The last piece Ushio Amagatsu made for Sankai Juku, the butoh company he founded in Tokyo in 1975, gets its North American premiere at NYU Skirball on LaGuardia Place from November 5 to 7. A week before that, on Thursday, October 29, the same Greenwich Village stage hosts NYU professor Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio Anthracite Fields, performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trinity Choir with Wolfe on hand to talk about the work.

Anthracite Fields, Thursday, October 29

Anthracite Fields is an oratorio for chorus and six instrumentalists about Pennsylvania coal miners and their families. Wolfe built the text from oral histories, speeches, work songs and local lore from the anthracite region, and the staging includes scenography and projections designed by Jeff Sugg. The piece won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. It premiered in Philadelphia in 2014 with the Mendelssohn Club and had its New York premiere that May as part of the New York Philharmonic Biennial.

Wolfe is a co-founder and co-artistic director of Bang on a Can, a University Professor at NYU Steinhardt and a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. The Bang on a Can All-Stars, the collective's amplified six-piece band, formed in 1992 and have performed and recorded the oratorio before. Trinity Choir, the professional choir that leads the music at Trinity Church, sings the choral parts. NYU Skirball lists commentary from Wolfe herself as part of the evening.

The single performance starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets run $50 to $90.

Sankai Juku's TOTEM, November 5 to 7

TOTEM: Void and Height is the final work by Amagatsu, who directed, choreographed and designed every Sankai Juku piece. He completed it shortly before his death in March 2024, and it is now danced by the seven performers of the company he led for nearly fifty years. NYU Skirball bills the three nights as the work's North American premiere.

Amagatsu, born in Yokosuka in 1949, developed what he called a second-generation form of butoh. He described his approach as a dialogue with gravity, moving with its pull rather than fighting it. Sankai Juku began touring internationally in 1980, performed in more than forty countries and became a regular presence at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, which co-produced many of its works.

On stage, a single monolithic form stands over the dancers, whose heads are shaved and bodies painted white. Movement is slow and controlled; the theater's description notes that a single raised arm can take a full minute to come down. The piece runs 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday, November 5, 6 and 7, at 7:30 p.m., with Thursday as opening night. Tickets run $75 to $105. NYU Skirball also lists a separate workshop with Sankai Juku on its schedule, and its Prep School page on TOTEM offers background reading before the show.

Also on the schedule

This week, from Thursday, October 22, through Saturday, October 24, NYU Skirball presents artists Rabih Mroué and Lina Majdalanie in Four Walls and a Roof, nightly at 7:30 p.m.

About the theater

NYU Skirball is New York University's performing arts center, at 566 LaGuardia Place on the south side of Washington Square Park. Its season focuses on international theater, dance, music and cross-disciplinary work. The box office can be reached at 212-998-4941.

Getting there

The closest subway stop is West 4 Street-Washington Square, served by the A, B, C, D, E, F and M, a short walk east. The R and W at 8 Street-NYU and the 6 at Bleecker Street are each within about ten minutes on foot, as is Broadway-Lafayette Street on the B, D, F and M.

Plan your visit

Anthracite Fields: Thursday, October 29, 7:30 p.m. Tickets $50 to $90.

Sankai Juku, TOTEM: Void and Height: Thursday, November 5, through Saturday, November 7, 7:30 p.m. nightly. Tickets $75 to $105.

Where: NYU Skirball, 566 LaGuardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Tickets are sold through the NYU Skirball website.

Sources