Innovation continues at PS21: Performance for the 21st Century tonight and tomorrow with Life in This House is Over, a darkly comedic American premiere by director and performer Samantha Shay. Previously staged in Iceland and Poland, this piece blends movement, music, and text to explore grief with humor and poignancy, inspired by the plays of Anton Chekhov and the dances of Pina Bausch. The title comes from Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.
Shay, who grew up in Massachusetts, draws on a rich and varied background: training at the Moscow Art Theatre School, researching Russian avant-garde film as a Yale fellow, and studying at the Pina Bausch Zentrum in Wuppertal as a Fulbright scholar. This lineage shapes the production’s physicality and emotional depth. The Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, co-initiated the project.
Life in This House is Over features Julie Shanahan, a longtime Bausch company member. Like the work of Big Dance Theater and other contemporary dance theater companies, the performance plays with gesture and objects, in this case, chairs, a cake, and other props, alongside folk songs designed to stimulate the vagus nerve, the body’s emotional control center.
Shay describes her approach as “unsharpening the body of the audience,” inviting emotional engagement and encouraging viewers to draw on their own lives to feel “the poetry and beauty” of grief. In a recent interview, she said the performance doesn’t simply depict grief, it creates a space for the audience to bring their own memories, making the encounter keenly personal.
Tomorrow at 3 p.m., a free music event takes place in Crellin Park, Chatham, NY, as part of Life in This House is Over. The ensemble features artists from Teatr ZAR, based in Wroclaw, known for its distinctive theatrical language and extensive musical research. They have uncovered some of the world’s earliest polyphonic songs, offering a rare glimpse into the musical heritage of early human societies.
The performance includes songs from Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia, Croatia, and Corsica, blending ancient melodies with contemporary arrangements. Afterward, the ensemble will teach the audience a traditional Georgian celebration song for a collective rendition.
On August 22, acclaimed pianist Adam Tendler performs for one night only. He explores themes of grief through 16 works commissioned from contemporary, experimental composers after his father’s death. These include pieces by Nico Muhly, whose music merges classical traditions with modern sensibilities; Laurie Anderson, a pioneer in music and multimedia art; Missy Mazzoli, a leading figure in the new classical movement; Angélica Negrón, who blends experimental music, electronics, and traditional Latinx influences; Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange), whose genre-defying approach to R&B, pop, and experimental sounds has shaped modern music; and Sarah Kirkland Snider, known for her lush, cinematic soundscapes that integrate classical and indie influences.
Tendler, a self-described “pioneer of DIY culture in concert music,” challenges traditional structures by creating and performing independently. As a professor at NYU Steinhardt, he champions composers like Julius Eastman, whose work appeared earlier this season at PS21, and John Cage, whose collaborations with choreographer Merce Cunningham still shape the avant-garde landscape.
The last weekend of August features a free performance by Compagnie Basinga, the French tightrope-walking circus company in Crellin Park, and UK’s Kaleider production company in the Pavilion Theater.
Basinga’s Soka Tira Osoa invites the audience into the tight rope walking spectacle. With a live band, the performance blurs the line between artist and spectator as riggers, musicians, sound engineers, and tightrope walkers collaborate to create an aerial display of balance and human connection. This U.S. premiere explores collaboration, vulnerability, and the collective strength that emerges when everyone plays a role. The company will be in residence at PS21 in the days before the show.
Kaleider performs Arch, an immersive piece where two people attempt to build a freestanding arch from concrete and ice. What begins as a simple task becomes a meditation on death, renewal, and the fragile systems we construct whether in language, architecture, or society.
Directed by Seth Honnor, Arch invites audiences to witness both the physical struggle and the quiet grace of the process. With a wordless score by emerging composer Verity Standen, the piece shifts between stillness and intense action, drawing the audience into a singular, thought-provoking journey.
Catherine Tharin danced with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company touring nationally and internationally. She teaches dance studies and technique, is an independent dance and performance curator, choreographs, writes about dance for Side of Culture and Interlocutor, and is a reviewer for The Dance Enthusiast. She also writes for The Boston Globe. Catherine lives in Pine Plains, New York and New York City.
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