NextWelcome Next Wave
NextWelcome
PROGRAMMING A NEW SEASON AT BAM ALWAYS MEANS FACING the challenge and opportunity of a blank page. It’s obviously a privilege to bring the world’s finest artists to our audiences, whether those artists come from around the corner or across the globe. But it’s also an awesome challenge—not only to select which worthy talents will come to our stages, but also to think deeply about what message we are conveying through the choices we make.
Every choice makes a statement. And at this moment in history, playing it safe isn’t an option.
That’s why this year’s Next Wave festival showcases some of the most extraordinary women artists at work today, representing a wide range of ages and ethnicities. Some, like Eiko Otake and nora chipaumire, are longtime members of the BAM family. Many more—including Wen Hui, Natalia Lafourcade, Caroline Guiela Nguyen, Leslie Cuyjet, Juliana F. May, and Andrea Voets—are starting new relationships with BAM.
Women play integral roles elsewhere: Martha Graham as muse to Richard Move, June Jordan as lodestar to Hanif Abdurraqib, Annie-B Parson joining Michael Gordon and Paul Lazar in reviving a Richard Foreman opera. For all of these artists, personal experience transcends gender and ethnicity—but gender and ethnicity informs personal experience, as well, resulting in art that should speak directly and urgently to the widest community possible.
Elsewhere this fall, BAM audiences will have opportunities to explore a vast cinematic landscape through BAM Film programming, including landmark films in sparkling new anniversary restorations. We welcome Arundhati Roy to talk about her first work of memoir, we bring you family-friendly programs, and we take special pleasure in welcoming the incomparable early-music ensemble Les Arts Florissants back to BAM for a holiday program to remember.
We hope you’ll find yourself at BAM often—in our audiences, and in the art we present.
Sincerely,
Amy Cassello Artistic Director, BAM
Members get special access
BAM is where community meets creativity. Become a member today and discover what makes us a global hub for audacious art. Find the right membership tier for you at BAM.org/join
Members and Patrons are invited to join us at these exclusive events throughout the season:
Member Mingles: Grab a complimentary drink, or two, at pre-show receptions just for BAM Members. Open to BAM Members of all levels; proof of membership is required.
Opening Night Parties: Patrons of all levels can purchase tickets to the performance and RSVP to the party by contacting BAM Patron Services at PatronServices@BAM.org.
Artist Circle Dinners: Salon-style dinners with meaningful conversation and connection, bringing together BAM leadership, visionary artists, and Artist Circle members, centering the evening’s performance. Open to Artist Circle donors and above. Invitations sent six weeks prior to each event. RSVP required.
Leadership Receptions: Intimate gatherings hosted by BAM leadership celebrate the artists and supporters who make these evenings possible. Open to President’s Circle donors and above. Invitations sent six weeks prior to each event. RSVP required.
Mon, Oct 6
Wed, Oct 22
Tue, Oct 28
Fri, Nov 7
Tue, Nov 18
Sun, Dec 7
Tue, Dec 9
Thu, Jan 15, 2026
Next Wave 2025 Opening Party
Open to Patrons and above
Leadership Reception
LACRIMA (p. 12)
Leadership Reception
Martha@BAM—The 1963 Interview (p. 14)
Member Mingle
Optimistic Voices (p. 18)
Leadership Reception
I Guess It Was My Destiny To Live So Long (p. 21)
Artist Circle Dinner
Les Arts Florissants (p. 24)
BAM Member Bash
Opening Night Party
What to wear (p. 26)
Next Wave 2025 & Fall
Wed, Sep 10 TALKS
Mother Mary Comes to Me Arundhati Roy in conversation with Imani Perry
Thu, Sep 18
The Mahabharata (8K) Directed by Peter Brook
Sat, Sep 20 FILM | TALKS
Dread Beat an Blood Linton Kwesi Johnson
Oct 8 & 9 NEXT WAVE 2025 DANCE Dambudzo nora chipaumire
Oct 21—25
Oct 22—26
WAVE 2025 DANCE What Is War
Eiko Otake, Wen Hui
WAVE 2025 THEATER LACRIMA
Caroline Guiela Nguyen
Oct 28—Nov 1 NEXT WAVE 2025 DANCE | THEATER Martha@BAM—The 1963 Interview
Richard Move
14 Fri, Oct 31 KIDS | COMMUNITY BAMboo!
Nov 5—8
Nov 18—21
WAVE 2025 DANCE | MUSIC Optimistic Voices
Juliana F. May
WAVE 2025 POETRY | MUSIC |
I Guess It Was My Destiny To Live So Long
Hanif Abdurraqib
Andrea Voets
WAVE 2025 DANCE | FILM | THEATER For All Your Life
Leslie Cuyjet
Dec 5—7 MUSIC | HOLIDAY Les Arts Florissants
William Christie
Jan 15—17, 2026
WAVE 2025 THEATER | MUSIC | OPERA What to wear
Richard Foreman, Paul Lazar, Annie-B Parson
Apr 10 & 11, 2026 NEXT WAVE 2025 MUSIC
Natalia Lafourcade Cancionera Tour
Oct 2025— Jan 2026
WAVE 2025 VISUAL ART | PERFORMANCE ART
Franklin Furnace’s 50th Anniversary
Arundhati
DATE
Wed, Sep 10
VENUE
Peter Jay Sharp Building Howard Gilman Opera House
TICKETS
Start at $25, $55 including a copy of the book.
Premium orchestra tickets ($75) automatically include a copy of the book.
TALKS
BAM in association with Greenlight Bookstore Presents
Mother Mary Comes to Me Arundhati Roy in conversation with Imani Perry
One of the world’s most celebrated writers, Arundhati Roy is known as the author of two novels—The God of Small Things, her Booker Prizewinning debut, and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness—as well as powerful essays addressing urgent social and political issues like globalization, indigenous rights, and nuclear weapons.
Now, Roy comes to BAM for a revealing conversation about her newest book, Mother Mary Comes to Me, scheduled for publication in September. Speaking with scholar and National Book Award-winning author Imani Perry, Roy will discuss her first work of memoir, detailing her complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce, formidable force she calls “my shelter and my storm.”
BAM.ORG/ARUNDHATIROY
Mayank
The Mahabharata (8K)
Directed by Peter Brook (1989)
In October 1987, BAM made New York theater history by staging English director Peter Brook’s nine-hour adaptation of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata in a long-dormant Fulton Street theater rechristened the BAM Majestic. It’s fitting that the same venue—now known as the Harvey Theater at BAM Strong—proudly hosts Brook’s 1989 film adaptation of that historic production on the Steinberg Screen. Marking the late director’s centenary in 2025, the film is screening in a stunning new 8K restoration undertaken by his son, Simon Brook, which premiered in the Official Selection of the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
Shot in Paris and condensed from its original form to a more concise yet still sweeping cinematic experience, The Mahabharata features an international cast performing in English in an artful distillation of the foundational Hindu epic. Focused on a conflict between two families descended from the same royal house, the film depicts a bitter rivalry that explodes into war, with victory achieved at an unthinkable cost.
BAM.ORG/MAHABHARATA
NORTH
DATE
Thu, Sep 18
RUNNING TIME
173min
VENUE
BAM Strong
Steinberg Screen at Harvey Theater
TICKETS start at $28
Mahabharata
Steinberg Screen at the Harvey Theater made possible by:
Leadership support for BAM Film provided by The Thompson Family Foundation
DATE
Sat, Sep 20
RUNNING TIME
70min
VENUE
BAM Strong
Steinberg Screen at Harvey Theater
TICKETS start at $20
FILM | TALKS
BAM in association with The Atlantic Festival Presents
Dread Beat an Blood
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Film by Franco Rosso (1979)
Born in Jamaica, poet, reggae artist, and activist Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ) moved to England in 1963, and by the late 70s attained iconic status with his robust voice, passionate activism, and fervent verse set to heavy dub. Marking the 50th anniversary of Johnson’s groundbreaking 1975 eponymous poem, the potent documentary portrait Dread Beat an Blood by Franco Rosso—director of the incendiary Babylon, which screened at BAM Rose Cinemas in 2019 and 2024—comes to the Steinberg Screen in a beautiful new restoration from the original 16mm elements by the British Film Institute.
After the screening, Johnson takes the stage in person, reciting his poetry in his first US theatrical appearance in close to two decades. More than a timely retrospective, this singular event celebrates a militant artist still raising his voice for justice.
BAM.ORG/LKJ
“Linton Kwesi Johnson’s impact on the cultural landscape over the last half-century has been colossal and multi-generational.”
—THE GUARDIAN
Leadership support for BAM programming provided by:
Steinberg Screen at the Harvey Theater made possible by:
Leadership support for BAM Film provided by The Thompson Family Foundation
“Ms. chipaumire is an artist of ferocious intensity”
Dambudzo
DANCE
Dambudzo
Created by nora chipaumire
Part of Next Wave 2025
In this immersive performance presented at Roulette, “rock star of downtown dance” (Dance Journal) nora chipaumire engulfs audiences in a world of sound, painting, sculpture, and performance for a deeply affecting confrontation of colonial legacies.
Musicians, revolutionaries, tricksters, and sellouts embody the many meanings of the word dambudzo (“trouble” in Shona) within this thrumming, resonant work of dance theater. Roulette becomes home to a Zimbabwean shabini—an informal bar set up in private residences, where citizens gather to invoke the possibilities of resistance and insurrection. Against a sonic backdrop of barking dogs and whirling Zimbabwean music, visitors explore a radically new spatial realm described by its creator as “a name, a desire, a lament, an inspiration, even a loathing—a poem—that speaks to the 1980s before the fall of communism and the end of apartheid.”
DATE
Oct 8 & 9
RUNNING TIME 1hr 45min
VENUE
Roulette 509 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11217
TICKETS start at $35
DATE Apr 10 & 11, 2026
VENUE
Peter Jay Sharp Building
Howard Gilman Opera House
TICKETS start at $45
MUSIC
Natalia Lafourcade
Cancionera Tour
Part of Next Wave 2025
Leadership support for BAM’s strategic initiatives provided by:
Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation
Leadership support for BAM programming provided by:
Leadership support for Next Wave 2025 provided by National Endowment for the Arts
A soul-stirring singer-songwriter, composer, and producer, Natalia Lafourcade is one of this century’s most influential voices in Latin popular culture. Since launching her solo career in 2002, she’s earned countless prestigious prizes and honors, including 18 Latin Grammy awards—more than any other female artist since the Latin Recording Academy was established in 1997. For her debut appearance at BAM, this global superstar promises a powerfully intimate experience like nothing she has offered before.
From her start in breezy Latin pop and rock, Lafourcade has created a sophisticated style all her own, fusing beloved idioms like mariachi, son jarocho, and bolero with a modern sensibility that bridges genres and generations. Her urge to bring people together transcends art: as an activist and advocate for charitable causes, Lafourcade was named the first Ambassador of Music for Peace at the XIX World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Monterrey, Mexico, last September.
Now, in the wake of bicoastal concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and an iconic live album recorded at Carnegie Hall, Lafourcade strips her presentation down to voice and guitar only for her Cancionera tour, named after her latest album. “Cancionera, no dejes de sorprenderme” (“Songstress, don’t stop surprising me”), she sings—and in this exclusive BAM appearance, she’ll deliver on that promise.
BAM.ORG/NATALIALAFOURCADE
Lafourcade Natalia
What Is War
Created by Eiko Otake and Wen Hui
Part of Next Wave 2025
Created and performed by Eiko Otake (of Eiko & Koma) and Wen Hui (of Living Dance Studio), What Is War is a powerful collabora tion that fuses movement, video, and personal testimony excavated from the artists’ recollections of war and its aftermath. Otake grew up in post war Japan and Wen grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. Friends since 1995 and working closely since 2020, Otake and Wen explore the enduring impacts of war on human con sciousness, collective memory, and the body.
Each performance is followed by a post-show gathering in the BAM Fisher Lower Lobby, where audiences can meet the artists and reflect on their own experiences of war.
War
LACRIMA
“Breathtaking”
—LE MONDE (FRANCE)
© Jean-Louis Fernandez
US DEBUT
DATE
Oct 22—26
RUNNING TIME
2hr 55min
No intermission
VENUE
THEATER
BAM in association with L’Alliance New York’s Crossing The Line Festival Presents
LACRIMA
Written and directed by Caroline Guiela Nguyen Part of Next Wave 2025
LACRIMA
BAM Strong
Harvey Theater
TICKETS
start at $30
LANGUAGE
In French, French Sign Language, Tamil, and English with English supertitles
SPECIAL EVENT
Leadership Reception
Wed, Oct 22
Open to President’s Circle donors ($25,000+) and above
When the Princess of England announces her engagement, a Parisian haute couture fashion house receives an extraordinary commission, and a fascinating story unfolds across continents and generations. Renowned theater maker Caroline Guiela Nguyen transforms the stage into a bustling workshop floor in this sprawling play about the hands that make the garments we covet.
Sworn to complete secrecy, craftspeople around the world embark on eight months of intricate labor in service of a single wedding dress. Marion, the overworked head seamstress of Maison Beliana, fields tough questions from her troubled daughter, while Thérèse, an Alençon lacemaker, comes face to face with a complicated family past. Meanwhile, across the ocean in Mumbai, master embroiderer Abdul fastens 1,000 roses onto duchesse satin as his eyesight rapidly deteriorates. As these men and women all but obliterate themselves in pursuit of perfection, LACRIMA invites us into the space between that which destroys us and that which gives our lives purpose.
“Richard Move’s channeling of the Modern Dance Diva is too brilliant for words”
—TIMEOUT NEW YORK
DANCE | THEATER Martha@BAM—
The 1963 Interview
Created by Richard Move Part of
Next Wave 2025
More than a theatrical work or dance performance, Martha@BAM—The 1963 Interview is an act of artistic resurrection. At the heart of the performance is Martha Graham, the visionary choreographer who changed the course of modern dance during the first half of the 20th century. Making their BAM debut, Richard Move embodies Graham in all her complexity and elegance, faithfully recreating an interview held on stage at the 92nd Street Y on March 31, 1963, in which she discussed the meaning and method behind her most iconic roles. Appearing opposite Move is Tony Award-winning actress and playwright Lisa Kron, portraying dance critic and interviewer Walter Terry.
A highly regarded choreographer and performer in their own right, Move was already known for their uncanny performances as Graham when the 92nd Street Y’s Harkness Dance Center presented them with a recording of the 1963 interview. Joined by Kron and two former Graham company dancers, Catherine Cabeen and PeiJu Chien-Pott, demonstrating Graham’s dance vocabulary, Move lovingly re-enacts the historic event, bringing to life the passionate presence of an iconic American artist.
BAM.ORG/MARTHA
Leadership support for dance at BAM provided by:
Leadership support for BAM’s strategic initiatives provided by: Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation Leadership support for BAM programming provided by: Leadership support for theater and dance at BAM provided by The SHS Foundation Leadership support for theater at BAM provided by The Shubert Foundation, Inc.
Leadership support for Next Wave 2025 provided by National Endowment for the Arts
“ My curiosity brought me here”
HELGA DAVIS WHAT WE PRESENT IS WHO WE ARE
BY STEVE SMITH
Sitting for an interview the day before the 2025 BAM Trailblazers Gala, Helga Davis wants to talk about what she’s wearing to the glamorous affair—not who, but what. Prowling through BAM’s archives, she’d found the titular garment used in a 1977 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the Tim Rice/ Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.
“I’m going to wear it tomorrow,” Davis declares. Davis, a multifaceted singer, actress, composer, and communicator, has been performing at BAM for over two decades, including appearances in four wildly disparate Next Wave productions, so she’s earned the respect she commands. But her wardrobe choice is no mere flex: in her new role as Artist in Residence and Curator at BAM, Davis wants to bring BAM’s extraordinary archives, and the awesome artistic legacy they represent, into conversation with contemporary artists and audiences. Donning the Dreamcoat is a visible manifestation of her agenda.
“I’m wearing it on an evening when we’re honoring Charles and Irene Hamm,” Davis says, citing the namesakes of the BAM Hamm Archives. “That’s what I mean when I talk about the archive as past, present, and future—that there’s a way to make it alive now and pique someone’s curiosity. And the fact that it fit was awesome.”
That mix of probing intelligence, playful curiosity, and profound intention is fundamental to
Next Wave
Davis’ artistic practice. Hosting her acclaimed, long-running podcast series Helga, she engaged fellow artists in revealing exchanges about their lives and work. Lately she’s pursued similar conversations throughout every department at BAM, pulling up a chair anywhere she finds someone to talk to about how and why they do what they do, and how those labors and aspirations contribute to what happens onstage.
As for what Davis plans to bring to the public in her roles as creator and curator, that’s a work-inprogress. “The names resident artist and resident curator are the end of a bigger question: what are you curious about?” she says. “And that’s how come I’m here: my curiosity brought me here. My curiosity about the artists I’ve worked with brought me here. And my curiosity in my own artistic practice brought me here. So my answer is: what I would love to do first here is listen.”
As it happens, Davis is a virtuoso listener. Talk to her, and you’ll witness her astonishing knack for listening intently and completely. Ask a question in turn; contemplation and consideration play out across her features before she says a word. Her ability to connect deepens the humanity of her art, whether onstage or in conversation.
But even if it’s too soon to talk about details, the foundation of Davis’ mission is in place already. “We have to remember that whatever we put on the stage, or in any of our spaces, tells people what we care about,” she says, “and who we care about.”
DATE Nov 5—8
RUNNING TIME
1hr
No intermission
VENUE
BAM Fisher
Fishman Space
TICKETS start at $35
SPECIAL EVENT
Fall Member
Mingle Fri, Nov 7
Voices Optimistic Voices
DANCE | MUSIC
Optimistic Voices
Created by Juliana F. May
Part of Next Wave 2025
Acclaimed choreographer Juliana F. May is renowned for creating thrillingly elaborate cycles of song, text, and movement from the wreckage of difficult experience. In Optimistic Voices, her BAM debut, May delves into the tangled contradictions of family, eroticism, and motherhood. Influenced by postmodern dance and musical theater, she uses repetition and off-kilter rhythms in pursuit of a new performative language. For Optimistic Voices, May creates a dreamlike landscape from the quagmire of everyday life.
Leadership support for BAM’s strategic initiatives provided by:
Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation
Leadership support for BAM programming provided by:
Leadership support for theater at BAM provided by The Shubert Foundation, Inc. and The SHS Foundation
Leadership support for Next Wave 2025 provided by National Endowment for the Arts
THEATER | MUSIC FOR
REAL
Created by Resonate Productions/Andrea Voets
Music by Andrea Voets, Sarah Jeffery and George Dumitriu
Part of Next Wave 2025
FOR REAL is a theatrical radio show about what it means to matter—and, more specifically, about the intellectual undermining of women confronted with sexism directed at the mind and soul. Each performance is recorded and released as a podcast episode, enlisting audience members to contribute to a collection of voices discussing what it means to be heard, understood, and taken seriously.
Created by Andrea Voets—a classically trained Dutch/Belgian harpist and the artistic director of Resonate Productions— FOR REAL is a production of musical journalism, combining in-depth social reporting with original live music in performances and podcasts that bring to light society’s emotional blind spots. As guests in our custom-made sound studio in the Fishman Space, audience members hear the voices of 14 women through speakers sharing how intellectual undermining impacts their aspirations, achievements, and self-worth. The musicians will then invite attendees to be interviewed about the topics at hand—literally improvising risky, honest conversations.
BAM.ORG/FORREAL
DATE
Nov 19—23
RUNNING TIME
1hr 15min
No intermission
VENUE
BAM Fisher
Fishman Space
TICKETS start at $35
Participation in the podcast recording is on a voluntary basis. Feel free to take part in the live interviews, or to simply watch and listen.
FOR REAL
“HANIF
ABDURRAQIB DOING NOTHING ISN’T AN OPTION
BY ETHAN COHEN
The music event was the day after Election Day, and we didn’t know what it was going to look like,” Hanif Abdurraqib says of last year’s November 6 performance with Jamila Woods, Tasha, and McKinley Dixon. “Then after the election, the room just filled up because people wanted to be witness to something, be moved by something.”
For the Ohio-born poet, critic, essayist, and MacArthur Genius with deep roots in spokenword and slam, poetry is no quiet endeavor. Abdurraqib knows that when freed from the page and put under hot lights, words have a way of stoking the flame of community, drawing people near to huddle in their glow. “So much is gained when it can leave the page. It makes you an active participant with the language,” he says over Zoom on a gloomy May afternoon. “BAM has really been a place where I can explore expansive and creative ways to bring art to a community.”
This year’s installment of I Guess It Was My Destiny To Live So Long may not exactly coincide with such an acute moment of national reckoning as the 2024 presidential election. But for the
41-year-old writer with eight books under his belt (one of which was long-listed for a National Book Award in 2019), doing nothing is not an option—it never has been. “Life is action. Inaction is death,” he says, recalling a quote from June Jordan, the late poet and long-time Bed-Stuy resident whose radical artistic legacy again drives the series.
“What I’m trying to do is put us in a position, collectively—as witnesses to this programming, as people engaged in a program—to say, all this work is beautiful and important, and it has limits. To know its limits is how we really thrive in material action, material resistance, in material community.”
He can’t say much about exactly what will happen in November, but he assures us that, like last year, music and film are integral parts of the equation. For Abdurraqib, who has been packing BAM’s spaces since he curated our acclaimed music series in 2022, art is less about one person’s vision for a new world and more about asking how we, as a community, might begin locating the path forward. And the how of it all just makes sense to him: we start in a big room, together.
Marc J. Franklin
POETRY | MUSIC | FILM
I Guess It Was My Destiny To Live So Long
A poetry series honoring the legacy of June Jordan
Curated by Hanif Abdurraqib Part of Next Wave 2025
Following up last year’s powerful election-week poetry series, BAM Curator at Large and MacArthur Genius Hanif Abdurraqib is back with another dynamic program of events calling us to celebrate poetry’s power to connect. Honoring the legacy of legendary Brooklyn poet June Jordan, a constellation of artists, writers, and performers activate BAM’s spaces, illuminating the truths of our moment via poetic imagination.
DATE Nov 18—21
VENUE
Various
TICKETS
Sign up on BAM.org to be notified when tickets go on sale
SPECIAL EVENT Leadership Reception Tue, Nov 18
Open to President’s Circle donors ($25,000+) and above
BAM DEBUT
DATE Dec 3—7
RUNNING TIME 1hr
No intermission
VENUE
BAM Fisher Fishman Space
TICKETS start at $35
For Your
DANCE | FILM | THEATER
For All Your Life
Created by Leslie Cuyjet Part of Next Wave 2025
For All Your Life is a performance, film, and social experiment that investigates the value of Black life and death, drawing on the life insurance industry for method and metaphor. In the film, Brooklyn choreographer and performer Leslie Cuyjet delivers a seminar that reveals how the insurance business is linked to the historical slave trade, how people grapple with the inevitability of death, and how monetary value is affixed to human life. In performance, Cuyjet embodies the passions and conflicts underlying such transactions.
Deemed “a potent choreographic force” by The New York Times, Cuyjet is a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow and received a 2019 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award. Her solo Blur earned a 2022 award for Outstanding Choreographer/Creator, and With Marion (2023) reflected on the legacy of her great-aunt, Marion Cuyjet, a pioneer in Black dance education. Learning that major insurers once sold policies on enslaved people became the seed for For All Your Life, complicating Cuyjet’s own understanding of value, mortality, and legacy. Extending beyond the stage, the project includes a companion website (forallyourlife.com), a digital marketplace that invites audiences to confront how Black life and death have been—and continue to be—quantified.
All Your Life
DATE Dec 5—7
RUNNING TIME
1hr 30min including intermission
VENUE
Peter Jay Sharp Building Howard Gilman Opera House
TICKETS
start at $25
MUSIC | HOLIDAY
Les Arts Florissants
Messe de Minuit and Pastorale de Noël
By Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Conducted by William Christie
Curious about what Christmas might have sounded like to Louis XIV? Early-music expert William Christie and his world-renowned French ensemble Les Arts Florissants take up that question with style, performing two seasonal works by the French Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Master of Music at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
SPECIAL EVENT
Artist Circle Dinner
Sun, Dec 7
Open to Artist Circle Patrons ($10,000+) and above
The program includes two key works by Charpentier, among the greatest composers of sacred music during the Grand Siècle: Messe de Minuit pour Noël, a mass setting based on the melodies of 10 French Christmas carols, and Pastorale de Noël, a lyrical recounting of the Nativity story. These performances are a welcome return for Christie and Les Arts Florissants, BAM favorites since their first appearance with a universally celebrated production of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s opera Atys in 1989, here making their first BAM appearance since 2019.
BAM.ORG/LAF
Les Arts
Florissants
William Christie by Oscar Ortega; Vincent Pontet.
Franklin Furnace
VISUAL ART | PERFORMANCE ART
Franklin Furnace’s 50th Anniversary
Part of Next Wave 2025
Franklin Furnace, a crucial downtown New York art space and archive currently based at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, is the subject of a retrospective gallery show anticipating its 50th anniversary in 2026. Founder Martha Wilson, an eminent feminist performance artist, described Franklin Furnace as “a hothouse for artists’ ideas, a place where ideas create light and heat.” Opened in 1976, the organization provided the downtown New York avant-garde with a repository for artist-produced books; nurtured performance art, installation art, and arts education; and championed countless emerging artists who would rise to international renown. Included in the exhibition are works by Wilson, Jenny Holzer, Tehching Hsieh, Dread Scott, and more.
DATE
Oct 2025—Jan 2026
VENUE
BAM Strong
The Rudin Family Gallery
On view 90 minutes prior to all performances in the Harvey Theater at BAM Strong
What to
DATE
Jan 15—17, 2026
VENUE
BAM Strong
Harvey Theater TICKETS start at $25
THEATER | MUSIC | OPERA
BAM and Prototype by BMP Present
What to wear
Direction, Libretto and Production by Richard Foreman
Music by Michael Gordon
Music Direction by Alan Pierson
Creative Direction by Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson
Part of Next Wave 2025
SPECIAL EVENT
Opening Night
Reception Thu, Jan 15
Open to Young Patrons ($2,500+) and above
Now, in its New York debut as part of Next Wave 2025 and Prototype Festival, What to wear is remounted for the first time in 20 years, returned to its original Richard Foreman staging by Big Dance Theater co-founders Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar. Audiences have a unique opportunity to see an original Richard Foreman production brought carefully back to life. In Foreman and Gordon’s pageant of seductiveness gone wrong, beauty gives way to something more transcendent—and our contemporary world of fast fashion and influencer culture renders their acerbic critiques still cutting and relevant as ever. A collaboration between BAM, Beth Morrison Projects, Prototype, and Bang on a Can, this historic re-staging honors Foreman’s trailblazing legacy, and confirms Gordon’s ceaseless musical vitality.
Original Production by Cal Arts Center for New Performance
for
support for theater at BAM provided by The Shubert Foundation, Inc. and The SHS Foundation
Leadership support for Next Wave 2025 provided by National Endowment for the Arts
“A visionary musing on beauty, vanity and the nature of admiration”
—VARIETY
wear
KIDS | COMMUNITY BAMboo!
Your family is invited to BAM’s frightfully fun annual Halloween block party, back for another autumn afternoon of candy giveaways, carnival games, arts and crafts, and more. Put on your costume and meet us outside the Peter Jay Sharp Building for a monstrously good time.
BAM.ORG/BAMBOO
DATE Fri, Oct 31
VENUE
30 Lafayette Ave between Ashland Pl & St. Felix St
FREE
Film boo!
Leadership support for BAM’s strategic initiatives provided by:
Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation
Leadership support for BAM programming provided by:
Leadership support for BAM Community programs provided by The Thompson Family Foundation
It will be an exciting fall at the BAM Rose Cinemas, with a mix of highly anticipated auteurs, cutting-edge young filmmakers, and retrospectives that expand our knowledge of global cinema. We welcome back our partners at New York Film Festival and NewFest in October with selections from their 2025 festivals—always among the best-curated events of the season. We’ll also have programs highlighting a neglected master of Mexican cinema, folklore and fairy tales at the movies, and a tribute to the legendary Angela Bassett. All this alongside the best new films by BAM favorites like Yorgos Lanthimos, Luca Guadagnino, Chloé Zhao, Paul Thomas Anderson, and more.
Member Film benefits
BAM Members enjoy 365 days of discounted film at BAM Rose Cinemas, invitations to members-only screenings, and more.
Member First Friday
Enjoy FREE small popcorn with a purchase of movie tickets every first Friday of the month at BAM Rose Cinemas. Simply show your digital membership ID at concession to redeem.
Patron Film benefits
BAM Patrons ($2,500+) enjoy FREE admission to regular screenings with a complimentary popcorn on every visit to BAM Rose Cinemas.
B. Arnon; Ellen Qbertplaya
MAKE ADVENTUROUS ART YOUR LEGACY
Planned giving is a valuable opportunity for individuals to tailor special gifts to benefit BAM, now and in the future. Planned gifts provide you with important reductions in current estate and income taxes, while maintaining, or even increasing, income from the donated assets involved.
Through a number of giving options—bequests, charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, life insurance, retirement plans, and charitable gift annuities—you can make a unique contribution that meets your specific financial goals while enriching BAM for years to come.
BAM has a vital legacy of supporting adventurous artists. As you begin crafting your own legacy, we hope you’ll consider supporting the future of vibrant art in Brooklyn and beyond.
For more information on how to include BAM in your estate plans, contact Donny Repsher at 718.724.8220 or drepsher@BAM.org
BAM.ORG/PLANNED-GIVING
Tickets
BY PHONE
718.636.4100
Hours
Mon—Sat: 12pm—6pm*
*Hours may vary. IN PERSON Box Office
Leave it to BAM Leave it to BAM
Peter Jay Sharp Building
30 Lafayette Ave Brooklyn, NY 11217
Hours
Mon—Sat: 12pm—6pm*
PATRON SERVICES PatronServices@BAM.org 718.636.4182
Hours
Mon—Fri: 12pm—6pm*
Know where to go before you arrive
PETER JAY SHARP
BUILDING
30 Lafayette Ave Brooklyn, NY 11217
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
BAM Rose Cinemas Hillman Attic Studio
The Adam Space
BAM STRONG
651 Fulton St Brooklyn, NY 11217
Harvey Theater The Rudin Family Gallery Steinberg Screen
BAM FISHER
321 Ashland Pl Brooklyn, NY 11217
BAM Fisher Hillman Studio Leavitt Workshop Fishman Space
BAM Fisher Rooftop Terrace and Stutz Gardens
BAM KBH
10 Lafayette Ave Brooklyn, NY 11217
BAM Rose Cinemas at BAM KBH
Samuel H. Scripps
Education Center
BAM Hamm Archives
Shelby White and Leon Levy Reading Room at the BAM Hamm Archives
BAM KBH
Thank you TO OUR SEASON SUPPORTERS
Season Sponsor:
Leadership support for BAM’s strategic initiatives provided by:
Leadership support for theater and dance at BAM and BAM Education programs provided by The SHS Foundation
Leadership support for theater at BAM provided by The Shubert Foundation, Inc.
Leadership support for dance at BAM provided by :
Steinberg Screen at the Harvey Theater made possible by:
Major support for Arts & Justice, Word. Sound. Power. in the Classroom, (Re)Centering Theater, and BAM Education programs provided by The Emily Davie & Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation
Major support for BAM Education programs provided by: Epstein Teicher Philanthropies; The FAR Fund; and The Joseph LeRoy and Ann C. Warner Fund
Major support for Brooklyn Interns for Arts & Culture and BAM Education programs provided by Constans Culver Foundation
Major support for The Met: Live in HD provided in memory of Joan Kronick
Major support for programs in the Lepercq Cinema is provided by The Lepercq Charitable Foundation
Support for theater at BAM provided by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater
Support for BAM Education programs provided by: Anne-Victoire Auriault; Jennifer Kopylov; Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund; and The Wasily Family Foundation, Inc.
Support for senior programming is provided by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Department for the Aging
Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation
Leadership support for BAM programming provided by:
Leadership support for virtual programming at BAM provided by the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation
Leadership support for Next Wave 2025 provided by National Endowment for the Arts
Leadership support for the BAM Hamm Archives, BAM Film, and Community programs provided by The Thompson Family Foundation
Leadership support for the BAM Hamm Archives provided by Charles J. & Irene F. Hamm
Leadership support for the Shelby White & Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive, a program of the BAM Hamm Archives, provided by:
Additional support for opera and theater at BAM provided by The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust
Additional support for theater at BAM provided by David L. Klein, Jr. Foundation
Additional support for BAM Education programs provided by Jody & John Arnhold and Sarah I. Schieffelin Residuary Trust
Additional support for Brooklyn Interns for Arts & Culture provided by The Krumholz Foundation
Leadership support for every season provided by the BAM Board of Trustees, led by Diane L. Max, Chair & Vice Chairs Juliet Moser and Tim Sebunya
Leadership support for BAM’s programming and initiatives provided by: brigittenyc; William I. Campbell & Christine Wächter-Campbell; Jeanne Donovan Fisher; Judith R. & Alan H. Fishman; The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc.; Alex Katz Foundation; Robin & Edgar Lampert; Adam E. Max (in memoriam) & Diane L. Max; Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust; Axel Stawski & Galia Meiri Stawski; John L. & Eva Usdan; Anonymous
Major support for BAM’s programming and initiatives provided by: Andrea Bozzo & John Martinez; Cheryl & Joe Della Rosa; Aashish & Dinyar Devitre; Mark Diker & Deborah Colson; Barry M. Fox; Roberta Garza & Roberto Mendoza; Gotham Organization, Inc.; Anne Hubbard; Scott C. McDonald; The Ambrose Monell Foundation; Barbara & Richard Moore; Darnell-Moser Charitable Fund; Henry and Lucy Moses Fund, Inc.; Eri Nishikawa; PM The Przymusinski Fund; The Jerome Robbins Foundation, Inc.; The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund; Dr. Sheila A. Cain & Bart Sheehan; Jennifer Small & Adam Wolfensohn; Edward & Virginia Spilka; Starry Night Fund; Doug C. Steiner; Joseph A. Stern
Additional support for BAM’s programming and initiatives provided by: Anne H. Bass Foundation; Constance Christensen; Steven & Susan Felsher; Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts; Barbara Haws & William Josephson; The Bertha and Isaac Liberman Foundation; James I. McLaren & Lawton W. Fitt; Laura Taft and the Paulsen Family Foundation; Gabriel & Lindsay Pizzi; The Scherman Foundation, Inc.; Edward & Virginia Spilka; Anonymous
Your tax dollars make BAM programs possible through funding from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
The BAM facilities are owned by the City of New York and benefit from public funds provided through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with support from Mayor Eric Adams; the New York City Council including Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams, Councilmember Crystal Hudson, and the Brooklyn Delegation of the Council; and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. BAM would also like to thank the Brooklyn Delegations of the New York State Assembly and New York State Senate, Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest, and Senator Andrew Gounardes. BAM is also grateful for the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Charles D. Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Representative Nydia M. Velazquez, and Representative Daniel S. Goldman.
Your tax dollars make BAM programs possible through funding from:
ON THE COVER MARTHA@BAM—THE 1963 INTERVIEW Oct 28—Nov 1 p. 14
Photo: Josef Astor
© Brooklyn Academy of Music, Inc. 2025. BAM®, Brooklyn Academy of Music®, Everybooty®, Next Wave® and Teknopolis® are trademarks of Brooklyn Academy of Music, Inc.