The choreographer Marla Phelan is within the start of stars—not Barbra Streisand or Woman Gaga however the cosmic sort. Working with the astrophysicist Blakesley Burkhart, she has made “Beginning + Carnage,” a dance manufacturing during which performers mimic the patterns of star formation and different celestial movement. The dancers’ our bodies are influenced by gravity but additionally by human types of attraction and repulsion. Constellating, colliding, and collapsing, they mirror a digital set up of astrophysical pc simulations, drawing emotional coloring from a rating by James Newberry.—Brian Seibert (La MaMa; Dec. 19-21.)
Motion pictures
Jamie Lee Curtis and Emma Mackey in “Ella McCay.”{Photograph} by Claire Folger / Courtesy © 2025 twentieth Century Studios
With “Ella McCay,” James L. Brooks, a longtime rom-com champion, directs his first function movie in fifteen years. In some methods, it’s a blatant throwback, however, in others, an acrid tweak of the style. The motion is about primarily in 2008, when Ella (performed by Emma Mackey), a thirty-four-year-old coverage wonk who’s her unnamed state’s lieutenant governor, ascends to the governorship. Then her non-public life goes haywire: her estranged father (Woody Harrelson) exhibits up, and her husband (Jack Lowden) feels uncared for. Flashbacks to Ella’s adolescence arrange her dilemmas; regardless of the heartwarming story that’s revealed, that is an anti-romantic comedy of failed males and the difficulty they trigger. Brooks gazes hopefully at a brand new era of self-unsure males whose acceptance of weak spot is their energy; as for Ella, she’s merely the film’s figurehead. Jamie Lee Curtis performs Ella’s worldly-wise aunt.—Richard Brody (In extensive launch.)
Off Broadway
Bear in mind whenever you had been eight years previous, climbing bushes, carrying your bike up with you, after which pedalling off the varsity roof? Me neither. However such is the world of Rajiv Joseph’s “Ugly Playground Accidents,” during which the dauntless Doug (“Succession” ’s Nicholas Braun) does precisely that, then meets Kayleen (two-time Tony winner Kara Younger) within the college infirmary, the place she’s recovering from a abdomen ache. Subsequent scenes hop ahead and backward in time, every centered on types of hurt: an eye fixed blown out by a firecracker, thighs slit with a razor blade. The actors’ transformations to embody their shifting ages, abetted by Sarah Laux’s evocative costumes, are a tour de drive, however neither they nor the queasy makes an attempt at humor stop the sensation of watching trauma porn.—D.S. (Lucille Lortel; by means of Dec. 28.)
What to Take heed to
Hua Hsu on options to the standard vacation tunes.
By now, you’re in all probability bored with all that vacation music. It sounded nice as you had been clearing the dishes on Thanksgiving, however the mirth has begun to really feel oppressive. Listed here are some different expressions of fine will, cheer, and peace on Earth.
Jackson 5, “In Japan!”
A Christmas soul playlist that was on continuous rotation ultimately despatched me down a Motown rabbit gap, reminding me of this stay gem recorded in Osaka in 1973. It captures the Jacksons in a second of transition—now not the cherubs of “ABC”—and experimenting with a looser, funkier sound.
Mavis Staples.{Photograph} by Elizabeth De La Piedra
Mavis Staples, “Unhappy and Lovely World”
This is likely one of the 12 months’s most stunning albums, during which the eighty-six-year-old gospel legend covers everybody from Curtis Mayfield and Leonard Cohen to Frank Ocean and Sparklehorse. Lush and serene, with a spryness that makes you’re feeling hope for what lies forward.
Kim Chang-Wan, “An Essay with a Guitar”
There’s a scene within the Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s deliriously grim “No Different Alternative” set to Kim’s “Let’s Stroll On,” a fragile, haunting piece of loner folks. Kim’s 1983 album is a sparse guy-and-guitar masterpiece, a barely bummed soundtrack for looking the window because the solar units at 4:30 P.M.
Actual Lies, “Summer season Rain EP”
The London duo Actual Lies make dance tunes that handle to really feel epic and twee on the identical time. They’ve been one in all my favourite acts for greater than a decade, and I like how they by no means do issues the straightforward manner. Their newest single got here out in November, but it’s an amped-up celebration of bygone bliss referred to as “Summer season Rain.” It’s just too quickly to look ahead to 2026. However I do know that, when the time comes, I’ll nonetheless be nodding alongside to “Let the Lips Fall The place They Could,” a breezy blast of New Order-esque pop.
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