Yearly Archives: 2011

DEX ROMWEBER DUO

The Dex Romweber Duo will be at (le) poisson rouge on November 4 with the Meat Puppets (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Friday, November 4, $15, 7:30
www.myspace.com/dexterromweberduo
www.lepoissonrouge.com

The Dex Romweber Duo open their latest album, Is That You in the Blue? (Bloodshot, July 2011), with the wild, furious “Jungle Drums,” Sara Romweber pounding away on her skins, guitarist Dex Romweber belting out, “Jungle drums are beating / right outside my door / rocking to the rhythm / one two three four!,” a wailing saxophone upping the ante. The brother-sister act keeps the spirit of Elvis, Roy, Johnny, and other late-1950s, early 1960s rockabilly heroes alive on the new album, fourteen killer tracks that range from the spy-noir surf punk instrumental “Gurdjieff Girl” to Django Haskins’s mystery ballad “The Death of Me,” from the bluesy howl of “Homicide” to the screaming vocals of Billy Boy Arnold’s “Wish You Would” (twice!). Dex and Sara visit “The House of the Rising Sun” territory on “Nowhere,” channel Orbison on the title track (“I hope you find loneliness with him / whatever dark night you’re in”) and Cash on the Man in Black’s “Redemption” (“My old friend Lucifer came / fought to keep me in chains / But I saw through the tricks / of six-sixty-six”) before concluding with the thrillingly sweet ballad “Think of Me,” in which Dex sings, “Dream of me / and talk to me / though we’re far apart / I will hear you, dear / hear you in my heart.” Is That You in the Blue? is a nonstop joyride that has Sara and Dex pulling into (le) poisson rouge on November 4, opening for the Meat Puppets, who are on tour with their latest, Lollipop (Megaforce, April 2011), but have their work cut out for them following this smoking hot pair.

THE “CHINDIA” DIALOGUES

The Amit Chaudhuri Band will be playing a special show at “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues” at Asia Society

Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
November 3-6, free – $20
212-517-2742
www.asiasociety.org

In conjunction with its exhibit “Rabindranath Tagore: The Last Harvest,” Asia Society is hosting “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues,” an impressive four-day symposium bringing together poets, novelists, musicians, critics, activists, scholars, journalists, and other experts from China and India as part of the inaugural Asian Arts & Ideas Forum. The cultural exchange of ideas begins on November 3 when Indian writer Amitav Ghosh sits down with Chinese scholar and Yale history professor Jonathan Spence to discuss Ghosh’s new historical novel, River of Smoke, introduced by Orville Schell ($12, 6:30). On Friday at 12:30 (free), Yu Hua, Zha Jianying, Siddhartha Deb, and Murong Xuecun will delve into “Underground & Undercover: Literary Reportage,” moderated by Schell. At 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), the innovative Shanghai Restoration Project will perform with singer Zhang Le. Saturday’s full slate ($15 for one day, $20 for Saturday and Sunday) of Sino-Indian cross-culture and social, political, and historical exploration, examination, and entertainment kicks off at 1:00 with “Literary Border Crossings: The Writer as Traveler,” with Tagore translator Sharmistha Mohanty, Shen Shuang, Allan Sealy, Christopher Lydon, and Ashis Nandy via digital link, followed at 2:15 by “Cyberwriters & Cybercoolies: China’s New Literary Space,” with Zha Jianying, Emily Parker, Yu Hua, and Murong Xuecun. At 3:30, Amitava Kumar, Meena Kandasamy, Suketu Mehta, and Su Tong gather together to discuss “Literature of Migration: Where Do the Birds Fly?” followed at 4:45 by a conversation between Amit Chaudhuri and Christopher Lydon. That night at 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), Chaudhuri will lead his diverse band in a concert with opera singer Qian Yi and the Du Yun Quartet, with Du Yun on piano and electronics, Li Liqun on yangqin, Brad Henkel on trumpet, and Theo Metz on drums, performing an excerpt from the traditional story “Slaying of the Tiger General.” On Sunday at 1:00, Ha Jin, Meena Kandasamy, Amitava Kumar, Sharmistha Mohanty, Allan Sealy, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Xu Xiaobin will read from their work for “The ‘Chindia’ Readings,” hosted by Amitava Kumar, followed at 2:30 by “Defying the Cartographer: Shared Cultures vs. Nation-States,” which features Siddhartha Deb, Zha Jianying, Yu Hua, and Amitava Kumar talking about legacy and fate. At 3:45, Ha Jin, Su Tong, Xu Xiaobin, and Meena Kandasamy will read from their works and talk about “Seeing Double: The Persistence of the Past in Contemporary Chinese and Indian Culture,” with the closing event taking place at 5:00, “Tagore and the Artist as Citizen of the World,” with Christopher Lydon, Tan Chung, Amit Chaudhuri, and Sharmistha Mohanty.

HOLLYWOOD’S “JEW WAVE”: THE PRODUCERS

Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, along with Kenneth Mars, concoct a crazy plan that just might work in THE PRODUCERS

THE PRODUCERS (Mel Brooks, 1968)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Thursday, November 3, 8:30, and Monday, November 7, 1:45
Series runs November 3-13
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

No way around it; this is one funny movie. Written and directed by Mel Brooks (who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay), The Producers stars Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, a once great Broadway producer now relegated to wooing old ladies for their checkbooks. Gene Wilder earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor as Leo Bloom, a by-the-book accountant who figures out that it could be possible to make more money from a bomb than a hit. And the bomb they turn to is the extraordinary Springtime for Hitler, featuring a great turn by Kenneth Mars as a neo-Nazi. Brooks, Mostel, Wilder, Mars, and the rest of the crazy cast — which also includes Dick Shawn, Lee Meredith, Estelle Winwood, Christopher Hewett, Renee Taylor, Barney Martin, Bill Macy, and William Hickey — don’t just play it for laughs but for giant guffaws and jaw-dropping disbelief in this riotous romp that was turned into a very good but overrated Broadway musical and a terrible film version of the show, both starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, neither of whom can fill Mostel and Wilder’s shoes. The Producers is screening November 3 at 8:30 and on November 7 at 1:45 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Hollywood’s ‘Jew Wave’” festival, being held not far from the very fountain where one pivotal Producers scene takes place. Mostel can also be seen November 12 in Ján Kadár’s oddball rarity The Angel Levine, in which he plays Morris Mishkin, a lonely old Jew suddenly visited by a cool black man (Harry Belafonte) who claims to be an angel sent down from heaven to help him. The series continues through November 13 with screenings of such films as Robert Altman’s California Split, William Wyler’s Funny Girl, Larry Peerce’s Goodbye, Columbus, Hy Averback’s I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, and Bob Fosse’s Lenny, with many special guests on hand to participate in introductions and Q&As.

MARIA HASSABI: SHOW

The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
November 3-5, $15, 8:00
212-255-5793
www.thekitchen.org
www.mariahassabi.com

One might think that Maria Hassabi’s latest piece, SHOW, is the final part of a trilogy that began at the fall 2000 Crossing the Line Festival with SOLO, in which she performed with a rolled-up carpet, and continued that November at Performa 09 with SoloShow, in which she performed on a black rectangular platform. But in fact, the first two were part of a dance diptych that have nothing to do with her newest work, SHOW, an installation-based collaboration performed by Hassabi and Hristoula Harakas, with lighting by Joe Levasseur, sound design by cellist Alex Waterman (of Either/Or and the Plus-Minus Ensemble), set design by Hassabi and Canadian visual artist Scott Lyall, and dramaturgy by Lyall and experimental Waco-born Brooklyn artist Marcos Rosales. The Cyprus-born Hassabi also serves as director and choreographer, with Meghan Finn the production manager. Both Hassabi and Harakas display remarkable dexterity, which is likely to be on view throughout the sixty-minute SHOW, which runs November 3-5 at the Kitchen. As Hassabi told us in our recent twi-ny talk, “I was born flexible! Then I slept all the way until I went onstage! You know, muscle atrophy helps!”

Update: Maria Hassabi’s SHOW, which opened at the Kitchen on November 3 for a too-brief three-day run, has the welcome feel of those experimental performance-art happenings staged at such venues as the Kitchen some forty or so years ago. Incorporating elements from her three most recent works, Solo, SoloShow, and Robert and Maria,, Hassabi has again teamed with Hristoula Harakas to create a deeply intimate and extremely entertaining evening of dance theater. SHOW’s audience enters an empty black-box space where the Kitchen’s multileveled seating usually is; instead, the floor is sparse, save for about sixty Klieg lights gathered to one side, with another forty or so on the ceiling, casting brightness into the space. People can sit or stand anywhere they want.

For more than an hour, Hassabi and Harakas slowly maneuver through the crowd, their gaze locked on one another, sometimes appearing to be mirror images of each other, moving with excruciating precision and slowness. The two perform a dramatic duet that fills the space with magnetic energy. SHOW develops as an in inquiry between audience and performer, performance space and emotional space. The audience members, who have become unwitting participants in the event, can barely take their eyes off the dancers — except when looking at each other. SHOW is a brilliant, often erotically charged evening-length piece performed by two dynamic, brave dancers unafraid to take risks, involving the audience in unique and, at times, demanding ways.

Although we were told to turn off our electronic devices, many audience members took pictures or video; on opening night, one woman took video on her iPhone of the entire performance, moving about the room, occasionally blocking people’s site lines and getting them in the shots. We later learned that Hassabi herself had asked some friends (including the woman on the iPhone) to take pictures, hoping it would spur others to do so as well. Although we can understand why Hassabi would want to document the show in that way, the many cell phones proved extremely distracting. In addition, Alex Waterman’s sound design of the chatter, which is continually rerecorded over itself to make it muddier and more abstract, is too short; every time it starts again from the beginning, there is a hiccup that is slightly jarring. Nonetheless, SHOW is a captivating experience that is best seen with complete focus; check your coat and bag (it gets very hot inside with all of the lights, and bags can get in the dancers’ way), and don’t pull out your cell phone to snap a photo or two. Instead, just immerse yourself in this very beautiful happening.

HOLLYWOOD’S JEW WAVE: BYE BYE BRAVERMAN

BYE BYE BRAVERMAN tells the very funny tale of four men in search of a funeral

BYE BYE BRAVERMAN (Sidney Lumet, 1968)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Thursday, November 3, 6:30, and Saturday, November 12, 3:45
Series runs November 3-13
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

When Leslie Braverman suddenly dies at the ripe old age of forty-one, four of his childhood friends reunite to attend the funeral in this very different kind of road movie. Morroe Rieff (George Segal), Barnet Weinstein (Jack Warden), Felix Ottensteen (Joseph Wiseman), and Holly Levine (Sorrell Booke) have one helluva time trying to get to temple on time as they battle traffic, a crazy cabbie (Godfrey Cambridge), and other urban impediments on their way from Sheridan Square to Brooklyn — even though they don’t know exactly which funeral house to go to. Jessica Walter as Inez Braverman, Phyllis Newman as Miss Mandelbaum, and Alan King as a wacky rabbi add to the fun. Based on Wallace Markfield’s 1964 novel, To an Early Grave, this charming little cult fave was written by longtime television variety show scribe Herb Sargent (Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson), directed by Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon), and shot by Boris Kaufman (one of Dziga Vertov’s brothers). This very funny absurdist comedy will sneak up on you when you least expect it. Bye Bye Braverman is screening November 3 at 6:30 (introduced by series coprogrammer J. Hoberman) and on November 12 at 3:45 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Hollywood’s ‘Jew Wave’” festival, eighteen (chai!) films made between 1968 and 1977 by and/or about Jewish characters, including such rarities as Ján Kadár’s The Angel Levine (with Zero Mostel as Morris Mishkin and Harry Belafonte as Alexander Levine) and Stuart Rosenbert’s Move (with Elliott Gould and Paula Prentiss), such lesser-known favorites as Karel Reisz’s The Gambler and Michael Roemer’s The Plot Against Harry, and such timeless gems as Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and Ted Kotcheff’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Among those showing up to talk about the films are Gould (Robert Altman’s California Split), Walter Bernstein (Martin Ritt’s The Front), James Toback (The Gambler), Charles Grodin (Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid), Buck Henry (Herbert Ross’s The Owl and the Pussycat), and Gould again with the Safdie brothers (Ingmar Bergman’s The Touch.)

CHUNKY MOVE: CONNECTED

Chunky Move collaborates with sculptor Reuben Margolin in CONNECTED (photo by Jeff Busby)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
November 2-6, $10-$49
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org
www.chunkymove.com

One of the most inventive and innovative contemporary dance companies in the world, Australia’s Chunky Move will be staging the New York premiere of the hour-long Connected November 2-6 at the Joyce. A collaboration between company artistic director Gideon Obarzanek and California sculptor Reuben Margolin, Connected eschews Chunky Move’s usual fascination with digital technology, kinetic motion tracking, and brilliant light displays in favor of a more hands-on approach to building a work of art with dancers and physical, graspable objects. We can’t get enough of this company, having seen the decidedly low-tech I Like This in April at Joyce SoHo, Mortal Engine at BAM in 2009, and Glow at the Kitchen in 2008. Connected is performed by five dancers — Sara Black, Ross McCormack, Marnie Palomares, Joseph Simons, and Harriet Ritchie — with music by Oren Ambarchi and Robin Fox, lighting by Benjamin Cisterne, and costumes by Anna Cordingley. “I was fortunate to meet Reuben Margolin in October, 2009 in Maine USA, where we were both invited to speak at PopTech, a conference focusing on social change through current innovations in science, art and economics,” explains choreographer Obarzanek in a program note. “There, I witnessed Reuben’s various sculpture machines made of wood, recycled plastic and steel transcend their concrete forms once they were set into motion and appear as waveforms in nature — a weightless kinetic flow. This was not dissimilar to the changeability of a dancer from a person to a moving figure when performing on stage. We were immediately drawn to each other’s work and began discussing possibilities for future collaboration.” Connected is the initial result of that partnership.

Dancers move in, under, and around Reuben Margolin’s sculpture in CONNECTED (photo by Jeff Busby)

Update: Chunky Move founder and artistic director Gideon Obarzanek and his Australian company regularly employ gadgetry in their works. Glow consisted of a single dancer performing on a motion-sensor floor that emitted a dazzling LED display, Mortal Engine let loose with a spectacular flurry of smoke and lasers and other special effects, and I Like This was built around a group of individuals toying with old-fashioned handheld lights. For his latest work to come to New York, Connected, Obarzanek has collaborated with California sculptor Reuben Margolin, who has designed a large-scale loomlike object, complete with spinning wheel, that lies at the heart of the evening-length piece. Four dancers dressed in black (Ross McCormack, Harriet Ritchie, Joseph Simons, and Sara Black) and one in white (Marnie Palomares) move about the dominant kinetic installation, with McCormack, soon joined by Palomares, adding white pieces of recycled plastic to the bottom of a cubelike structure composed of hundreds of wires hanging from above while the other dancers whirl their arms and writhe on the floor to Oren Ambarchi and Robin Fox’s electronic score, which at times seems to include homemade DIY percussion sounds. When several of the dancers are attached to the wires coming out of the wheel so that every surge backward or forward, every arm lift and twist, alters the shape of the cube, Palomares moves beneath it, as if she is creating the resulting waves and forms herself. It’s an unusual and exciting sight, but the narrative shifts about halfway through as the dancers change outfits and become museum security guards protecting a work of art, talking about their jobs and saying things like, “Oh, I could do that” and “I’m never bored because I’ll always find something to do.” Unfortunately, this second half of Connected is far less interesting than the first section, as if Obarzanek wasn’t quite sure what else to do with Margolin’s sculpture, deciding to call attention to its artiness instead of creating more dances around and within it. Still, there’s much to admire about Connected, which also requires the audience to remain connected; there is no intermission during the sixty-minute piece, and the audience is told beforehand that if they leave the theater at any time during the performance, they will not be allowed back in.

DOC NYC — CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE LOOK

CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE LOOK (Angelina Maccarone, 2011)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Thursday, November 3, $20, 7:00
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.kinolorber.com
www.docnyc.net

Born in Sussex in 1946, model and actress Charlotte Rampling has made more than eighty films in her highly distinguished five-decade career, carefully choosing intelligent, challenging projects, never resting on her many laurels. As gorgeous as ever in her mid-sixties and well known for appearing nude in numerous films, some as recent as just a few years ago, Rampling’s most striking feature is not necessarily her body, her high cheekbones, her bare feet, or her dark hair. Instead it is the Look, the strong, powerfully emotional gaze that can hit you from all sides — it can terrify you as well as melt you, making you fall in love with her over and over again. Angelina Maccarone’s unusual but fascinating documentary Charlotte Rampling: The Look begins by focusing on that look, as seen in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories and portraits taken by Peter Lindbergh. In a section titled “Exposure,” Lindbergh and Rampling talk about the photo sessions they had together, two old friends informally reminiscing about the good old days, never hesitating to make sly cracks about their current age. It’s a wonderfully intimate way to start this unique biography of Rampling, subtitled “a self portrait through others,” one that never delves into her personal life, her two marriages, her children, her ups and downs, her parents — instead, Maccarone divides the film into nine parts, each one concentrating on a specific film and most of them pairing Rampling with a friend, a member of her family, or someone she has worked with. For “Age,” Rampling goes for a ride on a tugboat with author Paul Auster, with clips from Luchino Visconti’s The Damned. In “Resonance,” Rampling sits in a boxing ring with her son, director Barnaby Southcombe, supplemented by scenes from Silvio Narizzano’s Georgy Girl. Things get rather risqué as Rampling is joined by photographer Juergen Teller to discuss “Taboo” and Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter. The topic turns to “Death” as Rampling visits painter Anthony Palliser, along with clips from François Ozon’s moving Under the Sand. Maccarone slyly adds one last section, ending not with “Death” but with “Love,” and even then she avoids the obvious, teaming Rampling with Cynthia and Joy Fleury and showing scenes from Nagisa Oshima’s Max, My Love, in which Rampling falls for a chimpanzee. Through it all, Rampling is neither egotistical nor self-effacing, as she travels from London and Paris to Times Square and Coney Island, speaking poignantly and intelligently — and with a wry sense of humor — about her philosophy of life and the meaning of her career, never becoming didactic, pedantic, or vain. Charlotte Rampling: The Look is a lovely portrait of a beautiful, successful woman who isn’t afraid to look back at where she’s been — and look ahead to where she’s going. Charlotte Rampling: The Look is screening November 3 at 7:00 as part of the Special Events section of the Doc NYC festival, which continues at the IFC Center through November 10; director Maccarone and star/subject Rampling are expected to attend. The film opens theatrically on Friday at Cinema Village and Lincoln Plaza Cinema.