Yearly Archives: 2011

ICE FACTORY FESTIVAL

Downtown festival of independent theater seeks to cool off the summer heat

3LD Art + Technology Center
80 Greenwich St. at Rector St.
Ice Factory: Wednesday – Saturday, $18, 7:00
Ice Cubes: Thursday – Friday, $15, 9:00
212-645-0374
www.sohothinktank.org
www.3ldnyc.org

Soho Think Tank’s eighteenth annual Ice Factory Festival, held at 3LD Art + Technology Center, is under way, featuring a half dozen independent productions running through July 30. Next up is Vladimir Moravek’s adaptation of The Pig, Or, Vaclav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig (June 29 – July 2), a multimedia political and gastronomic piece with live music, pulled pork, and Czech beer presented by Untitled Theater Company #61, followed by Aztec Economy’s Pontiac Firebird Variations (July 6-9), a tragicomic crime family saga. The Subjective Theatre Company’s An Impending Sense of Doom (July 13-16) examines the end of days, while Three Graces (July 20-23), from the Café Antarsia Ensemble & Immigrants’ Theatre Project, transports The Iliad to modern-day Greece. The festival concludes with Joshua William Gelb and Stephanie Johnstone’s Sometimes in Prague (July 27-30), a multimedia musical set in a Czech pub. In addition, the Ice Factory Festival includes the Ice Cubes Studio Series, including the Inverse Theater’s Be Story Free (June 30 – July 1), Jonathan Solari’s The Love Letter You’ve Been Meaning to Write to New York (July 7-8), Everywhere Theatre Group’s Dead People (July 14-15), Sponsored by Nobody and het GEIT’s Americans ‘N’ Indians (July 21-22), and Ma-Yi Theater Co.’s Will Sing (July 28-29).

403 PRESENTS: THE BEAUTY IN DECAY

Ian Ference will talk about his images of urban decay and negative space at tonight’s 403 cultural salon (photo © Ian Ference)

Private building in downtown Manhattan (given upon RSVP)
Monday, June 27, $60 with RSVP , 7:00 – 11:00 pm
www.facebook.com/event
www.ianferencephoto.com

Lelaine Lau, who was recently honored as the May Woman of the Month by Thierry Mugler’s Womanity Project, will be hosting her latest 403 cultural salon with special guest Ian Ference. The Rochester-born, Brooklyn-based photographer focuses much of his work on architectural interiors, including a continuing project on abandoned buildings, particularly insane asylums. As Lau explains, “Ian Ference’s photography of urban decay is both transporting and beautiful. The histories that he writes are meticulously researched. They are a peek at a bygone era, a slice of history. From his haunting images of Admiral’s Row, North Brother Island, or Hart Island, to the images of abandoned hotels and theatres along the Eastern seaboard, the stories behind the buildings touch on issues of architectural heritage, societal mores and attitudes of the time, demolition-by-neglect, development, zoning, and landmarking. Other photos conjure up thoughts on a more human scale.” In his artist statement, Ference explains, “The primary purpose of my work is to create a living record of these structures, many of them architecturally rich, and most of them in danger of demolition, whether by neglect or by wrecking ball. Every building has stories — the stories of the people who worked, lived, and died within its walls. Vacant now, the walls can still tell some of these stories, and it is in that direction that I aim my camera.” Ference will discuss and present images of the vast breadth of his work at tonight’s gathering, with a light dinner and wine catered by Vance Brooking and Mey Bun.

NYAFF 2011 / JAPAN CUTS — MILOCRORZE: A LOVE STORY

Yoshimasa Ishibashi’s wild and wacky MILOCRORZE will open the tenth annual New York Asian Film Festival on July 1 and screen at Japan Cuts on July 10

MILOCRORZE: A LOVE STORY (Yoshimasa Ishibashi, 2011)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Friday, July 1, $13, 9:00
Series runs July 1-14, ten-film pass $99
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Sunday, July 10, $12, 8:00
Series runs July 7-22, five-film pass $50
212-875-5601 / 212-715-1258
www.filmlinc.com
www.subwaycinemanews.com
www.japansociety.org/japancuts

The North American premiere of the wild and wacky, genre-iffic Milocrorze: A Love Story kicks off the tenth anniversary of New York City’s most exciting annual film series, the New York Asian Film Festival, running July 1-14 at Lincoln Center. Melding Michel Gondry with Quentin Tarantino and Takashi Miike filtered through Max Ophüls’s La Ronde and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, longtime commercial, video, and television director Yoshimasa Ishibashi makes his feature-film cinematic debut with this highly stylized three-part tale of love and romance. In the first section, seven-year-old salaryman Ovreneli Vreneligare, wearing one of the most charming costumes and hairstyles ever put on celluloid, falls in love with the beautiful, and adult, Milocrorze (Maiko) in a candy-coated fantasyland of lush colors and dreamlike sets. That bittersweet tale leads into the second part, in which bizarre youth counselor Besson Kumagi (Takayuki Yamada) abusively screams relationship advice to lonely boys over the phone, then breaks out into self-celebratory dance numbers with a couple of hot babes, a sort of Japanese version of Andy Kaufman’s Tony Clifton character. That story segues into the violent, vengeful mini-epic of rogue samurai Tamon (Yamada again), who starts out as a simple man who falls in love with Yuri the flower girl (Ann Ishibashi) but is soon trying to rescue her from a high-priced gambling and prostitution ring. Ishibashi then circles back to Milocrorze and Ovreneli Vreneligare (Yamada yet again, in his third role) years later for the tender finale. Milocrorze is a vastly entertaining, wonderfully absurd, and utterly ridiculous (and we mean that in a good way) exercise in multiple genres from the endlessly inventive Ishibashi. The samurai section goes on way too long, but otherwise this is a rousing success from start to finish, even when it is making absolutely no sense, which is very often. Milocrorze is the opening-night selection of NYAFF 2011, and both Ishibashi and Yamada will be at Lincoln Center on July 1 to participate in a postscreening Q&A; prior to the screening, Yamada will receive the Star Asia Rising Star Award. The film is being presented in conjunction with Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, screening at Japan Society on July 10, followed by a Q&A with Ishibashi. Keep watching twi-ny for more reviews of select films from our two favorite film festivals of the year.

AI WEIWEI: CIRCLE OF ANIMALS / ZODIAC HEADS

Ai Weiwei’s intricate “Zodiac Heads” are on view in the Pulitzer Fountain through July 15 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Pulitzer Fountain
Grand Army Plaza at Central Park
Fifth Ave. at West 58th St.
Through July 15, free
www.zodiacheads.com
online slideshow

On April 3, artist Ai Weiwei was arrested by the Chinese government, with little information about his whereabouts. An international Free Ai Weiwei campaign began, and on June 22 he was finally released on bail, having been charged with tax evasion, but that is far from the end of the story. “Despite the relief that Ai Weiwei is back with his family,” German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle said, “it remains a fact that his freedom is subject to oppressive restrictions.” As German politicians meet with Chinese officials to discuss human rights concerns, Ai Weiwei will remain in Beijing, where he has been ordered to stay for a period of one year. You can honor the onetime New Yorker, who lived here from 1981 to 1993, by visiting his first public installation in a major U.S. city, “Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads,” which is on view in the Pulitzer Fountain in front of the Plaza through July 15. Based on a dozen sculptures designed by Giuseppe Castiglione as part of a water-clock fountain for the Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yanming Yuan) for the Qing dynasty in the mid-eighteenth century — and was looted and burned by British and French troops at the conclusion of the Second Opium War in 1860 — the large-scale work features twelve bronze animal heads, each relating to a sign of the zodiac. The intricately detailed heads range from the rat, the ox, and the tiger to the rabbit, the snake, and the horse, from the ram, the rooster, and the monkey to the dog, the boar, and the most fanciful, the dragon.

Ai Weiwei is not seeking to make any grand statements with the fun display, which incorporates history, war, memory, folklore, and astrology. “I think it’s something that everyone can have some understanding of, including children and people who are not in the art world. I think it’s important to show your work to the public. That’s what I really care about,” Ai Weiwei explains in the exhibition catalog, which includes a photo of each head and a description of that zodiac sign, along with an essay by Susan Delson and excerpts of interviews with the artist about the project. “Anybody can make a set of zodiac figures,” he continues. “We never change the subject, we always change the interpretation. . . . I am always concerned with how we make judgments. And in questioning others’ judgment, and also questioning my judgment. And always saying art is not the end but the beginning. Art is not the end. The product is never the end but should be the beginning. Otherwise art has no life.” Thus, just as with Ai Weiwei’s personal freedom, “Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads” should not be seen as the end of the story.

TRUE CRIME NEW YORK: THE NAKED CITY

THE NAKED CITY will screen as part of “True Crime” series at the Maysles Institute on June 28-29

THE NAKED CITY (Jules Dassin, 1948)
Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
Tuesday, June 28, and Wednesday, June 29, suggested donation $10, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org

Jules Dassin’s police procedural was one of the first films shot on location in New York City, bringing to life the grit of the streets. Barry Fitzgerald stars as Lt. Muldoon, an Irish cop who knows the game, never allowing anything to get in the way of his sworn duty to uphold the law while never getting too emotionally involved. A model has turned up dead, and young detective Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) is heading up the investigation, which includes such suspects as swarthy Frank Niles (Howard Duff). Producer Mark Hellinger’s narration is playful and knowing, accompanying William Daniels’s great camerawork through Park Avenue and the Lower East Side, stopping at little city vignettes that have nothing to do with the story except to add to the level of reality. The thrilling conclusion takes place on the Williamsburg Bridge. The Naked City will be screening June 27-28 at the Maysles Cinema as part of the monthly “True Crime” ripped-from-the-headlines series.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL: THIS IS MY LAND . . . HEBRON

Documentary looks at escalating conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Hebron

THIS IS MY LAND . . . HEBRON (Giulia Amati & Stephen Natanson, 2010)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Monday, June 27, 4:00; Tuesday, June 28, 6:30; Wednesday, June 29, 9:00
Series runs through June 30
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.thisismylandhebron.com

While teaching a video course in the historic city of Hebron, Giulia Amati was struck by the intense battle going on between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the burial place of Abraham. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, a small group of Jews moved into the city, deciding to take it back from the Palestinians, whose families had been there for generations. Today, some five hundred settlers, mostly European Jews, have gained control of the embattled territory in the southern West Bank, trying to force out the 150,000 Palestinians who live there. “There is no place under the occupation that I hate more than Hebron,” Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy says in Amati and Stephen Natanson’s stirring documentary, This Is My Land . . . Hebron, adding, “It is really the place of evil.” Presenting both sides of the story, the filmmakers speak with such Jewish settlers as Miriam Grabovsky, Miriam Levinger, and spokesmen Noam Arnon and David Wilder, who believe in their God-given right to the land, and such Palestinian residents as Hamed Quashmeh and Osaid Rasheed, who don’t want to leave their homes and businesses. Jewish children in Hebron are raised to hate their Palestinian neighbors, throwing rocks and cursing them in the street. Palestinian houses are surrounded by wire fences that make it look like the families are living in cages. Former Israeli soldier Yehuda Shaul now leads “Breaking the Silence” tours of the area, revealing exactly what is going on. While some Israelis consider him a traitor, others see what he is doing as heroic, trying to get the truth out and establish peace. While much of what goes on in the Middle East is extremely complex and often sensationalized in the media, with the actions of the Israeli military and government often improperly misconstrued and wrongly criticized, the situation in Hebron seems to be clear, as Israeli Jews such as Shaul, Levy, and former Knesset member Ure Avnery explain in the film. Although This Is My Land . . . Hebron reveals the dark side of fundamentalism and racism, it should not be viewed as a microcosm in the continuing fight between the Israelis and the Palestinians but instead as a terrible side effect of an age-old conflict. Part of the “Times of Conflict and Responses to Terrorism” section of the Human Rights Watch Festival at Lincoln Center, which also includes “Migrants’ and Women’s Rights,” “Human Dignity, Discrimination, and Resources,” and “Truth, Justice, and Accountability,” This Is My Land . . . Hebron will have its North American premiere June 27-29 at the Walter Reade Theater, with all three screenings followed by a discussion with the filmmakers.

SONGS OF LIFE: COMPASSION IN ACTION

The National Philharmonic will be part of the second Songs of Life Festival at Lincoln Center on June 26

Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Columbus Ave at 65th St.
Sunday, June 26, $25-$65, 3:00
803-545-4167
www.songsoflife.org

Founded in 2008 by Kalin and Sharon Tchonev, Songs of Life: Compassion in Action honors the Bulgarian rescue of 49,000 Jews from the Nazis during WWII. Following performances in Washington, DC, and Boston, the organization’s latest presentation, the newly commissioned oratorio “A Melancholy Beauty,” comes to Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center on Sunday afternoon, in a production by composer Georgi Andreev, lyricist Scott Cairns, contributing author Aryeh Finklestein, and conductor Henry H. Leck. Featuring Bulgarian folk instruments, costumes, dance, and traditional and orchestral music, it will be performed by the National Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Children Choir, the Victor Valley College Singers and the Master Arts Chorale, the Philip Kutev National Folklore Ensemble, and KHORIKOS, NYC, with soloists Neli Atanasova Andreeva (soprano), Charles David Osborne (tenor), and David Kravitz (bartitone). In addition, Osborne will premiere his motet “Whosoever Saves a Single Life,” and festival conductors Leck, Jesse Peckham, and Thomas Miller and artistic director Andreev will lead an a cappella program. Songs of Life is a very personal mission for the Tchonevs; Kalin is from Bulgaria, while Sharon is an Israeli who had two grandparents among those rescued. Their goals for the event include promoting tolerance and diversity, building bridges between cultures, fighting social injustice, and “reversing the trend that seeks to erase the memory of past genocides, holocausts, and any kind of killing field.”