NEW YORK—Live music, dance, oral storytelling, and theater performances took place between great works of art from seemingly boundless eras and regions at the Metropolitan Museum’s first World Culture Festival.
Spirited and upbeat music from the Afro-Caribbean music group Legacy Women welcomed visitors at the entrance of the museum, setting a festive tone for the full house of attendees the museum tends to draw on weekends.
The theme of the inaugural festival was Epic Stories, and performers sought to tell larger-than-life stories through art, with the goal of connecting cultures.
“In our genre, it doesn’t get more epic than ‘Hamlet,’” said Lenny Banovez, artistic director of the theater company Titan, which specializes in updated and accessible retellings of classic pieces. In the American Wing of the museum, the group put on Tom Stoppard’s “The Fifteen Minute Hamlet”—basically the “greatest hits” of the play, with all the memorable lines for those who know “Hamlet” and a primer to the classics for those who don’t.
The classics are universal: Love, joy, grief, sorrow—all the themes in “Hamlet” can also be found in everything from soap operas to political dramas today, Banovez added. And, the story works as both a tragedy and a comedy.
