Alisa Soloman

I am working on several things, some on high boil, some only simmering. First, I am continuing to write theater criticism for the Village Voice and occasionally elsewhere. Even – or maybe especially -- in these mean and narrow times, theater matters and therefore clear, critical thinking about it matters. Rather than merely provide thumbs-up/thumbs-down consumer reports in my reviews, I have sought to participate in and contribute to a public conversation about theater that values analysis, context, nuance, and reasoned argument. That may sound grandiose – and to be sure, it’s a bit much to ask when one has 450 words and an overnight deadline. Still, I believe that to write about the arts is to write about the world, not to retreat from it.

Some artists share that assumption in quite explicit ways. One such group I am currently writing about is the Critical Art Ensemble, whose smart, radical, interventionist work blurs boundaries, makes authority properly suspect, empowers amateurs, and aims to disrupt the profits-before-people mentality of science and industry. One of their members, Steven Kurtz, has been indicted on bogus criminal charges of fraud and investigated under bio-terrorism laws in what I regard as part of the over-zealous prosecutions characterizing these post-9/11 times.

I am also interested these days in writing about Jewish performance, the role of the arts in the alter-globalization movement, the American counter-culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s, the rightward shift of American Zionism, and about on-going immigration debates and policies.

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