Yearly Archives: 2012

BRAZILIAN DAY IN NEW YORK 2012

Brazilian Day is always one of the best — and most crowded — street festivals of the summer (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

46th St. between Sixth & Madison Aves.
Sunday, September 2, free, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
212-382-1631
www.brazilianday.com
brazilian day in new york 2011 slideshow

Now in its twenty-eighth year, Brazilian Day in New York is a colorful celebration of the culture of the South American nation and of the many Brazilian immigrants who now live in the tristate area, believed to number more than 300,000. Following Saturday’s ritual Cleansing of 46th St., Sunday’s festivities in Little Brazil will include two stages of live entertainment, with music from Latino, Jorge & Mateus, Armandinho Macedo, and others, hosted by Serginho Groisman, as well as traditional Brazilian cuisine (keep a look-out for whole hog, feijoada, fresh sugarcane juice, and caipirinha), arts and crafts, information about traveling to Brazil, capoeira demonstrations, and more, with some 1.5 million people expected to attend what is always a blast of a party, with little pockets of music and dance liable to break out anywhere at any moment.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “LOOK HOMEWARD, HEATHEN” BY GRASSFIGHT

New York City band Grassfight has followed up its October 2011 EP, Icon, with another five-track, creatively titled Icon, EP 2. Released on July 24, the EP evokes 1970s Joy Division, 1980s Jesus and Mary Chain, and 1990s/2000s Interpol as well as Sonic Youth, with a big, brash, propulsive sound that can shake your bones and rattle your soul. Formed in Denton, Texas, in 2006, the trio of guitarist-singer Nathan Forster, bassist-singer Tamsi New, and drummer Mark Demiglio put Forster’s drony, commanding voice in the forefront, from the aggressive “Look Homeward, Heathen” to the bold, in-your-face “Hailey” and “Rhodendron” to the deeply intimate “Until You Sleep (Icy Slope).” On “Look Homeward, Heathen,” Forster sings, “I don’t want to know how it ends.” For Grassfight, perhaps things are only really just beginning. Grassfight will be at Arlene’s Grocery on September 1 at 11:00, preceded by Captain Baby at 10:00 and followed by Troublemakers at midnight. To get a taste of what you’re in for, you can check out the new EP for free here.

SAMSARA

SAMSARA takes viewers on a fascinating journey around the world in 70mm

SAMSARA (Ron Fricke, 2011)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com
www.barakasamsara.com

Referring to the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, Samsara is a visually stunning journey around the world, but one that will leave viewers wanting more. Director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson, who previously teamed up on 1985’s Chronos and 1992’s Baraka, traveled to twenty-five countries on five continents over the course of four years, photographing famous landmarks, ancient and modern landscapes, old and new architecture, mountains, parks, oceans, cities, and many of the myriad peoples who populate the planet. Featuring an at-times overbearing score by Michael Stearns, Lisa Gerrard, and Marcello de Francisci and no narration or titles whatsoever to show what’s on the screen, Samsara can be breathtaking as well as confusing as the images roll by, shot in 70mm and projected digitally at 4K. Threads of narrative weave their way into the film, including sections on religion, war, poverty, and food production, exploring the Buddhist ideas of interconnection and impermanence, although the unfolding “story” appears most often to be somewhat random. And oddly, individuals regularly stare directly into the camera for uncomfortable periods of time, as if accusing the viewer of something that is not necessarily clear. Fricke and Magidson, who both edited the film, take the audience to such locations as Epupa Falls in Angola, Paraisopolis Favela in São Paulo, Mariesminde Poultry Farm in Denmark, Château de Versailles in France, Kanikwei Coffin Shop in Ghana, Thiksey Monastery in India, Kawah Ijen Sulfur Mine in Indonesia, Teatro Alla Scala in Italy, the Tsuchiya Shokai Doll Factory in Japan, Petra in Jordan, cliff dwellings in Mali, Mingun Temple in Myanmar, Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Cebu Provincial Detention Center in the Philippines, the demilitarized zone in South Korea, Cascade Go-Go Bar in Thailand, Cappadocia in Turkey, Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai, the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, and Aadlen Bros. Auto Wrecking in Sun Valley, among so many other fascinating sites that reveal a wide expanse of what is going on in the world. Prisoners dance, cars whirr down elevated highways, chickens get slaughtered, tribes from Ethiopia and Namibia live off the land, poor children pick through garbage, a man stands next to his robot double, and a group of Buddhist monks make an exquisite sand painting. Yet as fascinating as Samsara can be, it still feels somewhat lacking, as if it could have been better in IMAX 3D (even if that wasn’t a logistical possibility), and the scarcity of detail supplied about the places visited is frustrating in today’s info-rich society.

FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE

Tsui Hark’s gorgeously shot FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE is first IMAX 3D wuxia film

FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE (Tsui Hark, 2011)
AMC Loews 34th St.
312 West 34th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Opens Friday, August 31
www.flyingswords.com

In the breathtaking Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, the first wuxia film shot in IMAX 3D, legendary Hong Kong director Tsui Hark revisits the story told in the 1992 film New Dragon Gate Inn, which he wrote and produced and was a remake of King Hu’s 1967 Taiwanese film Dragon Gate Inn. As in his 2005 epic, Seven Swords, Hark chooses style over substance, but there are more than enough stunning visuals here to override the convoluted plot. As East battles West for supremacy among eunuch-led security forces, Zhou Huai’an (Jet Li) stands (or, more correctly, flies) in the middle, fighting corruption on both sides to restore honesty and integrity to the realm. But things get complicated when Yu Huatian (Chen Kun) orders the execution of pregnant maid Jin Xiangyu (Mavis Fan), Zhou encounters a woman (Zhou Xun) impersonating him, Yu seems to have a double in Wind Blade (also played by Chen Kun), a raucous band of Tartars led by the amazing Zhang Xiao Wen (Gwei Lun-mei) party hard, an ominous sandstorm approaches, swords break off into individual killing blades, buried treasure awaits, and — well, other stuff happens, but it all takes a backseat to the dazzling images, with Tsui (Peking Opera Blues, Once Upon a Time in China, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame), action choreographer Yuen Bun (Election, Sparrow), and supervising stereographer Chuck Comisky (Avatar, Final Destination) making full use of 3D technology, crafting virtually every shot with something that pokes out at the audience, usually sharp swords. Even the subtitles seem to exist in their own dimension. (Word of warning: It’s probably best to sit farther back in the theater in order to read the translations without their getting in the way of all the cool things happening on the big screen.) Nominated for eight Asian Film Awards, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate is quite a spectacle, even if much of it makes little sense.

ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA

Shirley Clarke’s portrait of free jazz legend Ornette Coleman is back in a beautiful new 35mm restoration

ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA (Shirley Clarke, 1985)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, August 31
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.milestonefilms.com

In September 1983, innovative saxophonist and Fort Worth, Texas, native Ornette Coleman received a key to the city of his hometown and then helped open the new Caravan of Dreams arts center by performing the world premiere of “Skies of America,” a specially commissioned work that teamed Coleman and his band, Prime Time, with the Forth Worth Symphony. Director Shirley Clarke uses this celebratory event as the central focus of her 1985 documentary, Ornette: Made in America, which is being rereleased in a beautiful new 35mm restoration overseen by Milestone Films as part of its continuing Project Shirley, which began earlier this year with a dazzling new print of Clarke’s 1962 film about jazz and drugs, The Connection. In Ornette: Made in America, Clarke combines footage she shot of Coleman back in the 1960s for a never-completed film with new material that offers an inside look at Coleman and his relationship with his son, Denardo, a musical prodigy who has played drums with his father for decades, since he was a young boy. Clarke also includes staged scenes of young versions of Coleman wandering through his old neighborhood of Fort Worth, then turning to the camera to deliver determined stares, in addition to shots of a theater troupe dancing joyously down the street, Coleman performing through the years in San Francisco, New York City, and Nigeria, and interactions with such prominent figures as music critic Robert Palmer, artist Brion Gysin, writer William S. Burroughs, and architect Buckminster Fuller, who had a profound influence on Coleman’s unique free jazz sound. “As Buck says, you can’t see outside yourself, but we do have imagination,” Coleman explains inside a geodesic dome. “The expression of all individual imagination is what I call harmolodics, and each being’s imagination is their own unison, and there are as many unisons as there are stars in the sky.” Clarke puts the film together like one of Coleman’s free jazz compositions, filled with harmolodics, going from black-and-white to color and back again, cutting between interviews and live performances, moving from relaxing images to propulsive moments, and regularly bordering on the goofy, including talking heads in an animated television set, brief explanatory text in marquee scrolls, and shots of Coleman riding a spacecraft over the surface of the moon. Despite such silliness, Ornette: Made in America is a thrilling portrait of a national treasure, a one-of-a-kind musician who is still playing his unique brand of music in his eighties.

TICKET ALERT: THE KILLERS UNSTAGED

In a rather unexpected collaboration, the Killers are teaming up with legendary German director Werner Herzog in the latest edition of American Express Unstaged, in which a live performance is streamed in real time via YouTube and VEVO. The Las Vegas band, led by Brandon Flowers, will be playing at the Paradise Theater in the Bronx on September 18, the day their new record, Battle Born, is being released. Their fourth studio album, which follows 2004’s Hot Fuss, 2006’s Sam’s Town, and 2008’s Day & Age, features such tracks as “Flesh and Bone,” “The Way It Was,” “Miss Atomic Bomb,” and the first single, “Runaways.” The Killers handpicked Herzog to direct the show and were shocked when the filmmaker, who has made such landmark works as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man, and Rescue Dawn, agreed to helm the project. Tickets ($58.50) go on sale August 31 at 12 noon for the September 18 show, which will stream live (and free) from the Bronx beginning at 7:00.

CROSSING THE LINE 2012

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Le Skyroom and FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 14 – October 14, free- $45
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Tickets are now on sale for the sixth annual Crossing the Line festival, a month-long program of interdisciplinary performances and art sponsored by the French Institute Alliance Française at venues across the city. Running September 14 through October 14, the 2012 edition of CTL, curated by Gideon Lester, Lili Chopra, and Simon Dove, features a host of free events, with most ticketed shows twenty dollars and under. The festival opens on September 14 with the first of three concerts by innovative guitarist Bill Frisell, playing with two of his groups, the 858 Quartet and Beautiful Dreamers, in FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall; he’ll then be at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn the next morning at 8:00 for the world premiere of his solo piece “Early (Not Too Late),” followed that night by the world premiere of the multimedia “Close Your Eyes” at the Invisible Dog, a collaboration with musician Eyvind Kang and visual artist Jim Woodring. Brian Rogers, cofounder and artistic director of the Chocolate Factory, will present Hot Box at the Long Island City institution, a chaotic look at mayhem, stillness, and disorder using a live video feed. Festival vet Gérald Kurdian returns with The Magic of Spectacular Theater at Abrons Arts Center, combining music and magic. DD Dorvillier / Human Future Dance Corps brings Danza Permanente to the Kitchen, reimagining a Beethoven score for four dancers, with acoustic design by Zeena Parkins. Choreographer Sarah Michelson will deliver Not a Lecture / Performance, while Jack Ferver will blend psychoanalysis with dance in the very personal Mon Ma Mes, both one-time-only presentations at FIAF. Joris Lacoste’s 4 Prepared Dreams uses hypnosis on April March, Annie Dorsen, Tony Conrad, and Jonathan Caouette. Congolese dancer and choreographer Faustin Linyekula, who dazzled CTL audiences last year with more more more . . . future, will participate in a discussion on September 17 with director Peter Sellars, followed by his solo work Le Cargo on September 18. Pascal Rambert’s Love’s End examines the disintegration of a relationship, with Kate Moran and Jim Fletcher at Abrons, while Raimund Hoghe teams up with Takashi Ueno at the Baryshnikov Arts Center for Pas de Deux, a playful look at the history of the classical duet. For Diário (através de um Olho Baiano), one of numerous free events, Bel Borba, collaborating with Burt Sun and André Costantini, will create a new piece of art every day somewhere in the city throughout the festival, with all coming together for a grand finale. Also free is David Levine’s Habit, a live ninety-minute-drama that loops for eight hours in the Essex Street Market, and OMSK / Lotte van den Berg’s Pleinvrees / Agoraphobia, in which the audience (advance RSVP required) wanders around Times Square listening on their cell phones to a man making his way through the area as well. In addition, Steven and William Ladd’s Shaboygen installation will be up at the Invisible Dog, and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s audiovisual portraits will be on view at the FIAF Gallery. Once again, CTL has included a little something for everyone, from performance art and dance to video and photography, from theater and concerts to the unusual and the indefinable.