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      5 Things to Do This New Year’s Weekend

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyweekend roundup5 Things to Do This New Year’s WeekendOur critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually.Dec. 31, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETDanceMaking the Old NewKenneth Shirley of Indigenous Enterprise in a scene from a short film that is streaming on the Joyce Theater’s website until Sunday.Credit…Danny UpshawSince September, the Joyce Theater has been offering a free virtual fall season that is as good as some of its best in-person ones. The secret has been surprise and an avoidance of the usual suspects. If that is a little less true of the latest batch of videos — available through Sunday at joyce.org/joycestream — the variety still provides plenty of spice.The connecting theme might be “tradition reimagined.” Indigenous Enterprise captures the beauty of Native American dances in urban settings. Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo revives parts of the 19th-century ballet “Paquita” with an all-male cast. Streb Extreme Action does daredevil stunts with huge machines; it’s like a carnival side show performed by cool astronauts.Vanessa Sanchez and the group La Mezcla, from San Francisco, mix modern tap and zapateado to celebrate the women of the Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940s. And Rennie Harris Puremovement shows once again how hip-hop can convey both can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it flash and hard-to-watch grief.BRIAN SEIBERTKidsBon Voyage to BoredomA scene from “Journey Around My Bedroom,” an interactive production that will livestream on Zoom through Jan. 10.Credit…New Ohio TheaterA room can be a refuge, but without an easy exit, it can also feel like a jail. For the Frenchman Xavier de Maistre, it was both: While under house arrest in 1790, he wrote “Voyage Around My Room,” a tribute to the creativity his imprisonment unleashed.Now de Maistre’s work has inspired New Ohio Theater for Young Minds’ first virtual presentation, “Journey Around My Bedroom.” Written by Dianne Nora and directed by Jaclyn Biskup, with songs by Hyeyoung Kim, this whimsical 35-minute play emulates Victorian toy theater, in which puppeteers manipulated cutouts on a tiny stage. (Myra G Reavis did the inventive design, assisted by Ana Maria Aburto.) Traveling in a failing dirigible, de Maistre visits Xavi, a contemporary girl who discovers that her own room offers hidden adventure.The production, which livestreams on Zoom Fridays to Sundays through Jan. 10, includes audience participation and a post-show discussion. Children can also follow the journey, though less interactively, in an on-demand video Jan. 11-Feb. 11. Tickets to gain access to these performances are pay-what-you-wish and available at newohiotheatre.org.LAUREL GRAEBERArtTime to Ponder Time ItselfClodion’s “The Dance of Time: Three Nymphs Supporting a Clock” will be the topic of discussion on Friday during the Frick Collection’s “Cocktails With a Curator.”Credit…Claude Michel and JeanBaptiste Lepaute; via Frick Collection; Michael BodycombWhen the Frick Collection introduced its virtual series, “Cocktails With a Curator,” its deputy director and Peter Jay Sharp chief curator, Xavier F. Salomon, described the program as a way to show how the museum’s pieces are “relevant to issues we’re facing today.” That’s especially true for the artwork featured in the next episode: “The Dance of Time: Three Nymphs Supporting a Clock,” by the 18th-century sculptor Clodion with the clockmaker Jean-Baptiste Lepaute. Looking back on 2020, the passage of time has never felt so complicated.There’s also nothing simple about “The Dance of Time.” The three terra-cotta nymphs holding up a globe-encased clock are either witnessing the passage of time or represent it themselves. To find out more, make a metropolitan (or the mocktail alternative, a ginger ale hot toddy; both recipes are on the Frick’s website), and tune in to the museum’s YouTube channel on Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern time to hear Salomon discuss the timelessness of this unique timepiece.MELISSA SMITHPop & RockSummerStage Is Just a Screen AwaySoccer Mommy and her band performed for SummerStage Anywhere in November. The show is available to watch on YouTube.Credit…via City Parks FoundationWhile its recently renovated stage in Central Park sat idle this past season, SummerStage — the nonprofit organization that typically floods the five boroughs with live outdoor music — sprouted roots in virtual space. Its season of free online programming, SummerStage Anywhere, is now complete, but is archived on their YouTube channel for latecomers to enjoy.Offerings are wide-ranging, crossing disciplines, genres and generations. Soccer Mommy, an indie-rock darling, performed her first and, so far, only full-band show in support of her latest album, “Color Theory.” ASAP Ferg joined Fab 5 Freddy, one of hip-hop’s elder statesmen, for a conversation about creativity in the face of racial injustice. Gloria Gaynor and her band revisited hits from her disco heyday (including, of course, “I Will Survive,” a song that has special resonance these days). For those of us yearning for a time when we can once again spread our blankets and take in the sounds at Rumsey Playfield, this series provides a nice stopgap.OLIVIA HORNClassical MusicCatch Up With ‘Density 2036’Claire Chase recently released four full-length CDs for her ongoing “Density 2036” project.Credit…Karen ChesterPreviously, listeners curious about “Density 2036” — the ambitious, 23-year commissioning project that the flutist Claire Chase started in 2013 — have needed to stake out her concerts. (While Chase recorded her interpretations of a couple of the earliest works at the beginning of the project, studio renditions seemed to have taken a back seat to live dates in recent years.)Now four new full-length CDs, released by Corbett vs. Dempsey Records, allow a global audience to catch up with the first half-decade of Chase’s initiative. (They’re also available digitally on Bandcamp.) Highlights abound in each set, thanks to a range of composers that includes Marcos Balter, George Lewis and Pauline Oliveros. And one particularly striking stretch on “Part IV” features a version of Tyshawn Sorey’s “Bertha’s Lair” (with the composer heard on percussion alongside Chase). That fancifully vigorous piece is directly followed by a distinct yet similarly percussive work: “Five Empty Chambers” by Vijay Iyer.SETH COLTER WALLSAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      A ‘Great Cultural Depression’ Looms for Legions of Unemployed Performers

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA ‘Great Cultural Depression’ Looms for Legions of Unemployed PerformersWith theaters and concert halls shuttered, unemployment in the arts has cut deeper than in restaurants and other hard-hit industries.Soon after the pandemic struck, a year’s worth of bookings vanished for the acclaimed violinist Jennifer Koh, who found herself streaming concerts from her apartment.Credit…Elias Williams for The New York TimesDec. 26, 2020Updated 5:32 a.m. ETIn the top echelons of classical music, the violinist Jennifer Koh is by any measure a star.With a dazzling technique, she has ridden a career that any aspiring Juilliard grad would dream about — appearing with leading orchestras, recording new works, and performing on some of the world’s most prestigious stages.Now, nine months into a contagion that has halted most public gatherings and decimated the performing arts, Ms. Koh, who watched a year’s worth of bookings evaporate, is playing music from her living room and receiving food stamps.[embedded content]Pain can be found in nearly every nook of the economy. Millions of people have lost their jobs and tens of thousands of businesses have closed since the coronavirus pandemic spread across the United States. But even in these extraordinary times, the losses in the performing arts and related sectors have been staggering.During the quarter ending in September, when the overall unemployment rate averaged 8.5 percent, 52 percent of actors, 55 percent of dancers and 27 percent of musicians were out of work, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. By comparison, the jobless rate was 27 percent for waiters; 19 percent for cooks; and about 13 percent for retail salespeople over the same period.In many areas, arts venues — theaters, clubs, performance spaces, concert halls, festivals — were the first businesses to close, and they are likely to be among the last to reopen. “My fear is we’re not just losing jobs, we’re losing careers,” said Adam Krauthamer, president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians in New York. He said 95 percent of the local’s 7,000 members are not working on a regular basis because of the mandated shutdown. “It will create a great cultural depression,” he said.The new $15 billion worth of stimulus aid for performance venues and cultural institutions that Congress approved this week — which was thrown into limbo after President Trump criticized the bill — will not end the mass unemployment for performers anytime soon. And it only extends federal unemployment aid through mid-March.The public may think of performers as A-list celebrities, but most never get near a red carpet or an awards show. The overwhelming majority, even in the best times, don’t benefit from Hollywood-size paychecks or institutional backing. They work season to season, weekend to weekend or day to day, moving from one gig to the next.The median annual salary for full-time musicians and singers was $42,800; it was $40,500 for actors; and $36,500 for dancers and choreographers, according to a National Endowment for the Arts analysis. Many artists work other jobs to cobble together a living, often in the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries — where work has also dried up.They are an integral part of local economies and communities in every corner of rural, suburban and urban America, and they are seeing their life’s work and livelihoods suddenly vanish. Terry Burrell, an actor and singer in Atlanta, saw the tour of her show “Angry, Raucous and Gorgeously Shameless” canceled after the virus struck.Credit…Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York Times“We’re talking about a year’s worth of work that just went away,” said Terry Burrell, whose touring show, “Angry, Raucous and Gorgeously Shameless,” was canceled. Now she is home with her husband in Atlanta, collecting unemployment insurance, and hoping she won’t have to dip into her 401(k) retirement account.Linda Jean Stokley, a fiddler and part of the Kentucky duo the Local Honeys with Monica Hobbs, said, “We’re resilient and are used to not having regular paychecks.” But since March hardly anyone has paid even the minor fees required by their contracts, she said: “Someone owed us $75 and wouldn’t even pay.”Then there’s Tim Wu, 31, a D.J., singer and producer, who normally puts on around 100 shows a year as Elephante at colleges, festivals and nightclubs. He was in Ann Arbor, Mich., doing a sound check for a new show called “Diplomacy” in mid-March when New York shut down. Mr. Wu returned to Los Angeles the next day. All his other bookings were canceled — and most of his income.Mr. Wu, and hundreds of thousands of freelancers like him, are not the only ones taking a hit. The broader arts and culture sector that includes Hollywood and publishing constitutes an $878 billion industry that is a bigger part of the American economy than sports, transportation, construction or agriculture. The sector supports 5.1 million wage and salary jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. They include agents, makeup artists, hair stylists, tailors, janitors, stage hands, ushers, electricians, sound engineers, concession sellers, camera operators, administrators, construction crews, designers, writers, directors and more. “If cities are going to rebound, they’re not going to do it without arts and cultural creatives,” said Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and School of Cities.Steph Simon, a hip-hop artist from Tulsa, had been booked to perform at South by Southwest when the virus hit and eliminated the rest of his gigs for the year. Credit…September Dawn Bottoms/The New York TimesThis year, Steph Simon, 33, of Tulsa, finally started working full time as a hip-hop musician after a decade of minimum-wage jobs cleaning carpets or answering phones to pay the bills.He was selected to perform at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, played regular gigs at home and on tour, and produced “Fire in Little Africa,” an album commemorating the 1921 massacre of Black residents of Tulsa by white rioters.“This was projected to be my biggest year financially,” said Mr. Simon, who lives with his girlfriend and his two daughters, and was earning about $2,500 a month as a musician. “Then the world shut down,” he said. A week after the festival was canceled, he was back working as a call center operator, this time at home, for about 40 hours a week, with a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant on the weekends.In November, on his birthday, he caught Covid-19, but has since recovered.Performers on payrolls have suffered, too. With years of catch-as-catch-can acting gigs and commercials behind her, Robyn Clark started working as a performer at Disneyland after the last recession. She has been playing a series of characters in the park’s California Adventure — Phiphi the photographer, Molly the messenger and Donna the Dog Lady — several times a week, doing six shows a day.“It was the first time in my life I had security,” Ms. Clark said. It was also the first time she had health insurance, paid sick leave and vacation.In March, she was furloughed, though Disney is continuing to cover her health insurance.“I have unemployment and a generous family,” said Ms. Clark, explaining how she has managed to continue paying for rent and food.Many performers are relying on charity. The Actors Fund, a service organization for the arts, has raised and distributed $18 million since the pandemic started for basic living expenses to 14,500 people.“I’ve been at the Actors Fund for 36 years,” said Barbara S. Davis, the chief operating officer. “Through September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 recession, industry shutdowns. There’s clearly nothing that compares to this.”Higher-paid television and film actors have more of a cushion, but they, too, have endured disappointments and lost opportunities. Jack Cutmore-Scott and Meaghan Rath, now his wife, had just been cast in a new CBS pilot, “Jury Duty,” when the pandemic shut down filming.“I’d had my costume fitting and we were about to go and do the table read the following week, but we never made it,” Mr. Cutmore-Scott said. After several postponements, they heard in September that CBS was bailing out altogether.Many live performers have looked for new ways to pursue their art, turning to video, streaming and other platforms. Carla Gover’s tour of dancing to and playing traditional Appalachian music as well as a folk opera she composed, “Cornbread and Tortillas,” were all canceled. “I had some long dark nights of the soul trying to envision what I could do,” said Ms. Gover, wholives in Lexington, Ky., and has three children.She started writing weekly emails to all her contacts, sharing videos and offering online classes in flatfoot dancing and clogging. The response was enthusiastic. “I figured out how to use hashtags and now I have a new kind of business,” Ms. Gover said.But if technology enables some artists to share their work, it doesn’t necessarily help them earn much or even any money.The violinist Ms. Koh, known for her devotion to promoting new artists and music, donated her time to create the “Alone Together” project, raising donations to commission compositions and then performing them over Instagram from her apartment.The project was widely praised, but as Ms. Koh said, it doesn’t produce income. “I am lucky,” Ms. Koh insisted. Unlike many of her friends and colleagues, she managed to hang onto her health insurance thanks to a teaching gig at the New School, and she got a forbearance on her mortgage payments through March. Many engagements have also been rescheduled — if not until 2022.She ticks off the list of friends and colleagues who have had to move out of their homes or have lost their health insurance, their income and nearly every bit of their work.“It’s just decimating the field,” she said. “It concerns me when I look at the future.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      5 Things to Do This Christmas Weekend

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyweekend roundup5 Things to Do This Christmas WeekendOur critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually.Dec. 24, 2020, 11:03 a.m. ETTheaterLet Them Entertain You, Pandemic-StyleTelly Leung, with Joe Goodrich on piano, in a number from “Sondheim Unplugged,” which premieres on Saturday.Credit…Ordinary SundayIn the fantasy version of a December evening, we would sweep in off West 54th Street, down the staircase and into the cozy, enveloping glamour that always makes Feinstein’s/54 Below feel like it’s ready for its close-up. We would slide into a booth and order a little something lovely. Then the long-running cabaret series “Sondheim Unplugged” would begin — one more shimmering perk to spending the holidays in New York.Happily, the pandemic version of “Sondheim Unplugged” is quite nice, too: elegant, consoling, peppered with deadpan humor. Shot on five cameras and streaming on Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time (and then available on demand from Sunday to Jan. 9), it’s an hour of Sondheim hits and obscurities, sung by Broadway performers, with only piano for accompaniment. High points include Telly Leung’s heartstring-plucking “Being Alive,” Lucia Spina’s seethingly angry “Could I Leave You?” and T. Oliver Reid’s exquisitely regretful “Good Thing Going.” Tickets to access the performance are $25 at 54below.com. Pour a glass of something bubbly and enjoy.LAURA COLLINS-HUGHESDanceEnding 2020 CalmlyA scene from Jordan Demetrius Lloyd’s film “The Last Moon in Mellowland,” which is streaming until Dec. 31.Credit…Jordan Demetrius LloydIf you need a respite from holiday activities, or some space to reflect on the past year, consider spending time with Jordan Demetrius Lloyd’s dreamy, entrancing short film “The Last Moon in Mellowland.” Lloyd, a Brooklyn-based dance artist, transitioned into making work for the screen when theaters shut down in March. Part of Issue Project Room’s “soft bodies in hard places,” a series organized by the curator Benedict Nguyen and timed to planetary events (like a new moon or a solstice), “Mellowland” draws the viewer into a 20-minute meditation that loosely traces the arc of a day. Lloyd describes this world as a place that “viewers already remember,” and there is a calming familiarity in its rhythms and repetitions, as the camera rests on a spinning ceiling fan or two dancers at the ocean’s edge.With performances by Lloyd, Breeanah Breeden, Ariana Speight and Demetries Morrow, and dramaturgy by Stephanie George, the film, which was released in November, is available free through Dec. 31 at issueprojectroom.org/event/last-moon-mellowland.SIOBHAN BURKEGospelAn Empty Hall Full of SpiritThe Harlem Gospel Choir will perform a livestream from Sony Hall on Friday.Credit…Simone di LucaOn the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday next month, the Harlem Gospel Choir will celebrate 35 years as one of the country’s leading contemporary gospel groups, and a globally recognized ambassador for the genre. During any normal year the choir would do a world tour at least once, and whenever it wasn’t on the road, the group would play a Sunday brunch each week at Sony Hall near Times Square, joined by a full band, bringing the sounds of praise to a mix of devotees and tourists.The group will return to (an empty) Sony Hall on Friday for the first time since March, for a special Christmas Day performance at 5 p.m. Eastern time, doing its part to sustain the spirit of communion at a social distance. Tickets to view the livestream cost $25 and can be purchased at sonyhall.com. Archived video of the performance will remain available to ticket holders through Jan. 1.GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOKIDSShe’s Got the BeatClockwise from top left, Emily Lang, Alexis Aguiar, Cassandra Barckett, Brian Criado, Lexy Piton and Jamiel Tako L. Burkhart in the Amas Musical Theater production of “Hip Hop Cinderella,” which is available on demand until Jan. 31.Credit…Jim RussekForget magic and fairy godmothers. The title character of “Hip Hop Cinderella” needs rap and rocket science.Charmingly played by Alexis Aguiar, she masters both in this 35-minute space-age adaptation, which streams on demand on Stellar through Jan. 31. (Tickets are $15-$25.) Presented by Amas Musical Theater in association with HipHopMusicals.com, the show still pits Cinderella against a scheming stepmother (Lexy Piton) and stepsisters (Cassandra Barckett and Emily Lang), but the prize isn’t a royal marriage. Instead, a prince (Jamiel Tako L. Burkhart) intends to crown the winner of a hip-hop ball and rap contest. With the help of her loyal robot (Brian Criado), Cinderella, a.k.a. Ella C, just might get the galaxy’s groove back.Conceived by Linda Chichester and David Coffman and directed by Christopher Scott, this production incorporates clever graphics and even a little space shuttle footage. The show, which features a book by Scott Elmegreen and music and lyrics by Rona Siddiqui, will also amuse adults when the stepmother makes a familiar-sounding complaint: “That competition was rigged!”LAUREL GRAEBERComedyThe Ultimate Kosher ChristmasJudy Gold will headline Kung Pao Kosher Comedy, which will livestream on Zoom and YouTube Live Friday through Saturday.Credit…M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesFor the first time in its 28-year history, Kung Pao Kosher Comedy, a.k.a. “Jewish Comedy on Christmas in a Chinese Restaurant,” is online, which also means you needn’t go to San Francisco to enjoy the shows.The headliner is Judy Gold, who appears regularly on “The Drew Barrymore Show” and published a book this year, “Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians We Are All in Trouble.” Also performing is Alex Edelman, whose piece about attending a neo-Nazi meeting in New York, “Just for Us,” earned him a nomination for best show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018.Kung Pao Kosher Comedy’s founder, Lisa Geduldig, hosts the events, which air on Zoom and YouTube Live at 8 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday and Friday, and at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets to access the broadcast are $25-$50 and available at cityboxoffice.com.SEAN L. McCARTHYAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Breakout Stars of 2020

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Breakout Stars of 2020Here are the 12 stars and trends that managed to thrive and shine in an impossible year.Clockwise from bottom left: Sarah Cooper, Maria Bakalova, the hand of the artist Salman Toor, Jonathan Majors and Radha Blank.Credit…Clockwise from bottom left: Lacey Terrell/Netflix; Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times; Peter Fisher for The New York Times; Adria Malcolm for The New York Times; Douglas Segars for The New York Times Dec. 23, 2020Updated 7:44 a.m. ETWhile plenty of us felt trapped this year, wandering through the same spaces and talking to the same people, it was the artists and entertainers who kicked open windows to new sights, sounds and experiences. Yes, the pandemic dealt a significant hit to the culture world, but nothing could derail its creativity. So, despite the limitations, stars in a variety of disciplines managed to thrive and shine, and by doing so, made a difficult year more tolerable for most everyone. Here are 12 artists and trends who gave us a fresh perspective in 2020.Radha Blank wrote, directed and starred in the autobiographical satire “The 40-Year-Old Version.”Credit…Douglas Segars for The New York TimesFilmRadha BlankRadha Blank was the hero many of us needed in 2020, when the concept of time got an overdue interrogation. In her autobiographical satire “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” which was on Netflix, she portrays a playwright who — refusing to believe that her dreams have an expiration date — pivots to rap as a grown woman. Like her character, Blank, who grew up Brooklyn, is a 40-something playwright who knows what it’s like to fight to elevate her voice.And elevate it she did. She wrote, directed and starred in the film, her first feature, a New York Times Critic’s Pick that A.O. Scott called “a catalog of burdens and also a heroic act of unburdening.”In “I May Destroy You,” Michaela Cole explores sexual assault, truth, revenge and trauma; she also created the HBO series.Credit…Natalie Seery/HBOTelevisionMichaela CoelMichaela Coel may have created the most important TV show of 2020: “I May Destroy You.” The series, which premiered on HBO in June, is inspired by Coel’s own experience with sexual assault, and in it, she deftly plucks apart ideas around truth, revenge, anxiety, trauma and fear.Coel, a 33-year-old British-Ghanaian writer and actor, plays a writer who is drugged and raped in a bathroom stall. The assault leaves her traumatized and grappling with hazy, fragmented memories. “Coel brings a superb discipline to the portrayal of distress,” wrote Mike Hale, a TV critic at The Times.In a critic’s notebook, Salamishah Tillet, a professor and contributing critic at large for The Times, noted that the show could be considered “part of a larger cultural trend in which Black women’s experiences with sexual assault are appearing with greater frequency and treated with more sensitivity.” (She pointed to the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly” and TV shows like “Queen Sugar,” “The Chi” and “Lovecraft Country” as examples.)“By offering multifaceted endings,” Tillet went on, “Coel gives victims of sexual assault, particularly Black women who have survived rape, some of the most radical and cathartic moments of television I have ever witnessed.”ComedySarah CooperSarah Cooper, 43-year-old comedian, made her mark in 2020 by pantomiming the words of President Trump in viral videos that have been viewed tens of millions of times across social media. Jim Poniewozik called her first Trump lip-sync, “How to Medical,” a “49-second tour de force” and said Cooper was helping to develop “a kind of live-action political cartooning.”“Cooper’s Trumpian drag is partly a caricature of performative masculinity,” Poniewozik wrote.The success of her videos helped land Cooper a Netflix special, “Everything’s Fine,” directed by Natasha Lyonne. “This special shows that she can do much more than lip-sync,” Jason Zinoman, a comedy columnist at The Times, said of the production. “She has a promising future as an actor in television or movies.” She currently has a show in the works for CBS.Maria Bakalova, the Bulgarian actress who plays Borat’s teenage daughter in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” Credit…Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesFilmMaria BakalovaIt’s no easy feat to stand out next to the unabashed actor-prankster Sacha Baron Cohen, but Maria Bakalova, a 24-year-old from Bulgaria, was riveting as the teenage daughter of his Borat character in his most recent mockumentary film. As the culture reporter Dave Itzkoff put it in The Times: “Sacha Baron Cohen may be the star of ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,’ but it is Maria Bakalova who has emerged its hero.”Her performance also grabbed headlines for an edited scene involving President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who is seen putting his hands down his pants in a hotel room, where Bakalova, impersonating a TV journalist, is interviewing him. He later denied any wrongdoing.About the opportunity to star in a major American film, Bakalova said: “I will be really grateful to Sacha for giving this platform to an Eastern European, to play a strong and complicated character who’s not just one thing.”Adrienne Warren was nominated for a Tony for her starring role in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical.” Credit…Molly Matalon for The New York TimesTheaterAdrienne WarrenAdrienne Warren’s starring role in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” earned her a Tony nomination in October for best actress in a musical. But it was her vocal and steadfast stand on racial injustice, including in the arts world, that brought Warren, 33, more deeply into one of the most urgent conversations of 2020. In an impassioned, impromptu speech this summer — during the Times event Offstage: Opening Night on the subject of being Black on Broadway — she questioned whether she even wanted to continue performing as part of an institution that didn’t stand up for people like her.“The last thing on my mind right now is me going back to Broadway,” Warren said. But in an interview with The Times after her nomination, she said, “I know this is what I’m supposed to do, but the question is whether I want to do it at the address I’ve been doing it.”As for what a dream role might look like for her in the future: “I want to make sure that I’m telling stories that represent me as a Black woman and also push the needle forward in ways that resonate with people, both in this nation and abroad,” she said.Jonathan Majors made a mark in both HBO’s “Lovecraft Country” and the Spike Lee drama “Da 5 Bloods.”Credit…Adria Malcolm for The New York TimesTelevisionJonathan MajorsJonathan Majors isn’t afraid of pain, and that may just be his secret to success. “I’m willing to hurt more,” he told Alexis Soloski in The Times over the summer. “It doesn’t bother me.”The 31-year-old star had a big year doing just that to great effect onscreen, as a Korean War veteran in the supernatural HBO thriller “Lovecraft Country,” set in 1950s Jim Crow America, and the son of a Vietnam War veteran in “Da 5 Bloods,” Spike Lee’s drama for Netflix that was named a Critic’s Pick in The Times by A.O. Scott.“Emotions in the men in my family run deep,” Majors told Soloski — who described him as “an actor of precision and intensity.” When asked if acting gave him a place to put those big emotions, he said: “With acting, it was almost like I was in a corridor, and it just appeared to me and said, ‘Go that way, son.’ I didn’t get in trouble once I started acting. I had a place to put the energy, to put my focus.”The artist Christine Sun Kim performing in American Sign Language at the Super Bowl in Miami in February.Credit…A J Mast for The New York TimesArtChristine Sun KimIn February, just minutes ahead of the Super Bowl in Miami, the artist Christine Sun Kim stood at the 40-yard line performing in American Sign Language as Yolanda Adams sang “America the Beautiful” and Demi Lovato sang the national anthem.“As a child of immigrants, a grandchild of refugees, a Deaf woman of color, an artist and a mother, I was proud to perform,” she wrote in an Op-Ed for The Times afterward. But because only a fraction of her performance was aired, she called the experience “a huge disappointment — a missed opportunity in the struggle for media inclusiveness on a large scale.”“Being deaf in America has always been political,” she wrote.Kim, 40, who was born in California and is now based in Berlin, has spent years channeling this perspective into her art. At the Whitney Biennial in New York last year, she exhibited hand-drawn charcoal drawings from her “Degrees of Deaf Rage in the Art World,” and in 2013, the Museum of Modern Art selected her for its exhibition “Soundings: A Contemporary Score,” dedicated to sound art.“I want people to start thinking about what deafness means,” she told Vogue this year, “and maybe that will reduce the stigma and society will be more inclusive of people with disabilities.”MusicVerzuzYou could call it a battle, a face-off, a showdown. But Verzuz is also something else entirely: a pandemic pivot, cutting right to the very core of quarantine entertainment by combining livestreaming and nostalgia while filling a hole left by canceled live shows and shuttered clubs.Since April, Verzuz, the creation of Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, has streamed over 20 battles. Each one has brought together two hip-hop or R&B heavyweights: Gladys Knight vs. Patti LaBelle, Erykah Badu vs. Jill Scott, Gucci Mane vs. Jeezy, Babyface vs. Teddy Riley, Snoop Dogg vs. DMX, Ludacris vs. Nelly, to name a few. Millions of people have tuned in.Initially, Verzuz was streamed on Instagram Live. In July, Verzuz and Apple Music announced they’d struck a partnership which allowed the videos to be viewed live and on-demand on that platform, too.Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for The Times, called the events staples of this era and “less battles in the conventional sense than choreographed chest-puffing combined with bows of respect.” To that point, there is no winner winner. As Swizz Beatz told ABC News: “The people won, the culture won, the music won.”The artist Salman Toor has his first solo museum show, “How Will I Know,” up at the Whitney Museum of American Art.Credit…Peter Fisher for The New York TimesArtSalman ToorThe painter Salman Toor was about to have his first solo museum show, “How Will I Know,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art early this year when the shutdown thwarted the whole thing. He took it pretty well. “My first reaction was, thank God,” he told The Times in June. “I’m not a social animal.” But disappointment inevitably crept in as he realized the exhibition might never happen.Thankfully for him and fans of figurative and queer art, the show eventually did go up at the Whitney, where it will appear through April. And that’s only the start for Toor. Over the summer, he joined the gallery Luhring Augustine, which will open an exhibition of his work in the next few years.Toor, 37 — who was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, and moved to the United States in 2002 — primarily depicts gay men of South Asian descent. In The Times, the writer Ted Loos described Toor’s contemporary settings: “iPhones appear here and there, the glow emanating from them emphasized with bright lines.” Toor said that he aspired to represent “what this new free space is like,” referring to living an openly queer life. In Pakistan, gay sex is illegal. “People are curious to know what it means to have the freedom of so much choice, and what is the nature of that freedom and what is the cost of that.”TheaterElizabeth StanleyUp against Adrienne Warren for that Tony is Elizabeth Stanley, who was nominated for her gutting performance as Mary Jane — “a brittle tiger mom suppressing secret trauma,” as Jesse Green, a theater critic for The Times, put it — in “Jagged Little Pill,” based on Alanis Morissette’s smash album from 1995. When Broadway shut down, Stanley, 42, did not take too long before shifting her energy toward digital performances.In April, she told Deadline that she’d already been wondering about what else she could do during the pandemic: “How can I twist to this and find something new and exciting out of this time?”What came of that question epitomized what much of theater looked like in 2020: creating new digital spaces for live performance.In April, she delivered a jaw-dropping rendition of “The Miller’s Son” from “A Little Night Music,” for the acclaimed event “Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration.” In June, she sang her wrenching rendition of “You Learn,” from “Jagged Little Pill,” for an Opening Night Times event on the future of Broadway. On Dec. 13, Stanley and her “Jagged Little Pill” co-stars reunited for “Jagged Live In NYC: A Broadway Reunion Concert.”Kali Uchis performing in Atlanta in 2018. She recently released the album “Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios).”Credit…Paul R. Giunta/Invision, via Associated PressMusicKali UchisIn 2018, Kali Uchis released a debut album titled “Isolation.” Clearly she was ahead of her time. In November, the Colombian-American artist — with a moody, seductive, dance-inducing style — dropped her second studio album, this time predominantly in Spanish, “Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios).” (Its lead single, “Aquí Yo Mando,” features the up-and-coming rapper Rico Nasty.) The album “goes genre-hopping and era-hopping, from romantically retro orchestral bolero to brittle reggaeton,” Jon Pareles, the chief pop music critic of The Times, wrote this month.Having grown up between Colombia and the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, Uchis, 26, had many inspirations and influences, she told Interview magazine. “The last thing I ever want to do is be a predictable artist. I love that my fans never know what to expect when I drop a song.”DanceThe Year of the SoloIt wasn’t just that the coronavirus put an end to live performance in March. The need for social isolation uprooted every part of what gets a dance onto a stage: Suddenly, there were no more classes, no more rehearsals. How to fill that void? The solo.This solitary form has provided an outlet for frustration, for sadness and even for euphoria as dance artists continue to find meaning through movement. It’s true that some attempts have been sentimental and aimless, but much good has emerged from it, too. Instagram, from the start, illuminated these explorations in a steady stream of posts; choreographers worked with dancers remotely to create films in which the body could be fearless and free. “State of Darkness,” Molissa Fenley’s 1988 solo revived for seven dancers, was a glittering, harrowing reminder of the achievement that comes from strength, both internal and external.One of its interpreters, the dancer Sara Mearns, said that she saw herself as “someone that has gone through really, really hard times, but then in the end has come out stronger and on top.” Yes, dance and dancers are suffering right now. But the solo has given it — and them — a powerful voice. — Gia Kourlas, dance critic for The New York TimesAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Artists We Lost in 2020, in Their Words

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Artists We Lost in 2020, in Their WordsGabe Cohn, Peter Libbey and Dec. 22, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETIt’s always difficult to lose a favorite actor or a beloved musician. But in 2020, a year of crisis upon crisis, some of those losses were especially painful, brought on by a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone. The artists on this list could help us better understand the time we’re living through, or at least help us get through it with a smile or cathartic cry. Here is a tribute to them, in their own words.Chadwick BosemanCredit…Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times“When I dared to challenge the system that would relegate us to victims and stereotypes with no clear historical backgrounds, no hopes or talents, when I questioned that method of portrayal, a different path opened up for me, the path to my destiny.”— Chadwick Boseman, actor, born 1976 (Read the obituary.)Ann ReinkingCredit…Jack Mitchell/Getty Images“It’s crucial to know where the work stops and your life begins.”— Ann Reinking, dancer, born 1949 (Read the obituary.)Larry KramerCredit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“I don’t consider myself an artist. I consider myself a very opinionated man who uses words as fighting tools.”— Larry Kramer, writer, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)Luchita HurtadoCredit…Anna Watson/Camera Press, via Redux“When that first photograph was taken of Earth from space and you saw this little ball in blackness … I became aware of what I felt I was. I feel very much that a tree is a relative, a cousin. Everything in this world, I find, I’m related to.”— Luchita Hurtado, artist, born 1920 (Read the obituary.)Sean ConneryCredit…Bob Haswell/Express, via Getty Images“If you start thinking of your image, or what the mysterious ‘they’ out there are thinking of you, you’re in a trap. What’s important is that you’re doing the work that’s best for you.”— Sean Connery, actor, born 1930 (Read the obituary.)Little RichardCredit…Eloy Alonso/Reuters“I’m not conceited — I’m convinced.”— Little Richard, singer, born 1932 (Read the obituary.)Alex TrebekCredit…Alamy“My life has been a quest for knowledge and understanding, and I am nowhere near having achieved that. And it doesn’t bother me in the least. I will die without having come up with the answers to many things in life.”— Alex Trebek, TV host, born 1940 (Read the obituary.)Othella DallasCredit…Beda Schmid“Dancing and singing is all I always wanted. Doing what you want makes you happy — and old.”— Othella Dallas, dancer, born 1925 (Read the obituary.)Eddie Van HalenCredit…Ebet Roberts/Redferns, via Getty Images“All I know is that rock ’n’ roll guitar, like blues guitar, should be melody, speed and taste, but more important, it should have emotion. I just want my guitar playing to make people feel something: happy, sad, even horny.”— Eddie Van Halen, guitarist, born 1955 (Read the obituary.)Ennio MorriconeCredit…Paul Bergen/EPA, via Shutterstock“In my opinion, the goal of music in a film is to convey what is not seen or heard in the dialogue. It’s something abstract, coming from afar.”— Ennio Morricone, composer, born 1928 (Read the obituary.)Diana RiggCredit…Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That’s the only way to go. If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic.”— Diana Rigg, actress, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Helen ReddyCredit…Herb Ball/NBC Universal, via Getty Images“I would like to thank God because she makes everything possible.”— Helen Reddy, singer, born 1941 (Read the obituary.)Jerry StillerCredit…Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times“Laughter is the answer to all the pain I experienced as a kid. When I’m not doing it, it all gets eerie and weird. I am only left with the memories that inhabit me that can only be knocked out by hearing laughter.”— Jerry Stiller, comedian, born 1927 (Read the obituary.)Christiane Eda-PierreCredit…Keystone/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images“I have never had any support, I have not been encouraged by anyone, it is not in my character or the customs of my family. I made myself on my own, thanks to my work.”— Christiane Eda-Pierre, singer, born 1932 (Read the obituary.)Milton GlaserCredit…Robert Wright for The New York Times“I am totally a believer in the idea that style is a limitation of perception and understanding. And what I’ve tried in my life is to avoid style and find an essential reason for making things.”— Milton Glaser, designer, born 1929 (Read the obituary.)CristinaCredit…Ebet RobertsMy life is in a turmoilMy thighs are black and blueMy sheets are stained so is my brainWhat’s a girl to do?— Cristina, singer, born 1956 (Read the obituary.)Adam SchlesingerCredit…Ebet Roberts/Redferns, via Getty Images“I’d rather write about a high school prom or something than write about a midlife crisis, you know?”— Adam Schlesinger, songwriter, born 1967 (Read the obituary.)Anthony ChisholmCredit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“I’m an actor. I can play a lizard, anything. I’ve worked in ‘nontraditional’ theater. I did ‘Of Mice and Men.’ Played Slim. The great Joe Fields did a Willy Loman. We as actors want to act.”— Anthony Chisholm, actor, born 1943 (Read the obituary.)Olivia de HavillandCredit…Julien Mignot for The New York Times“I would prefer to live forever in perfect health, but if I must at some time leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise longue, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a flute of champagne beside me and having just discovered the answer to the last problem in a British cryptic crossword.”— Olivia de Havilland, actress, born 1916 (Read the obituary.)Krzysztof PendereckiCredit…Rafal Michalowski/Agencja Gazeta, via Reuters“Listening to classical music is like reading philosophy books, not everybody has to do it. Music is not for everybody.”— Krzysztof Penderecki, composer, born 1933 (Read the obituary.)Helen LaFranceCredit…Bruce Shelton, via Associated Press“If I do something somebody likes, well, I’m satisfied because somebody liked what I did, but I don’t think it’s important.”— Helen LaFrance, artist, born 1919 (Read the obituary.)Kirk DouglasCredit…Associated Press“If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don’t think I’d want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting.”— Kirk Douglas, actor, born 1916 (Read the obituary.)Aileen Passloff, leftCredit…Nina Westervelt for The New York Times“I was strong and tireless and full of passion and loved dancing as deeply as one could ever love anything.”— Aileen Passloff, dancer, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)Kenny RogersCredit…Wally Fong/Associated Press“I love my wife, I love my family, I love my life, and I love my music.”— Kenny Rogers, singer, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Peter BeardCredit…Shawn Ehlers/WireImage, via Getty Images“An artist who goes around proclaiming that the art he’s making is art is probably making a serious mistake. And that’s one mistake I try not to make.”— Peter Beard, artist, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Charley PrideCredit…Bettmann Archive, via Getty Images“What we don’t need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgment of what belongs and what doesn’t.”— Charley Pride, singer, born 1934 (Read the obituary.)Elizabeth WurtzelCredit…Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times“The way I am is that I put everything I have into whatever I’m doing or thinking about at the moment. So it’s not right when people say I’m self-absorbed. I think I’m just absorbed.”— Elizabeth Wurtzel, author, born 1967 (Read the obituary.)Leon FleisherCredit…Steve J. Sherman“I was driven, if anything, even harder by all of my successes. There was always more to attain, and more to achieve, and more musical depths to plumb, and lurking behind it all, the terrifying risk of failure.”— Leon Fleisher, pianist, born 1928 (Read the obituary.)Zoe CaldwellCredit…Patrick A. Burns/The New York Times“I know the business of acting is sharing an experience, provoking an emotion. I don’t want to use the world love. It’s an abused word, hackneyed. But the truth is that I love to act in the theater.”— Zoe Caldwell, actress, born 1933 (Read the obituary.)Louis Johnson, leftCredit…Marbeth“I am a dancer who loves dance, any kind of dance. In choreographing, I don’t think of dance as ballet, modern or anything, just dance.”— Louis Johnson, dancer, born 1930 (Read the obituary.)Terrence McNallyCredit…Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times“I like to surprise myself. I’ve always been attracted to projects where I don’t know how they’re going to turn out. If I ever evince bravery in my life, it tends to be at a keyboard.”— Terrence McNally, playwright, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Jean ErdmanCredit…Jack Mitchell/Getty Images“I found myself involved with the dance as a child in Hawaii. We’d have picnics on the sand and get up and do hulas. I didn’t even know what I was talking about at the time, but I wanted to create my own theater.”— Jean Erdman, dancer, born 1916 (Read the obituary.)Bill WithersCredit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times“I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.”— Bill Withers, singer, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)ChristoCredit…Andrea Frazzetta for The New York Times“I am allergic to any art related to propaganda. And everything: commercial propaganda, political propaganda, religious propaganda — it is all about propaganda. And the greatness of art, like poetry or music, is that it is totally unnecessary.”— Christo, artist, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)John le CarréCredit…Charlotte Hadden for The New York Times“I’m horrified at the notion of autobiography because I’m already constructing the lies I’m going to tell.”— John le Carré, author, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)Mirella FreniCredit…Karin Cooper/Washington National Opera“Life nails you to something real in the falsehood of the stage. I have always felt a connection between daily life and art. I’ve always known where the stage door was, to get in and get out. Some others get lost in the maze. My reality has been my key.”— Mirella Freni, singer, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)Ming Cho LeeCredit…Robert Caplin for The New York Times“I’ve been criticized for doing very Brechtian design, but when I go to a play or an opera, I love getting involved rather than just looking at it. I prefer a total theatrical experience to an analytical experience.”— Ming Cho Lee, theater designer, born 1930 (Read the obituary.)Lynn SheltonCredit…Stuart Isett for The New York Times“You can pick up a camera. The technology is there. You can get your friends together and you can make a movie. You should do it. Now.”— Lynn Shelton, director, born 1965 (Read the obituary.)Nick Cordero, center.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The producer kept telling me: ‘Get tough. Get mean. Get angry.’ But I’m a nice guy. I’m Canadian.”— Nick Cordero, actor, born 1978 (Read the obituary.)Toots HibbertCredit…Michael Putland/Getty Images“You have got to be tough. Don’t just give up in life. Be strong, and believe in what you believe in.”— Toots Hibbert, singer, born 1942 (Read the obituary.)Regis PhilbinCredit…Karsten Moran for The New York Times“I want people to enjoy what I do, and understand what I’m doing is for their enjoyment. And that’s all I can ask for.”— Regis Philbin, TV host, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)Mary Higgins ClarkCredit…Tony Cenicola/The New York Times“Let others decide whether or not I’m a good writer. I know I’m a good Irish storyteller.”— Mary Higgins Clark, author, born 1927 (Read the obituary.)Irrfan KhanCredit…Chad Batka for The New York Times“No one could have imagined I would be an actor, I was so shy. So thin. But the desire was so intense.”— Irrfan Khan, actor, born 1967 (Read the obituary.)Betty WrightCredit…Paul Bergen/Redferns, via Getty Images“As long as you keep yourself in love with people, you can transcend time.”— Betty Wright, singer, born 1953 (Read the obituary.)John Prine Credit…Kyle Dean Reinford for The New York TimesWhen I get to heavenI’m gonna take that wristwatch off my armWhat are you gonna do with timeAfter you’ve bought the farm?— John Prine, musician, born 1946 (Read the obituary.)AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Ann Reinking: Playful, Refined and With Legs for Days

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAn AppraisalAnn Reinking: Playful, Refined and With Legs for DaysDiscipline and abandon gave the dancer an ingrained elegance, an internal organization of the body that you sense even when it’s not pronounced.Ms. Reinking, photographed in 1977.Credit…Jack Mitchell/Getty ImagesPublished More

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      Ann Reinking Dies at 71; Dancer, Actor, Choreographer and Fosse Muse

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAnn Reinking Dies at 71; Dancer, Actor, Choreographer and Fosse MuseFrom the ensembles of “Cabaret” and “Pippin,” she stepped into the role of Roxie Hart in “Chicago,” and the rest is Tony-winning history.Ann Reinking as a character based on herself in Bob Fosse’s autobiographical 1979 movie. “All That Jazz.” “I think I came off as a good person,” she said, “and as someone who meant something to him.”Credit…Everett CollectionPublished More

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      Othella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOthella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95Ms. Dallas taught the Afro-Caribbean-influenced Dunham dance technique in Europe well into her 90s. She also had a career as a blues, jazz and R&B singer. An early member of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, she later had success as a singer.Credit…via Peter WydlerDec. 11, 2020Othella Dallas, who was one of the last surviving early members of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the nation’s first self-supporting Black modern dance troupe, and taught the Afro-Caribbean-influenced Dunham technique in Europe well into her 90s, died on Nov. 28 at a nursing home in Binningen, Switzerland. She was 95.Her son, Peter Wydler, said the cause was lung cancer.The sound of conga drums reverberated at Ms. Dallas’s studio in Basel, Switzerland, for years as she gyrated to their rhythm. Her students watched reverently, eager to learn from a woman who had learned from Dunham, the matriarch of Black dance, who died in 2006.“I had three mothers in my life,” Ms. Dallas said in a 2016 documentary film about her, “What Is Luck?” “My mother, my grandmother and my godmother. And then I had Katherine Dunham. My professor.”Ms. Dallas’s dance school, which she opened in 1975, is considered the only school in Europe that teaches pure Dunham technique, a polyrhythmic style rooted in early Black dance that Dunham developed through her ethnographic research in the Caribbean in the 1930s. Alvin Ailey studied with Dunham in the 1940s, and the technique’s legacy lives on institutionally at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York.Ms. Dallas teaching a class at her dance school in Basel, Switzerland, last year. She continued to teach well into her 90s.Credit…Renata SagoBut as the style’s prominence diminished, Ms. Dallas’s devotion to teaching it rendered her a powerful living link to dance history.Glory Van Scott, a former principal Dunham dancer who is a master teacher of the technique, said Ms. Dallas was among the last of her era.“Very few are left from her generation,” Dr. Van Scott said. “But as long as there’s someone out there doing Dunham, we’re still here.”“You feel it like a religion,” she added. “It’s in our bloodline. You live with it when you teach it. You respect it. And then you give it to someone else, so they may have the honor of teaching it and seeing the genius of Dunham.”Ms. Dallas left the Katherine Dunham Dance Company in 1949, and although she was associated with her illustrious mentor her whole life, she hardly lived in her shadow.She seized her own spotlight in the 1950s as a blues and R&B singer, sharing stages with Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole. She appeared at the Apollo Theater in Harlem with Sammy Davis Jr. And she had the distinction of singing in a stage musical orchestrated by a young Quincy Jones, “Free and Easy,” which flopped so badly that it left him and his band broke and stranded in Europe.Ms. Dallas settled in Switzerland in the 1960s, but she also kept performing, gradually becoming an esteemed elder stateswoman of the blues. In 2005, she played at the founding concert of the Festival da Jazz in St. Moritz, and she went on to perform there annually. Last year she received a Swiss Jazz Award.Ms. Dallas at the Festival da Jazz in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 2010. She performed at the festival annually starting in 2005.Credit…Giancarlo Cattaneo/fotoSwiss.comAfter decades running her school in Basel, she became known as an eccentric local personality. She wore elaborate jewelry and colorful headwraps, and she rode the bus to class, her diminutive figure lugging a roller bag filled with leotards and dance equipment.Ms. Dallas was born just before the Great Depression in Memphis and grew up waiting in breadlines with her mother. She lived in a creaky old house on the outskirts of town. And she was filled with verve from the start.“I was dancing since I came out of my mother’s womb,” she said in the documentary. “I said, ‘Where are the people? Where’s the microphone? Where’s the musicians? I’m ready to dance.’”In the 1930s, while Ms. Dallas was studying ballet in St. Louis, Dunham visited the school one day, and Ms. Dallas caught her attention.“They said, ‘Go dance for Ms. Dunham,’” Ms. Dallas recalled. “And Ms. Dunham, she had her eye on me. I’ll never forget that.”When she was 19, Ms. Dallas headed to New York at Dunham’s invitation to study at her school near Times Square. She was initiated into Dunham’s militaristic training regimen, required to scrub floors, wash clothes and do her teacher’s hair.“My attitude,” Ms. Dallas told The New York Times last year, was “to bleed her, to get everything that I ever wanted to learn in my life about dance.”Ms. Dallas, right, with Katherine Dunham in 1949. “I had three mothers in my life,” Ms. Dallas once said. “My mother, my grandmother and my godmother. And then I had Katherine Dunham. My professor.”Credit…via Peter WydlerMs. Dallas performed on Broadway in 1946 in “Bal Nègre,” a revue staged and choreographed by Dunham, and toured with the company throughout Europe. In Paris, she met a Swiss engineer named Peter Wydler. When Dunham discovered that Ms. Dallas intended to get married, she was initially furious, but she served as Ms. Dallas’s witness and popped the Champagne at the wedding in 1949. Eartha Kitt sang “C’est Si Bon.”Ms. Dallas left the company later that year to stay with her husband in Switzerland. She taught the Dunham technique in Zurich in the 1950s, but soon left to pursue a music career back in America. In 1975, finally settled in Europe, she opened her dance school in Basel.“Yes, I’ve had luck,” she said in the documentary, reflecting on her improbable life. “I’ve been lucky to have so much. That means, what is luck?”Othella Dallas was born Othella Talmadge Strozier on Sept. 26, 1925, in Memphis. Her father, Frank, was a pharmacist. Her mother, Thelma Lee, was a seamstress who also sang in vaudeville. A grandmother ran a music school. Othella attended high school in St. Louis and aspired to become a doctor.As a girl, she suffered from rickets; doctors suggested resetting her legs. Instead, as she told it, her grandmother took her to a voodoo priest, who prescribed that her legs get massaged in greasy dishwater while he recited an incantation.After enough dips in the kitchen sink, he said she was cured.“Let her dance,” he proclaimed.“Let her dance where?” her mother asked. “Those old dirty nightclubs?”“I don’t care where she dances,” he said. “But let her dance.”Before long, Dunham discovered Ms. Dallas and invited her to New York. As Ms. Dallas studied with her, Dunham’s ambitions for her dance company grew. She pursued Broadway and eyed an international tour.“She said, ‘I’m going to put my people on Broadway,’” Ms. Dallas recalled. “And as the first Black company on Broadway, we had to work like a dog.”Of those days, Dunham once wrote: “We weren’t pushing ‘Black Is Beautiful.’ We just showed it.”Ms. Dallas pursued her singing career in the 1950s, changing her surname from Strozier because her manager thought “Dallas” looked slicker on a marquee.In 1960, after making annual visits to her family in Europe for several years, she joined her husband and son in Switzerland, and they settled in Binningen, a town just outside Basel. She kept a scrapbook in her bedroom filled with photographs and press clips from her day in the spotlight.When Dunham died in 2006, Ms. Dallas recommitted to teaching her mentor’s technique. She traveled across Europe hosting workshops at dance schools and events.“She was aware she was pretty much the only one from her time still being able to teach,” her son said. “It was important for her to keep it pure.”Ms. Dallas in Zurich in 2019. Credit…Beda SchmidIn addition to her son, Ms. Dallas is survived by two grandchildren and a half brother, Frank Strozier, a jazz saxophonist. Her husband died in 1982.Ms. Dallas learned she had lung cancer in 2018. Her final performance was a two-hour set at the Atlantis club in Basel this February. She continued to teach at her school three days a week until the lockdown began in March. She was moved to a nursing home over the summer.During her last weeks at the school, she stuck to a favorite routine. When the studio emptied out after class, she liked to put on a Ray Charles CD. As the music played, she danced in front of the mirror by herself.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More