If a ballet is remounted eighty-five years later with new choreography, music, costumes, and (obviously) a new cast, but in the same basic setting, is it a revival, or an entirely new production? Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s Filling Station raised that question in two performances at the Mobil on 8th Avenue and Horatio Street in Greenwich Village, presented by The Kitchen. With his collaborators, Lutz-Kinoy created a new entity connected only by title and rough structure to the 1938 ballet by the same name choreographed by Lew Christensen, with libretto by Virgil Thomson.
In Flags of Our Mothers, Raven Halfmoon honors her Caddo heritage and ancestors while pushing back against Indigenous silencing. With monumental hand-built stoneware sculptures filling the galleries of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, she claims space for Indigenous peoples, herself included. The sheer size and weight of the figural sculptures command attention. As she works, Halfmoon considers the lived experiences of her ancestors—their traditions and the impact of colonization—and seeks to empower her community and uplift their stories. At the same time, she reflects more broadly on the rich heritage of Indigenous peoples, as well as their own tragedies as colonizers forced them off their land. The evidence of her emotions is preserved in the glaze, divots, indentations, and figures that adorn the surfaces of her work.