Friday, Apr. 5: Inspired by “Benshi,” the Japanese performers who provided live narration and cultural translation for audiences in the silent film era, Neo-Benshi artists take scenes from popular film or television and replace the sound with their own live spoken works. The result is a new kind of multimedia happening that has taken the experimental performance art world by storm.
Saturday, Apr. 6: Performers include the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company, Energy Dance Company, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Neville Dance Theater, Silver Screen Ballroom Ballet Hartford, Ulster Ballet Company and Justin Valentine & Jillian Schubert.
Friday, Apr. 5: When the dust clears from the still-raging oral history/memoir/spoken-word renaissance, David Sedaris may well stand as the one to credit or to blame for the whole damn thing.
The cast of Us does a terrific job with the challenge of bringing to life both the core characters and the doubles who threaten them.
Saturday, May 4: Best friends since the first grade, Rhett & Link are a comedic duo known for hosting the most-watched daily show on the Internet, Good Mythical Morning. Their narrative series Rhett & Link’s Buddy System and the award-winning weekly podcast Ear Biscuits, as well as their wildly popular comedic songs, sketches and low-budget local commercials, have established the pair as viral superstars of the new model.
Sunday, Mar. 24: Under artistic director Alberto Lopez, Calpulli brings a new work-in-progress, Puebla: The Story of Cinco de Mayo, which will be followed by a post-show discussion.
Friday, Mar. 15: “Their show is not an autism awareness campaign, they say. They want people to laugh simply because they’re funny.”
Is Roma worth the effort to find? Absolutely yes. Its huge pile of cinematography prizes is well-warranted; shot in digital 65mm format, its black-and-white tones are subtle, silken. It tells much of its story in long, unbroken tracking shots, with the camera often slowly rotating 360 degrees to take in all the sprawling details of a space.
Thursday- Sunday, Mar. 7-10: One need not be either “colored” or a “girl” to be profoundly affected by this extraordinary, transformative work of theater.
I never thought I’d be caught admitting that a movie series is markedly better than the books upon which it is based, but here we have it.