#bushwickstarr heatherchristian animalwisdom requiemmass theater music nyc brooklyn offoffbroadway

[kamilaslawinski]

Like many expats, I have a complicated relationship with my dead. In many cases, goddess have mercy on me, I don’t even know where their bones are buried. The mementos of many more have been left behind or lost during one of the countless moves. I don’t visit, and they have been kind enough to leave me be, except those rare moments when I see their faces in strangers on the subway or meet them in dreams. But my loved-and-lost ones are well-behaved: they do not haunt me, they don’t fling the doors wide open in a pouring rain. I am trying to convince myself that I am not guilty of the deadliest of sins, the sin of forgetting - but that does not fully abate my unclean conscience, and as the holidays loom, the memories grow more restless.

I wasn’t thinking much of it until the show started at The Bushwick Starr last night; in many ways, I was completely unprepared for what was coming. To be honest, I expected another ironic Bushwick product, smart and sleek and funny. I sat in the first row right in front of the piano installed in the middle of the tiny stage and inhaled the excitement of my first visit to the venue I have heard so much about. I knew nothing of the performer. There were no extended program notes in the booklet, printed in the type too small for me to read without my reading glasses I left behind.

It was probably about twenty minutes in when it really hit me, and when it did, it hit hard. I will not describe what’s in the show; you have Ben Brantley for that. Let me just say that there is a thought that  I have been returning to obsessively in these dark times: how the art does only deserve its name when it makes you feel like you are a part of something much bigger than yourself. And that’s what I got from Heather Christian, a diminutive blonde with a voice that can turn any interior into a cathedral and the beautiful soul she is not afraid to bare in front of the roomful of strangers. There is courage in this work that is really rare these days - an amazing bravery of being vulnerable and tender and honest about the subject that is guaranteed to break one’s heart in two even in a most intimate conversation, much more so in a public ritual of a requiem mass.

But the intent is not the only brilliant thing about this piece. It’s been a long while since I was in a live music performance and I almost forgot how powerful this medium can be. The ensemble behind Animal Wisdom (Sasha Brown, Fred Epstein, Eric Farber, Maya Sharpe and a choir) is nothing short of amazing, and their talents multiply the impact of what is already a powerful and gorgeous material. Trust me, on my way to Starr Street I was still obsessing about not being able to witness Patti Smith saying goodbye to Sam Shepard; true, I don’t really know what I missed, but something tells me that I might have gotten a much better deal.   There are singers, a very rare breed, who sing like their life depended on it. Heather is definitely one of them, and her musicians work their magic in reminding us all, even the civilians, that there is something absolutely amazing and incredibly empowering about the experience of collective music making, even if one gets the smallest possible part in it.

The show is completely sold out for the rest of the (already extended) run, but if you can think of a way of cheating, lying, or stealing your way to see it, DO IT. Heather Christian is a force of nature, and I guarantee you that since the golden days of Diamanda Galás you haven’t seen or heard anything so profoundly moving about how we deal with our dead. Not to mention that the staging is magical - and the flickering lights designed by another wizard, one Andrew Schneider, added another level of enchantment to this already overwhelmingly beautiful show.

Two hours, no intermission. It flew like a blink. And as I was sitting there when the lights came back up, with a bell Heather handed me and others to ring for the grand finale, something opened inside, something long silenced and repressed, and the voice said: You were given a voice, and with it, an obligation. This voice is not yours to keep. Go sing for your dead, go sing for your dead.