WES ANDERSON’S WORLDS: RUSHMORE
Jason Schwartzman is a different kind of teenager caught up in an adult world in Wes Anderson’s RUSHMORE
RUSHMORE (Wes Anderson, 1998)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, May 18, free with museum admission of $10, 7:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
rushmoreacademy.com
In conjunction with the opening of Wes Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom, which hits theaters May 25, the Museum of the Moving Image is hosting a retrospective of all six of the native Texan’s previous feature-length films, beginning May 18 with Rushmore, a dazzlingly dark, sublime masterpiece. Anderson created one of the all-time great quirky indie characters in Max Fischer, played with relish by Jason Schwartzman. Max is a troubled genius at the private Rushmore Academy, where his eccentricities make him somewhat of an outcast. His best friend is wealthy iconoclast Herman Blume (Bill Murray in a career-redefining role), but their relationship turns sour when it becomes apparent that they both have their hearts set on beautiful teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). A unique take on disaffected youth, Rushmore, which also features such Anderson regulars as Luke Wilson and Seymour Cassel and was cowritten by Owen Wilson, helped launch a new wave of American independent cinema with its offbeat narrative and eclectic soundtrack, which includes songs by Donovan, the Rolling Stones, Django Reinhardt, Cat Stevens, Yves Montand, and the Faces, along with original material by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh. Rushmore is screening May 18 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Wes Anderson’s Worlds,” which continues through May 27 with screenings of Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited, each of which will include a video introduction from Anderson. In addition, Anderson has chosen to show Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons as a film that inspired him.
A GREAT NIGHT IN HARLEM
The eleventh annual Great Night in Harlem takes place May 17 at the Apollo with another all-star lineup
Apollo Theater
253 West 125th St.
Thursday, May 17, $55-$1500, 7:00
212-245-3999 ext10
jazzfoundation.org
www.apollotheater.org
On August 12, 1958, fifty-seven jazz musicians and singers posed for what became an iconic photograph taken by Art Kane for Esquire. Among the legends gathered in front of 17 East 126th St. were Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Marian McPartland, Milt Hinton, Maxine Sullivan, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, and Thelonius Monk. For the last ten years, that austere occasion has been honored at the annual Great Night in Harlem concert, a gala fundraiser for the Jazz Foundation of America’s Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund, which is dedicated to helping older jazz and blues musicians in crisis. The eleventh annual Great Night in Harlem takes place May 17 at the Apollo Theater with another fabulous all-star lineup produced by Hal Willner, with live performances by Macy Gray. Dr. John, Randy Weston, Bono, Bettye LaVette, Paquito D’Rivera, George Wein, the Rebirth Brass Band, the Treme Brass Band, David Johansen, Stanley Jordan, Sweet Georgia Brown, Essie Mae, John D. Holeman, Lakecia Benjamin, Grace Kelly, Bill Saxton, Steven Bernstein, Curtis Fowlkes, Don Byron, James Carter, Craig Handy, Victor Lewis, Geri Allen, Mark Whitfield, Art Baron, Jerry Dodgien, Kenny Davis, Ambrose Akinmusire, Frank Greene, Ray Anderson, and many others. In addition, Darrell Hammond will provide the comic relief; don’t be surprised if he turns in a “Bill Clinton at the Apollo” routine. This year’s gala, which seeks to raise $1.6 million, is presenting the Dr. Billy Taylor Humanitarian Award to Claude Nobs, one of the founders of the Montreux Jazz Festival.
TWI-NY TALK: JACK FERVER
Jack Ferver’s latest show, TWO ALIKE, examines the plight of abused queer youth (photo by RicOrnel Productions)
JACK FERVER & MARC SWANSON: TWO ALIKE
The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
May 17-19, $15, 8:00
212-255-5793 ext11
www.thekitchen.org
jackferver.org
“Jack’s an extremely, if obsessively, dedicated creator,” says composer and sound artist Roarke Menzies of dancer, writer, and choreographer Jack Ferver. “There’s an exacting quality to what he makes.” In such works as Rumble Ghost, A Movie Star Needs a Movie, Swann!!!, and I Am Trying to Hear Myself, the New York City-based Ferver has explored obsession, gender and sexuality, the cult of celebrity, the American dream, and the creative process itself through an inspired mix of text, music, movement, and humor. His latest piece, Two Alike, a collaboration with visual artist Marc Swanson that features an electronic score by Menzies, is a solo performance that examines abused queer youth from the perspective of both a child and an adult. Originally a copresentation of the nonprofit DiverseWorks Art Space and the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, Two Alike is now being presented at the Kitchen May 17-19. We corresponded with the amiable and personable Ferver shortly after meeting him at New York Live Arts, where he was seeing his friend John Jasperse’s Fort Blossom revisited 2000/2012.
twi-ny: Two Alike arrives at a time when the abuse of queer youth and bullying in general is front and center in the news. How did the show come about?
Jack Ferver: Marc and I met in 2008 and he saw some of my work (he has pretty much seen all of it by now) and told me he loved it and I did a studio visit and fell in love with his work. It opened a dialogue for us about how we make our work, why we make our work. Of course, that question led back to our childhoods, which seemed to be the best first collaboration. As I worked on the piece, however, the lonely quality of being in a room by myself for hours every day brought up all those early fantasy acts from a very isolated childhood. I was intensely abused by my peers growing up and it was lonely and terrifying. I created worlds by myself to escape and/or confront what was happening to me. And so that early quality of “play” came up and out as I worked on the solo. It was organic and honest and indeed does come at a good time for me to say something about this issue that I feel strongly about as an artist.
twi-ny: At NYLA last week, we spoke briefly about the It Gets Better Project and the responsibility LGBT adults have to LGBT youth. What do you see as the critical issues in that dynamic?
Jack Ferver: What I was talking about was hope, and when you get to have it. Children get to have hope. I had to believe there was somewhere better I would get to when I was a child. I wouldn’t have survived if I didn’t have that. However, I don’t believe in hope as an adult. Adults need to be in reality. Children are killing themselves as a result of ignorance and hatred. Adults who have suffered as children may not be doing so well themselves. That’s the reality. As adults we are responsible, so what are we going to do about it?
Ferver collaborated with visual artist Marc Swanson on TWO ALIKE (photo by Marc Swanson)
twi-ny: We were at NYLA to see John Jasperse’s remarkable restaging of Fort Blossom. Both of you regularly challenge audiences in the way you explore issues of gender identity and sexuality. Would you agree?
Jack Ferver: I can see that. I donʼt function in categorical thought. Martha Graham (my dance mom) quotes Empedocles in [her autobiography] Blood Memory: “For I have been, ere now, a boy and a girl, a bush, a bird, a dumb fish in the sea.” Artists are the stomachs of society. We digest the indigestible. That means we explore all terrains. Gender and sexuality roles are assigned or taken in hopes of a sense of self, as a branch of the ego. And the ego begins with “Me, not me.” As an artist I make my work so that people donʼt feel as lonely as I have felt. Therefore my work expands into something more akin to “I am you.”
twi-ny: You have a wickedly delicious sense of humor. Where does that come from?
Jack Ferver: My mother.
twi-ny: You have playfully skewered such popular films as Poltergeist, Notes on a Scandal, and Black Swan. Do you have plans to take on any other movies or pop-culture icons?
Jack Ferver: Actually, I leave a few days after closing Two Alike for the MANCC residency to start work on All of a Sudden, which I am creating with my dramaturg/associate director Joshua Lubin-Levy. It is loosely inspired by Tennessee Williamsʼs Suddenly Last Summer and explores the similarities between the artist/dramaturg and the patient/therapist relationship. It will go up in 2013 at Abrons Arts Center. Of course, it was a play before the film, but having played Cleopatra this past year [in Me, Michelle], I feel I am being haunted by Liz in some way.
ELENA
Nadezhda Markina gives a marvelously understated performance in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s ELENA
ELENA (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2011)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
May 16-29
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.zeitgeistfilms.com
Winner of a Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Elena is a poignant character study and family drama set in Vladimir Putin’s post-Communist Russia. Nadezhda Markina gives a marvelously understated performance as Elena, a former nurse now married to her second husband, the successful and very direct Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov). Elena’s son from her first marriage, the unemployed Sergey (Alexey Rozin), is in need of money to support his wife, Tatyana (Evgenia Konushkina) and send his son, Sasha (Igor Ogurtsov), to university, but Vladimir is reconsidering helping them out, believing that it’s about time that Sergey got a job and took care of things himself. Vladimir’s hesitation extremely disappoints Elena, especially when Vladimir continues to support his daughter, Katerina (Elena Lyadova), a free spirit who barely acknowledges his existence. After Vladimir suffers a heart attack, Elena fears for her future and that of her family, suddenly facing some hard questions. Zvyagintsev has followed up the critical smash successes The Return and The Banishment with another superbly told tale that makes expert use of the tools of his trade, from the strong, assured script, which he cowrote with Oleg Negin, and the gorgeous cinematography by Mikhail Krichman to the solid acting and the haunting music. Elena is this generation’s Jeanne Dielman, a deliberate, methodical woman who finds herself caught up in a complex situation with no easy way out. The slow pace of the film, which is filled with lingering shots and Philip Glass’s modern-noir score (from 1995’s Symphony No. 3), moves intoxicatingly to the beat of Elena’s heart. Zvyagintsev, who was just celebrated at BAM with a three-day “Next Director” retrospective, will be at Film Forum for a discussion following the 8:00 screening on May 16.
VIDEO OF THE DAY — KISHI BASHI: “BRIGHT WHITES”
After collaborating with such artists as of Montreal, Regina Spektor, Jupiter One, and Sondre Lerche, K Ishibashi steps out into the forefront on the orchestral solo project 151a (Joyful Noise, April 2012). Better known as Kishi Bashi, the violinist, composer, and singer has become a one-man band, playing and producing all of the record, a wide-ranging collection of nine songs that cross genre boundaries. On such tracks as “Intro / Pathos, Pathos,” “Manchester,” “Chester’s Burst over the Hamptons,” and “I Am the Antichrist to You,” Kishi Bashi melds classical music, African rhythm, electronic noise, Britpop, ambient soundscapes, progressive folk, and other elements to create his multilayered mini-epics. The Seattle-born Kishi Bashi, who was raised on the East Coast and is based in New York City, will be at (le) poisson rouge on May 16 with the Barr Brothers.
HILARY EASTON + COMPANY: THE CONSTRUCTORS
Hilary Easton celebrates her twentieth anniversary this week with two new shows at BAC
Baryshnikov Arts Center, Howard Gilman Performance Space
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
May 17-20, $20
212-868-4444
www.bacnyc.org
www.hilaryeaston.com
Native New Yorker Hilary Easton is celebrating her company’s twentieth anniversary in style this week at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The Manhattan-based dancer and choreographer will be presenting the world premiere of the evening-length piece The Constructors, which will be performed by Alexandra Albrecht, Michael Ingle, Joshua Palmer, Emily Pope-Blackman, and Sarah Young, with music by Mike Rugnetta, lighting by Kathy Kaufmann, and costumes by Madeleine Walach. The Constructors delves into the nature of collaboration through a series of kinetic tasks that break down the barrier between audience and performer. In addition, as a special bonus, on Thursday and Friday Easton will be performing a new solo, The Heart Is Like a Toboggan, with a costume by fashion designer Cynthia Rowley. An artists’ dialogue will follow the Sunday matinee, with Easton and her company discussing the making of The Constructors; ticket holders from any of the performances can attend the presentation for free.
NYPH ’12
DJ Spooky’s immersive “Sinfonia Antarctica” should be a highlight of the 2012 New York Photo Festival
NEW YORK PHOTO FESTIVAL 2012
powerHouse Arena (37 Main St.) and other locations throughout Dumbo
May 16-20, free - $20
nyph.at
The fifth annual New York Photo Festival takes place throughout Dumbo beginning with the vernissage May 16, followed by four days open to the general public. Although admission to all exhibits is free, a $15 ticket (in advance, $20 on-site) is good for presentations and receptions, food samples, and various local discounts. NYPH ’12 features four guest curators. Glenn Ruga’s “On the Razor’s Edge: Between Documentary and Fine Art Photography” consists of works by Bruce Davidson, Reza, Eugene Richards, Rina Castelnuovo, and Platon at powerHouse Arena. Also at pH Arena, Claude Grunitzky’s “The Curse and the Gift” looks at photography as a way of life, with work from Evangelia Kranioti, Irmelie Krekin, and Christian Witkin. At 56 Water St. and pH Arena, Amy Smith-Stewart’s “What Do You Believe In” collects multidisciplinary images from such artists as Jen DeNike, Hank Willis Thomas, Xaviera Simmons, and Daniel Gordon, examining at how photography is a forum for ideology. And DJ Spooky’s “Sinfonia Antarctica (The Book of Ice)” takes place out on the streets, with digital media, live performances, sculpture, and more. Satellite and affiliate shows include “Tokyo-Ga” and “PRC in NYC” at 111 Front St., “The Art of Documentary” at pH Arena, “Liberty and Justice (for All): A Global Photo Mosaic” honoring Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros at VII Gallery, Jeanette May and Jocelyn Chase’s “Creature Features” at A.I.R. Gallery, Rania Matar’s “A Girl and Her Room” at Umbrage Gallery, Andrew Frost’s “The Northeast Kingdom” at United Photo Industries, “Ken Rosenthal: Photographs 2001-2009” and “Vojtech V. Slama: Wolf’s Honey” at Klompching Gallery, “America” at Generation Gallery, and Robin Bowman’s “It’s Complicated ― The American Teenager” at spring. The festival will also host workshops, tutorials, gallery talks, lectures, book signings, and panel discussions; among the highlights are “What Do You Believe In” with Smith-Stewart, DeNike, Simmons, and Matthew Spiegelman (May 17, 3:00); “On the Razor’s Edge: Form and Content in Documentary Photography” with Ruga, Davidson, Lori Grinker, Platon, and Reza (May 17, 7:00); “The Curse and the Gift” with Grunitzky, Kranioti, Krekin, and Witkin (May 18, 3:00); an immersion experience by DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid (May 18, 8:00); “Tokyo-Ga” with Naoko Ohta, Haruna Kawanishi, Yasutaka Kojima, and Corinne Tapia (May 19, 2:00); and Adriana Teresa in conversation with Erin Trieb (May 19, 3:00).
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