CROSSING THE LINE Festival Returns To L’Alliance New York in September

From September 9 through November 22, L’Alliance New York will present the 18th Crossing The Line Festival, an international survey of new experiments in audience and form highlighting artists working at the intersections of visual art, music, film, dance, and theater.

The festival will feature a film-and-live-music collaboration between cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton and her late partner, auteur Chantal Akerman; an all-ages exhibition workshop by Clédat & Petitpierre; theater works by Marion Siéfert, Rimini Protokoll, Caroline Guiela Nguyen, Carolina Bianchi, and Tiago Rodrigues; and dance by Noé Soulier, Kimberly Bartosik, Ruth Childs, Yoshi Oïda & Kaori Ito, Soa Ratsifandrihana, Compagnie Dyptik, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Amala Dianor, and Will Rawls.

Festival highlights will include the New York premiere of D’Est en musique, a collaboration imagined by Akerman and Wieder-Atherton in 2005 and performed live with pianist Sarah Rothenberg; Les tutomouves, an interactive installation-workshop for all ages by Clédat & Petitpierre; and The Big Sleep (Le Grand Sommeil), Marion Siéfert’s follow-up to her 2022 jeanne_dark_ that explores the tortures and triumphs of teenage girlhood. Noé Soulier’s Movement on movement will reimagine William Forsythe’s Improvisation Technologies, while Rimini Protokoll’s All right. Good night. will intertwine the disappearance of Flight MH370 with the director’s father’s dementia. Kimberly Bartosik will debut bLUr at New York Live Arts, and Ruth Childs will present both delicate people with Cécile Bouffard on Governors Island and Blast! at The Chocolate Factory Theater.

Additional programming will include the U.S. premiere of Wanjiru Kamuyu’s Fragmented Shadows; Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s LACRIMA at BAM Strong Harvey Theater; Carolina Bianchi’s The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella at Powerhouse Arts; Le Tambour de Soie (The Silk Drum) by Yoshi Oïda, Kaori Ito, Paul Lazar, and Makoto Yabuki at Japan Society; Compagnie Dyptik’s Le Grand Bal at The Joyce Theater; Soa Ratsifandrihana’s Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna at Powerhouse Arts; and Tiago Rodrigues’ By Heart, in which ten audience members will learn a Shakespeare sonnet together onstage. The festival will also feature Amala Dianor’s Coquilles, a dance work for audiences as young as one, and Will Rawls’ [siccer], which examines the ways Black bodies are documented and distorted in the media.

“Bigger, bolder, and more boisterous than ever, the 18th Crossing The Line Festival promises to be our most exciting edition yet,” said Violaine Huisman, Artistic Director. “For three months the festival will travel across New York City for electric performances featuring artists from around the world. With film, music, dance, theater, installation, and performance, the lineup features numerous North American premieres, new voices, and returning favorites. In addition to our commitment to works from the French-speaking world that celebrate diversity, inclusion, and hope, we are proud to support U.S.-based artists representing the urgency of dialogue in this country and across oceans.”