Yearly Archives: 2012

JACK FERVER: MON MA MES

Jack Ferver will examine his life and his work in special Crossing the Line Festival presentation at FIAF (photo by Yaniv Schulman)

CROSSING THE LINE
Le Skyroom, French Institute Alliance Française
22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Saturday, October 6, $20-$25, 8:00
Festival runs through October 14, free- $45
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Back in May, New York City-based dancer, choreographer, and writer Jack Ferver told us, “The ego begins with ‘Me, not me.’ As an artist I make my work so that people donʼt feel as lonely as I have felt. Therefore my work expands into something more akin to ‘I am you.’” The man behind such well-received shows as Rumble Ghost, A Movie Star Needs a Movie, Swann!!!, I Am Trying to Hear Myself, and Two Alike will once again be looking at his life in Mon Ma Mes, which is being presented October 6 at the French Institute Alliance Française as part of the 2012 multidisciplinary Crossing the Line Festival. Ferver, who regularly crosses the line between fantasy and reality, fiction and nonfiction, will analyze himself while also performing and deconstructing one of his pieces. Ferver’s work always cleverly balances chaos, humor, introspection, movement, intelligence, and playful stagecraft in entertaining ways, so this promises to be another unique and memorable night in his growing ouevre.

IF THERE IS I HAVEN’T FOUND IT YET

Anna (Annie Funke) and her uncle George (Jake Gyllenhaal) try to make a connection in IF THERE IS I HAVEN’T FOUND IT YET (photo by Joan Marcus)

Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 25, $100
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal is making his New York theater debut in Nick Payne’s If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, but it’s director Michael Longhurst’s staging that dominates the proceedings, for both good and bad. A hirsute Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) stars as Terry, an Irish drifter who suddenly shows up at the home of his older brother, George (Tony winner and Emmy nominee Brían F. O’Byrne), an environmentalist writing a book called How Green Are Your Tomatoes? that is taking up most of his time. George’s wife, Fiona (Michelle Gomez), is alienated by his continuing absences while also having trouble dealing with their daughter, Anna (Annie Funke), a severely overweight fifteen-year-old who is being bullied at the school where Fiona teaches. Anna soon finds a friend in her uncle, a beer-guzzling, pot-smoking ne’er-do-well who has a very different idea of parenting. Although the play sets up some interesting relationships in the first act, the second act spirals downward in a mess of clichéd dialogue and trite plot twists, leading to an obvious climax audiences will pray won’t happen but does. Longhurst, in his New York debut, teams with Tony-winning set designer Beowulf Boritt (The Scottsboro Boys) to come up with an exciting way to change scenes. As the play begins, a mountain of furniture and odds and ends are piled in the center of the stage, which is claustrophobically closed in by walls on three sides. As each new scene starts, the actors pull a chair, table, or other element out of the pile to use. However, when the scene ends, the characters angrily push or kick the chairs, tables, and even a refrigerator into an encased moat filled with water at the edge of the stage. It’s a powerful conceit, but one that never really establishes a reason other than to allow the characters to display emotions that would be better served within the constructs of the play itself. Indeed, as the audience enters the Laura Pels Theatre, a spray of rain is filling the moat, and Anna walks up to the falling water and puts her hand out to touch it. Payne and Longhurst are using the life-giving nature of water to try to establish a connection between the family’s future and the melting of the polar ice caps that George is so obsessed with, an environmental calamity that could eventually flood the world, but it’s a staging tool that ultimately drowns in its own metaphor.

DEAN AND BRITTA — 13 MOST BEAUTIFUL: SONGS FOR ANDY WARHOL’S SCREEN TESTS

Dean & Britta will reprise their audiovisual Andy Warhol tribute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 6 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Saturday, October 6, $35, 7:00
www.metmuseum.org
www.deanandbritta.com

Two years ago, at the CMJ Festival, Dean & Britta announced that they would play “13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” for the last time ever in New York City at the Skirball Center in October 2010. Well, it seems that the Met has gotten them to change their mind, as they will once again be performing their outstanding set piece on October 6 in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, in conjunction with the new exhibit “Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years.” In 2006, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh commissioned Dean & Britta to compose scores for screen tests that the silver-haired artist shot at the Factory from 1964 to 1966; they searched through hundreds of the black-and-white films (each four minutes and sixteen seconds in length) until they decided on Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Dennis Hopper, Paul America, Susan Bottomly, Ann Buchanan, Freddy Herko, Jane Holzer, Billy Name, Richard Rheem, Ingrid Superstar, and Mary Woronov. The result is a stunning collection of gorgeous instrumentals (“Silver Factory Theme,” “Incandescent Innocence”), covers (Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It with Mine” and the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore”), “Knives from Bavaria” from the Dean & Britta record L’Avventura, and other trippy tracks, including the phenomenal “Teenage Lightning (and Lonely Highways),” that the duo, accompanied by Anthony Lamarca and Matt Sumrow, performs live while the screen tests are projected behind them. Dean, who was previously in Luna and Galaxie 500, introduces most of the songs/films with a little historical detail about the subject, adding both nostalgia and, unfortunately, tragedy to the proceedings, as most of the people being shown on the screen are no longer with us.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “BLACK & WHITE MOUNTAINS” BY SNOWBLINK

“The sages of antiquity did not treat those who were already sick but those who were not sick,” explains the Huangdi Neijing, an ancient Chinese medical text also known as The Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor. “When a disease has already broken out and is only then treated, would that not be just as late as to wait for thirst before digging a well, or to wait to go into battle before casting weapons?” With that in mind, even if you’re not sure you’re hungry for Inner Classics (September 2012, Arts & Crafts), Snowblink’s follow-up to 2010’s Long Live, you are sure to benefit from its many healing qualities. The nine songs on the album are highlighted by lead singer Daniela Gesundheit’s extraordinary voice, which ascends into the heavens, floating on clouds and flying through the ether, backed by Dan Goldman’s harmonies, guitars, and keyboards and such special guests as Barbara Gruska, Ryan Driver, Thom Gill, Misha Bower, and Caley Monahon-Ward. (Yes, her name is Gesundheit; insert your own sneeze joke here, because we won’t.) Originally from California and now based in Toronto, Snowblink takes listeners on an otherworldly journey on Inner Classics, which includes such tracks as “Pray for Surf,” “Best Loved Spot,” “Black & White Mountains,” and “Inner Mini-Mississippi.” Snowblink also has a thing for Michael Jackson; you can check out their unusual covers of “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough,” “Human Nature,” “P.Y.T.,” and “Thriller” here. And continuing Gesundheit’s unique unpredictability, on the band’s website she offers anyone the chance to have her call them or a friend and sing a song just for them through her Book a Treatment program, which she calls “a complimentary new-age singing telegram.” But you won’t have to wait for her to call you back on October 4, when you can see her and Goldman in person at the Bell House, where Snowblink plays with Great Lake Swimmers.

RAQUEL CION: GILDING THE LONELY

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Thursday, October 4, $15, 9:30
212-967-7555
www.joespub.com

We’ve been following the exciting transformation of Raquel Cion’s cabaret show Gilding the Lonely over the past few years, as it has traveled from the crowded confines of the Dixon Place lobby to the intimate stage at Joe’s Pub, each performance turning it into something more. For Thursday night’s encore presentation at Joe’s Pub due to popular demand, Cion (Cou-Cou Bijoux: Pour Vous) is promising another big step up. “Gilding the Lonely’s move to Joe’s Pub has been a huge joy. It’s such a beautiful room, and it has given us the chance to expand the show musically and theatrically,” Cion told us in a follow-up to June’s twi-ny talk. “The space itself is playful and can be very expansive while still being very intimate. The skill of the technicians and the staff allows artists to play and be free, and you know you’re lit and heard.” Among the songs people will hear in the show, which is directed by Amanda Duarte, are uniquely interpreted covers of David Bowie, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Dwight Yoakam, Tom Waits, and others, accompanied by Zecca Esquibel (Get Wet) on piano, Bill Gerstel (3 Teens Kill 4) on drums, and Ken “Kenball” Zwerin (Gigi & Pop) on upright bass. “So we can do grand gestures, like crawl on pianos, have hot men in gold hot pants, and give prizes to the audience — for August’s show they gave everyone in the audience birthday cake,” Cion notes. “We can be supremely glittery, silly, and showbiz while still opening one’s heart and making you feel like you are in conversation with each and every person in the audience. It is pure joy!”

BODYART: LOFT

Erin Yokayama becomes a predatory bird in New York City premiere of BODYART’s LOFT (photo by David M. Burns)

Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Ave. at 25th St.
October 4-6, $20, 8:00
646-312-5073
www.baruch.cuny.edu
www.bodyartdance.com

Founded by artistic director Leslie Scott in 2006, Astoria-based BODYART specializes in multimedia performances that meld the physical with the imaginative. This week the nine-member company will present two New York City premieres and one world premiere at Baruch, centered around Loft. On a stage covered in a snowlike material and with a row of small bright lights behind them, nine dancers (Rachel Abrahams, Madeline Day, Michele Jongeneel, Alexandra Karigan, Megan Krauszer, Stephanie Mas, Allison Ploor, Kathy VanDereedt, and Erin Yokayama) in black tutus move about the space like a flock of predatory birds to a live, contemporary classical score by W4 New Music performed by PUBLIQuartet. In addition, the world premiere of I want . . . features Abrahams in a solo piece, interacting with animated video by Adam Scher and illustrator Ryan Taylor. The evening also includes 2010’s Script, a piece for seven dancers commissioned by Denton High School in Texas and set to a Philip Glass composition that has been rearranged by the students.

NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: RHINOCEROS

Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, will present Eugène Ionesco’s classic absurdist tale RHINOCÉROS this week at BAM (photo by Jean-Louis Fernandez)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
October 4-6
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.theatredelaville-paris.com

As much as Jean-Paul Sartre is associated with the idea of existentialism, playwright Eugène Ionesco is linked with the word absurd. Born in Romania in 1909 and raised primarily in France, Ionesco changed the face of dramatic narrative with such works as The Lesson, The Chairs, The Killer, and Exit the King. One of his most famous plays, 1959’s Rhinocéros, which was turned into a 1973 film starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, and Karen Black, can now be seen in an inventive adaptation by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota and Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, running at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House October 4-6 as part of the thirtieth Next Wave Festival. “I like to come back to playwrights who question the place and role of the individual in collective history, on his responsibility, his freedom of thought, beyond any form of individualism,” Demarcy-Mota, who has also recently directed works by Horváth and Brecht, explains on the company website. The allegory about totalitarianism features set and lighting by Yves Collet, music by Jefferson Lembeye, and costumes by Corinne Baudelot, with François Regnault serving as artistic collaborator; Serge Maggiani plays Bérenger, Hugues Quester is Jean, and Valérie Dashwood takes on the role of Daisy. “”Ionesco knows how to depict dialectically every man’s cowardice, conformism and hypocrisy,” Demarcy-Mota adds. Rhinocéros “is a funereally burlesque play that we wish to render with full energy.” As a bonus, on October 5 at 5:00 at the Rosenthal Pavilion at NYU’s Kimmel Center, the esteemed panel of Demarcy-Mota, Edward Albee, Israel Horovitz, and Marie-France Ionesco will participate in the free “Next Wave Talk: On Ionesco,” moderated by NYU French literature professor Tom Bishop.

Nowhere is safe in Théâtre de la Ville’s thrilling production of Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist classic (photo by Pavel Antonov)

Update: Théâtre de la Ville director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota promised a Rhinocéros rendered “with full energy,” and he and the company deliver all that and more in their engaging version of Eugène Ionesco’s 1959 absurdist classic, running October 4-6 at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House as part of the thirtieth Next Wave Festival. Following a short introductory excerpt from Ionesco’s sole novel, The Hermit, the curtain opens on a group of people in a town square just going about their daily business. Jean (a big, blustery Hugues Quester) bikes in to meet his friend Bérenger (Serge Maggiani), a bedraggled man recovering from a hangover, not able to remember much of what occurred the night before. A rhinoceros suddenly roars through the town like a tsunami, leaving in its wake a stunned crowd not quite sure what it really just saw, instead getting caught up in existential discussions of cats’ paws. Eventually life goes on, with Bérenger, who has a crush on Daisy (Valérie Dashwood), arriving at the publishing house where he works, only to encounter another stampeding rhino. As everyone around him starts turning into rhinos, the hapless Bérenger is determined not to succumb to the mass hysteria. Featuring terrific staging (courtesy of Yves Collet) that includes a raised-level office, collapsing rooms, and a majestically morphing figure in addition to a slowly building score by Jefferson Lembeye that nearly explodes at the end, Théâtre de la Ville’s Rhinocéros cleverly captures the philosophical underpinnings of Ionesco’s tale of the fight for individualism in the face of growing totalitarianism and an ever-increasing conformity that is overwhelming a consumer-driven society. Evoking Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis, Don Siegel’s sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and such recent disasters as Hurricane Katrina and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the show combines humor, pathos, and playful investigations of logic as the community is overcome by a collective consciousness that seems unstoppable. Ionesco might have written Rhinocéros because of what he saw occurring in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, but it still feels as fresh and relevant as ever in this outstanding production.