A busy weekend at Guild Hall kicks off Thursday evening at 7 with “How Does It Feel to Look at Nothing,” an experimental opera-in-process by Holland Andrews and yuniya edi kwon, current artists in residence there.
The work, grounded in the pair’s shared lineages and lives, is shaped by their experiences as trans artists of color, exploring questions of queer parenthood, trans pregnancy, and “contemporary socio-political disintegration through a poetic, elemental lens,” according to Guild Hall.
Andrews and kwon appear as composer-performers, soloists, and multi-instrumentalists as they draw from Korean Shamanic Ritual, channeled singing, contemporary opera, punk and hard core, and Japanese Butoh. The work will have its world premiere this coming fall, before touring nationally and internationally.
Tickets are $30.
On a lighter note, Guild Hall’s Feel Good Films series will bring “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) to the screen Friday at 7 p.m. When Herman’s bicycle is stolen he embarks on an imaginative cross-country quest to get it back. Starring Paul Reubens and directed by Tim Burton, the film was “spun out of childish delight and childish malice,” said David Edelstein in his positive review in The Village Voice.
Tickets are $18.
Next up in The Met: Live in HD at Guild Hall on Saturday at 1 p.m. is Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” a lyric opera adapted from Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse. The production stars Asmik Grigorian as Tatiana, the lovestruck young heroine for whom Onegin, sung by Iurii Samoilov, realizes his affection too late.
In a review of the production in New York Classical Review, Rick Perdian wrote, “The Lithuanian soprano met all expectations in a riveting performance in which Grigorian’s vaunted dramatic skills were fully evident.” The production is directed by Deborah Warner and conducted by Timur Zangiev.
Tickets are $35.
A quartet of distinguished panelists will discuss “Killer Lawns: A Perfect Earth Project Grounded Conversation,” on Sunday afternoon at 4, focusing on the dangers of common landscape chemicals lurking in people’s yards. (“Yes!,” says an ad for the event, “You Can Have Beauty Without the Beast!)
The panelists are Dr. Ray Dorsey, an internationally renowned neurologist researching the role of these toxic substances in connection with Parkinson’s disease; Sarah Evans, a professor in the department of environmental medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Carl Safina, the renowned ecologist and writer, and Edwina von Gal, founder of the Perfect Earth Project, which promotes ecological land care.
Tickets are $35.
