Phantom Limb Company
For the past 10 years, relentlessly inquisitive theater artists Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko have created onstage magic as a means to address current events and timeless mythologies. Their latest is a rippling meditation on water, heartbreak, and healing in response to the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster. In collaboration with Dai Matsuoka of dance troupe Sankai Juku, the work weaves flex dance, butoh, and Phantom Limb’s unique puppet theater into a visually arresting tapestry of collective experience and artistic alchemy.
Direction and design by Jessica Grindstaff
Original music and puppet design by Erik Sanko
Butoh Master Dai Matsuoka
Costumes by Henrik Vibskov
Lighting Design by Brian H Scott
Sound design by Darron L West
Video design by Keith Skretch
Dramaturgy by Janice Paran
Produced by Octopus Theatricals. Creative Producer Mara Isaacs/Octopus Theatricals
Commissioned by BAM
Phantom Limb Company co-founders Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko lead this master class in storytelling through abstraction, movement, and puppetry.
Lars Jan’s multi-layered vision of Joan Didion’s essay juxtaposes the author’s searing text, performed in its entirety, with a glassed-in microcosm of social unraveling.
Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage (Anna Nicole) offers a bold operatic retelling of the Oedipus tale, set in an apocalyptic 1980s London plagued by police violence, racism, and socioeconomic decay.
Mark Morris Dance Group’s beloved retro-modern reimagining of The Nutcracker comes back to BAM for the holidays, playfully preserving the warm spirit of an essential holiday tradition.