Latest news with #WhyNotTheater
New York Times
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Retelling of the Mahabharata, Set to Modern-Day Struggles
The Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata has been adapted many times over in oral retellings, plays, movies, comic books and more. Consisting of over 100,000 verses, the poem has so many stories that picking which ones to tell is a statement in itself. And making that decision can pose its own challenges as Ravi Jain and Miriam Fernandes, co-artistic directors of the Toronto-based theater company Why Not, learned when they went about adapting it. Now they are bringing their expansive two-part contemporary staging, which premiered in 2023 at the Shaw Festival in Ontario, Canada, to Lincoln Center, where it will run from Tuesday through June 29. Their adaptation is based on the poet Carole Satyamurti's retelling of the epic, which, at its core, is the story of two warring sets of cousins — the Kauravas and the Pandavas — trying to control a kingdom. The poem is part myth, part guide to upholding moral values and duty — or dharma. Some of the epic incorporates the Bhagavad Gita, a philosophical text on Hindu morality, which is framed as a discussion between Prince Arjuna, a Pandava and a skilled archer, and Lord Krishna, a Hindu God who acts as Arjuna's teacher. Jain, 45, began developing the piece in 2016 after receiving a $375,000 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, the country's public arts funder. Fernandes, 36, joined him on the project two years later after finishing graduate school in France. Jain described an early version of the script in an interview as 'feminist' and 'self-referential.' But the pandemic made them rethink which stories could best drive home the point of dharma — a central tenet of the text. 'To build a civilization, those with the most power must take care of those with the least,' Jain said, referring to the epic's message. 'In the animal kingdom, the strong eat the weak. There's no problem with that. But humans have empathy, and we can build a civilization where we're not just those who eat and those who are eaten, but rather those who feed and those who are fed.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Lincoln Center Summer Festival to Bring Back Some Classical Music
Lincoln Center's summer festival will highlight the city's diverse cultural traditions, the center announced on Tuesday, including performances by an experimental collective; a celebration of Brazilian culture; and the staging of a Sanskrit epic. The collective, American Modern Opera Company, which is made up of musicians and dancers, will present a dozen productions, making its Lincoln Center debut. The festival, Summer for the City, will run June 11 through Aug. 9, and it will also include a six-performance engagement by the string quartet Brooklyn Rider to celebrate the group's 20th anniversary. Since the festival began, in 2022, it has scaled back the classical music and opera programming that used to define summer events like the Lincoln Center Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival. This edition is a restoration of some of those types of offerings. 'This is a constantly evolving city and artist community and audience, and it's our job to be in that conversation,' Shanta Thake, Lincoln Center's chief artistic officer, said in an interview. 'You will never see a summer that looks like the summer before.' Summer for the City is part of the center's efforts to appeal to new audiences by promoting an array of genres, including classical music, comedy, pop and social dance. Last year, the festival attracted 442,000 people, up from 380,000 in 2023, the center said. In June, members of the American Modern Opera Company will perform the New York premiere of 'The Comet/Poppea,' which pairs George Lewis's adaptation of W.E.B. Du Bois's story 'The Comet' and Monteverdi's 'L'Incoronazione di Poppea.' Additional programming by the collective includes a staging of Messiaen's song cycle 'Harawi,' sung by the soprano Julia Bullock, and the staged premiere of Matthew Aucoin's 'Music for New Bodies,' directed by Peter Sellars. The lineup also features 'Rome Is Falling,' written by the bass player Doug Balliett, and described as a 'zany lesson on the absurdity of what can happen when influential people lose power.' Lincoln Center said it hoped this year's festival would help shine a light on the city's vibrant cultural communities. The lineup includes 'Mahabharata,' a large-scale retelling of a Sanskrit epic by Why Not Theater, a Canadian group, and a weeklong celebration of Brazilian culture featuring the singer-songwriter Lenine and the rock band Os Mutantes. The Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, under the baton of its music and artistic director Jonathon Heyward, will perform a mix of new and old. Each of its programs will feature at least one living composer. But the ensemble will also perform Robert Schumann's Fourth Symphony, Clara Schumann's Konzertsatz in F minor, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and other classic works. The giant disco ball that has become a staple of the festival will once again hang over a dance floor built on Lincoln Center's main plaza. Clint Ramos, the Broadway costume and set designer, will return to decorate the center's outdoor spaces, this year based on the theme of birds.
