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      in Music

      Seven Takes on the Lurid Dance of the Seven Veils in Strauss’s ‘Salome’

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      “I’m ready,” Salome sings. And then she dances.Her predatory stepfather has promised her anything she wants if she performs for him. She obliges with the alternately wild and delicate Dance of the Seven Veils, one of the most famous numbers in all opera.The Dance of the Seven VeilsChicago Symphony Orchestra; Fritz Reiner, conductor (Sony)A highlight of Strauss’s “Salome,” which the Metropolitan Opera will broadcast live to movie theaters on Saturday, it is also one of the art form’s greatest challenges. Few sopranos capable of singing the daunting role have much experience with dance, let alone with carrying a sensual nine-minute solo.Is it a seduction? A striptease? A cry for help? Performers have taken this intense, lurid scene in many different directions, bringing out undercurrents of sexual awakening and violence. The Met’s new production inverts the traditional portrayal, uncovering the wounded girl beneath the stereotypical femme fatale.Here are (yes) seven memorable versions from the long history of opera’s boldest dance.Silent SalomeAlla Nazimova.Nazimova ProductionsNot quite 20 years after the opera’s 1905 premiere, a silent film version of “Salome” — really an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play on which the opera is based — embraced the material’s perfumed, verging-on-surreal Orientalism. The actress Alla Nazimova’s Salome is a spoiled, petulant teenager.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      In ‘Operation Mincemeat,’ the Crack Timing Required to Put on a Show

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      “Operation Mincemeat,” a Tony Award nominee for best musical, tells the absurdly improbable true story of how a tiny group of misfits in British intelligence diverted the German army in World War II. It’s a comic tale of a plan always on the verge of falling apart, and that’s how it is represented theatrically.“The show works at the knife edge of what we’re capable of,” said David Cumming, a member of SpitLip, the British theater collective that performs — and wrote and composed — the musical. “It’s the energy of ‘They’re barely pulling this off,’ and to be honest, we barely are.”Just as the story is hard to believe — a corpse planted with plans for a fictitious Allied invasion of Sardinia threw the Germans off the actual attack on Sicily? — so is the idea that a mere cast of five can tell it, shuffling through a total of 82 characters often across gender and mostly at the speed of farce. Like the military operation it portrays, the theatrical one requires elaborate planning.Natasha Hodgson, left, and Jak Malone wait for their next entrances. For this reason, “Operation Mincemeat,” which was a hit on the West End before opening on Broadway in March, is one of the most tightly choreographed shows imaginable. The performers are in nearly constant motion onstage — acting, singing, dancing, changing costumes and characters, tossing and catching props and rolling pieces of the set around, all in exact coordination with one another, the lighting and the music.The choreography behind the scenes is equally involved and precise, as I learned when I visited backstage at the Golden Theater during a recent matinee. There was no safe place to stand and watch. My attentive chaperone — Beau Lettieri, the assistant stage manager — had to keep me moving to stay out of the way.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      25 Ways to Get in on Dance Music’s Renaissance

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      Dance music is experiencing another boom period, and this time the music is traveling faster and farther than ever, thanks to new streaming platforms and more fans getting access to making (and vibing to) an even broader slate of sounds. Here’s how to get involved.5 Ways to Club AnywhereBoiler RoomWhat began in 2010 as a single livestream called Boiler Room, with a webcam taped to a D.J. booth, has become not just a global proving ground but a rite of passage, and a catchall term for a format that’s changed the course of dance music.Start here: Kaytranda’s devilishly chaotic, often hilarious 2013 Montreal session; a fun hour of soulful dance music that foreshadows big things to come for the artist and the format alike.The Lot RadioStarted in 2016 on a triangle-shaped patch of gravel in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Lot has drawn a wide range of top-tier talent to D.J. inside its sticker-covered booth (or as Charli XCX did last summer, dance on top of it).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Dance Music Is Booming Again. What’s Different This Time? A Lot.

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      In late February, just after midnight, a cavernous warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard thumped with the Ibiza-based D.J. and producer Solomun’s dramatic, synth-heavy house music as red light strobed over a sea of raucous 20- and 30-somethings. Two days earlier, he had been at the 20,000-capacity Sphere in Las Vegas opening for Anyma, an Italian American electronic music star whose run of New Year’s Eve shows sold out in under 24 hours, grossing $21 million in ticket sales.Just before 2 a.m. a few weeks later, the London-based D.J. and radio host Moxie was shaking Brooklyn’s Public Records with a classic ’90s house track, smiling ear to ear as she watched over the sweaty 200-capacity nightclub. On a more frigid March night, Zeemuffin, a Brooklyn-based D.J. originally from Pakistan, was onstage at the Bushwick venue Elsewhere, headlining “Azadi” (“freedom” in Urdu), a bill that featured a wide array of global dance music sounds — Chicago house, Jersey club, Baltimore house, dancehall, the Baile funk of Brazil, the gqom of South Africa — while a sold-out crowd went wild.Zeemuffin at Elsewhere in Brooklyn.Zeemuffin (real name: Zainab Hasnain DiStasio) took a trip back to Pakistan around the top of the year to D.J. a club in Karachi where the near pandemonium at her set bordered on ecstasy. “Never in my whole life — and I’m from there — have I experienced anything like this” in the city, she recalled. She described a crowd of “queer people, trans people, Black people, white people, Asian people, all in one space,” and sighed. “It was unbelievable.”Over the past four years, scenes like these are increasingly playing out all over the world, as dance music experiences yet another boom period. Festival lineups are jam-packed with D.J.s, while some of the biggest names in pop music (including Beyoncé, Drake and Charli XCX) have made dance music-inspired or adjacent albums. It’s usually at this point — when a newspaper sees fit to write about it — that the comedown starts.This moment, however, is different.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Jiggly Caliente, ‘RuPaul Drag Race’ Star and Judge, Dies at 44

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      Fans knew Ms. Caliente for her sense of humor, vigorous dance skills and interactions with fellow cast members on the popular drag television show.Jiggly Caliente, the fiercely humorous “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star and a judge of the show’s Philippines spinoff, who also had a recurring role as a shopkeeper on the television series “Pose,” died on Sunday. She was 44.Her death was confirmed on Instagram by her family. The post did not cite a cause or say where she died.The death came days after her family said that Ms. Caliente had recently had a health setback. The family said that she was hospitalized because of a severe infection and had surgery in which she lost most of her right leg.Ms. Caliente rose to prominence as a contestant in the fourth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in which she was eliminated in the seventh episode in 2012. She appeared in the sixth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” in 2021 and was eliminated in the second episode.“Thank you so much for showing every chubby little brown girl in the world that there is always a girl to look up to,” she told RuPaul after her elimination in 2021. “This doesn’t break me. This doesn’t end me. This is not the last of me.”Fans knew Ms. Caliente for her humor, her vigorous dance skills and splits, and her interactions with fellow cast members.In one episode, she called out a competitor, Lashauwn Beyond, for not knowing how to apply her makeup nicely. Ms. Beyond replied, “This is not ‘RuPaul’s Best Friend Race,’” a line that became a catchphrase in the show.Jiggly Caliente at “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” in 2021.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Empire State Realty Trust, Inc.Created by the entertainer RuPaul Charles in 2009, the show follows a group of national and international drag performers who compete each season in weekly challenges and lip sync battles to take the top cash prize and crown.Ms. Caliente (Bianca Castro-Arabejo, offstage) was born on Nov. 29, 1980, in San Pedro, Philippines, and moved to the United States in 1991 with her mother and brother.When she began performing as a drag queen, she named herself after Jigglypuff, the pink spherical character from the popular “Pokémon” franchise.In 2016, Ms. Caliente came out as a transgender woman. In an Instagram post on Trans Day of Visibility that year, she wrote, “Our trans Brothers and sisters are very much a part of our struggle for equality.”Her popularity on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” led to her becoming a judge on the show’s Philippines version beginning in 2022.In addition to those appearances, Ms. Caliente had a recurring role as a clothing shopkeeper, Veronica Ferocity, on the FX series “Pose,” which followed a group of young and older gay, transgender and drag performer friends in New York City in the 1980s.Information on survivors was not immediately available. More

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      in Theater

      Patrick Adiarte, Actor Seen in Musicals and on ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 82

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      As a young immigrant from the Philippines, he had roles on Broadway in “The King and I” and “Flower Drum Song.” He was later a familiar face on TV.Patrick Adiarte, who was imprisoned as a baby in the Philippines during World War II and then found a new life in the United States as an actor and dancer on Broadway, in Hollywood and on television, died on April 10 in Los Angeles. He was 82.The cause of death, in a hospital, was complications of pneumonia, said Stephanie Hogan, his niece.Mr. Adiarte had a varied career, in which he played many characters, of various ethnicities, before he was cast in the first season of “M*A*S*H” as Ho-Jon, the Korean helper of the wisecracking doctors Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and Trapper John (Wayne Rogers).As a child, Patrick portrayed one of the children of the king of Siam (now Thailand), who are tutored by a widowed schoolmistress in the original 1951 Broadway production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I.” As a teenager, he played an assimilated Chinese American character in another of their shows, “Flower Drum Song” (1958).Mr. Adiarte, center, with Mike Lookinland, left, and Christopher Knight in a 1972 episode of “The Brady Bunch.”ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesHe also appeared in the movie versions of both shows, in 1956 and 1961.In the 1960s and early ’70s, he was seen on several TV series. On “Bonanza,” he played a Native American named Swift Eagle; on “Ironside,” he was a Samoan boxer; on “CBS Playhouse,” he was a Viet Cong guerrilla. He played a Hawaiian tour guide in two episodes of “The Brady Bunch,” filmed in Hawaii.In “High Time,” a 1960 film directed by Blake Edwards, he played an Indian exchange student who rooms with Bing Crosby, whose character returns to college in his 50s.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      Celia Rowlson-Hall’s Sisyphean Beach Balls

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      “I hate large beach balls,” Celia Rowlson-Hall said at the Baryshnikov Arts Center last week.A director, choreographer and performer best known for her quirky and surreal work in film, Rowlson-Hall was rehearsing “Sissy,” an idiosyncratic hybrid of dance and theater. It draws on the Greek myth of Sisyphus, eternally condemned to push a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll back down. The boulder is represented by a giant beach ball, and in rehearsal the performers were having trouble lofting it into a net suspended above the stage. After failing a few times, they succeeded, only to have the ball bounce back out again.This Sisyphean moment was not planned, but it might easily have been part of the choreography. “Sissy,” which runs at the Baryshnikov Center Thursday through Saturday, is the kind of production that playfully blurs the line between real life and make believe. It’s about a director-choreographer (Zoë Winters), a new mother who is making a dance piece that uses the metaphor of Sisyphus to symbolize the difficulties of balancing motherhood with her artistic life. Rowlson-Hall came up with the idea while she was pregnant and working on a feature film.From left, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Ida Saki and Marisa Tomei at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. “Being with the dancers, I’m in heaven,” Tomei said, adding she has relished the opportunity to be physically expressive, “thinking in shapes and body sculpture.”Thea Traff for The New York Times“It was a camera movement in my head,” she said during a rehearsal break. “I saw the camera coming around and revealing this woman who had been hiding behind the rock the whole time. And I was like, ‘Oh, what’s her story?’”Much of the story that Rowlson-Hall wrote is drawn from her life, but it’s nested in layers of fiction and art making. In “Sissy,” which alternates between scenes of dialogue and dance, Winters’s character presents a work-in-progress set in a rock quarry. (Lucas Hedges plays a quarry worker.) A dancer (Ida Saki) pushes the beach ball around, dances out childbirth, then pushes a slightly smaller beach ball (representing the moon) while holding her child — a child played by Saki’s own 1-year-old son.The showing seems to be going fine when it’s interrupted by a paleobotanist, who announces that she has made a “once in a millennium” discovery in the parking lot: the fossilized root system of the world’s oldest forest. It seems the boulder that is the director’s show is rolling down the mountain again, and she will have to adjust to the new circumstances — a process made more farcical because the paleobotanist is played by the gifted physical comedian and actress Marisa Tomei.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      How ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show’ Took Over TikTok

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      I have never watched an episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show.” Yet here I am at my desk, singing to myself: “Aaron. Pierre. That’s Mufasa.”If you’re familiar with the tune, you’re singing it now too. If not, picture Pierre, the dashing actor who voiced the title character in “Mufasa: The Lion King,” strut-dancing his way down a hallway surrounded by … Actually, just watch it below and then keep reading.

      @jenniferhudsonshow Aaron Pierre, that’s Mufasa #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #aaronpierre #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show OK, welcome back.“The Jennifer Hudson Show,” a daytime talk show, is not a top syndicated program, according to the ratings agency Nielsen. But it has amassed a huge social media following with its behind-the-scenes promotional videos.Before taking the stage, guests make their way down a hallway as members of the show’s staff serenade them with a complicated, customized hype song, sung entirely from memory. Some of the biggest names in American culture — Michelle Obama, Usher, Angela Bassett — have danced, skated or nervously shimmied through this “spirit tunnel” as the TikTok cameras roll.Some of the videos are awkward. Some are suave. Most go viral.During the show’s first season in 2022, members of the show’s staff learned that cheering for Hudson before she took the stage boosted her confidence and energy.

      @jenniferhudsonshow We got @imkevinhart #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #kevinhart #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show

      @jenniferhudsonshow It’s Gwen! @Gwen Stefani! S-T-E-F-A-N-I! #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #gwenstefani #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More