NEW YORK: Days after up to a million people crammed into New York’s Times Square to ring in 2016, a more local audience had its chance for some midnight entertainment — dogs.

In a concert that was in equal parts humour and metaphysical reflection, the experimental artist Laurie Anderson put on a show whose target audience was canine.

Dozens of dogs in Times Square howled or barked at sounds only perceptible to their ears, although the hundreds of humans in attendance could also tune in on headphones.

Anderson conceived of Monday night’s canine concert to accompany her latest film, “Heart of a Dog,” which takes the story of the rat terrier she adopted with her late husband, rock legend Lou Reed, as the basis for a reflection on death and memory.

A three-minute sequence of the film, which was originally commissioned by French-German network Arte and is shortlisted for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, is airing through January just before midnight on some of Times Square’s iconic billboards.

The abstract scene delved into Tibetan Buddhist conceptions of the afterlife. But Anderson saw her concert, a one-off in Times Square, in a lighter vein as a tribute to the unifying power of dogs. “I think more people are sharing dogs these days, because everyone travels so much,” she said.

“It’s really fun — barking in Times Square!” she said after the performance in which she set down her electric violin for a dog-friendly segment led by electronic sounds.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2016