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    ‘How Long Blues’ Review: Twyla Tharp in Overdrive at Little Island

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    Her frenetic new dance-theater work, which opens a new festival at the new park on the Hudson, includes references to Camus and music by T Bone Burnett.On a recent dusky evening, a dozen or so visitors to Little Island in Manhattan were gazing into its outdoor amphitheater from a nearby perch. They didn’t have tickets, sold out at $25 each, to “How Long Blues,” the first outing in a new summer festival that hopes to fulfill the site’s promise as a lively platform for the performing arts. So the slope of a rolling, manicured hill offered the best vantage point.Halfway through the hourlong show, though, most of them had wandered off.To be fair, the lush, dynamic public park, rising from the Hudson River and privately funded by the media titan Barry Diller for $260 million, can be delightfully distracting. But “How Long Blues,” a new dance-theater work conceived, choreographed and directed by Twyla Tharp, now running through June 23, is a chaotic head-scratcher. While a riverside setting can be overstimulating (a heliport is less than 20 blocks uptown), the action onstage pulls your attention in so many directions at once that you feel you’re always missing something.In addition to an excellent band on elevated platforms, a standing piano rides in on the back of a tricycle. (The music, a mercurial flow of jazz that ranges from swingy and upbeat to trippy and dissonant, is by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield.) There are appearances by performers wearing doll heads with cartoon features, a demonlike figure covered in straw fringe and Sisyphus carrying a rock on his shoulder — all of this while two smartly dressed men (played by the Tony Award winner Michael Cerveris and a Tharp regular, John Selya) vaguely pantomime amid a swirl of vibrant dancers. (The show has only a few spoken lines.)You would have little way of knowing, without reading Tharp’s interview in The New York Times, that “How Long Blues” concerns the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, and specifically elements from his 1947 novel “The Plague” about a pandemic in Algeria (coughing fits by a dancer or two are not sufficient clues). Notes shared privately with the press confirm that Cerveris is meant to be Jean-Paul Sartre, a close friend of Camus, played by Selya, and that “literal thinking” about narrative “is not helpful here,” according to Tharp.That’s certainly true, but nor is “How Long Blues,” named for a song by Leroy Carr, coherently abstract. Consistent gestures toward an illegible story undercut the show’s components, which are less often in harmony than in competition.Tharp’s choreography, when it has sufficient room to breathe, is the star attraction: a medley of vigorous and precise ballet technique — graceful suspension, expansive limbs — with the sort of unexpected pivots and urgent expressiveness that distinguish her muscular style.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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      Andy Cohen, Fran Lebowitz and Others Gather for Little Island Performance

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      “It’s a miracle on the water,” the actress Candice Bergen said, gazing at a grove of trees on Thursday evening as she took shelter from the sun beneath a canopy.It was the opening night of the summer performance season at Little Island, the three-year-old floating park built on a reconstructed pier in the Hudson River.Despite thunderstorms earlier in the afternoon, around 700 actors, designers and media moguls turned up under a smattering of canopies near the island’s amphitheater, among them Andy Cohen, the Bravo host and executive producer; Annie Leibovitz, the photographer; Fran Lebowitz, the writer; Natasha Lyonne, the actress; Bryan Lourd, the chief executive of the talent agency CAA; and Jason Blum, the film producer.As waiters ferried watermelon spears and cartons of boxed water on silver platters, attendees trickled into the glade over twin gangways on the north and south sides of the island.The writer Fran Lebowitz.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesAnnie Leibovitz, right, with her daughter, Sam Leibovitz.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesBryan Lourd, the chief executive of the talent agency CAA, and Natasha Lyonne, the actress.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesWe 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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      Zack Winokur Leads an Arts Reboot at Little Island

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      Zack Winokur, an ambitious dancer-turned-director, now has a New York stage to call his own as the park’s artistic leader.On Saturday night, Zack Winokur stood at the top row of the amphitheater of Little Island. Hundreds of people had taken their seats for the first performance of the park’s summer season, but he didn’t feel like joining them. “I’m just going to pace,” he said.If Winokur, Little Island’s producing artistic director, was restless, it was for good reason. The park, a cluster of tulip-shaped structures that support rolling hills above the Hudson River, had been open since 2021, and its amphitheater had been used plenty of times before.But Saturday’s performance, the premiere of Twyla Tharp’s “How Long Blues,” was a milestone for Little Island, and for New York City: the opening, or rather rebooting, of an institution dedicated solely to commissioning and supporting artists, with Winokur’s curatorial vision and the extremely deep pockets of the billionaire mogul Barry Diller.Outdoors, with a thrust stage, Little Island’s theater is subject to the elements and open to onlookers, who can watch performances, for free, from the winding paths of the park. (Tickets for amphitheater seats are $25.) The only real barrier to entry, Winokur said, is the West Side Highway.What really sets the theater apart, though, is its programming of world premiere after world premiere by top-shelf artists. Behind that is Winokur, 35, a Juilliard-trained dancer-turned-director who was a founder of the essential, increasingly visible collective American Modern Opera Company, or AMOC. Now, with Little Island, he is at the vanguard of his generation’s artistic leaders, with a New York stage to call his own.The financial support that Diller has pledged to Little Island’s programming, millions of dollars with no end in sight, is the kind that most artistic leaders only dream of. Winokur does not have to spend his days courting fund-raisers or securing residencies; instead, he can provide money and space, like a producer.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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      Coming Soon to Little Island: An Arts Festival With Powerful Backers

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      The mogul Barry Diller, who paid for the park, will finance a summer season of music, dance, theater and more, shaped in part by the Broadway producer Scott Rudin.Little Island, the $260 million park on the Hudson River that opened in 2021, was imagined as a haven for innovation in the performing arts. But the park’s cultural offerings — mostly sporadic, one-off works — have so far fallen short of those ambitions.Now Barry Diller, the billionaire media mogul who paid for the park, is setting out to deliver on the original vision, financing a robust, four-month annual performing arts festival on Little Island, the park announced on Monday. He is doing so with the guidance of Scott Rudin, the film, television and theater producer who retreated from public view in 2021 amid accusations of bullying by workers in his office.Diller said in an interview that he and his family foundation were prepared to spend more than $100 million over the next two decades on programming. The festival, one of the most ambitious artistic undertakings in New York City in recent years, will promote new work in music, dance, theater and opera. Nine premieres are planned this year for June through September, including a full-length work by the choreographer Twyla Tharp, and an adaptation of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” in which the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo will sing all of the leading roles.“I want people to enjoy the originality and adventure of Little Island,” Diller said. “I want it to produce a smile.”Rudin, a friend of Diller’s and a longtime adviser to Little Island, was not mentioned in a news release on Monday announcing the creation of the festival, but Diller said he was intimately involved in its planning.“He’s engaged in almost every discussion we have about the programming,” Diller said. “It started with him. It was his project.”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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      City Center’s Season to Feature an International Fall for Dance

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      The festival welcomes foreign troupes for the first time since 2019; other City Center highlights include Twyla Tharp and “The Light in the Piazza” at Encores!“Oliver!,” the return of the National Ballet of Canada and a Twyla Tharp program are among the offerings for New York City Center’s 2022-23 season, the theater announced on Tuesday.“Coming off the pandemic we had a really strong season,” said Arlene Shuler, City Center’s president and chief executive, adding, “I want audiences to take away that City Center is as strong as ever.”The 2022-23 season, Shuler’s last, opens with the Fall for Dance Festival, which for the first time since 2019 will have an international lineup, including the Kyiv City Ballet from Ukraine, as well as companies and artists from France, Germany, India and the Netherlands.Fall for Dance, which Shuler initiated in 2004, remains central to her legacy at the theater. The festival’s eclectic mix of dance companies and low-cost tickets has expanded accessibility to the public and solidified relationships with artists.Also in fall, Twyla Tharp returns to the theater, Oct. 19-23, with two works: “In the Upper Room” (1986) and “Nine Sinatra Songs” (1982), which Shuler called “masterworks — not just for Twyla but for the 20th century.” The program follows last year’s “Twyla Now.”The National Ballet of Canada will take the City Center stage for the first time in 15 years. The program, with live music by the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra, features three performances, including Crystal Pite’s “Angels’ Atlas.” It is set to run from March 30-April 1, 2023.City Center’s Encores! will present “The Light in the Piazza” (Feb. 1-5), Jerry Herman’s “Dear World” (March 15-19) and Lionel Bart’s “Oliver!” (May 3-14). And “Parade,” starring Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt in Alfred Uhry’s Tony Award-winning musical about the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish American in Georgia, will be City Center’s annual gala production, on Nov. 1-6.Dance programming at City Center will also include Sara Baras and her company at the annual Flamenco Festival (March 23-26), and Ballet Hispánico, which will perform “Club Havana 18+1” (June 1-3).This year’s City Center Dance Festival, titled “From the Street,” will celebrate the diversity of forms in contemporary hip-hop. The year will close with “Sugar Hill: The Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker” (Nov. 15-27), a jazz-infused retelling of the holiday classic, and the annual season of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Nov. 30-Dec. 24), with new works by Kyle Abraham and Jamar Roberts. More

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      City Center Announces Its 2021-2022 Season

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      The theater will reopen for in‐person performances with the Fall for Dance Festival in October.New York City Center will resume live, in-person performances in October with the Fall for Dance Festival, one of its signature events. The dance showcase will kick off the theater’s 2021-2022 season, which is also set to include a Twyla Tharp birthday celebration, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual holiday season engagement and two new dance series.“We really wanted to reaffirm our commitment to New York audiences, as a very New York institution, and to New York artists,” Arlene Shuler, City Center’s president and chief executive, said of the ambitious season.“It’s such a huge opportunity for artists,” added Stanford Makishi, the vice president and artistic director of dance programs. “The ones with whom I’ve been speaking over the last 16 months, they’ve all been really dying to not only get back on the stage, but also to actually have the interaction with the audiences.”City Center announced four commissions for this year’s Fall for Dance on Tuesday. Ayodele Casel, Lar Lubovitch and Justin Peck will create new pieces that will be sprinkled throughout the festival’s five programs; and the Verdon Fosse Legacy, an organization dedicated to preserving the work of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, will reconstruct three dances for the festival. The full lineup and schedule will be released at the beginning of September.In November, Twyla Tharp will celebrate her 80th birthday with “Twyla Now,” a program featuring two world premieres as well as signature works. A host of stars, Sara Mearns and Robert Fairchild among them, will perform, supported by an ensemble of young dancers.City Center’s new dance programming will begin in 2022. Tiler Peck, a principal at New York City Ballet, will inaugurate Artists at the Center, which gives an accomplished dancer the opportunity to craft a program; Peck’s program, March 3-6, will feature works by William Forsythe, Alonzo King and others. City Center Dance Festival, a spring counterpart to Fall for Dance, will follow, March 24 to April 10. It will showcase several New York companies, including Martha Graham Dance Company, Dance Theater of Harlem and Paul Taylor Dance Company.The Encores! series, which revives rarely produced Broadway musicals, will also return in 2022. The three shows, “The Tap Dance Kid” (Feb. 2-6), “The Life” (March 16-20) and “Into the Woods” (May 4-15), were announced last year. The coming Encores! season will be the first under the artistic leadership of Lear deBessonet, who was announced as Jack Viertel’s successor in 2019.More information is available at nycitycenter.org. More