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In a Sundance Film Festival defined by the coronavirus pandemic, the New Frontier section devoted to experimental projects like virtual reality films and interactive performance art was also radically reimagined. The section is often one of Sundance’s most intensely physical experiences; in 2020, it included a series of VR films viewed while floating in a swimming pool. In 2021, during an entirely remote festival, it pushed for something different: making our own homes feel otherworldly.
Pared down to 14 projects, this year’s New Frontier focused on web art and social media alongside virtual and augmented reality experiences. The result was a show that felt intimate and intriguing and set a model for showcasing interactive art online.
This yearâs Sundance Film Festival going virtual has no doubt been a godsend for accessibility. Countless world class films, previously confined to snowy Park City, are temporarily made available to anyone in the country, anywhere, including my cramped apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. Despite the lack of a centralized on-site venue for New Frontier, the festivalâs annual virtual reality and new media showcase, the Sundance Institute overhauled their interface in order to support a platform perfectly suited for innovative works at the intersection of moving image and burgeoning technology. One of the perks of being awarded this yearâs Press Inclusion Initiative fellowshipâaside from a standard press pass and bragging rights (of which I am eternally grateful!)âis receiving a complimentary Oculus Quest 2 VR headset. A week before the festival started, I received a brand-new Oculus in the mail like it was a tipsy late-night online shopping purchase. When the initi
A scene from
Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran. Javaad Alipoor, Parivash Akbarzadeh. Photo: Peter Dibdin.
BEFORE SITTING DOWN AT MY DESK for the inaugural evening of the Public Theater’s digital edition of its annual Under the Radar Festival, I scroll through my phone, looking at costumed marauders storming the Capitol Building. The pictures depict smiling Vikings, Confederate and Revolutionary war soldiers, Captain America as a paratrooper holding a straw broom. Is he a warlock, or a street-sweeper? There are enough mixed metaphors for heroism to make your head explode, and I am struck by how desperate people are for cosplay, their imaginations totally warped by popular fictions.
James Lapine; director
Jack O Brien; and actor and writer
Andrew Rannells reading from their own nontheatrical works. To register for the Zoom webinar, click here.
Hershey Felder stars as Sholem Aleichem in
Before Fiddler Live From Florence, running for one night only on
February 7. Before the beloved musical
Fiddler on the Roof, there was Sholem Aleichem and his beloved character of Tevye the Milkman. Before the beloved songs Tradition, If I Were a Rich Man, Matchmaker, and more, there was music of the Old World . a music that imitated talking, laughing, weeping, and singing, where musicians didn t just make music, they spoke to you in song Klezmer. In Florence, Italy, one of the oldest artistic centers in the world, a group of such musicians have been, by day, virtuosos in Florence s world famous