Yearly Archives: 2011

DTW OFF-SITE — YANIRA CASTRO | A CANARY TORSI: PARADIS

Yanira Castro’s PARADIS is first site-specific dance project to be held at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (photo by Kevin Kwan)

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Desert House in the Steinhardt Conservatory and the Cherry Esplanade
1000 Washington Ave.
June 2-4, $20, 8:00/8:30
www.dancetheaterworkshop.org
www.acanarytorsi.org

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is already one of New York City’s paradises, but on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, choreographer Yanira Castro will make it even more so. The Puerto Rican-born, Brooklyn-based Castro, who specializes in site-adaptable dance installations, is bringing her a canary torsi “organism” to the Desert House in the Steinhardt Conservatory and then on to the Cherry Esplanade for Paradis, the first site-specific dance project held at the century-old botanic garden. Inspired by the last part of Jean-Luc Godard’s 2004 film Notre Musique, the piece incorporates audience movement into the choreography, performed by nine dancers (Peggy Cheng, Simon Courchel, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Luke Miller, Peter Schmitz, Stuart Singer, Darrin Wright, Pamela Vail, and Kimberly Young), with live piano accompaniment by Michael Dauphinais and sound design by Stephan Moore. Presented by Dance Theater Workshop, Paradis is the follow-up to last fall’s Wilderness, a performance and audio installation that took place at the Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn. Paradis is scheduled for June 2 at 8:00, June 3 at 8:30, and June 4 at 8:00, and tickets are only $20, which is pretty cheap for your own piece of paradise.

Yanira Castro | a canary torsi celebrate the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in PARADIS (photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

Update: Yanira Castro’s Paradis does indeed turn out to be a piece of paradise. The audience of approximately sixty people first meets in the visitor center (be sure to go to the 1000 Washington St. entrance), then is led to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Steinhardt Conservatory, where they surround the outside of the Desert House. Inside, Peter Schmitz, dressed all in white with white face paint, stands still before slowly making his way around the cactus plants and trees, using herky-jerky motion, then moving faster, stopping to mime eating an apple, then erupting in off-key song, dancing and singing to tinny, lo-fi, scratchy piano music that pipes out of security guards’ walkie-talkies. Expanding his work with Castro on Wilderness, Schmitz evokes Adam in the Garden of Eden as well as Frankenstein’s monster and the Supreme Being as he learns to walk, talk, and eat. At the end of the solo, the audience is led in the dark to the wide expanse of the resplendently green Cherry Esplanade, where they come upon Michael Dauphinais playing the piano (sounding much better in person than over the walkie-talkies), playing an evolving score that is impacted by the presence of the crowd. Four huge spotlights illuminate the lawn as Peggy Cheng, Simon Courchel, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Luke Miller, Stuart Singer, Darrin Wright, Pamela Vail, and Kimberly Young emerge in the distance, frolicking across the grass and eventually weaving through the crowd, who can sit or stand wherever they want. After being selected to follow a particular dancer, the audience segments into groups that end up watching a deeply intimate, thrillingly erotic duet. Inspired very directly by the “Paradis” section of Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre Musique, Castro’s Paradis feels like it grew organically out of the ground (or descended from the heavens), like the lovely trees and flowers that cover the garden’s fifty-two lush acres. No mere spectacle, the piece invites the viewer to become part of a magical experience, a fitting tribute to the beauty of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the endless imagination of Castro and her company.

EAST HARLEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Heitor Dhalia’s ADRIFT kicks off the inaugural East Harlem International Film Festival tonight at the Poet’s Den

The Poet’s Den, 309 East 108th St.
The Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave.
The New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Ave.
June 1-5, $12 per screening
www.ehiff.com

Founded by Raphael Benavides, Victor Cruz, and Yenny Love, the East Harlem International Film Festival kicks off its inaugural year tonight with two screenings of Heitor Dhalia’s Brazilian tale Adrift at the Poet’s Den and continues through June 5 with more than forty shorts, documentaries, and narratives shown there as well as at the Museum of the City of New York and the New York Academy of Medicine. Other full-length dramas include Eliana Ujueta’s Beneath the Rock, Albert Wu Tiange’s Ru Yun, Malcolm Goodwin’s True Story: Based on Things That Never Actually Happened . . . and Some That Did, Neerraj Pathak’s Right Yaaa Wrong, J. W. Cortes’s Conscientious Objector, and Olivier Bernier’s The Sunset Sky. Among the feature documentaries are Olumide Earth’s Feldstein, which looks at Mad magazine cofounder Al Feldstein; Ana Rokafella Garcia’s All the Ladies Say, about breakthrough female street dancers; and Iris Morales’s 1996 ¡Palante, Siempre Palante! The Young Lords, which examines Latino communities’ fight for equality led by the radical group. The festival will also host the panel discussions “The Perfect Cast,” “The World of Miedo: The Business of Horror,” “The Journey of a Film,” and “Go West, Young Actor: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Being a West Coast or Bicoastal Actor,” the latter two events free and held at the East Harlem Café.

!WOMEN ART REVOLUTION (!W.A.R.)

!WOMEN ART REVOLUTION will make its theatrical debut this week at the IFC Center with appearances by several of the women featured in the film

!WOMEN ART REVOLUTION (!W.A.R.) (Lynn Hershman-Leeson, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
June 1-7
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.womenartrevolution.com

Since the mid-1960s, visual artist and educator Lynn Hershman Leeson has been tracing the history of the American feminist art movement, interviewing many of the most innovative and influential women artists of the last fifty years. After playing at the Sundance, Toronto, and Berlin Film Festivals, her documentary, !Women Art Revolution (!W.A.R.), opens June 1 at the IFC Center, with a series of special guests on hand at many of the screenings to talk about the revolution. Serving as director, writer, editor, producer, and narrator, Leeson shows works by and speaks with such seminal artists and art-world figures as Nancy Spero, Judy Chicago, Miranda July, Yvonne Rainer, Yoko Ono, Marcia Tucker, Martha Rosler, Miriam Schapiro, Carolee Schneemann, Marina Abramovic, Faith Ringgold, and the Guerrilla Girls, using new and archival footage that examines the growth of the movement. The film, which features an original soundtrack by Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, will run for one week at IFC, with the following special appearances, all with artist Alexandra Chowaniec: Leeson (6/1, 6:10), Leeson and Kathleen Hanna (6/1, 8:10), Howardena Pindell (6/2, 2:10), Carolee Schneemann (6/2, 6:10), J. Bob Alotta (6/2, 8:10), Janine Antoni (6/3, 12:15), Joyce Kozloff (6/3, 6:10), Martha Wilson (6/3, 8:10), Pindell (6/4, 2:10). B. Ruby Rich (6/4, 6:10 PM), Guerrilla Girls Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz (6/4, 8:10), Pindell (6/5, 2:10), Connie Butler (6/6, 4:10), Carey Lovelace (6/6, 6:10), and Lovelace and Faith Ringgold (6/7, 6:10). In addition, the full video and written transcripts of the interviews can be found online at the Stanford University Special Collections archive.

NICK ZINNER

Nick Zinner, “Crowd, Paris, April 2009,” archival ink jet print on resin coated paper, 2009 (© Nick Zinner)

Anastasia Photo
166 Orchard St. between Stanton & Rivington Sts.
Through June 4, free, 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
212-677-9725
www.anastasia-photo.com

Musician, producer, photographer, and Creators Project renaissance man Nick Zinner has been performing as a member of the popular indie band Yeah Yeah Yeahs since the group’s founding in September 2000, releasing the Grammy-nominated records Fever to Tell (2003), Show Your Bones (2006), and It’s Blitz! (2009). Although Zinner, who was born in Massachusetts and has been based in New York City for more than a decade, is used to the camera being turned on him, he has been taking pictures for many years, having studied photography at Bard and released several books, both solo and in collaboration with others, including No Seats in the Party Car (2001) and Please Take Me Off the Guest List (2010). His latest exhibit, on view at Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side through June 4, consists of half a dozen shots he took of crowds at Yeah Yeah Yeahs shows between 2003 and 2009, taken from the stage. The audience is either grooving to the band or waiting for them to go on; sometimes the crowd recognizes that Zinner is taking a photo and poses for it, and other times they are just caught up in the frenzy of the performance. In one picture, fans reach out to him with sheer joy; in a second, a group of young women dressed in black, wearing black eye masks, are too cool to show any emotion at all; and in a third, one woman makes a crazy face while others smile away. Of course, pictures of crowds at concerts are not unusual, but it is rare for the shots to have been taken by one of the band members, offering a different perspective from photos snapped by hired music photographers. The photos were taken at concerts in Paris, Beijing, Brooklyn, Tuscon, Warsaw, and Tokyo; see if you can guess which is which before looking at the titles. (Zinner will also be playing alongside experimental films with fellow YYY Brian Chase, Oneida’s Shahin Motia, and MV Carbon at Molly Surno’s latest Cinema 16 presentation, June 3 at 7:00 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

GOTHAM DANCE FESTIVAL: BRIAN BROOKS MOVING COMPANY

The Brian Brooks Moving Company will present MOTOR and two other pieces in their Joyce debut this week (photo by Christopher Duggan)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
June 1, 3, 5, $10-$39
Festival runs June 1-12
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org
www.brianbrooksmovingcompany.com

The New York City-based Brian Brooks Moving Company will make its Joyce debut this week, kicking off the Gotham Dance Festival on June 1. Founded in 1997 by artistic director and choreographer Brian Brooks, who also teaches at Dance New Amsterdam, BBMC will present 2007’s solo I’m Going to Explode, 2010’s cable-laden MOTOR, which deals with perpetual motion and features a score by Jonathan Pratt, and the world premiere of Descent, set to music by Adam Crystal. The company consists of Brooks, Hollis Bartlett, Meghan Frederick, Jeff Kent Jacobs, Jo-anne Lee, Danielle McIntosh, and Aaron Walter, with lighting by Philip Trevino and costumes by Liz Prince. BBMC will also be part of the DRA Fire Island Dance Festival on July 16-17. The Gotham Dance Festival continues through June 12 at the Joyce with performances by Monica Bill Barnes & Company; Abraham, Driscoll, Dolbashian; Kate Weare Company; CorbinDances; and Barnett, Leite, Skybetter.

DESCENT concludes Brian Brooks Moving Company show at the Joyce in uplifting fashion (photo by Christopher Duggan)

Update: The Brian Brooks Moving Company made its Joyce debut Tuesday night with a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new as part of the Gotham Dance Festival. After intermission, Brooks performed his thrilling solo I’m Going to Explode, which is set to LCD Soundsystem’s first single, “Losing My Edge.” Dressed as a commuter and sitting in a chair to the side of the stage, Brooks took off his shoes and suit jacket, then began moving to the funky techno beat, often keeping his arms fully extended, concentrating primarily on his upper body, head, and shoulders as James Murphy sang about his favorite bands and clubs. The evening concluded with the world premiere of the beautiful Descent, which started off with one male dancer carrying another over the side of his body across a stage glowing in smoky horizontal beams of light, then going back again, soon joined by other same-sex pairs doing the same thing. Next, the dancers used small boards to keep colorful sheets of fabric floating through the air, creating lovely patterns that they wouldn’t let reach the floor. The third section involved the dancers jumping at one another, being caught in an upside-down use of the arms. Set to an electronic music score composed by Adam Crystal, Descent is an enticing work that actually focuses more on ascending than descending, preventing people and objects from touching the ground. MOTOR, which premiered at the 2010 Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival, was performed first, an erratic, occasionally chaotic, at times awe-inspiring work set on a stage from which dozens of cables shoot out over the audience, making it feel like everyone is inside a futuristic time capsule. The piece began with unusual movement among two groups of three men and three women, then featured Jo-anne Lee repeatedly walking over a standing male dancer, up the front of his body, over his head, and down his back. As the dancers shed much, but not all, of their clothing, it became rather repetitive, going on too long, but setting things up for a much more satisfying second act.

POUNDCAKE

Poundcake will be at the Bowery Electric on June 1, featuring singer-guitarist Teddy Thompson, drummer Ethan Eubanks, and stand-up bassist Jeff Hill (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Bowery Electric
327 Bowery between Bond & Great Jones Sts.
Wednesday, June 1, $8, 10:00
212-228-0228
www.theboweryelectric.com
www.teddythompson.com
poundcake live at city winery
On May 21 at City Winery, as Teddy Thompson fans were escorted to their reserved seats and ordered their food and drinks (including special bottles of Teddy Thompson wine), a surprisingly familiar face took the stage as part of the opening act. Announced as “Poundcake,” the three-piece band — consisting of guitar, stand-up bass, and drums — rambled through a good-time set of classic and obscure country and early rock covers, with the lead singer and the backup band making continuous tongue-in-cheek remarks about Teddy Thompson and how much the lead singer resembled the British-born, New York City-based son of Richard and Linda Thompson, who is currently touring behind his latest record, Bella, a deeply personal, poignant examination of a shattered relationship. Last year, Teddy Thompson, along with his drummer, Ethan Eubanks, and bassist, Jeff Hill, started doing gigs as Poundcake, without officially admitting who their ersatz leader was. Poundcake plays engaging sets that feature such tunes as Patsy Cline’s “Why Can’t He Be You,” the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie,” Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right, Mama,” Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” and Buddy Holly’s “It’s So Easy” and “Every Day,” the latter, on May 21, sung by Eubanks after several starts in which the drummer mangled the words and Thompson harassed him for it. The trio engages in funny, self-deprecating between-song banter, making for an extremely entertaining show. Poundcake will be headlining the Bowery Electric on June 1 at 10:00, preceded by Erik Deutch Band (9:00), Amy Miles (8:00), and Jem Warren (7:00).

MANHATTANHENGE 2011

SUNSET ON THE MANHATTAN GRID
East side of Manhattan
Monday, May 30, 8:17, and Tuesday, July 12, 8:25 pm
Admission: free
www.haydenplanetarium.org

Tonight at 8:17, the sun will align with Manhattan’s off-center (by thirty degrees) grid to send spectacular bursts of sunlight streaming across the streets. Coined by master astrophysicist and Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2002, Manhattanhenge takes place twice a year; for 2011, those dates are May 30 and July 12 (at 8:35), when the sun will create “a radiant glow of light across Manhattan’s brick and steel canyons, simultaneously illuminating both the north and south sides of every cross street of the borough’s grid,” Tyson explains on the planetarium website. “A rare and beautiful sight. These two days happen to correspond with Memorial Day and Baseball’s All Star break. Future anthropologists might conclude that, via the Sun, the people who called themselves Americans worshiped War and Baseball.” Photographers will be lining up along the city’s wider thoroughfares on the east side, including Twenty-third, Thirty-fourth, Forty-second, and Fifty-seventh Sts., trying to capture that exact moment when the sun is half above the horizon, half below it. Wrongly called the Manhattan Solstice, the event “may just be a unique urban phenomenon in the world, if not the universe,” Tyson explains. Back in 1973, Bruce Springsteen wrote, “Mama always told me not to look into the sights of the sun,” but he was sure to add, “Oh, but Mama that’s where the fun is.” Tonight starting a little after eight, that is indeed where the fun is.