Editor's Message
Running Local
For at least the next few issues, my column no longer will appear on this page. Instead, an expanded version of it will be found in the Local section. As its title—“City Notes”—suggests, the column will focus on life here on the homefront. Rest assured that from Afghanistan to Arizona, the many senseless wars being waged in strange and forbidding lands will get their due as well.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Winter Jazzfest 2020:
There's No Such Place as Away
By Matt Forker
FEB 2020 | Music
2020 is hardly off to a promising start; with a possible new global conflict, impeachment, the climate crisis, and economic uncertainty, the world seems daunting. Jazz has always been a music of the issues of the day, and this year’s Winter Jazzfest faced today’s upheaval head-on.
Training Devices
By Katy DammersFEB 2020 | Dance
The object seems to spark joy, encouraging the dancers to climb around its hefty bulk and investigate its crests and falls. While at times the dancers balance atop the sculpture, recalling some of the more poised moments of previous sections, their work in relationship to this sculpture is playful, sensual, and even lazy. With this work’s emphasis on pleasure and relaxation it did not initially seem like a “training device,” even though it elicited specific responses. Watching this section I wondered if training does not always have to be disciplinary. Do we need training to play? Or at least training in setting aside time and space to do so unencumbered?
Motherhood in the Raw: Medea
Simon Stone with Ivan Talijancic
By Ivan Talijancic
FEB 2020 | Theater
Stone returns to New York with his highly anticipated production of Medea. Originally staged in 2014 with Dutch actors at Ivo van Hove’s Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, the New York version, presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, features Rose Byrne and Bobby Canavale. After an early January rehearsal, the intrepid writer/director answered my questions about his current production and his recent works.
Jesse Chun and Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin: stain begins to absorb the material spilled on
By Diana Seo Hyung LeeFEB 2020 | ArtSeen
One may feel like an intruder walking into Jesse Chun and Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin’s stain begins to absorb the material spilled on at DOOSAN Gallery. Perhaps this is caused by encountering Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin’s Onggi (as if from a firm esophageal column) (2019) at the entrance, a gathering of Korean glass onggi vases on a bed of soil that have an authoritative aura in their multitude and containment. There is a sense of walking into the midst of a process that does not readily reveal itself.
