Yearly Archives: 2011

NORTHSIDE MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL 2011

Northside Festival
Multiple venues in Greenpoint and Williamsburg
June 16-19
www.thelmagazine.com/blogs/NorthsideFestivalNews

After a terrific opening year in 2010, the Northside Festival is back June 16-19 with an even more impressive lineup of bands, including Guided by Voices, Beirut, Wavves, Surfer Blood, Sharon van Etten, Theophilus London, DOM, Takka Takka, Grooms, the Black Hollies, Pillow Theory, and dozens more, with tickets on sale now for some of the more higher profile shows (as well as festival badges [$60-$200] that will get you in to just about everything). But another component of the festival involves art and film. In fact, today (May 1) is the deadline to enter ($10 fee) the Northside DIY Film Festival, comprising shorts and feature-length works that will be screening at UnionDocs in Williamsburg and will be judged by such panelists as Rosie Perez, Ted Hope, and Todd P; features must be between 50 and 130 minutes and have a budget of $100,000 or less, while shorts must be less than 30 minutes and cost $20,000 or less, with all films having been made after January 1, 2008. The grand prize is $250, a Rooftop Films screening, and a camera rental package. In addition, Williamsburg and Greenpoint artists can register ($20 fee) through May 15 to be part of Northside Open Studios. Don’t hesitate to become part of one of Brooklyn’s most highly anticipated and growing new festivals.

WORLD NOMADS MOROCCO

Najia Mehadji’s “Mystic Dance,” from the series Volutes, will be part of multidisciplinary site-specific Moroccan exhibit at FIAF Gallery

French Institute Alliance Française (and other venues)
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St.
Le Skyroom, 22 East 60th St.
Tinker Auditorium, 55 East 59th St.
April 30 – May 31, free – $40
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

in its annual World Nomads celebration of global culture, the French Institute Alliance Française journeyed to Africa in 2008, Haiti in 2009, and Lebanon last year; this year’s destination is Morocco, where the festivities began April 30 with a sold-out concert featuring the Orchestra of Fes with Françoise Atlan. Special events continue throughout May, with a pair of free literature talks Sunday with Abdellah Taïa (1:00) and Mahi Binebine (5:00) at the Cooper Union, screenings of Nour Eddine Lakhmari’s controversial 2008 film, Casa Negra, which deals realistically with contemporary social problems in Morocco, on May 3 ($10), a free concert with multi-instrumentalist Brahim Fribgane and trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf on May 5 at 8:30 at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium, the New York debut of Rabat rapper Soultana at Joe’s Pub on May 6 ($15), and the installation “Untangling Threads: Soundwalk & Kantara Crafts” on May 7 that is also part of the Festival of Ideas for the New City. Other highlights include the panel discussion “Regenerating Morocco’s Architecture” on May 9 at 7:00 in FIAF’s Tinker Auditorium ($15), the May 11 keynote talk “Essaouira and Fes: Sustaining Cultures” with Royal Advisor André Azoulay and cultural critic Faouzi Skali at Le Skyroom (free with RSVP), a Master Gnaoua Musicians concert May 21 at 8:00 at Florence Gould Hall ($20, preceded by the free talk “Stories from the Gnaoua and World Music Festival”), and pianist Marouan Benabdallah performing at Zankel Hall on May 26 at 8:00 ($25). Additional screenings of Moroccan film will take place every Tuesday as part of FIAF’s regular CinémaTuesdays series, and the FIAF Gallery will hos the site-specific exhibition “Senses and Essence: Amina Agueznay, Safaa Erruas, and Najia Mehadji,” focusing on the work of three leading woman contemporary artists from Morocco (May 5-28, free).

HOBOKEN ARTS & MUSIC FESTIVAL 2011

The Baseball Project will take the field in Hoboken on Sunday afternoon, followed by Ian Hunter & the Rant Band

Washington St. between Observer Highway and Seventh St.
Sunday, May 1, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.hobokennj.org

One of the best double headers of the season is scheduled for Sunday, and not only does it not require separate admission, it’s absolutely free. It’s also not taking place on a grass-and-dirt diamond. The annual Hoboken Arts & Music Festival will step up to the plate with a day of cultural celebration in the city where the organized game of baseball was first played, on the Elysian Fields on June 19, 1846, with the New York Nine defeating the Knickerbockers 23–1 in a four-inning contest. On Sunday at 3:00, the Baseball Project will take the stage, an athletic supergroup consisting of R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey, the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn, and the Pretty Babies’ Linda Pitmon, who also plays drums for Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3. The Baseball Project, the brainchild of huge baseball fanatics McCaughey and Wynn, are touring behind their sophomore album, Volume Two: High and Inside (Yep Roc, March 2011), the follow-up to their 2008 debut, Volume One: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. While the first disc explored such legends as Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Harvey Haddix, Curt Flood, Big Ed Delahanty, Fernando Valenzuela, Jackie Robinson, and Satchel Paige, the second focuses on such characters as Reggie Jackson, Tony Conigliaro, Mark “the Bird” Fidrych, Pete Rose, Roger Clemens, Ichiro Suzuki, and Bill Buckner. The band clearly knows its baseball, detailing specific classic situations, using the correct terminology, and sharing their obvious affection for the national pastime, with pop hooks galore. One of the most entertaining songs is “Panda and the Freak,” in which they praise dozens of the greatest nicknames of all time, from Baby Bull and the Beast to the Spaceman and Will the Thrill. If they show a bent toward the Red Sox, blame it on Wynn. They even bring in guest vocalist Craig Finn of the Hold Steady to warble “Don’t Call Them Twinkies,” a ditty about his hometown team, the Minnesota Twins. (Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, and Chris Funk and John Moen of the Decemberists also pitch in.)

Ian Hunter, Hoboken’s own Jim Mastro, and the rest of the Rant Band will close out Hoboken Arts & Music Festival on Sunday at 4:30 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

After the Baseball Project reach their prearranged pitch count, Ian Hunter & the Rant Band will be brought in to close things out. Hunter, the former leader of Mott the Hoople, is still making outstanding albums, the most recent being 2009’s Man Overboard and 2007’s Shrunken Heads (both on Yep Roc), showing that he knows how to go from a fastball to a curve to a slider like the best of them, and oh those change-ups. Songs such as “Stretch,” “Soul of America,” “Up and Running,” and “Win It All” might not actually be about baseball, but Hunter loads the bases with those newer tunes, then hits it out of the park with such longtime favorites as “Once Bitten, Twice Shy,” “All the Way from Memphis,” “All the Young Dudes,” “Just Another Night,” “Michael Picasso,” and “23A, Swan Hill.” Hunter is a genuine rock star who still has Hall of Fame stuff; don’t miss this great chance to catch him and his excellent team live, and for free. (The fair itself begins at 11:00 am, with fine artists displaying their wares between Second & Third Sts., childrens’ activities in a special area on Third St. with rides, games, arts & crafts, clowns, and a puppet show, crafters showing off their handmade goods, and local restaurants offering an international selection of food. Among the many other live performers are Hudson Dance & Movement, the Fuzzy Lemons, Genesis Dance Company, and Dawnee from Peanut Butter n Jammin at the Kid Zone on Third St., Bandwidth, NYC School of Rock, Garden Street Music, Goodbye Friday, Mad Dog Mary, Gene d’ Plumber, and Frankie Morales and the Mambo of the Times Orchestra at the Sixth St. Stage, and Davey & the Trainwreck, Bern & the Brights, and the Pretty Babies at the Observer Hwy Stage.)

SAKURA MATSURI: CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL 2011

The annual two-day Sakura Matsuri will beautify Brooklyn this weekend (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
900 Washington Ave. at Eastern Parkway
Saturday, April 30, and Sunday, May 1, $10-$15
718-623-7200
www.bbg.org

For many New Yorkers, it isn’t really spring until the cherry blossoms are in bloom at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The spectacular trees should be gushing this weekend for the annual Sakura Matsuri, two days of Japanese art, food, and culture that usually is jam-packed with families, photographers, and other celebrants. The weather is currently forecast as partly cloudy with a high of sixty-seven, perhaps not ideal but a whole lot better than rain. There will be special events held throughout the beautiful botanic garden, including a children’s Suzuki recital, anime stand-up comedy, Butoh dance, cosplay cabaret, origami workshops, an ikebana flower exhibit, an interactive tea installation, a vintage kimono display, fish-printing demos, enka poetry, manga and anime artist and book signings, logic puzzles and other games, numerous bonsai events, garden tours, Japanese karate demonstrations, and much more, with such special guests as April Vollmer, Godfather of Sudoku Maki Kaji, Jack Schwartz, Fumiko Allinder, Michele Brody, Grandmaster Kaicho T. Nakamura, and Pokémon voice artist Veronica Taylor; below are some of the recommended highlights.

Saturday
Hanagasa Odori: Flower Hat Dance Procession, Japanese Folk Dance Institute of NY, Osborne Garden North, 1:00

Nihon Buyo Classical & Ryukyu Buyo Okinawan Dance, Dancejapan with Sachiyo Ito, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 1:15

BBG Parasol Society Promenade, with live music by happyfunsmile, registration 11 a.m.–1 p.m. behind Cherry Esplanade Stage, parade from Cherry Esplanade Stage to Osborne Garden, 3:00

Traditional Tea Ceremony, Urasenke Chanoyu Center, A.T. White Amphitheater, 3:30

Split Spirits/Spirit Splits: A Samurai Drama, Samurai Sword Soul, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 4:15

Sunday
Taiko Drumming, Soh Daiko, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 12 noon

Origami Paper Folding with Jeremy Aaron Horland, Lily Pool Terrace, 1:00

Butoh Dance, Dean Street FOO Dance, Osborne Garden North, 2:00

Cooking Demonstration: Authentic Dashi Making, with Momo Sushi Shack’s Chef Makoto Suzuki and Phillip Gilmour, A.T. White Amphitheater, 3:00

Cosplay Fashion Show, hosted by Uncle Yo, with live music by Morning Musuko, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 6:15

THE ESCAPE ARTIST

John Kelly examines the chiaroscuro world of Caravaggio in THE ESCAPE ARTIST at Performance Space 122

Performance Space 122
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
Through April 30, $15-$25
www.ps122.org

Visual and performance artist John Kelly, who recently embodied Austrian painter Egon Schiele in the final presentation of his multimedia piece Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte at La MaMa and has previously examined such figures as Antonin Artaud, Jean Cocteau, and Joni Mitchell, is delving into the shadowy world of Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) this weekend at PS 122 in the solo work The Escape Artist. The 2010 Ethyl Eichelberger Award winner has collaborated with avant chanteuse Carol Lipnik on several original songs for the show, including “The Dazzling Darkness,” “Cara Viaggio,” and “Beauty Kills Me,” as well as versions of the James Bond theme “You Only Live Twice” and Monteverdi’s “Oblivion Soave,” with arrangements by John DiPinto, who also plays the piano, accordion, and flute, Nioka Workman on cello, and Justin Smith on violin. The three-channel video design is by Jeff Morey. The Escape Artist was previously performed in various workshop and work-in-progress productions at Dixon Place, the Park Ave. Armory (where Kelly is an artist in residence), Galapagos, MASS MoCA, and the San Diego Art Museum; the run at PS 122 is its official world premiere. A limited amount of tickets are still available for tonight’s 8:00 performance and tomorrow’s 8:00 and 10:00 shows, which conclude the two-week schedule, but you better grab them fast or they’ll be gone.

Update: In The Escape Artist, John Kelly portrays a man who, shortly after being blown away by seeing paintings by Caravaggio in a museum, suffers a serious trapeze accident that lands him in the hospital with a possible broken neck. Kelly spends the majority of the seventy-five-minute multimedia production flat on his back on a table that represents a gurney, his head immobilized, as he ponders his future through songs and images influenced by works by the daring Italian Baroque artist. Kelly often stares into a camera above that projects him onto the center of a three-channel video installation, making it appear that he is looking directly at the audience as he shares his fears while drifting in and out of consciousness, his dreams and an out-of-body experience projected onto the screens. Kelly is often flanked by videos of characters re-creating actual canvases by Caravaggio, but with such additions as a rope that represents the trapeze accident; the men occasionally sing backup, their prerecorded vocals melding perfectly with Kelly’s often live projection in the middle. Kelly also adds wonderful touches of carefully controlled movement, lifting his legs slightly, raising an arm, pointing a finger, that signal his desperate need to be free of his physical (and mental?) constraints and return to the art of creation. Despite a questionable finale in which he brings out an electric guitar, The Escape Artist is another splendid evening of experimental theater from one of New York City’s most adventurous artists.

ToastArtWalk

Photographer Jennifer Kotter will open up her studio to visitors as part of annual ToastArtWalk in TriBeCa

Multiple locations throughout TriBeCa
Friday, April 29, 6:00-9:00
Saturday, April 30, 1:00-6:00
Sunday, May 1, 1:00-6:00
Monday, May 2, 1:00-6:00
Admission: free
www.toastartwalk.com

The fifteenth annual TriBeCa Open Artist Studio Tour begins tonight, with nearly a hundred TriBeCa artists opening up their studios in three dozen buildings. The neighborhood is sure to be packed on Saturday, as the Tribeca Film Festival holds its Family Festival Street Fair and Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day, so as long as you’re there, be sure to add in a few studio visits as well. The official TOAST website lists detailed information about each participating artist, including samples of their work; we’re looking forward to checking out Jennifer Kotter’s architectural photographs at 105 Hudson St., Katherine D. Crone’s visual journal installations at 515 Greenwich, Mark Demos’s light paintings at 368 Broadway (which were a highlight of the recent Fountain Art Fair), Deborah Gieringer’s mystery-laden drawings at 108 Franklin St., Loretta Mae Hirsch’s feminist drawings and paintings at 368 Broadway, Theresa Greenberg’s colorful accordion collages at 50 White St., Jonathan Lux’s cinematic narrative paintings at 368 Broadway, and Toshiko Nishikawa’s paintings and installations at 122 Duane St. (her recent “Senbazuru” show at the Vilcek Foundation was a big hit).

13 ASSASSINS

A small group of samurai sets out to end a brutal madman’s tyranny in Takashi Miike’s brilliant 13 ASSASSINS

13 ASSASSINS (JÛSAN-NIN NO SHIKAKU) (Takashi Miike, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, April 29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.13assassins.com

Japanese director Takashi Miike’s first foray into the samurai epic is a nearly flawless film, perhaps his most accomplished work. Evoking such classics as Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Mizoguchi’s 47 Ronin, Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen, and Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter, 13 Assassins is a thrilling tale of honor and revenge, inspired by a true story. In mid-nineteenth-century feudal Japan, during a time of peace just prior to the Meiji Restoration, Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), the son of the former shogun and half-brother to the current one, is abusing his power, raping and killing at will, even using his servants and their families as target practice with a bow and arrow. Because of his connections, he is officially untouchable, but Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira) secretly hires Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) to gather a small team and put an end to Naritsugu’s brutal tyranny. But the lord’s protector, Hanbei (Masachika Ichimura), a former nemesis of Shinzaemon’s, has vowed to defend his master to the death, even though he despises Naritsugu’s actions. As the thirteen samurai make a plan to get to Naritsugu, they are eager to finally break out their long-unused swords and do what they were born to do. “He who values his life dies a dog’s death,” Shinzaemon proclaims, knowing that the task is virtually impossible but willing to die for a just cause. Although there are occasional flashes of extreme gore in the first part of the film, Miike keeps the audience waiting until he unleashes the gripping battle, an extended scene of blood and violence that highlights death before dishonor. Selected for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for the Silver Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, 13 Assassins is one of Miike’s best-crafted tales; nominated for ten Japanese Academy Prizes, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Daisuke Tengan), Best Editing (Kenji Yamashita), Best Original Score (Koji Endo), and Best Actor (Yakusho), it won awards for cinematography (Nobuyasu Kita), lighting direction (Yoshiya Watanabe), art direction (Yuji Hayashida), and sound recording (Jun Nakamura).