Pop Music: Alicia Keys Rocks the Vote With Tidal
Oct. 21; tidal.com.
Streaming companies give the music community plenty to gripe about — namely, undercutting payouts to artists. Since launching in 2015, Tidal has positioned itself as a platform by and for musicians. Of course, performer-proprietors like Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Kanye West were the least vulnerable to the throes of the streaming economy. Even so, there’s ample evidence of Tidal’s ability to bring artists together for good.
Every year, the company stages a massive, all-star charity concert in Brooklyn, donating 100 percent of proceeds to causes, including natural disaster relief and criminal justice reform. This year’s event, on Monday at the Barclays Center, will benefit Rock the Vote, a nonprofit dedicated to energizing young voters. The genre-spanning lineup includes stars of R&B (Alicia Keys), hip-hop (G-Eazy, French Montana, Doja Cat), reggaeton (Farruko) and folk-pop (Dermot Kennedy). OLIVIA HORN
Art: The New MoMA Mixes Things Up
The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan reopens this week, and the renovation and expansion of its physical space are the least of it. As The New York Times recently detailed, the museum has also fundamentally reconceived its permanent collection, breaking apart its monolithic modernist narrative to encompass a greater diversity of origins and mediums.
One huge addition is a gift of 90 works by Latin American artists from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Geometric abstractions by the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark will add a transcendent counterpoint to similar work by Europeans and Americans. WILL HEINRICH
Dance: Houston Ballet Turns 50
Oct. 24-26; nycitycenter.org.
It’s not every day that a dance company turns 50. To mark the occasion, the Houston Ballet, led by its artistic director, Stanton Welch, presents its first program at New York City Center since 1986.
Along with Aszure Barton’s “Come In” to music by Vladimir Martynov — it was originally created for Mikhail Baryshnikov and his Hell’s Kitchen Dance in 2006 — Justin Peck presents “Reflections.” Featuring a commissioned score for two pianos by Sufjan Stevens, one of Peck’s closest collaborators, the work pays homage to ballet in an exploration of symmetry and balance.
But the highlight is Mark Morris’s “The Letter V,” a pastoral dance to Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G Major, which showcases his sophisticated, understated approach to ballet. Would all of the artistic directors in the ballet world please take note? Live music is required, and here, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s does the honors. GIA KOURLAS
Theater: ‘Fires in the Mirror’ Reignites Off Broadway
Oct. 22-Dec. 8; signaturetheatre.org.
On an August evening in 1991, a car crash in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, killed a 7-year-old black child as he was outside playing. A young Hasidic scholar who’d had nothing to do with it was stabbed to death in revenge. Days of unrest followed, with black and Jewish residents of the neighborhood, and the city, interpreting events through very different lenses of identity and experience.
Anna Deavere Smith constructed her Obie Award-winning 1992 work “Fires in the Mirror” from interviews with people on all sides — each played, originally, by her. For the Signature Theater revival, those solo duties go to Michael Benjamin Washington, memorable for his comic turn as Tracy’s grown son, Donald, on NBC’s “30 Rock,” and seen last year on Broadway in “The Boys in the Band.” Directed by Saheem Ali, “Fires in the Mirror” starts previews on Tuesday, Oct. 22, at the Pershing Square Signature Center in Manhattan. LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES
TV: Don’t Go Near the Water, in ‘The Bay’
Oct. 22; britbox.com.
Every so often a missing-child mystery arises from the foggy shores of a hardscrabble seaside town and lays claim to being the new “Broadchurch.” “The Bay,” a six-part thriller debuting Oct. 22 on BritBox, is now that show.
It begins with a girls’ night out in Morecambe, a coastal enclave in Lancashire, England, where, after a few rounds of booze and karaoke, one of the revelers takes to the alley with a bedroom-eyed Lothario. The next morning, stumbling with a throbbing head into a meeting about 15-year-old twins who have vanished the night before, she’s revealed to be Detective Sergeant Lisa Armstrong (Morven Christie, “Grantchester”), a family liaison officer. And her fling soon turns out to be the very married stepfather of the teens who are missing.
But Lisa withholds that bit of information as she investigates the disappearance in a city with a suspect around every corner, and two vulnerable kids of her own. “The Bay,” it turns out, is no “Broadchurch.” But for a binge on a chilly autumn weekend, it’s satisfying enough that you just might not be able to look away. KATHYRN SHATTUCK
Classical: A Musical Reflection on Haitian Matriarchy
Oct. 26; kaufmanmusiccenter.org.
After her grandmother passed away in 2015, the Haitian-American musician Nathalie Joachim began contemplating how to honor her legacy in music. “In what ways did our voices connect with the voices of other Haitian women?” she later wrote. “What did our songs tell us about our past, and what might they mean for the future?”
A multitalented composer, flutist, and vocalist, Joachim created “Fanm d’Ayiti,” which translates to “Women of Haiti,” as an evening-length artistic exploration of matriarchy, drawing Haitian folk and popular traditions into the world of contemporary classical music.
Delicately entrancing songs for string quartet, flute, and electronics — led by Joachim’s powerful and unpretentious voice — alternate with recorded spoken interludes as well as the singing of a girls choir from Joachim’s family’s village. Released in August on New Amsterdam Records, the project arrives at Merkin Hall in Manhattan on Saturday, as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival, with Joachim joined by the intrepid Spekral Quartet. WILLIAM ROBIN
Film: A Woman’s Work on the Frontlines
Oct. 18.
As warplanes fly overhead in Syria, unleashing bombs and chemical weapons, Dr. Amani Ballor keeps smiling for the sake of the children. One of the few doctors who has stayed in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, she administers treatment out of a warren of tunnels and bunkers in an underground hospital called the Cave. Millions have already fled the region. But for the 400,000 residents who remain trapped, she and her team are their lifeline.
Directed by Feras Fayyad (“Last Men in Aleppo”), “The Cave” follows the 29-year-old Dr. Ballor on her harrowing daily rounds as she tends to the bloodied and broken with tenderness and humor. She also defiantly endures a harsh patriarchy that believes women should stay in the home and uses them as tools of war.
Trained as a pediatrician, Dr. Ballor decided early in her career to stand with the victims in a life that would be admittedly tough but perhaps more honest. “Is God really watching?” she asks while treating a baby whose breathing had stopped. “We will never give up, whatever they do!” KATHRYN SHATTUCK
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