in movement speak to how she understood her body as a dancer does — as an artistic instrument. Top-level choreographers might have been creating dances for her, but they were also working for other pop stars. The difference, Elizabeth Bergman, a scholar of commercial dance, said in a phone interview, is “the way she’s doing them.”In the years before the conservatorship, Spears carefully chose the choreographers she worked with. Valerie Moise, also known as Raistalla, who danced in Spears’s concerts and videos in 2008 and 2009, points out that these collaborations contributed to the longstanding popularity of jazz funk, known for its defiant, hard-hitting moves.“This is a style that is almost like a culture to her,” Moise said in a phone interview. “It accentuates how she wants to express herself.”And Spears did something more than just continue in the tradition of the pop artists who danced before her.“Of course there was Madonna, and Michael and Janet, and they were fantastic,” Lipton said. “But dance was also evolving at a time when Wade and Brian were stepping up the expectations of what dancers could do,” she added, referring to Spears’s frequent choreographers, Wade Robson and Friedman. Their routines were faster than those of the previous generation, with more movement and action per beat. “Every count was being filled,” Lipton said.When learning routines from choreographers, Spears would speak up when they included steps that did not feel right on her body, sometimes suggesting her own moves instead. “She was very much the boss,” Baron said about Spears at the beginning of her career. “Not in a mean way. But if she didn’t like something, she would make it known.”From an early age, Spears recognized dance as a medium in which presence and artistry can’t be faked. “When you’re dancing, you just can’t do a step, you’ve got to get into it,” she said when she was a 12-year-old star of “The Mickey Mouse Club.”Randy Connor, who choreographed Spears’s routine in the classic “ … Baby One More Time” video, said he believed her ability to convey her feelings with and through her body was a major part of her initial star appeal. “It resonated with so many people because of her conviction in the movement,” he said in a phone interview.Coming up in an industry known for its artifice, Spears used dance as a means of transparency with fans. Everyone knows there is no such thing as dance-syncing.“That was truly how she communicated as an artist,” Friedman said. Even before the start of Spears’s conservatorship, he added, “she couldn’t really say everything she wanted in public, in interviews. But when she danced, it was unapologetic.”Spears’s songs became coming-of-age and coming-out anthems, and learning her moves enabled fans to explore aspects of their identities with the same boldness she projected with her body. Imitating her performances allowed them to “feel the spirit of Britney,” as Jack says on the TV show “Will & Grace,” after doing the shoulder lifts and arm pumps that are part of the routine to “Oops! … I Did It Again.”Lipton emphasizes that Spears chose her steps so that anyone watching could move along with her.“She would do the choreography just a little bit less,” Lipton said. “In a moment where we’re doing all of these turns and slams, she just smiles and points her fingers out, before joining back in. It wasn’t unattainable.”If Spears embraced her strength in movement along with her fans, many commentators did not, often describing her dancing as if it were a ploy used to compensate for lack of talent. Other young female pop stars like Jessica Simpson and Avril Lavigne boasted about not dancing, as if this made them more authentic artists. In 2002, The Associated Press identified a crop of “Anti-Britneys” who supposedly challenged the idea that you have to “cavort in tight clothes to be sexy and successful in pop music.”Friedman says that Spears’s dancing was about her artistry, not manufactured sex appeal.“As Britney’s choreographer for many years, I never set out to make movements to pleasure anyone else,” he said. “It was about how I could make her feel empowered in her body.”In the 2008 documentary “Britney: For the Record,” filmed in the early days of the conservatorship, Spears speaks as if already aware of how important dance would become for her under the control of others.“Dancing is a huge part of me and who I am. It’s like something that my spirit just has to do,” she says. “I’d be dead without dancing.”Arguing for the conservatorship’s termination 13 years later, she identified one of her breaking points as the moment when she was refused the right even to this control over her body. Spears said that at a dance rehearsal in early 2019, after saying that she wanted to modify a step in the choreography, she was informed that she was not cooperating.She declared her response firmly in court: “I can say no to a dance move.” More

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      12 Things Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2022

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      ‘Better Call Saul’ returns, Cecily Strong stars in a one-woman show, and Faith Ringgold gets an overdue retrospective.As a new year begins in uncertain times (again), our critics highlight the TV, movies, music, art, theater, dance and comedy that promise a welcome distraction.Margaret LyonsThe End of ‘Better Call Saul’Bob Odenkirk stars as Jimmy McGill in AMC’s “Better Call Saul,” which returns for its final season this spring.Greg Lewis/AMC, via Associated PressI’ll be sad forever when “Better Call Saul” is over, so part of me is actually dreading the sixth and final season. I never want to say goodbye to Jimmy or Kim — but man, am I dying to see them again. By the time “Saul” returns on AMC this spring, it will have been off the air for two full years. (Bob Odenkirk, its star, recovered from a heart attack that occurred on set this year.) If there was ever a show that knew how to think about endgames, it’s this one, among the most carefully woven dramas of our time. Of course, thanks to “Breaking Bad,” we know exactly where some of these characters are headed but not how they get there or how they feel about it or whom they’ll hurt along the way. Hurry back! But also, go slow.Salamishah TilletA ‘Downton Abbey’ Sequel Travels to FranceThe sequel “Downton Abbey: A New Era” is partly set in the South of France; from left, Harry Hadden-Paton, Laura Carmichael, Tuppence Middleton and Allen Leech.Ben Blackall/Focus FeaturesOK, so yes, it was weird that my friends Sherri-Ann and Amber and I were the only Black people in the theater when we saw the movie “Downton Abbey” in 2019. At the time, we agreed that despite the absence of people of color in the theater and onscreen, we still found delight in the grandeur — the clothing, the castle, the cast of characters, especially the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley, marvelously played by Dame Maggie Smith. Now that we’ve set our calendars to March 18, 2022, for the sequel, “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” I’m looking forward to seeing how the franchise tries to reinvent itself on the cusp of a new era, the 1930s, and how it fares in the current racial moment. (A Black female face pops up in a trailer.) Partly set in the South of France after the Dowager Countess learns she has inherited a villa there, the movie sends the upstairs Crawley clan and their downstairs employees off on another adventure, with another wedding. While Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton,” has a new show, “The Gilded Age,” premiering on HBO in January — which seems to be a bit more thoughtful in its take on race, class and identity — here’s hoping that this sequel to “Downton” takes a bow in grand Grantham style.Jesse GreenCecily Strong in a One-Woman ShowCecily Strong, left, and the director Leigh Silverman; Strong is starring in “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” at the Shed.Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesJane Wagner’s 1985 play “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” was custom-made for the chameleonic gifts of her life partner (and, later, wife), Lily Tomlin. Who else could have inhabited its 12 highly distinct characters — among them a runaway punk, a bored one-percenter and a trio of disillusioned feminists — with such sardonic sympathy? When Tomlin won a 1986 Tony Award for her work, it seemed to seal the idea that the performer and the play were forever one. But in the kind of casting that makes you smack your head with delight, Cecily Strong takes up Tomlin’s mantle in a revival directed by Leigh Silverman at the Shed, expected to open on Jan. 11. Strong — whose “Saturday Night Live” characters include Jeanine Pirro, the Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party and, most recently, Goober the Clown Who Had an Abortion When She Was 23 — seems like another custom fit, nearly four decades later.Jon ParelesAfrofuturism at Carnegie HallSun Ra Arkestra will perform its galactic jazz as part of the Afrofuturism festival that starts in February.Nate Palmer for The New York TimesStepping outside its own history as a bastion of Western classical music, Carnegie Hall will be the hub of a citywide, multidisciplinary festival of Afrofuturism: the visionary, tech-savvy ways that African-diaspora culture has imagined alternate paths forward. Carnegie’s series is expected to start Feb. 12 with the quick-cutting, sometimes head-spinning electronic musician Flying Lotus. (One challenge might be the main hall’s acoustics.) Shows at Zankel Hall include the galactic jazz of the Sun Ra Arkestra with the cellist and singer Kelsey Lu and the spoken-word insurgent Moor Mother (Feb. 17); the flutist Nicole Mitchell leading her Black Earth Ensemble; and the clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid with her Autophysiopsychic Millennium (Feb. 24); the African-rooted hip-hop duo Chimurenga Renaissance and the Malian songwriter Fatoumata Diawara (March 4); and the D.J., composer and techno pioneer Carl Craig leading his Synthesizer Ensemble (March 19). There’s far more: five dozen other cultural organizations will have festival events.Anthony TommasiniThe Metropolitan Opera Rethinks VerdiThe set model for a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” which is expected to open at the Metropolitan Opera in February.Metropolitan OperaVerdi’s “Don Carlos” may not be a flawless opera. But it’s a profound work; I think of it as Verdi’s “Hamlet.” Written for the Paris Opera, it nodded to the French grand style and included epic scenes and massed choruses. But at its 1867 premiere, it was deemed overly long and ineffective. Verdi revised the opera several times, making cuts, translating the French libretto into Italian, leaving a confused legacy of revisions. The Metropolitan Opera is giving audiences a chance to hear the work as originally conceived in its five-act French version, which many consider the best. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has led superb Met performances of the Italian adaptation, will be in this pit for this new production by David McVicar. The starry cast, headed by the tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, includes Sonya Yoncheva, Elina Garanca, Etienne Dupuis, Eric Owens and John Relyea. When performances begin on Feb. 28, be prepared for a five-hour show with two intermissions; I can’t wait.Mike HaleTrue-Crime, Starring Renée ZellwegerRenée Zellweger is starring in the true-crime mini-series “The Thing About Pam,” premiering March 8 on NBC.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesThis winter brings more than the usual number of big stars taking time out for the small screen, like Uma Thurman (“Suspicion”), Christopher Walken (“Severance”) and Samuel L. Jackson (“The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray”). The one that piques my interest the most is Renée Zellweger, taking on only her second lead television role in “The Thing About Pam,” premiering March 8 on NBC. Zellweger can be hit or miss, but her hits — “The Whole Wide World,” “Chicago,” “Judy” — keep her in the very top rank of American actresses. Here she plays Pam Hupp, who is implicated in multiple deaths and is currently serving a life sentence for one of them, in a true-crime mini-series whose showrunner, Jenny Klein, was a producer on solid TV offerings like “The Witcher” and “Jessica Jones.”Jason FaragoAt 91, Faith Ringgold Gets a RetrospectiveA retrospective of the work of Faith Ringgold opens at the New Museum in February and will include “Dancing at the Louvre: The French Collection Part I, #1,” from 1991. Faith Ringgold/ARS, NY and DACS, London, via ACA GalleriesWhen the Museum of Modern Art opened its expanded home in 2019, its most important Picasso suddenly found itself with a new companion: a tumultuous, panoramic painting of American violence that Faith Ringgold painted in 1967. Ringgold, born 91 years ago in Harlem, has never been an obscure figure: Her art was displayed in the Clinton White House as well as most of New York’s museums; her children’s books have won prizes and reached best-seller lists. But she has had to wait too long for a career-spanning retrospective in her hometown. The one at the New Museum, which opens Feb. 17, will reveal how Ringgold intertwined the political and the personal: first in her rigorously composed “American People” paintings, which channeled the civil rights movement into gridded, repeating, syncopated forms; and then in pieced-fabric “story quilts” depicting Michael Jackson or Aunt Jemima, and geometric abstractions inspired by Tibetan silks and embroideries. The show comes with a major chance for rediscovery: the first outing in over two decades of her “French Collection,” a 12-quilt cycle that recasts the history of Paris in the 1920s through the eyes of a fictional African-American artist and model.Maya PhillipsA Viking Prince Seeks RevengeAlexander Skarsgård in a scene from “The Northman,” a story about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father, directed by Robert Eggers.Focus FeaturesRobert Eggers has directed only two feature films, and yet he’s already known as a maker of beautifully strange, critically acclaimed movies. “The Witch,” from 2016, was followed three years later by the grim and perplexing “The Lighthouse.” Both established Eggers as a stylistic descendant of the Brothers Grimm, a crafter of macabre fables that descend into torrents of madness. Which is why I’m excited to see his third feature film, “The Northman,” expected to premiere on April 22, about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father. Steeped in Icelandic mythology, the story is based on the tale of Amleth, the inspiration for Prince Hamlet, my favorite sad boy of English literature. Eggers wrote the screenplay with the Icelandic poet Sjón, so we can surely expect an epic with epic writing to match. There’s also a stellar cast, including Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe — and Björk as a witch. I’d watch for that alone.Gia KourlasTransformation, Via Tap and Modern DanceA still from Ayodele Casel’s “Chasing Magic”; from left, Anthony Morigerato, John Manzari, Casel and Naomi Funaki.Kurt CsolakThere are times, however rare, when a virtual dance can be just as stirring as a live one. Ayodele Casel’s joyful and galvanizing “Chasing Magic,” presented by the Joyce Theater in April, was just that. Now the tap dancer and choreographer unveils a new version of the work, directed by Torya Beard, for the stage — an actual one — starting Tuesday, barring any Covid cancellations. And the following month, “Four Quartets,” an ambitious evening-length work by the modern choreographer Pam Tanowitz, lands at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Feb. 10-12). Based on T.S. Eliot’s poems, the production features live narration by the actress Kathleen Chalfant, music by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and a set by Brice Marden; in it, Tanowitz continues her exploration of the relationship between emotion and form. It’s true that one is tap; the other, modern dance. What do they have in common? Both have much to say and to show about the transporting, transformative power of dance.Isabelia HerreraThe Rapper Saba Explores TraumaSaba, a rapper from Chicago, will release a new album, “Few Good Things,” on Feb. 4.Mat Hayward/Getty ImagesDiaristic and quietly intense, Saba, a rapper from Chicago, is the kind of artist who navigates grief with a cool solace. In 2018, his record “Care for Me” considered this theme in the aftermath of the murder of his cousin and collaborator, who was stabbed to death a year earlier. Out on Feb. 4, his next album, “Few Good Things,” confronts equally gutting life challenges: the anxiety of generational poverty and the depths of survivor’s guilt. It reprises Saba’s slithering and poetic flows, which breathe out a profound sense of narrative. The beats are still buttery, jazzy and meticulously arranged. But this time around, there is more wisdom — a recognition that living through trauma means finding gratitude and affirmation in the moments you can.Jason ZinomanComedian Taylor Tomlinson on TourThe comedian Taylor Tomlinson in her Netflix special “Quarter-Life Crisis,” from 2020; a new one is in the works.Allyson Riggs/Netflix“Quarter-Life Special,” the debut stand-up special from Taylor Tomlinson, introduced a young artist with real potential. Tomlinson tautly evoked a clear persona (cheerful but not the life of the party; more like, as she put it, “the faint pulse of the pot luck”) and told jokes marked by a diverse arsenal of act outs and manners of misdirection. She covered standard territory (dating, sex, parents, kids) with enough insight and dark shadings to get your attention. Most excitingly, every once in a while, she let her thought process spin out into deliriously unexpected directions, like the story that led her to imagine a test for sadness conducted by the police. “Instead of a breathalyzer,” she explained, “they have you sigh into a harmonica.” This Netflix special made a splash, but it would have probably been a bigger one if it didn’t come out in March 2020. One pandemic later, she has another hour ready, and another Netflix special on the way. She’s now performing it on tour, which is expected to stop in New York in January at Town Hall and then the Beacon Theater. More

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      Our Favorite Arts Photos of 2021

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      After 15 months of darkness, live music returned. In New York, Foo Fighters reopened Madison Square Garden.Photograph by Tim Barber for The New York TimesOur Favorite Arts Photos of 2021These are the pictures that defined an unpredictable year across the worlds of art, music, dance and performance.Laura O’Neill More