New York is a place where many various threads come together. Threads of culture, ideas, innovations, tastes, and sentiments run the spectrum, and often invent new spectrums, and find a place to express themselves here. It’s a place of unique combinations. Because of the proximity of ideas and people, things blend together here, and the history of human intelligence here suggests that mixing elements is often surprisingly interesting, and usually great fun as well. New York casino hotels are one demonstration of how things can be mixed, where the idea of the casino, based on the models in the desert in the southwest, takes root here to become its own thing. Like everything else in New York, it then becomes extremely local, and all of the uniques histories of New York come to bear on the idea of the casino.
A good deal of the most interesting art these days also follows this kind of model. Interdisciplinary forms are finally becoming a norm. Where the money has pretty much run out, and we’ve all run out of ideas of a purely entertaining performing arts, visionary artists are coming to make new work based on the necessity of doing something with the inspiration. Inspiration doesn’t stop, even if the funding does run out. This is not good news for artists, but it is for the rest, because there’s a tremendous variety of new things out there. This will demonstrated in early February with a performance of The Space Inside.
Directed by Bonnie Eckard and performed by Maria Porter, this new work at Theatre Row Studio Theatre is an exploration of alternative medicine in relation to the body at the end of life. It was developed in part at the Across the Threshold Conference, and is part of an ongoing trend toward blending different disciplines in scholarship as well as performative traditions. Eckard’s substantial and very impressive body of work has been moving more toward integrating science with performance. The idea that she can make such splendid works as these, while also maintaining a sharp and effective spiritual wedge into the viewer’s consciousness is a testament to a major talent.