Much as the opening bell signals the start of trading on Wall Street, Steve Lambert’s “Capitalism Works for Me! (True/False)†- an illuminated scoreboard, to be set up in Times Square at noon on Sept. 20 - will help proclaim the opening of the seventh annual Crossing the Line Festival.
The iconoclastic, multidisciplinary festival, which is presented by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), officially begins the night before, with the United States premiere of “Systema Occam†by the French electronic music composer Eliane Radigue and the visual artist Xavier Veilhan, at Florence Gould Hall - and runs through Oct. 13.
Notable among the festival’s 13 premieres are the latest installments - Episodes 4.5 and 5 - of “Life and Times,†a work by the Nature Theater of Oklahoma. The first four episodes of what will eventually be a 16-hour work received a special Obie award citation after they were staged at the Public Theater in January. The piece is based on a single telephone conversation in which a 34-year old woman tells her life story. The festival is staging these latest sections on Sept. 20 and 21.
Also among the festival’s theater offerings are Tim Etchells’s “Sight is the Sense that Dying People Tend to Lose First,†a monologue performed by Jim Fletcher (Sept. 28), and “a (micro) history of world economics, danced,†by Pascal Rambert (Oct. 11-13).
Several of the works, like Mr. Lambert’s, require audience participation. (In his piece, people visiting Times Square will be able to approve or disapprove of capitalism, their votes tabulated for public consumption.) In Annie Dorsen’s “Spokaoke,†an American premiere at the Karaoke Cave, visitors are invited to recite classic speeches in much the same way they would sing pop songs at a karaoke bar (Sept. 21 through Oct. 13).
The choreographer Fanny de Chaillé, in “The Library†(at the Haskell Library at FIAF, Sept. 24 and 26, and the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library, Sept. 27) asks viewers to interact with the performers, who act as books, each with stories to tell. Ms. de Chaillé will also present a dance collaboration with the visual artist Philippe Ramette, “Passage à l’acte / Acting Out,†at the Invisible Dog Art Center, in Brooklyn (Sept. 28).
Other dance pieces include “The Inkomati (dis)cord,†by the South African choreographers Boyzie Cekwana and Panaibra Canda (Sept. 25-26); “riot,†a world premiere by Nora Chipaumire inspired by “The Rite of Spring†(Oct. 3-5)’ and “Time After Us,†a site-specific work by Ernesto Pujol, danced in silence at St. Paul’s Chapel and lasting 24 hours (Oct. 3-4).
