Elizabeth Streb’s ASCENSION is part of special downtown Whitney series (photo by Tom Caravaglia)
Gansevoort Plaza
Gansevoort St., Little West 12th St. & Ninth Ave.
Updated: July 7, 3:00 & 5:00; July 8, 3:00 (5:00 canceled because of rain); July 9, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00
www.whitney.org
www.streb.org
Since 1985, New York-based choreographer Elizabeth Streb has displayed a penchant for extremely physical, adventurous, and challenging physical movement in her work. “Elizabeth Streb’s stubborn investigation of Action,” her website explains, “[ranges] from every day movements to the Extreme Action of sports, the circus and thrill rides; the impulse to action that is in our souls.” As part of the Whitney on Site: New Commissions Downtown program that is introducing the city to the future home of the museum, the MacArthur Genius has created ASCENSION, a free outdoor public performance piece constructed around a twenty-one-foot moving ladder. “There is a sense of beauty about a ladder, a device that has existed for centuries to assist us when the need to go higher arises,” Streb explains about the piece for nine dancers. “The climb, the ever revolving Sisyphean ascent to the unreachable top of the ladder, disallows arrival and the accomplishment of the quotidian function, to get somewhere.” ASCENSION, which is part of Streb’s work-in-progress KISS THE AIR!, comprising Essential Acts that incorporate equipment (and will be presented in December at the Park Ave. Armory), will be performed by the Streb Extreme Action Company, with music by master percussionist David Van Tieghem, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 3:00 and 5:00 in Gansevoort Plaza.
Elizabeth Streb and DJ/VJ Zaire Baptiste unhappily cancel the 5:00 performance of ASCENSION on July 8 but has added an extra show of the specially commissioned outdoor piece on Saturday (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Update: Unfortunately, the rain forced Elizabeth Streb to cancel the 5:00 performance of ASCENSION on July 8, but she’s added another show on Saturday, July 9, so now the eleven-minute production will go on at 3:00, 4:00, and 5:00. Streb Extreme Action Company will also be outside at World Financial Center Plaza on July 14 (6:00), 15 (12 noon & 6:00), and 16 (2:00, 4:00, and 6:00) presenting Human Fountain as part of the River to River series Extraordinary Moves, which also includes Strange Fruit’s The Three Belles and Third Rail Projects’ Looking Glass.
The Incredibles, which nabbed the Best Animated Feature Oscar, is yet more fun from Pixar, John Lasseter’s remarkably creative studio that previously brought us Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc.., and Finding Nemo. After the crime-fighting family the Incredibles are sued into early retirement and given a new identity in harmless suburbia, Bob/Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) can’t stop protecting the world from evildoers, sneaking away from his suspicious wife, Helen/Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), to work with Lucius/Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) in defeating evil. But he meets more than he bargained for in Syndrome (Jason Lee), a piece of his past resurrected to destroy him. Other recognizable voices include Wallace Shawn as Gilbert Huph, writer Sarah Vowell as Violet, John Ratzenberger as Underminer, and Elizabeth Peña as Mirage; writer/director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) voices fashion designer Edna ‘E’ Mode. The Incredibles kicks off the big finale of MoMA’s Pixar Revisited series, which also includes the terrific Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007), screening with Gary Rydstrom’s short Lifted on July 8 at 8:00; the thrilling Up (Pete Docter, 2009), being shown with the Peter Sohn short Partly Cloudy on July 9 at 5:00; and the brilliant Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008), screening with the Doug Sweetland short Presto on July 9 at 8:00.
Part road movie, part film noir, part spiritual quest, the charming Travellers & Magicians will sneak up on you when you least expect it. And just when you’re sure it will become a predictable tale of one man’s choice between a simple, beautiful, struggling village and the promise of wealth in America, it twists and turns and leaves you with an ear-to-ear smile and an ache in your heart. After scoring an international hit with The Cup (1999), writer-director Khyentse Norbu, who is also the Tibetan Buddhist His Eminence Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, the third incarnation of a principal lama, decided to make a film in his native Bhutan, a tiny country amid the vast Himalayas. Using untrained actors, Norbu tells the story of Dondup (Tshewang Dendup), a cigarette-smoking city dweller who comes to work in a small village that bores him. He listens to loud pop music and keeps his hair long, readying to go to the States to make money. He shuns the Buddhist tradition and is always in a hurry, never able to relax and look within himself or at the stunning country around him. While waiting for a ride on the deserted mountain roads, he is joined by an old apple picker, a rice paper maker and his daughter, and a young monk who plays the dramyin; the latter begins telling a mystical tale of loyalty, spirituality, brotherly love, faith, riches, and murder. The first feature-length film to be shot in Bhutan, Travellers & Magicians starts off somewhat slowly and obvious, with Dondup’s character over the top, but stick with it; the music, locations, and storytelling eventually come together like magic. Travellers & Magicians is screening Friday night at the Rubin Museum as part of the Pilgrimage & Faith series, being held in conjunction with the exhibit “Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam,” and will be introduced by anthropologist Laurel Kendall. Admission to the museum is free on Friday nights, so be sure to check out the other current exhibits as well, which include “Patterns of Life: The Art of Tibetan Carpets,” “Masterworks: Jewels of the Collection,” “Body Language,” and “Quentin Roosevelt’s China.” (The series continues July 15 with Ismaël Ferroukhi’s Le Grand Voyage, July 22 with Luis Buñuel’s The Milky Way, July 29 with Edmund Goulding’s The Razor’s Edge,” and August 5 with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Canterbury Tales.)
