COUNTRY BRUNCHIN’: McCABE & MRS. MILLER
Warren Beatty and Julie Christie heat up the screen in classic Robert Altman anti-Western
NITEHAWK BRUNCH SCREENINGS: McCABE & MRS. MILLER (Robert Altman, 1971)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Saturday, December 7, and Sunday, December 8, $16, 11:30 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
Robert Altman’s self-described “anti-Western” starts off gently enough, as John McCabe (Warren Beatty) rides slowly into a dark, dank northwestern town in 1902, Leonard Cohen’s “The Stranger Song” playing over the opening credits. But Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville) is merely setting the stage for what is to come, the electric combination of Julie Christie and Beatty as two businesspeople building a new town in the Old West. Beatty plays gentleman gambler John McCabe, who is soon joined by madam Constance Miller (Christie) in running the local brothel, and pretty much the town itself, which catches the eye of a mining company that decides it wants in on the action, something McCabe and Mrs. Miller are not about to let happen, at least not without one helluva fight. Filmed mostly in sequential order, McCabe & Mrs. Miller unfolds like an epic poem, thanks to Altman and cowriter Brian McKay’s imaginative and unpredictable script, based on Edmund Naughton’s 1959 novel, McCabe, and Vilmos Zsigmond’s gorgeous cinematography. The film is visually spectacular, as Altman cuts from the dreamlike red velvet interiors of Mrs. Miller’s brothel to the expansive land outside, bathed in the beautiful yet ominous falling snow. The Oscar-nominated Christie and Beatty do the love-hate thing to perfection, something they would duplicate in 1975 when they teamed up in Hal Ashby’s Shampoo and again in 1978 in Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait. A clear influence on such Clint Eastwood gems as High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a marvelous picture that ranks right up there with the best Westerns — “anti-“ or otherwise — ever made. The stellar cast also includes Rene Auberjonois, Michael Murphy, Bert Remsen, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, William Devane, and John Schuck, with Cohen contributing several more songs to the soundtrack. And the ending — well, it’s one of cinema’s most unforgettable finales. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is screening December 7 & 8 at 11:30 am as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “Country Brunchin’” series and will be preceded by a live performance by Brooklyn’s own Birdhive Boys Bluegrass Band.
THE 33rd ANNUAL JOHN LENNON TRIBUTE
Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Friday, December 6, $65-$105, 8:00
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.lennontribute.org
Every year since 1981, a group of musicians has gotten together to pay tribute to John Lennon, who was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman in front of the Dakota on December 8, 1980. A proponent of peace and love in his life and career, Lennon was only forty years old at the time of his death and had just released his first album in five years, Double Fantasy, with his wife, Yoko Ono. On Friday, December 6, the thirty-third annual John Lennon tribute will be held at Symphony Space, featuring performances by Steve Earle, Raul Malo, Joan Osborne, Teddy Thompson, Dana Fuchs, Bettye LaVette, Dan Bern, Toshi Reagon, Rich Pagano, the Buffers, and Joe Raiola, the MAD magazine senior editor who created the tribute. The event is presented by Music Without Borders and Theatre Within, an organization dedicated to supporting the performing arts. A portion of the proceeds from the concert will go to Spirit Foundations, a nonprofit that was founded by John and Yoko in 1978 to help “charitable and humanitarian causes around the world.”
MASTERCLASS — MARC LEVIN: SLAM: A 15th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Ray Joshua (Saul Williams) writes about his endangered life in award-winning SLAM
SLAM (Marc Levin, 1998)
Dempsey Auditorium
127 West 127th St.
Thursday, December 5, suggested admission $10, 7:00
Series continues through December 8 at Maysles Cinema
212-582-6050
www.maysles.org
www.blowbackproductions.com
Award-winning documentarian Marc Levin is being celebrated this week with a four-day “Masterclass” tribute at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem. The series begins December 5 with a fifteenth-anniversary screening of Levin’s second fiction feature, the genre-defining Slam. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the Camera d’Or at Cannes, the 1998 film stars Saul Williams as Ray Joshua, a young man arrested for selling weed in the appropriately named Dodge City in southeast D.C. Ray is faced with three options: plead not guilty and go to trial, which means long prison time if he loses; plead guilty and get locked up for eighteen months to two years; or cooperate with the police and walk free after naming names. Unable to make bail, Ray is incarcerated while trying to decide what he is going to do. While behind bars, he lets loose with some remarkable spoken-word rhymes that earns him respect and the attention of writing teacher Lauren Bell (Sonja Sohn). Soon Ray’s artistry might be the only thing that can save him as he continues to fight an unfair system in an unjust world.
Real-life spoken-word poets Sonja Sohn and Saul Williams star in seminal genre film
Shot in a compelling cinéma vérité style by Mark Benjamin that adds a heavy dose of grim reality, Slam is a collaboration between Levin and Richard Stratton, an ex-con who started Prison Life magazine after spending eight years in jail for drug smuggling. In addition, Williams, Sohn, and Bonz Malone, who plays prison inmate Hopha, wrote their own dialogue/raps. The score, by DJ Spooky, is supplemented by a soundtrack that includes KRS-One, Pras, Big Pun, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Mobb Deep, Brand Nubian, and others. And yes, that is D.C. mayor Marion Barry Jr. as the judge preaching about the scourge of drugs. Slam, the first of an urban trilogy by Levin that continues with Whiteboyz and Brooklyn Babylon, is screening December 5 at 7:00 at the Dempsey Auditorium, preceded by a live performance by Darian Dauchan, Samantha Thornhill, and Jon Sands and followed by a Q&A with Levin, Stratton, Williams, Sohn, Malone, Bob Holman, and Liza Jessie Peterson. The Masterclass series runs through December 8 at the Maysles Cinema with such other Levin films as Whiteboyz, a double feature of Gang War: Bangin; in Little Rock and Back in the Hood: Gang War 2, and Mr. Untouchable, shown along with a preview of the work-in-progress Freeway: Crack in the System, about Rick Ross. (Fans of Williams can also catch him performing at the December 7 edition of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturdays program.)
VIDEO OF THE DAY: “I’M STONED” BY FAULKNER
In the digital age, is it easier or harder to wipe out the past and reinvent oneself than it was when music was primarily heard on records and the radio? One band that appears to be doing just that is Faulkner. “A change may be just around the corner,” the Venice, California, band recently tweeted. The four-piece, which was not named after the Nobel Prize–winning southern author of The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying but was given its name by an Egyptian shaman, is preparing its debut full-length, Street Axioms, working with producers Mark Needham and JP Bowersock and collaborating with Wu Tang Clan’s RZA. According to the band’s Facebook page, the group was founded in 2013, while the (of course) unofficial Wikipedia page claims they started in 2012. Meanwhile, an April 2010 profile on the band in USC’s Daily Trojan begins, appropriately enough, “Faulkner is a band that is just as eccentric as its namesake.” (Another site dates their beginnings to 2007.) The USC article also says that the band has released five music videos, but the only one that is currently easily accessible online is 2012’s “Triumph of the Underdogs,” which garnered 1.55 million hits last year and on which the band declares, “Changes are coming.” It’s also difficult to find out much information about Faulkner’s Global Ambition EP, which consists of “California Skies,” “Soul Black Absentee,” “I Did It on My Terms,” “Triumph of the Underdogs,” and the title track and can be heard on Artists First Music. Oddly, since we’ve been inquiring into the band’s history, various links to videos and songs have been taken down or no longer work. It’s most likely tied to the departure last year of lead guitarist and vocalist Brennan McGuire, who left the band because of a family emergency that affected his ability to travel on a regular basis. “It does not surprise me in the least that the band now appears to have ‘formed’ in 2013,” McGuire confirmed via e-mail, “as we had done this after each of the first three incarnations of the band Lucas [Asher] and I started in 2008.” McGuire, who is now back with Hooville Homebrew, was replaced by Eric Scullin. (You can see McGuire with Faulkner in this video interview for Sunset Sessions.) E-mails to the current edition of Faulkner have gone unanswered as of press time. Conspiracy? Coincidence? In the end, perhaps it really doesn’t matter as much as the music itself, and that’s something you can check out when Faulkner — singer, rhythm guitarist, and lyricist Asher, singer, lead guitarist, and producer Scullin, bassist and arranger Dimitri Farougias, and drummer Christian Hogan — makes its New York City debut with two shows this week, at the Bowery Electric on December 3 with Roto’s Magic Act, Merrily and the Poison Orchard, and Louise Aubrie and at Mercury Lounge on December 4 with HITS and Chainwave. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimension” is another recent Faulkner tweet. So who cares about the past?
OZU AND HIS AFTERLIVES: CAFÉ LUMIERE
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s CAFÉ LUMIERE is part of Ozu tribute at Lincoln Center
CAFÉ LUMIERE (COFFEE JIKOU) (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2004)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
144 and 165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Wednesday, December 4, Francesca Beale Theater, 4:30, and Tuesday, December 10, Walter Reade Theater, 5:00
Series runs December 4-12
212-875-5050 / 212-875-5166
www.filmlinc.com/films/series/ozu-and-his-afterlives
Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien pays tribute to master filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu’s centenary with Café Lumiere, a beautifully lyrical yet elegantly simple drama about a young woman making her way through life. Pop star Yo Hitoto stars as Yoko, a woman who spends much of her time riding trains and trolleys to visit bookstore owner Hajime (the always excellent Tadanobu Asano) and to find out more about Chinese composer Jiang Wenye. She also returns home to her stepmother (Kimiko Yo) and father (Nenji Kobayashi); the latter doesn’t react when he finds out that Yoko is pregnant and does not intend to marry her boyfriend. In fact, there are barely any emotional reactions at all, although there are plenty of trains taking the characters where they seemingly want to be. Cinematographer Lee Pingping shot Café Lumiere on location with natural sound and lighting; his camera often lingers statically on a scene as the characters walk in and out of the carefully composed frame and are heard off-screen, in long takes, furthering the illusion of reality — mimicking the truth Ozu strove for in his work. In essence, the film has no beginning, no middle, and no end; it is 104 dazzling minutes in the life of a fascinating woman and her friends and relatives. Café Lumiere is screening December 4 at 4:30 and December 6 at 7:30 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center festival “Ozu and His Afterlives,” which honors the 110th anniversary of the master filmmaker’s birth and the 50th anniversary of his death; he died on his birthday at the age of sixty in 1963. The series features Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon and Equinox Flower in addition to seven works that were either directly or indirectly inspired by Ozu and his unique style, including Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking, Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise, Aki Kaurismäki’s The Match Factory Girl, Claire Denis’s 35 Shots of Rum, Pedro Costa’s In Vanda’s Room, and Wim Wenders’s Tokyo-Ga.
TWI-NY TALK: MATTHEW RUSHING
Matthew Rushing will be celebrated in special Alvin Ailey program at City Center on December 17
ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Celebrating Matthew Rushing: Tuesday, December 17, 7:30
Season runs December 4 - January 5, $25-$135
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org
Born and raised in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, Matthew Rushing has now spent more than half his life with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He joined the company in 1992, when he was just seventeen, and he quickly became a featured dancer. In 2008, artistic director Judith Jamison asked Rushing to choreograph a piece as part of her twentieth anniversary celebration, and he created Uptown, about the Harlem Renaissance, as a tribute for her. In 2010, Jamison named Rushing rehearsal director, a job he continues under artistic director Robert Battle, who took over the reins in 2011. Rushing also performs regularly as a guest artist with the company. It is still a thrill to see him take the stage, his every movement filled with emotion and the intense joy of the dance. In an August 2012 Dance magazine article entitled “Why I Dance,” Rushing wrote, “I don’t dance out of obligation, I dance out of an overwhelming feeling of necessity. Dance is literally a form of life to me, and I can’t imagine functioning without it!”
On December 17, as part of AAADT’s annual season at City Center, Rushing will be honored with the special program “Celebrating Matthew Rushing,” which will include Rushing performing in Ronald K. Brown’s Grace, excerpts from Ailey’s Love Songs and Pas de Duke and Rennie Harris’s Home, and the classic Ailey finale, Revelations. A gentle, soft-spoken man, Rushing recently spoke with twi-ny, answering questions about his storied career with great care, as if choreographing every thoughtful, carefully composed sentence.
twi-ny: On December 17, AAADT will be honoring you at City Center with a special tribute. Are you more nervous, scared, or excited about the evening?
Matthew Rushing: I think I would be more excited. There will be a little bit of nerves, because I think there’s a responsibility. This evening will be different from any other performance, because the way I see it, in any other performance, the audience is coming to see the Ailey company, but I would say that because it’s an evening celebrating the years I’ve been with the company, [laughs] the majority of the company will be coming to see me. So I would kind of feel like throughout the whole evening, all eyes will be on me, or at least the majority of the eyes. So I guess I would feel a certain responsibility that I normally wouldn’t feel. But I would also feel excited because I would feel support. I know that as well as the audience coming to see me, hopefully they will be coming to support me, so how special will that be to have a theater full of audience members coming to actually support you and celebrate you. So at the same time it’ll be exciting.
twi-ny: You’ll also be performing that night in Grace and what is being called “Matthew Rushing Highlights”; how did you go about choosing which pieces and excerpts you will perform at the event?
Matthew Rushing: The associate artistic director, Masazumi Chaya, came up with the initial program and presented it to me and asked me if there was anything that I wanted to change. I think the first change was, originally we were going to do Four Corners by Ronald K. Brown, and I requested that we do Grace. Chaya knew that I wanted to do a work by Brown because he’s one of these choreographers who has had a huge impact on my dance career and also me as a person. Chaya knew that Ron would have to be a part of this program, but I requested Grace because Grace was the first time I was introduced to working with Ron, and I’ve just had an incredible history with that ballet — what it’s taught me, the experiences I’ve had actually performing it, and even watching it. So that had to be part of the program.
The other highlights are works that I feel have been pivotal in my career, like A Song for You, which was originally choreographed for Dudley Williams, and I had the privilege and opportunity to be coached by Dudley Williams in A Song for You, as well as Pas de Duke, which was a huge turning point in my career because I was challenged with this role that was originally created for Mikhail Baryshnikov, and it taught me how to rely upon my own strengths and not try to imitate or be anyone else but actually really realize who I am as a dancer, what gifts I have to offer, and really focus and concentrate on those to help me articulate and communicate and have impact on the audience. And as well as the piece’s being choreographed by Mr. Ailey, that has a lot to do with it as well. The other piece is Home, which was choreographed by Rennie Harris. One of the reasons why I wanted to do this piece was because I was honored that he created this role for me when he created the ballet, and there’s something about the hip-hop, house culture that’s also had a huge impact on my life, growing up in New York, and for all these elements to come together — me respecting Rennie Harris as a choreographer, respecting the art form of hip-hop, and being honored that he would create a role for me, all that went into including this work in the evening.
Of course, Revelations has to be a part of it, because Revelations, I always tell people, this piece is kind of like part of who I am. It’s not just a work that I perform at the end of an Ailey evening. It’s something that I have a very close connection to and that feeds me, that inspires me, that changes me from performance to performance, so it just had to be a part of the evening as well.
twi-ny: You’ve now been with AAADT for more than twenty years and are currently the rehearsal director and a guest artist. How has that transition been?
Matthew Rushing: The transition has been very difficult. I think I’ve told anybody that asked me that question, I’ve always said that it’s difficult. I have yet to get to the point where I can say, “Oh yeah, I’m very comfortable, I’m thoroughly enjoying it.” No, not right now. It’s still a challenge. It’s stretching me in so many ways as far as being compassionate, leadership skills — it’s forcing me to organize my time better, it’s stretching me as an artist because I don’t have as much time as I used to to focus on my work and my dance, and I have to still be responsible for my work as far as the roles that I dance, but I have less time because the other time is devoted to the dancers and rehearsing the dancers and taking care of the dancers and making sure that they have what they need to be artists.
So I feel like I’m switching my hat a lot, and also my energy, time, and focus is split, much more than it used to be, so I feel like I’m never in a comfortable place. I often feel like I’ve missed the mark that I’ve set for myself, but I try not to get frustrated; I try to kind of dust myself off and give it another try, but, like I said, I think I’m still finding myself in it. That would be the most honest answer, that I’m still trying to find myself in this rehearsal director slash guest artist role.
twi-ny: In August 2012 you wrote, “I dance out of an overwhelming feeling of necessity,” while also pointing out your age, as forty approaches. Are you anticipating any further changes?
Matthew Rushing: At this point, because of how things have developed, I’m at a point where I can’t make any assumptions. Things have happened in ways that I would never expect them to, so therefore I’m at a point where I’m just making myself open and available to whatever comes my way. I’m trying to make sure that I’m prepared for whatever comes my way by doing whatever work that’s given to me at the present moment, and I’m hoping that that work will help prepare me for the next step, but I have no idea . . . I do know it’s gonna be within this Ailey organization. This is my home. This is where I was birthed artistically. And I know this is where I want to end my dance career. So I just know I’m here at Ailey. Ailey is it for me. That’s my only definite. Everything else is just open, and I’m ready to receive whatever’s coming next.
Matthew Rushing will perform an excerpt from Alvin Ailey’s LOVE SONGS at program honoring his ongoing career with the company
twi-ny: You’ve choreographed Acceptance in Surrender and Uptown for AAADT and, more recently, Moan for Philadanco. Do you have any more pieces coming up either for Ailey or another company? Do you get a different kind of satisfaction out of choreographing a work than dancing?
Matthew Rushing: Choreography is another struggle of mine, that I don’t feel absolutely comfortable in, so again, it’s just another thing that stretches me and I feel helps me grow. One of the reasons why I like to choreograph is I like to be creative. I usually get ideas that are motivated by music or themes or ideas and I like the work of trying to make them happen. Sometimes it doesn’t come as easily as I would like, and that’s where I get frustrated. Often I feel like I can’t come up with enough steps to articulate the ideas that I have. I usually can come up with ideas easily, but the articulation and coming up with the movement and style is very difficult for me. So the choreography, I feel, is more of a struggle than dance. Dance is something that I have always felt comfortable in, and I think I always will, so there is a huge difference between choreography and dance, and I feel much more comfortable in dancing than I do choreography, but I feel that choreography is another voice that I’m developing, as far as me having an impact on people and being creative.
twi-ny: In September 2011, you were one of a large group of dance people who performed in Continuous Replay with Bill T. Jones at New York Live Arts. What was that experience like? Many of the performers, including Mr. Jones, went au naturel, but you kept your shorts on. Were you tempted to take it all off?
Matthew Rushing: The experience of dancing with Bill T. Jones was absolutely awesome. The man is a genius. He inspired me, he opened my eyes to new ways of choreography. He taught me how to think differently, without even talking to me directly. It was me being able to be around his work and his process and his dancers that totally changed me. I love being around people who can say things that you’ve never heard before or be able to articulate things that you feel cannot be expressed through words. But somehow this man, this genius of a man, knows how to do that. I love him dearly, and I’m so excited that he’s choreographing D-Man in the Waters in the company, because he recently came to rehearsal and did the exact same thing to the other dancers as far as inspiring them and speaking into their lives. So the experience was awesome.
Um, dancing in the nude? No, I wouldn’t go there. I wasn’t even tempted. And I was so happy that he was accommodating enough [laughs] to allow me not to go nude. Even though I work hard on looking the best I possibly can . . . Nude? In front of thousands of people? No, not me. That’s just not me. I’m so glad that I’ve never had to do it here at Ailey as well.
NEW YORK RANGERS: TOYS FOR TOTS
Madison Square Garden, South Plaza
Seventh Ave. between 31st & 33rd Sts.
Tuesday, December 3, 5:00 - 7:00
www.rangers.nhl.com
www.toysfortots.org
Giveaways might be hurting the Rangers on the ice, as they hover around the .500 mark, but there will be a much happier kind of giveaway on Tuesday, December 3, from 5:00 to 7:00, when current and former Blueshirts will be on the South Plaza in front of Madison Square Garden, helping collect unwrapped gifts for needy children in the tristate area in their annual Toys for Tots celebration. The team has been affiliated with the U.S. Marine Corps program for twenty years now; the goal of Toys for Tots, which was started by Major Bill Hendricks in 1947, “is to deliver a message of hope to less fortunate youngsters that will assist them in becoming responsible, productive, patriotic citizens.” Among those expected to be on hand are Adam Graves, Derek Dorsett, and John Moore; fans get an autograph for each unwrapped toy they donate, as well as access to special activities, including face painting, a hockey skills station, and the chance to win prizes in a trivia contest. (Above video from the 2012 Toys for Tots drive courtesy of 1495Sports.)
