Baryshnikov Arts Center Announces 2022 Spring Season

Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) has announced its Spring 2022 Season, which will include dance, music and film presented both live and virtually from February 7th through May 21st. BAC Digital Commissions are free and open to the public to watch on demand, and tickets for in-person shows are now on sale.

“Each person on our creative team brings their own sensibility and their own area of expertise to the selection process, so when we gather to discuss the artists we might want to present, the options are wildly diverse,” BAC Founder and Artistic Director Mikhail Baryshnikov told Forbes.

The Season will open with a virtual performance, a film shot at the majestic Ulster Performing Arts Center called Open Practice, which takes an inside look at the life and career of high-wire artist Philippe Petit. The artist famously walked a high-wire between the rooftops of the Twin Towers and The World Trade Center that he secretly rigged in 1974, on which the film Man on Wire is based.

Open Practice gives audiences the chance to witness Petit’s creative process and details about his life and views on creativity. “According to Petit, Open Practice is a sharing of his ‘philosophy of the wire’ by way of short stories, anecdotes, and tidbits from his technical journey as a ‘writer in the sky,’ ” Baryshnikov told Forbes. “As someone who has known Petit for several decades, I’d say that this film is a searingly intimate look behind the curtain of a consummate artist.”

When asked how BAC has been able to pivot their seasons during the pandemic, Baryshnikov said, “Our most challenging and exciting shift in the early days of the pandemic was to build a digital platform to showcase archival work. Almost immediately after that, our board galvanized to fund new commissions and give the selected artists complete freedom to create whatever they wanted from wherever they wanted. To date, we’ve commissioned 12 new virtual works, and plan to continue.”

He added that the response has been enthusiastic, with people all over the world tuning in to watch BAC’s virtual programming, but that everyone involved with the 2022 season is excited to return to live performance. “Experiencing music, dance, and film in a communal environment will be a joy and something we are all craving after this strange time. Simply mingling before an event to chat, have a drink, and see friends will be a welcome reminder of why we love live theater,” Baryshnikov went on to say, “Even more importantly, the residency artists will be back in the building. That is where the work happens. Seeing them experiment, collaborate, and take artistic risks is what drives our mission.” 

The Spring Season will also feature the New York premieres of work from choreographers Peggy Baker and Ashwini Ramaswamy, as well as from composer Andy Akiho. Baker will present her virtual piece, her body as words, a film and sound installation inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex that explores themes of female identity and physicality. Ramaswamy returns to BAC with her piece Let the Crows Come, developed during her 2018 residency with BAC, which deconstructs the Bharatanatyam form, performed live to an original score. The full season line-up is listed below:

BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER: SPRING 2022 SEASON 

Philippe Petit 

Open Practice (New York City Premiere) 

February 7–21 (VIRTUAL) 

BAC Digital Commission 

Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org  

Running time: 60 minutes 

To prepare for his high wire walks around the globe—more than 80 of them so far—Philippe Petit has practiced almost daily for the last 55 years. His most notable adventure was his illegal walk between the Twin Towers, a caper recounted in his book To Reach the Clouds, on which the 2009 Academy Award-winning documentary Man on Wire was based. Petit’s latest show, Open Practice, beautifully shot at the majestic Ulster Performing Arts Center, gives audiences front row seats to observe Petit’s creative process and inventive moves on the wire. Interspersed with anecdotes about his life, he reveals some of the extraordinary ways he thinks about creativity and risk and what he calls “cheating the impossible.” 

Peggy Baker  

her body as words (New York Premiere) 

February 28–March 14 (VIRTUAL) 

BAC Digital Commission 

Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org  

Running time: 51 minutes

Peggy Baker’s new work, her body as words (2020), is a sound and film installation that fragments and  explodes notions of female identity as expressed by nine Canadian dance artists. Inspired by the 2009  translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Baker entered a deeply collaborative process  involving personal conversations with the performers. Dancing the complexities of their lived identities,  these artists offer gestural renderings touching on themes of race, gender expression, sexual  orientation, sexual appetite, pregnancy, miscarriage, motherhood, disability, physical labor, and aging. her body as words was filmed by Jeremy Mimnagh and features sound design by Debashis Sinha. 

Chromic Duo  

Homecoming: love you all ways 

March 14–15, 7:30 PM (IN-PERSON) 

Howard Gilman Performance Space 

BAC Salon 

Tickets: $20 at bacnyc.org 

Running time: 60 minutes 

Chromic Duo blends piano, prepared piano, toy piano, and electronics into genre-fluid performances  and installations. They will present a program that builds upon multimedia and chamber music  performance practice. The new work will utilize research and prototyping of interviews and field  recordings conducted in New York City’s Chinatown to bring to light the sounds and stories of people  and the communities around them. This program combines performance art, sound design, installation,  and new technologies to lay the foundation to reflect on personal journeys and the rich cultural heritage  behind them, and ultimately celebrates the resilience in Asian American communities in the face of  uncertainty and adversity. 

Program: 

Nyokabi Kariuki: laika, bluu (NY Premiere) 

Chromic Duo: Fluorescent Oceans 

Chromic Duo: lightless 

Phong Tran: selections from The Computer Room (World Premiere) 

Chromic Duo: Blue Vice (NY Premiere) 

Chromic Duo: new work (BAC Commission, World Premiere) 

Johnny Gandelsman 

This is America 

March 16–17, 7:30 PM (IN-PERSON) 

Howard Gilman Performance Space 

BAC Salon 

Tickets: $20 at bacnyc.org 

Running time: 60 minutes 

Violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman brings his new commissioning project, This Is America, a celebration of America’s rich cultural tapestry and its myriad perspectives, thoughts, and ideas. The  program offers a vivid counterpoint to the idea that this land can be understood through any single  dominant point of view. The BAC program features performances of 10 new works for solo violin written  by a diverse group of US-based composers, alongside two iconic works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

March 16 Program: 

Johann Sebastian Bach: Cello Suite No.1 in G Major, BWV 1007 (transcribed for violin) Angélica Negrón: A través del manto Luminoso 

Olivia Davis: Steeped 

Nick Dunston: Tardigrades (BAC Commission, World Premiere) 

Christina Courtin: Stroon 

Marika Hughes: From J With Love 

March 17 Program: 

Johann Sebastian Bach: Suite no.3 For Solo Cello, BWV 1009 (transcribed for violin) Adele Faizullina: Dew, Time, Linger 

Nick Dunston: Tardigrades (BAC Commission, World Premiere) 

Tyshawn Sorey: For Courtney Bryan 

Rhea Fowler & Micaela Tobin: A City Upon a Hill? 

Rhiannon Giddens: New To The Session 

Andy Akiho: Seven Pillars (New York Premiere) 

Sandbox Percussion 

April 7–8, 8 PM (IN-PERSON) 

Jerome Robbins Theater 

Tickets: $25 at bacnyc.org 

Running time: 80 minutes 

Hailed by The New York Times as “a lush, brooding celebration of noise,” Andy Akiho’s Seven Pillars is  his most ambitious project to date. Nominated for a Grammy Award for best classical composition and  best chamber music performance, the work is structured as a large-scale palindrome and consists of  seven ensemble movements and one solo movement for each member of Sandbox Percussion.  Michael Joseph McQuilken’s lighting scheme reinforces the work’s form throughout the live  performance. Performed by Sandbox, this evening-length work is the largest-scale chamber music work  that Akiho has written and that Sandbox has commissioned. Akiho and Sandbox’s collaboration for  Seven Pillars has spanned the past eight years. 

Ashwini Ramaswamy  

Let the Crows Come (New York Premiere) 

April 13–15, 8 PM (IN-PERSON) 

Jerome Robbins Theater 

Tickets: $25 at bacnyc.org 

Running time: 60 minutes 

Minneapolis-based choreographer and dancer Ashwini Ramaswamy’s Let the Crows Come was developed during a 2018 BAC residency and originally scheduled to be performed at BAC in spring  2020. Let the Crows Come evokes mythography and ancestry, using the metaphor of crows as  messengers for the living and guides for the departed—and in the process explores how memory and  homeland channel guidance and dislocation. In a series of three dance solos from Ramaswamy  (Bharatanatyam), Alanna Morris-Van Tassel (Contemporary/Afro-Caribbean), and Berit Ahlgren (Gaga),  Bharatanatyam is deconstructed and recontextualized to recall a memory that has a shared origin but is remembered differently from person to person. The work features live music by composers Jace  Clayton (DJ/ rupture) and Brent Arnold, who extrapolate from Prema Ramamurthy’s classical Carnatic  (South Indian) score, utilizing centuries-old compositional structures as the point of departure for their  sonic explorations. 

Omar Román De Jesús  

World Premiere  

April 25–May 9 (VIRTUAL) 

BAC Digital Commission 

Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org  

Running time: 40 minutes 

Omar Román De Jesús’s new dance film turns an absurdist lens on moments of a family’s life while examining the global forces that impact their everyday decisions. Ten short scenes reveal the strange happenings of their surreal environment, where threads of memory ricochet and recombine to tell a hyperbolic life story: a dream diary flung open. The new work is paired with De Jesús’s 12-minute film, Los Perros del Barrio Colosal. A wild romp through the challenges of creative decision-making, the characters ask us to consider the far side of the moments when our ideas threaten, with disjointed urgency, to swallow us whole. 

Donna Uchizono Company 

Wings of Iron (World Premiere) 

May 18–21, 7:30 PM (IN-PERSON) 

Howard Gilman Performance Space 

Tickets: $25 at bacnyc.org 

Running time: 60 minutes 

Bessie and US Artist award winner Donna Uchizono will present the world premiere of Wings of Iron,  an evening-length work that examines what it takes to remain humane in these charged times. Investigating the “weight in-between,” the work provides a forum in which to share the weight of vulnerability that is simultaneously public and private. The detailed choreography unfolds a tough  exterior over time allowing a new intimacy to emerge, leading to a deeper exploration of this question. Choreographed by Uchizono in collaboration with performers Bria Bacon, Natalie Green, Molly Lieber,  and Pareena Lim, Wings of Iron features an original score by composer okkyung lee and lighting design by Joe Levasseur, co-presented by the Chocolate Factory Theater. 

These interview excerpts have been edited and condensed for clarity.

To find out more about BAC’s Spring Season and the work they do go to bacnyc.org.