LITERARY

Edited by Steven Serafin and Susan Yung
Introduction by Kristy Edmunds

“BAM has produced a lavish coffee-table book that is a veritable who’s who of great innovators—Robert Wilson, Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch, Peter Brook—it has brought to its stages.”
—Vanity Fair

The Next Wave Festival was founded in 1983 by Harvey Lichtenstein. Mixing genres and upending traditions, the Next Wave gave a larger venue for performances and events that were typically being held in downtown lofts. New York choreographers, directors, artists, and musicians like Trisha Brown, Philip Glass, Bill T. Jones, Laurie Anderson, Robert Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, and Robert Wilson suddenly had access to bigger audiences. International companies were also folded into the Next Wave, introducing New York viewers to Pina Bausch, Robert Lepage, Sankai Juku, and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

BAM: The Next Wave Festival celebrates 35 years of innovative, boundary-pushing performing arts. Richly illustrated with performance photos and ephemera from BAM’s archives, the volume presents a wide-ranging survey of the festival by genre––featuring writing by Tom Sellar, Wendy Perron, Roger Oliver, Mark Swed, Dan Cameron, and Susan Yung––providing an unparalleled look at the Next Wave’s iconic and defining productions. The book also features an introduction by Kristy Edmunds and reflections from Harvey Lichtenstein, as well as a personal narrative from Executive Producer Emeritus Joseph Melillo, who took over the artistic reins of the festival in 1999, offering a behind-the-scenes perspective from the festival’s director.

Available now at Greenlight Bookstore