Works & Process Is Still at Work at the Guggenheim

Coming up this fall: A captivating season of dance, music, theater, and opera

For many years, New Yorkers have been privileged to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company perform in the Guggenheim Rotunda, thanks to Works & Process, a nonprofit founded in 1984 that organizes and sponsors immersive works of art and dance in the museum and elsewhere.

One of my favorites was “Gathering,” a retrospective at the Guggenheim celebrating Brooklyn-born Alex Katz’s works of over 50 years. Paul Taylor collaborated with the artist, creating dance, costumes, and sets. The dancers were surrounded by Katz’s paintings of family and friends (including Taylor and his company), spiraling down the museum walls, with the audience hanging over the railing to watch them dance.

On the line: The Paul Taylor Dance Company in Pam Tanowitz’s Messengers, Maidens and the End of Something Else. Photo: Ben McKeown, courtesy of American Dance Festival.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Upcoming Dance Performances

Caroline Cronson, the director of Works & Process and the daughter-in-law of its founder, Mary Sharp Cronson, explains that over the years Taylor and Katz worked together on 16 pieces. Now, eight years after Taylor’s death, she says the Paul Taylor Dance Company will perform on September 14 highlights from a new dance collaboration at the Guggenheim, choreographed by Pam Tanowitz with vibrant sets designed by artist Sarah Crowner, followed by a discussion with Crowner, Tanowitz, and PTDC artistic director Michael Novak.

All together now: SCUFF Queer Public Dance—all-inclusive line dancing. Featuring Kenya Jacob. Photo: Works & Process/Erick Munari
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cleaving: Miami City Ballet dancers in sync. Photo: Pari Dukovic.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Many other Works & Process partners will appear at the Guggenheim as well. Cronson talked to me about a few. On September 28, SCUFF Queer Public Dance will perform in the rotunda, where the public can join in the line dance. “It’s a very popular group from Austin, with a Zydeco band,” Cronson said—expect a large and lively event. And on October 4, Miami City Ballet will present a new piece featuring the Cuban-American choreographer/dancer Patricia Delgado, who works with her husband, Justin Peck. “They’re well known for their work on the Broadway musical Buena Vista Social Club,” notes Cronson.

A president’s grief: Lincoln in the Bardo—an opera by composer Missy Mazzoli. Illustration: David McConochie
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Highly Anticipated Opera Previews

The next evening, thanks to Works & Process, opera lovers will be offered a sneak preview of Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo. Based on George Saunders’s Booker Prize-winning novel, it revolves around the president’s grief after losing his 11-year-old son and the residents of the bardo—the Tibetan Buddhist intermediate space between life and death. (The Metropolitan Opera opening is on October 19.)

A week later New Yorkers will get a preview of Minnesota Opera’s The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, an adaptation of the popular graphic novel composed by Kamala Sankaram, who is praised by The Washington Post as “one of the most exciting opera composers in the country.”

‘Scuse me: O’Keeffe: Kiss the Sky—the life and loves of an American painter. Composite image created from photographs by Phil Groshon and Paul Horpedahl.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Also up-and-coming—a glimpse at Washington National Opera’s highly anticipated world-premiere ballet-opera O’Keeffe: Kiss the Sky. Inspired by the career of modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe, it was choreographed by Jessica Lang (who has created more than 100 works, many for the American Ballet Company) and composed by Grammy-winner Christopher Tin. Result? A stunning fusion of opera and ballet. Again, the artists and director will offer a look behind the scenes.

Storytelling through music: Peter & the Wolf, a child’s daring journey. Photo: Works & Process/Elyse Mertz
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Also scheduled: the beloved Works & Process production of Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter & the Wolf, directed and narrated by Isaac Mizrahi, featuring Dance Heginbotham and Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect. To the delight of children of all ages, it will appear multiple days and times.

Swing your partner: Gather Round: Let’s Dance at Manhattan West.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Beyond the Guggenheim

Works & Process’s captivating dance-and-music series Gather Round: Let’s Dance, on Wednesdays in September, features live bands, dance lessons, and performances by New York artists at Manhattan West. And at Free Food Refettorio Harlem, four free nights of dinners and performance for residents of the neighborhood. You can find out about all Works & Process programs this season on its website: WorksandProcess.org.

Attention Homies: Dinner and dance at Refettorio Harlem for residents only. Four nights in October: MasterZ at Work Dance Family with Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Finally, for those wondering why Crowner’s brilliantly colored paintings were still hanging in the Guggenheim’s restaurant and not lining the rotunda as artworks like Katz’s were in years past: Caroline Cronson explains that six new works will be shown at Works & Process’s Underground Uptown Dance Festival in January, when thousands of performing-arts leaders and artists from the around the globe will converge in the city for JanArtsNYC. (Specifics will be available later this year on the Works & Process website.)

Suzanne Charlé has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, House Beautiful, and The New York Times, where she was a freelance assigning editor for the Magazine. She has co-authored many books, including Indonesia in the Soeharto Years: Issues, Incidents and Illustrations.

For other NYCitywoman articles by Suzanne Charlé, see: