A guide to surviving the Broadway strike, with suggested Off and Off Off Broadway shows and more.

On Saturday night, the Berlin Philharmonic joined some 200 New York City schoolchildren for “The Rite of Spring Project,” the culmination of Carnegie Hall’s Berlin in Lights festival.

Some years ago my boss stopped by my desk one day to ask, “Is there something called ‘The Rite of Spring’?” Yes, there is -­ or rather, there are. In the last 18 months or so, I’ve probably seen a dozen variations on the Stravinsky-Nijinsky theme: Tero Saarinen’s, Emanuel Gat’s, Shen Wei’s, Johan Inger’s for [...]

For its contribution to the Berlin in Lights festival, the Goethe Haus offered a marathon reading from the monumental novel by Alfred Döblin, “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” in connection with P.S. 1’s showing of Fassbinder’s equally monumental made-for-TV film based on it.

I was floored to see that Vaughan Rachel, Allan Kaprow’s first wife, responded to my request for thoughts from people who had seen his 1959 happening — and such thoughtful comments, too; I love the idea of the awkwardness that comes from trying something for the first time, and how vital that awkwardness can be. [...]

Whenever the Vienna Philharmonic comes to Carnegie Hall, much is made of its glacial progress in hiring female players. The Berlin Philharmonic, which plays at Carnegie Hall tonight in the closing weekend of the Berlin in Lights festival, has also had to overcome a long history of exclusion.
The Berlin orchestra hired its first woman, the [...]

The Berlin Philharmonic, having delivered the second of its three concerts at Carnegie Hall last night, began spreading itself around the city again today. (The first two Carnegie concerts will be reviewed in the Weekend section of tomorrow’s paper; the third takes place tomorrow night.) This morning a string quartet from the orchestra performed twice [...]

After scattered appearances around town by component ensembles, the Berlin Philharmonic took the stage at Carnegie Hall last night for the first of three programs built around works by Mahler, conducted by Simon Rattle. Anthony Tommasini will review that concert and the orchestra’s second, tonight, in the Weekend section of the Friday paper.
The Mahler entry [...]

Just when it seemed that Berlin in Lights had found its anthem.
Dan Wakin reports below that the French horns of the Berlin Philharmonic played “Mambo” from Bernstein’s “West Side Story” yesterday, apparently rather genteelly, in a concert at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela played it [...]

Last night at Anthology Film Archives I saw some never-before-shown taped excerpts from 1972 performances by Grand Union, the seminal improvisational dance group that counted among its members Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton and Douglas Dunn. tonight I’m going to a second evening documenting Judson Dance Theater performances and will be reviewing both in [...]

A long day of following the Berlin Philharmonic’s component parts ended at Zankel Hall on Monday night with a concert by its cello section.

Another contingent of the Berlin Philharmonic, a wind quintet, held forth in Chinatown.

It’s odd to be grateful to have seen a performance yet to feel uneasy about the fact that it is being presented in the first place. On Friday I saw the restaging of “18 Happenings in 6 Parts,” Allan Kaprow’s seminal 1959 performance piece, and I’ve been waffling ever since.
I have the highest regard [...]

The Berlin Philharmonic has arrived and is sending out its sections to play concerts around town, starting with the French horns at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.

The fall dance season being what it is — busy, busy, busy — I hadn’t managed to attend a Performa event since Claudia La Rocco and I had our Pirandellian experience (“Two Critics in Search of a Performance”) looking for Pablo Bronstein’s “Plaza Minuet” on Wednesday afternoon. Then yesterday I got to two: a talk [...]