The Arts Fuse

Compiled by Arts Fuse Editor Our expert critics supply a guide to film, visual art, theater, author readings, television, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.

By Jonathan Blumhofer The sisters’ new ECM recording catches the volatile interplay of lyricism and menace in a compellingly programmed set. The image of the artist as dissident is understandably alluring. When done right, too, the concept can lead to revealing programming. That’s just what Duo Gazzana manages in their latest recording for ECM New Series, which pairs music by Sergei Prokofiev with shorter but hardly insubstantial filler by Arvo Pärt and Alfred Schnittke.

By Yvonne Owens In the drop falls at 3S Artspace, the artist’s lush hybrid paintings bring Virginia Woolf, artificial intelligence, and ecological collapse into a seductive, disquieting flow. the drop falls, Elsie Kagan. At 3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth, NH, through September 27. Painter Elsie Keagan. Photo: courtesy of the artist “The drop falls; another stage has been reached.” Virginia Woolf’s famous line comes from her experimental novel The Waves, which was published in October 1931.

By Debra Cash Animated calligraphy, dancers in half-shadow, and two industrial robots create an eerie, elegant theater of marks, motions, and metallic afterimages at Jacob’s Pillow. Huang Yi: Ink, at The Doris Duke Theatre, Jacob’s Pillow August 19-23 with audiovisual design by Ryoichi Kurokawa, August 19 through 23 Huang Yi in Huang Yi’s Ink at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2026. Photo: Becca Oviatt Chinese calligraphy has always had a dancing element.

By Betsy Sherman This lively live-action/animation hybrid turns the Road Runner cartoons’ eternal loser into a surprisingly moving plaintiff—and takes sharp aim at corporate impunity along the way. Coyote vs. Acme – Directed by Dave Green. Opens today at Coolidge Corner Theatre, Apple Cinemas Cambridge, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Boston Seaport, AMC Boston Common 19, AMC Assembly Row 12, and others. A scene with Wile E Coyote from Coyote vs. Acme.

By Robert Duguay As it has for decades, Boston has produced a number of bands whose reach extends well beyond the city they call home. Among those of recent vintage is Tiny Habits, a folk-pop trio of vocalists and multi-instrumentalists, comprising Cinya Khan, Maya Rae, and Judah Mayowa. Over the past several years, the group has steadily built up considerable popular momentum, which is evident on its sophomore full-length disc, Keepers, released today via Mom + Pop Music.

Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday solitaire for voices best of sheets to you, hot sleeper whisk me away in voices, hot solitaire one of the things about writing things down is I think I left something out or words have been added at the cost of wordless thought I’m never going to forget feeling like this no matter what you do Through postcards, slaptags, voicemails and other ephemera, Buck Downs creates a body of work as expansive and intimate as life and death.

By Melissa Rodman Josh Alexander’s intimate studio documentary follows Sara Bareilles and her collaborators as they shape songs of infertility, bereavement, friendship, and collective consolation. Sara Bareilles in a scene from Good Grief. Photo: Tribeca Film Festival The premise is quaint, idyllic: A popular singer-songwriter and her small band rent a recording studio nestled in the quiet of Upstate New York to put together an album.

By Peter Keough Not much bang and plenty of whimper It Ends (2025). Directed by Alex Ullom. At the Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse, and the suburbs on August 27. The Dog Stars. Directed by Ridley Scott, based on the novel by Peter Heller. At the Boston Common, Kendall Square, Causeway 13, and the suburbs on August 27. Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, and Noah Toth in scene from It Ends.

By Bill Marx Director Diane Paulus’s high-spirited A.R.T. adaptation of Ionesco’s anti-conformist play sometimes overplays its comic business, but John Turturro’s scruffy, strident, and anguished Berenger gives the production its necessary mix of horror, humor, and desperate resistance. Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco. Translated by Derek Prouse. Adapted by the American Repertory Theater. Directed by Diane Paulus. Staged by the A.R.T. at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, through September 27.