Dear Brooklyn Academy of Music,
Why call it the Next Wave Festival?
Laurie Anderson? I saw her at BAM in 1990. It was really, really loud. Mark Morris? Personally, I prefer the Trockaderos for 'quirky' queer ballet, but, ok... Pina Bausch? She was fabulous. And now she's gone. We deserve a yearlong festival of her work.
They're accomplished artists all, but again the question--why "Next Wave"?
Now, I realize that older artists have to eat, too. Arts funding is "not like it was in the '70's", as Laurie Anderson so wryly put it (in the '80's). And I realize that the money base of BAM ticket buyers will be baby boomers wanting a nostalgia blast of greatest hits (or at least familiar formats) from favorite artists (see: endless touring; Stones, Rolling). I also realize that the benefits of getting those Moneyed Patrons in the door can trickle down to the younger, "emerging" artists on the Festival bill (provided said Patronage actually winds up patronizing those less familiar young'ns). Must we also indulge said Moneyed Older Patrons with the moniker "adventurous audiences"? Are they that narcissistic? Are they that un-self aware that they can't smell such a craven heap of false marketing flattery a mile away? Wait a minute--are they?
Well, anyway...I guess more to the point:
Can't the festival just be called something else?
I made a list of possibilities:
alliterative-- The BAMy Boom Festival
offbeat-- New Tricks by Old Dogs Festival
direct-- The Secure the Funding Base Festival
west coast-- The Next Wavy Gravy Festival
free of charge-- The Nextel Festival
lowbrow/whimsical-- Old Art Farts Tent Revival
hard truth-- The Seating's More Comfortable Than Issue Project Room Festival
Thank you for considering my question, and some alternate names. I wish all of us a great festival.
Sincerely,
Bryce Kasson
p.s. the printed festival flyer I received in the US mail is a good old fashioned format that for some reason features the artists I mention above much more prominently then your newfangled website, which seems to be full of newfangled artists whose names are news to me. Hmmm:
http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=1096
9/17/2010
9/16/2010
Let me be weak, let me sleep, and dream of...
Last Friday night, the 10th of September, I went to an interfaith peace rally in Lower Manhattan. It was timed to honor 9/11, and to show support for that proposed Islamic community center that for some reason those of us who do not live in New York are all now familiar with. I wanted to show my support for the community center (you know, Obama’s Mosque), and get together with goodhearted interfaith-type New Yorkers.
On the website the request was to yes bring candles, not to bring signs--American flags OK (I think I saw one)--and to dress in white. I had a moment of distress imagining there was no white clothing in my backpack, but upon closer review I fished out exactly 2 articles of clothing. I put on my flared white corduroys and favorite linen western shirt and took the R train to Park Place from Brooklyn. I arrived at 6:45, half an hour early. There were news vans with tall antennas idling fumes into the late afternoon air. There were lots of police of every type: beat cops, traffic cops, brass in suits. A few people. And--the Free Speech Zone!!! Now if you’re not from America, or like me have been living outside the country for the past few years, you might say to yourself, “Isn’t the entire USA one big free speech zone?” Then again, maybe you’ve experienced this new civic product in its exported form at a local protest or G-something summit in your home town.
It was my first time seeing this makeshift metal corral in person. My first thought: if the police tried to pull this kind of crap on Argentine protesters, they’d set the country on fire. My second thought: I refuse to enter into this contract; I am not going into that police-made and -monitored ‘free speech zone’--I like the one right here where I’m standing, thank you very much.
But, of course, “You can’t stand there, sir.” On the sidewalk, that is. “Gotta get in there”, meaning the pen, “Or keep on walking.” So I kept on walking. I walked down a few blocks to “Ground Zero”, which is an energetic mini-city of construction and catering and hustle and bustle, surrounded outside its security gates by the hustle and bustle of commuters getting on the PATH train to go home for the evening to New Jersey. Walking back to the rally, I was attracted to the sound of drumming coming from the sidewalk of a side street. Half a block from the vigil, I saw 3 young women in three gradations of skin tones dancing energetically to a few white guys drumming. As I approached, one of the young women offered me a tambourine--”Would you like to drum?” Yes. Yes, I would.
I joined in, marking out steady sixteenth notes on the tambourine. We were drumming! All that drumming and dancing began attracting videocameras, at first amateurs and then a couple professionals from local news channels. More passersby showed up who were willing to join in by watching, drumming, or even dancing. It turns out the group was called Belly Dancers for Change, and they were also manifesting their support for interfaith/cross cultural dialogue and the Córdoba House. I played with them for about 45 minutes. Before I got there, the organizers of the vigil had asked them to take their particular brand of ecumenical support elsewhere. So they walked across the street and did their thing. Eventually a cop in a suit, apparently an emissary from the rally, informed us very politely that “The folks over there would really like for you all to either stop playing or move farther away.” It seems all the noise and swirling bodies weren’t what the rally organizers had imagined. Fair enough. Owing to the fact that we were each supporting the same cause, and that we felt like we had played long enough, as a group we decided to open up some quiet for the candlelight vigil.
Walking half a block back towards the vigil I was almost knocked over by the image I encountered: sheep in a paddock. In the time I was drumming the stockades on 2 blocks had filled up with gentle peaceniks, overwhelmingly caucasian and I suspect also overwhelmingly Unitarian, baby boomers dressed in white, like so many sheep in a pen. Few were physically robust, many were overweight. When told by an amplified voice to “Raise your candles!”, they did, some with a little hoot. When sermonized by a black preacher in strident, Old Testament tones, they bore it stoically. When another young, enthusiastic female voice pointed out donation buckets to make the rally possible, they gave. My thought was, do they have to pay the cops to pen themselves in? The appeal for money of course was a nice churchy touch. Then, effervescent, the same woman bellowed at the crowd, “You can’t see it from where you are down there, but from up here onstage you all look so beautiful!!” Like beautiful, beautiful sheep, I thought. That’s when another young white woman began to sing a Dave Matthewsesque version of “Down By the Riverside”.
I went to get a slice of pizza and headed back to Brooklyn. I felt fortunate I had found a more sympathetic expression of why I wanted to be there, in the sub-rally of music and dancing. In the end, though, I was happy for all of it: for everyone who came out to clamor for tolerance, and all their various forms of expression of indignance at the inane and irksome Islamophobic idiocy currently circulating through the polis. Just one thing: Tolerance of that Free Speech Zone thing has got to go, people.
On the website the request was to yes bring candles, not to bring signs--American flags OK (I think I saw one)--and to dress in white. I had a moment of distress imagining there was no white clothing in my backpack, but upon closer review I fished out exactly 2 articles of clothing. I put on my flared white corduroys and favorite linen western shirt and took the R train to Park Place from Brooklyn. I arrived at 6:45, half an hour early. There were news vans with tall antennas idling fumes into the late afternoon air. There were lots of police of every type: beat cops, traffic cops, brass in suits. A few people. And--the Free Speech Zone!!! Now if you’re not from America, or like me have been living outside the country for the past few years, you might say to yourself, “Isn’t the entire USA one big free speech zone?” Then again, maybe you’ve experienced this new civic product in its exported form at a local protest or G-something summit in your home town.
It was my first time seeing this makeshift metal corral in person. My first thought: if the police tried to pull this kind of crap on Argentine protesters, they’d set the country on fire. My second thought: I refuse to enter into this contract; I am not going into that police-made and -monitored ‘free speech zone’--I like the one right here where I’m standing, thank you very much.
But, of course, “You can’t stand there, sir.” On the sidewalk, that is. “Gotta get in there”, meaning the pen, “Or keep on walking.” So I kept on walking. I walked down a few blocks to “Ground Zero”, which is an energetic mini-city of construction and catering and hustle and bustle, surrounded outside its security gates by the hustle and bustle of commuters getting on the PATH train to go home for the evening to New Jersey. Walking back to the rally, I was attracted to the sound of drumming coming from the sidewalk of a side street. Half a block from the vigil, I saw 3 young women in three gradations of skin tones dancing energetically to a few white guys drumming. As I approached, one of the young women offered me a tambourine--”Would you like to drum?” Yes. Yes, I would.
I joined in, marking out steady sixteenth notes on the tambourine. We were drumming! All that drumming and dancing began attracting videocameras, at first amateurs and then a couple professionals from local news channels. More passersby showed up who were willing to join in by watching, drumming, or even dancing. It turns out the group was called Belly Dancers for Change, and they were also manifesting their support for interfaith/cross cultural dialogue and the Córdoba House. I played with them for about 45 minutes. Before I got there, the organizers of the vigil had asked them to take their particular brand of ecumenical support elsewhere. So they walked across the street and did their thing. Eventually a cop in a suit, apparently an emissary from the rally, informed us very politely that “The folks over there would really like for you all to either stop playing or move farther away.” It seems all the noise and swirling bodies weren’t what the rally organizers had imagined. Fair enough. Owing to the fact that we were each supporting the same cause, and that we felt like we had played long enough, as a group we decided to open up some quiet for the candlelight vigil.
Walking half a block back towards the vigil I was almost knocked over by the image I encountered: sheep in a paddock. In the time I was drumming the stockades on 2 blocks had filled up with gentle peaceniks, overwhelmingly caucasian and I suspect also overwhelmingly Unitarian, baby boomers dressed in white, like so many sheep in a pen. Few were physically robust, many were overweight. When told by an amplified voice to “Raise your candles!”, they did, some with a little hoot. When sermonized by a black preacher in strident, Old Testament tones, they bore it stoically. When another young, enthusiastic female voice pointed out donation buckets to make the rally possible, they gave. My thought was, do they have to pay the cops to pen themselves in? The appeal for money of course was a nice churchy touch. Then, effervescent, the same woman bellowed at the crowd, “You can’t see it from where you are down there, but from up here onstage you all look so beautiful!!” Like beautiful, beautiful sheep, I thought. That’s when another young white woman began to sing a Dave Matthewsesque version of “Down By the Riverside”.
I went to get a slice of pizza and headed back to Brooklyn. I felt fortunate I had found a more sympathetic expression of why I wanted to be there, in the sub-rally of music and dancing. In the end, though, I was happy for all of it: for everyone who came out to clamor for tolerance, and all their various forms of expression of indignance at the inane and irksome Islamophobic idiocy currently circulating through the polis. Just one thing: Tolerance of that Free Speech Zone thing has got to go, people.
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