This Week In New York

COIL

Performance Space 122
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
January 6-17, $20 per performance, $55 passport for any five shows
www.ps122.org

The COIL festival is back at P.S. 122, featuring fourteen companies performing over twelve days, some in conjunction with the Under the Radar festival running concurrently at the Public Theater. Among this year’s presentations are Richard Maxwell’s ADS, which looks at the theater itself; Gisèle Vienne’s hard-hitting JERK, based on text by Dennis Cooper; Morgan Thorson’s HEAVEN, with live music by LOW; and the return of Temporary Distortion’s AMERICANA KAMIKAZE, which ran at P.S. 122 last fall. We can’t recommend Megan V. Sprenger / mvworks’ “…within us.” highly enough; when we caught the show last May at P.S. 122, we called it “a brilliant evening-length piece of confrontational dance theater that gets right in the audience’s face — literally. . . . a thoroughly involving hour that leaves the talented dancers and the brave audience feeling energized and alive.” Several off-site COIL productions include LeeSaar the Company’s PRIMA at the JCC, WaxFactory’s BLIND.NESS at the Abrons Arts Center, and Maria Hassabi’s SoloShow at a private studio in Chelsea; when we saw SoloShow at P.S. 122 in November, we referred to is as “a highlight of the Performa 09 biennial,” a beautifully constructed piece that displays Hassabi’s awe-inspiring athleticism and strong body.

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MARIA HASSABI: SoloShow

Maria Hassabi completes diptych at P.S. 122 as part of Performa 09

Performa 09
Performance Space 122
150 First Ave. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
November 12-15, $15-$22
www.ps122.org
www.mariahassabi.org

Maria Hassabi premiered SOLO, the first part of her “dance diptych,” September 29 – October 3 at P.S. 122 as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival. Hassabi is now back at P.S. 122 with the second work, SOLOSHOW, a highlight of the Performa 09 biennial. In SOLO, the Cyprus-born, New York-based dancer and choreographer interacted with a Persian carpet to the sounds of ambient city noises. For the companion piece, Hassabi is already balanced on a hard black rectangular platform as the audience enters. Slowly she begins moving her limbs, twisting her body, and stretching her neck into almost impossible positions. As a small speaker emits tinny sounds as if someone is turning an AM radio dial, snippets of recognizable words and music creating a kind of background white noise, Hassabi makes her way around the platform with awe-inspiring skill and dexterity, her muscles and veins bulging as her body shakes, often held slightly above the platform by hands that leave disappearing sweat prints on the dark surface. Her elbows and knees form ninety-degree angles, contrasting with her spiraling torso and exaggerated back arching. Her arms become architectural struts supporting her upper body as her legs pivot out on the fulcrum of her pelvis and hips. As she twists, turns, and rolls across the platform, she occasionally dangles parts of her body over the edges, but she does so not to titillate the audience into fearing she might fall off but instead to demonstrate that there are no boundaries; in fact, when she does completely get off the platform, only to get back on it, the audience is forced to reevaluate the “rules” they had formed in their head. Whereas there seemed to be a limitless amount of things Hassabi could do with the comforting, malleable carpet in SOLO, she refuses to let the dour, unchanging platform limit her imagination in SOLOSHOW. Hassabi will be performing the forty-five-minute piece on November 13, 14, and 15 at 8:00, with Hristoula Harakas taking over on November 14 at 10:00 and November 15 at 6:00.

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PERFORMA 09

Fischerspooner will kick off Performa 09 at MoMA on Nov. 1

Multiple venues
November 1-22
Admission: free - $30
www.performa-arts.org
The third biennial Performa festival gets under way on November 1, kicking off three weeks of eclectic performance and installation art sponsored by Performa, a nonprofit interdisciplinary arts organization founded by RoseLee Goldberg that celebrates cutting-edge visual art and education. Although we’re suckers for multimedia performance art and site-specific sound and video installations, it can also be hit or miss, with concept often winning out over execution. But we’re here to narrow down the myriad choices for you; below are ten of our recommendations, in chronological order, to help you sift through the more than 150 artists participating in some 110 events at 80-plus institutions.

Lilibeth Cuence Rasmussen will look at the present and future at the Performance Project

Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen will look at the present and future at the Performance Project

Other highlights include Arto Lindsay’s “Somewhere I Read” at Duffy Square on November 1, Tracey Emin reading from “Those Who Suffer Love” and “Strangeland” at the Performance Project at University Settlement on November 7, Kalup Linzy at Taxter & Spengemann on November 8, Omer Fast’s reinvention of the game Broken Telephone at Abrons Art Center November 11-13, Mai Ueda’s “Family Dinner in a Parallel Universe” neo-fluxus event at the Emily Harvey Foundation on November 14, Yeondoo Jung’s “Cinemagician” theater piece at the Asia Society November 19-21, Marina Rosenfeld’s “P.A.” audio installation at the Park Avenue Armory on November 22, and Guy Ben-Ner’s live untitled film being screened nightly at 7:00 at Performa Hub at 41 Cooper Square throughout the festival.

Many of the events are free, with other ticket prices ranging from $10 to $30. There’s a whole bunch of awesome events, so do your best to try to check out at least one of these ultracool happenings.

Sunday, November 1 Fischerspooner, “Inbetween Worlds,” the Museum of Modern Art, $20, 6:00

Tacita Dean collaborates with Merce Cunningham shortly before the great choreographer's death

Thursday, November 5
through
Saturday, November 7 Tacita Dean, Craneway Event, feature-length film documenting Merce Cunningham dance rehearsals in an abandoned automobile factory, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, $10

Friday, November 6 Jonas Mekas and Now We Are Here, live musical performance with lead singer Jonas Mekas and special guests, Emily Harvey Foundation, free, 9:00

Friday, November 6
and
Saturday, November 7 Auf den Tisch! (At the Table!), curated by Meg Stuart, featuring a revolving cast of artists and thinkers improvising at a large conference room table, including Trajal Harrell, Keith Hennessy, Yvonne Meier, Vania Rovisco, Meg Stuart, and others, Baryshnikov Arts Center, $20, 7:30

Saturday, November 7 First Saturdays: Rock Out, with “Twirl” by Jen DeNike, 6:00, and “Saaqiou” by Terence Koh, 9:30, Brooklyn Museum, free

Brilliant South African multimedia artist William Kentridge will discuss his latest work-in-progress at festival

Monday, November 9
and
Tuesday, November 10 William Kentridge, “I Am Not Me, the Horse Is Not Mine,” multimedia presentation about Kentridge’s work-in-progress, inspired by Shostakovich’s THE NOSE, Cedar Lake, $30, 8:00

Maria Hassabi follows up last month's "Solo" show with "SoloShow"

Thursday, November 12
and
Friday, November 13 Maria Hassabi, “SoloShow,” P.S. 122, $20

Friday, November 13 Guido Van Der Werve, “Nummer Elf: The King's Gambit Accepted, the Number of Stars in the Sky & Waiting for an Earthquake,” Marshall Chess Club, $10, 7:00 & 9:00

Friday, November 13
through
Sunday, November 15 Wangechi Mutu, “Stone Ihiga,” multimedia performance and site-specific installation with music by Imani Uzuri, Saatchi & Saatchi, $15, 9:00

Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer collaborate for Performa 09

Tuesday, November 17
through
Thursday, November 19 Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer, “If I Sing to You / Spiraling Down,” Baryshnikov Arts Center, $25, 7:30

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MARIA HASSABI: SOLO

Maria Hassabi is performing SOLO as part of Crossing the Line festival (photo by Paula Court)

Crossing the Line 2009

Performance Space 122

150 First Ave. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.

Sept. 29 - Oct. 4, $20, 7:30 (Oct. 1 performance reviewed)

This week, Maria Hassabi premiered the first part of what she calls “a dance diptych,” the fifty-minute SOLO, in P.S. 122’s intimate first-floor theater. As the audience enters the space, the Cyprus-born, New York-based dancer and choreographer is already on the floor, half covered by a Persian carpet. As ambient city noises (courtesy of sound designer James Lo) slowly filter in — cars honking, people shuffling off to work, snatches of conversations – Hassabi begins to interact with the carpet, sprawling over and under it, balancing precipitously on it, and picking it up and throwing it back on the floor. She turns the object into a weapon, a prayer mat, a high wire, a piece of furniture, clothing, and even a lover, very rarely breaking contact. At one point she contorts her athletic body — a character unto itself, the sinews in her feet, the muscles in her shoulder, the veins in her arm performing their own marvelous dance — as if she is trapped, the four corners of the carpet calling to mind the brick walls of the apartment she seems unable to leave.

As day turns to night, Hassabi’s relationship with the carpet gets more emotional — in fact, she never breaks into the barest hint of a smile, remaining serious throughout. While one sometimes looks in vain for narrative elements of the ironically titled SOLO — it’s really a very different kind of pas de deux — it’s a thrill watching what Hassabi the dancer is capable of. SOLO is part of the French Institute Alliance Française’s Crossing the Line festival; the second section, SOLOSHOW, runs November 12-15 at P.S. 122 as part of Performa 09.