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      Theater to Stream: Festivals, Festivals, Festivals

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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 storyTheater to Stream: Festivals, Festivals, FestivalsThe Under the Radar, Prototype and Exponential festivals are ready to open our minds with experimental work, even if their doors are shut.Alexi Murdoch in “Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists,” part of the Prototype Festival.Credit…Pierre-Alain GiraudJan. 6, 2021Updated 12:41 p.m. ETSet dates for previews, openings and closings. Fall and spring seasons. Heck: turning up somewhere on time!Until the pandemic occurred in 2020, many of us perhaps did not realize how much theater relies on appointments. Now that most of them have vanished, with theater — and time itself — becoming somewhat amorphous, it’s comforting to see that the January festivals are still happening.Once cursed as the sluggish period of the year that follows the holiday rush, January has slowly turned into a hyperactive showcase for experimental work. And so it remains this year. While the doors remain physically shut, our minds can still open up.Whitney White and Peter Mark Kendall, the creators of “Capsule,” part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. Credit…Melissa Bunni ElianUnder the RadarIn a way, going online was a natural step for Under the Radar (through Jan. 17). Hosted by the Public Theater, the 17-year-old event has always questioned the very nature of the art form: “What makes something theater?” the festival director Mark Russell pondered in a recent video chat. “Can an exhibit be a theater piece? Does a story have to be a part of it? This is a lot of hubris, but I felt like the whole world turned into UTR,” he added, laughing.One thing that has not changed is Under the Radar’s international bent — this year with a mix of on-demand and appointment shows, all of them free. Among the on-demand offerings are works in which two wildly creative women take on roles different from the ones they’re known for: “Capsule,” in which the rising director Whitney White (“What to Send Up When It Goes Down”) steps on the virtual stage; and “Espíritu,” which was written and directed by the prominent Chilean actress Trinidad González (“A Fantastic Woman”).As for the livestreams, mark your calendar for Piehole’s “Disclaimer”; “Borders & Crossings,” by the Nigerian-British playwright and performer Inua Ellams (“Barber Shop Chronicles”); and “A Thousand Ways (Part One): A Phone Call,” by 600 Highwaymen.Shara Nova, left, and Helga Davis in “Ocean Body,” which is part of the Prototype Festival.Credit…Mark DeChiazzaPrototypeThe experimental operas and musical-theater pieces that the Prototype festival presents can take three to five years to gestate. So when the artistic directors Beth Morrison and Jecca Barry (from Beth Morrison Projects) and Kristin Marting (from HERE Arts Center) decided in June to jettison the entire slate they had planned for the 2021 edition, which runs from Jan. 8-16, they knew they would have to change tack, and fast. Especially since they did not want to simply adapt pre-existing projects for the digital world.“A bunch of people came in with stuff that was like retooling things that they already had,” Marting said. As curators, they felt that this “wasn’t the way that we can serve our audience right now,” she continued.The new 2021 festival centerpiece, “Modulation” — a commission made up of brief vocal works by the likes of Sahba Aminikia, Juhi Bansal, Yvette Janine Jackson, Angélica Negrón and Daniel Bernard Roumain — emerged as a pure product of the new moment.“We saw the opportunity to ask a lot of composers to respond to 2020, but in short bursts,” Barry said. “The three of us developed different themes for what we were interested in having them respond to, and we landed on fear, isolation and identity. Then we thought of a fourth theme to connect all of those things, and that was breath.”Except for “Ocean Body,” a ticketed video installation at HERE that features the performers Helga Davis and Shara Nova, all of Prototype 2021’s offerings are on-demand. This includes Geoff Sobelle and Pamela Z’s “Times³ (Times x Times x Times),” which can be streamed anywhere but was conceived to be heard while walking through Times Square. For Marting, the experience is typical of Prototype’s ever-questioning approach. “We’re trying to craft the conversation,” she said, “because one of the things the festival is really interested in is interrogating this line between opera and music theater, and why people think they like one and not the other.”Nathan Repasz is taking part in “The Unquestioned Interiority of Humankind,” as part of the Exponential Festival.Credit…via Exponential FestivalExponential Festival“We didn’t want to do a single Zoom reading because they’re the bane of my existence,” said Theresa Buchheister, the founding artistic director of the Exponential Festival.This is pretty much the only guarantee we can get about the 2021 edition of a fest that reliably supplies the nuttiest, most unpredictable programming of any in January.In normal years, the festival takes place at such funky Brooklyn venues as the Brick Theater, Vital Joint and Chez Bushwick. But from Jan. 7-31, each of the 31 shows on the 2021 slate will debut in one place — YouTube — and will remain available for the foreseeable future. While this is convenient for viewers, it is giving Buchheister an extra headache. “We’re dealing with nudity on YouTube, which is hard,” she said. “Performance artists are always naked, they just are. So it’s one of the many difficulties this year.”Indeed, challenges abounded. Another, for example, was figuring out how to present Panoply Performance Laboratory’s “Heidegger’s Indiana,” which Esther Neff originally envisioned as a choose-your-own-adventure show made up of distinct vignettes.“What we ended up doing is that Esther will create a work where she’s put the pieces in the order that she wants,” Buchheister said. “And I was like, ‘You can draw tarot cards, you can throw axes into a tree — I don’t care how you choose what order they go into.’ But then we’ll also create a playlist on YouTube of all of the different segments.”One of Exponential’s singularities is its emphasis on curated bills, often pairing a better-known — at least in avant-garde circles — with an up-and-comer. Buchheister was excited to link the writer-performer Jess Barbagallo and the musician Nathan Repasz. “Nathan did one of my favorite performances of 2020,” she said, “a percussion piece to Mitt Romney saying that hot dog is his favorite meat.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Berlin Film Festival Is Delayed. Will Cannes and Venice Follow?

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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 storyBerlin Film Festival Is Delayed. Will Cannes and Venice Follow?The postponement of the first major international movie event of 2021 raises the specter of another difficult year for the industry.The cast and crew of “There Is No Evil,” which won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019.Credit…Michele Tantussi/ReutersDec. 18, 2020, 11:54 a.m. ETThe Berlin Film Festival, which was scheduled to start Feb. 11, has been postponed because of the coronavirus, its organizers said on Friday in a news release, making it the first — but probably not the last — major cultural event of 2021 to be affected by the pandemic.With coronavirus cases soaring in Germany, the Berlinale, as the festival is known, will now occur in a digital form for movie industry professionals in March, the festival said.The festival’s competition will take place as part of the March event, and a jury in Berlin will select prize winners, the release added. Berlin’s film fans will get to watch entrants at a separate event in June, involving open-air screenings as well as presentations in movie theaters.“There is a great desire to meet face to face,” Mariette Rissenbeek, the festival’s executive director, said in a statement, but “the current situation does not allow a physical festival in February.” On Sunday, Germany announced a lockdown as coronavirus cases surged, banning most cultural activities until at least Jan. 10.The delay to the first major international movie event of 2021 is likely to cause concern that other festivals might need to be pushed back, even as Europe prepares to roll out a Covid-19 vaccine.The Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to start on May 11, just weeks after the delayed Academy Awards, on April 25. Cannes organizers intend the event to occur as scheduled, Aida Belloulid, the festival’s spokeswoman, said in an email, but are “waiting until the beginning of next year to evaluate the pandemic evolution.”“Then, if we consider May won’t be possible, we will work on new dates, from end of June to end of July,” she added. Whatever date the festival occurs, it will be “a ‘classic’ Cannes,” with a full program and stars on the Croisette, Ms. Belloulid said.Earlier this year, Cannes was postponed at the last minute because of the pandemic. The organizers ended up staging a “special” edition in October, with just a handful of films and little of the festival’s usual glamour. That event received barely any media attention.In contrast to Cannes, the Venice Film Festival has yet to make contingency plans and its organizers intend to go ahead as normal, in September. “Of course we don’t know what the situation will be,” Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director, said in a telephone interview, “but we were lucky enough to go ahead with the festival this year without any problems, so next year should be even better.”This year’s Venice Film Festival featured mandatory masks and a distinct lack of blockbusters, but it was still widely seen as a success, given that it was one of the few major international cultural events to actually happen in 2020.There was no reported transmission of the coronavirus during the 11-day event, Mr. Barbera said, which suggested the measures had been a success. Some element of social distancing might still be in place in 2021, he added, but that would depend on the state of the pandemic.Mr. Barbera said any changes to the film festival calendars, following the Berlinale’s move, were unlikely to affect movie release dates. The major studios and distributors will start releasing films only when movie theaters reopen, he said.“I feel the majority of big films will wait until the fall,” he said, “so that could be a huge chance for the few festivals, like us, Toronto, New York.”The Berlin Film Festival said in its news release that it was still in talks with its sponsors, including the German government, about the budget for its new events. It said it had no choice but to delay. “The Berlinale would like to emphasize once again that the health and the well-being of all guests and employees come first in all aspects of the planning,” the news release said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More