Yearly Archives: 2012

MONET’S GARDEN

“Monet’s Garden” will change with the seasons at the New York Botanical Garden (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Blvd.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 21, $8-$25
718-817-8700
www.nybg.org
monet’s garden slideshow

“My most beautiful work of art is my garden,” Impressionist master Claude Monet once explained to his stepson. That statement is at the heart of the wide-ranging New York Botanical Garden exhibition “Monet’s Garden,” on view through October 21 in the Bronx oasis. In 1883, the forty-two-year-old Monet moved with his family into a house in Giverny, where he spent the second half of his life developing magnificent gardens and creating some of his most famous masterpieces, paintings based on the natural world he immersed himself in. The New York Botanical Garden has transformed the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into a tribute to Monet, complete with a facade of his house and a re-creation of the Grand Allée from the Clos Normand and the famed Japanese footbridge. The long, narrow path is lined with many of the plants that bloomed in Giverny and will change seasonally, beginning with such flowers as irises, morning glories, aubretias, roses, delphiniums, foxgloves, peonies, and poppies. Visitors can walk across the green footbridge, then head outside to the Conservatory Courtyard’s Hardy Pool, which is filled with water lilies and other aquatic plants similar to the ones Monet collected after having been introduced to Nymphaeas by Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair. As you make your way over to the library, you can stroll along the Monet to Mallarmé Poetry Walk, featuring French Symbolist poems, inspired by nature, by Monet contemporaries Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, and Stéphane Mallarmé, who were doing with words what Monet was doing with paint.

Claude Monet, “The Artist’s Garden in Giverny,” oil on canvas, circa 1900 (courtesy Yale University Art Gallery)

The library’s Rondina Gallery is home to several vitrines of photographs of Monet by himself and with friends in the garden in addition to letters, sales receipts, and a glorious palette he used between 1914 and 1926, a work of art in itself. The gallery is also displaying two of Monet’s paintings, the lush and beautiful “The Artist’s Garden in Giverny” and the darker, more mysterious “Irises,” which has never before been shown in the United States. Upon exiting the library, be sure to stop by the Ross Gallery, where Elizabeth Murray’s “Seasons of Giverny” consists of more than two dozen photographs taken by Murray, who has been documenting the garden for a quarter century. Curated by Monet expert Dr. Paul Hayes Tucker, “Monet’s Garden” is supplemented by a series of special events and technological enhancements, including a free iPhone app, an audio tour, weekend screenings of the films The Impressionists: Monet and Monet’s Palate, monthly poetry salons, “Monet’s Friends” chamber music concerts, “Monet Evenings” water lily concerts, home-gardening demonstrations, adult education classes, and “Observe and Create” workshops for children. “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers,” Monet wrote in an 1890 letter to art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. The New York Botanical Garden celebrates both of these aspects of one of the world’s most beloved artists.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: AS YOU LIKE IT

Andre Braugher’s dual performance as dueling dukes is one of the highlights of AS YOU LIKE IT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Through June 30 (no show June 24), free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

Fifty years ago this week, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park opened with a production of The Merchant of Venice directed by Joe Papp and Gladys Vaughan and starring George C. Scott as Shylock, followed by The Tempest, with Paul Stevens as Prospero and James Earl Jones as Caliban, directed by Gerald Freedman. Since that time, Shakespeare in the Park has been home to more than 150 shows with all-star casts that have been seen by more than five million people. The Delacorte’s golden anniversary season began June 5 with the Bard’s mistaken-identity romantic comedy As You Like It, directed by Public Theater veteran Daniel Sullivan. The story has been shifted to the antebellum South of the 1840s, where Duke Frederick (an excellent Andre Braugher) has been running rampant, exiling people he feels are not loyal to him and threaten his rule, including his older brother, Duke Senior (a fine Braugher again), Senior’s daughter, Rosalind (Lily Rabe), and Orlando (David Furr), a local man who has been mistreated by his older brother, Oliver (Omar Metwally), and had the audacity to beat Frederick’s champion wrestler (Brendan Averett). Disguised as a boy named Ganymede, Rosalind decides to seek out her father in the Forest of Arden, joined on the dangerous journey by her best friend, Celia (Renee Elise Goldsberry), Frederick’s daughter, and Touchstone (Oliver Platt), the court fool. Meanwhile, Orlando is determined to find Rosalind and declare his undying love for her. Sullivan has transformed the eminently likable As You Like It into a somewhat old-fashioned piece of Americana, complete with a four-piece folk-bluegrass band led by banjo favorite Tony Trischka playing songs written by Steve Martin. The first half is indeed very funny and engaging, highlighted by the foot-stomping music and John Lee Beatty’s set, a tall wooden fort that opens up into the dense green Forest of Arden, incorporating Central Park’s real trees. Sullivan adds small touches outside of the script, little flourishes of eye contact and physical shtick that bring playful life to the familiar tale.

Stephen Spinella declares that “all the world’s a stage” in uneven Central Park production (photo by Joan Marcus)

But after intermission, things devolve quickly, as Rabe’s Rosalind turns annoying and obnoxious, Furr’s Orlando becomes silly and overwrought, and the side-plot relationships between Touchstone and busty local lass Audrey (Donna Lynne Champlin) and young Silvius (Will Rogers) and Phoebe (Susannah Flood) seem superfluous at best. Even the music starts feeling repetitive and unnecessary. In the play’s most famous speech, clumsily delivered by an otherwise solid Stephen Spinella as Jaques, Senior’s cynical attendant goes through the seven stages of man, explaining, “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players. . . . Last scene of all / That ends this strange eventful history, / Is second childishness and mere oblivion, / Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” He could just as well be describing the interminable second act of this well-meaning but ultimately disappointing production. As You Like It runs through June 30, followed July 23 – August 25 by Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, starring Amy Adams, Donna Murphy, Denis O’Hare, and Gideon Glick. Don’t forget that in addition to waiting on line at the Delacorte to get free tickets, you can also enter the daily virtual ticketing lottery online here.

RAFAEL BARRIOS

Rafael Barrios, “Malabarismo Lineal,” stainless steel and acrylic lacquer, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Park Avenue Malls
Park Ave. between 50th & 68th Sts.
Through June 30
www.nycgovparks.org
rafael barrios slideshow

Baton Rouge-born Venezuelan-American artist Rafael Barrios has dotted the Park Ave. Malls between Fiftieth & Sixty-eighth Sts. with nine stainless-steel sculptures painted in primarily single-color acrylic lacquer that create fascinating optical illusions as the traffic, particularly yellow taxis, zooms by and clouds pass over the sun. The geometric constructions, in such colors as blue, white, pink, gray, and purple, look flat when seen from some angles, impossibly thin from others, and like three-dimensional cubes floating in space from other directions, displaying what the artist calls “virtualism.” The works — which feature such mysterious names as “Obtusa,” “Triphasique,” “Acrobatica,” “Centrifuga,” “Trifascica,” and “Malabarismo Lineal” — are best experienced by walking around them, as they offer up shifting perspectives that have a magical, playful quality to them. As the sixty-four-year-old Barrios, who is based in Miami, Paris, and Caracas, explains, “Volume is virtually modeled and modified in form — depending on distance — shifting with the position of the observer and the changes in light throughout the day.” The sculptures, which will remain up through the end of June, are worth revisiting if you haven’t seen them in a few months, as the summer sun and the blooming flowers and green grass that surround them add new shades of light and color.

FREE SUMMER DANCE 2012

Friday, June 22
through
Sunday, June 24 River to River Festival: Le Grand Continental by Sylvain Émard Danse, Pier 16 & 17, South Street Seaport, 7:00

Friday, June 29 SummerStage Dance: Master Class by Limón Dance Company, St. Mary’s Park, 7:00

Saturday, June 30 Washington Square Dances: Naomi Goldberg Haas/Dances for a Variable Population, Garibaldi Plaza, Washington Square Park, 4:00 & 7:00

Saturday, June 30
and
Sunday, July 1 SummerStage Dance: Limón Dance Company with special musical guest Paquito D’Rivera, Central Park, 8:00

Saturday, June 30
through
Tuesday, July 3 River to River Festival: FEELingpleasuresatisfactioncelebrationholyFORM by Luciana Achugar, Staten Island Ferry Terminal, 1:00 or 6:00

Sunday, July 1 River to River Festival: Commentary = Not Thing (In Process) by Juliana F. May, Building 110, Governors Island, advance RSVP recommended, 2:00

Friday, July 6 Passport Fridays: Haiti, with dance by ASE Dance Theatre Collective, music by DJA-Rara, and screening of When the Drum Is Beating (Whitney Dow, 2011), Queens Museum, 6:30

Monday, July 9
through
Thursday, July 12 River to River Festival: Tere O’Connor Dance, untitled new project, Mannahatta Park, Wall St. between Front & South Sts., 2:00

Tuesday, July 10
through
Thursday, July 12 SummerStage Dance: Ill Style & Peace Productions, multiple locations, 10:30 am

Thursday, July 12
through
Saturday, July 14 River to River Festival: The Set Up: Junko Fisher, choreographed by Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey, with music by Pete Drungle and danced by Dylan Crossman, 80 Broad St., 4:00

Sunday, July 15 MoonDance: George Gee Swing Orchestra, Hudson River Park Pier 84, dance lessons 6:30, concert 7:00

Friday, July 20 Passport Fridays: Cuba, with dance and music by Oyu Oro and screening of Suite Habana (Fernando Pérez, 2003), Queens Museum, 6:30

Friday, July 20 SummerStage Dance: Liberation Dance Theater and Jamal Jackson Dance Company, Queensbridge Park, 7:00

Saturday, July 21 SummerStage Dance: Malcolm Low Formal Structure and Von Ussar Danceworks, Master Class by Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn, Queensbridge Park, 7:00

Sunday, July 22 MoonDance: Los Hermanos Colón, Hudson River Park Pier 84, dance lessons 6:30, concert 7:00

Tuesday, July 24 SummerStage Dance: Uptown Dance Academy, Maria Hernandez Park, 10:30 am

Thursday, July 26 SummerStage Dance: Uptown Dance Academy, Morningside Park, 10:30 am

Friday, July 27 Passport Fridays: Egypt, with dance and music by Egyptian Celebration Company and screening of Microphone (Ahmad Abdalla, 2010), Queens Museum, 6:30

Sunday, July 29 MoonDance: Nu D’Lux, Hudson River Park Pier 84, dance lessons 6:30, concert 7:00

Friday, August 3 Passport Fridays: West Indies, with dance by Something Positive, music by Village Drums of Freedom, and screening of Fire in Babylon (Stevan Riley, 2011), Queens Museum, 6:30

Friday, August 3 Lincoln Center Out of Doors: Phil Kline: “dreamcitynine,” performed by Talujon and friends, Josie Robertson Plaza, Hearst Plaza, Damrrosch Park, 6:30

Friday, August 3 Lincoln Center Out of Doors: Chio-Tian Folk Drums and Arts Group, Hearst Plaza, 7:30

Saturday, August 4 Lincoln Center Out of Doors: Heidi Latsky Dance: GIMP, Hearst Plaza, 7:30

Sunday, August 5 Lincoln Center Out of Doors: Heritage Sunday: Ayiti Rasanble! Featuring Feet of Rhythm, Kongo featuring Peniel Guerrier, La Troupe Makandal, and Raram, Hearst Plaza, 1:00–6:00

Sunday, August 5 MoonDance: Hector Del Curto’s Eternal Tango, Hudson River Park Pier 84, dance lessons 6:30, concert 7:00

Tuesday, August 7 SummerStage Dance: Abada Capoeira NYC and Edna Limia, Columbus Park, 10:30 am

Thursday, August 9 SummerStage Dance: Abada Capoeira NYC and Edna Limia, Van Cortland Park, 10:30 am

Thursday, August 9 Celebrate Brooklyn! Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Prospect Park Bandshell, 8:00

Friday, August 10 SummerStage Dance: Uptown Dance Academy, Poe Park, 10:30 am

Friday, August 10 Passport Fridays: Taiwan, with dance by Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, music by Taiwanese Music Ensemble of New York, and screening of Fishing Luck (Wen-chen Tseng, 2005), Queens Museum, 6:30

Friday, August 10 SummerStage Dance: Camille A. Brown & Dancers and MoralesDance, Master Class by Camille A. Brown, Marcus Garvey Park, 7:00

Saturday, August 11 SummerStage Dance: Kùlú Mèlé African Dance and Drum Ensemble and MBDance, Master Class by Kùlú Mèlé African Dance & Drum Ensemble, Marcus Garvey Park, 7:00

Saturday, August 11
through
Saturday, August 18 Downtown Dance Festival, multiple locations

Sunday, August 12 MoonDance: David Berger Jazz Orchestra, Hudson River Park Pier 84, dance lessons 6:30, concert 7:00

Wednesday, August 15 SummerStage Dance: Koresh Dance Company, BalletX, and Dancin’ Downtown at the Joyce, Central Park, 8:00

Friday, August 17 Passport Fridays: Dominican Republic, with music by Irka & the Women of Fire and Los Calientes and screening of Louis Vargas: Santo Domingo Blues (Alex Wolfe, 2004), Queens Museum, 6:30

Friday, August 17 SummerStage Dance: White Wave Yuong Soon Kim Dance Company, DoubleTake Dance, Master Class by Desmond Richardson from Complexions Contemporary Ballet, East River Park, 7:00

Saturday, August 18 SummerStage Dance: Eleone Dance Theatre, Niles Ford, Urban Dance Collective, Master Class by Calvin Wiley, East River Park, 7:00

Tuesday, August 21 SummerStage Dance: Something Positive, Underwood Park, 10:30 am

Thursday, August 23 SummerStage Dance: Something Positive, Faber Park, 10:30 am

Friday, August 24 Passport Fridays: Puerto Rico, with dance by Bombazo Dance Company, music by Orquesta Rovira, and screening of Cayo (Vicente Juarbe, 2005), Queens Museum, 6:30

FREE SUMMER THEATER 2012

Andre Braugher plays dual roles in Shakespeare in the Park presentation of AS YOU LIKE IT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Thursday, May 31
through
Sunday, June 24 New York Classical Theatre: Twelfth Night, directed by Stephen Burdman, Central Park, 103rd St. & Central Park West, Thursday through Sunday at 7:00

Tuesday, June 5
through
Saturday, June 30 Shakespeare in the Park: As You Like It, directed by Daniel Sullivan and starring Lily Rabe, Andre Braugher, Stephen Spinella, Oliver Platt, and Renee Elise Goldsberry, with music by Steve Martin, Delacorte Theater, Central Park, 8:00

Wednesday, June 6
through
Saturday, June 23 Inwood Shakespeare Festival: As You Like It, Moose Hall Theatre Company, directed by Ted Minos, Inwood Hill Park Peninsula, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30

Friday, June 22
and
Saturday, June 23 SummerStage Theater: Paige in Full, by Paige Hernandez, directed by Danielle A. Drakes, and featuring DJ Reborn, Red Hook Park, 8:00

Saturday, June 23
through
Sunday, July 15 Boomerang Theatre Company: Hamlet, directed by Tim Errickson, Central Park, 77th St. & Central Park West, Saturdays & Sundays at 2:00

Tuesday, June 26
through
Friday, June 29 River to River Festival: Act Without Words II by Samuel Beckett, Company SJ, TheatreAlley between Nassau & Centre Sts., 9:00

Tuesday, June 26
through
Sunday, July 22 New York Classical Theatre: Twelfth Night, directed by Stephen Burdman, meet at Castle Clinton in Battery Park, Tuesday through Sunday at 7:00

Thursday, July 5
through
Friday, July 20 Piper Theatre Company: Xanadu the Musical, directed by John P. McEneny, Old Stone House, Washington Park, JJ Byrne Playground, Thursdays & Fridays at 8:00

Friday, July 6
and
Saturday, July 7 SummerStage Theater: A King of Infinite Space, by Mando Alvarado, directed by Jerry Ruiz, St. Mary’s Park, 8:00

Saturday, July 7
through
Saturday, July 21 Piper Theatre Company: Island of Doctor Moreau, Old Stone House, Washington Park, JJ Byrne Playground, Saturdays at 8:00

Sunday, July 8
through
Thursday, July 12 River to River Festival: The Saints Tour by Molly Rice, directed by Maureen Towey, 7:00

Thursday, July 12
through
Saturday, July 28 The Drilling Company’s Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: The Merry Wives of Windsor,, Municipal Parking Lot (Ludlow & Broome), Thursday through Saturday, 8:00

Thursday, July 12
through
Sunday, August 5 Hudson Warehouse: The Rover by Aphra Behn, directed by Jesse Michael Mothershed, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, Thursday through Sunday at 6:30

Friday, July 13
and
Saturday, July 14 SummerStage Theater: A King of Infinite Space, by Mando Alvarado, directed by Jerry Ruiz, Crotona Park, 8:00

Wednesday, July 18
through
Saturday, August 4 Moose Hall Theatre Company: The Golem, Heart of Light, Mind of Darkness, written and directed by Ted Minos, Inwood Hill Park Peninsula, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30

Monday, July 23
through
Saturday, August 25 Shakespeare in the Park: Into the Woods, directed by Timothy Sheader and starring Amy Adams, Denis O’Hare, Donna Murphy, and Gideon Glick, Delacorte Theater, Central Park, 8:00

Wednesday, July 25
through
Saturday, August 18 Hip to Hip: Hamlet and Comedy of Errors in repertory, multiple locations in Queens, 5:00 or 7:30

Friday, July 27
and
Saturday, July 28 SummerStage Theater: The Power of the Trinity, by Roland Wolf, adapted and directed by Alfred Preisser, with original music composition by Tomas Doncker, Springfield Park, 8:00

Tuesday, July 31 SummerStage Theater: The Power of the Trinity, by Roland Wolf, adapted and directed by Alfred Preisser, with original music composition by Tomas Doncker, Central Park, 8:00

Thursday, August 2
through
Saturday, August 18 The Drilling Company’s Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: Coriolanus,, Municipal Parking Lot (Ludlow & Broome), Thursday through Saturday, 8:00

Friday, August 3
through
Sunday, August 5 SummerStage Theater: The Power of the Trinity, by Roland Wolf, adapted and directed by Alfred Preisser, with original music composition by Tomas Doncker, Marcus Garvey Park, 8:00

Saturday, August 25
through
Monday, August 27 SummerStage Theater: Jason and the Argonauts, by Apollonius Rhodius, new translation by Aaron Poochigian, East River Park, 8:00

NYC PRIDE 2012

It doesn’t get much more crazy and colorful than the annual Gay Pride Parade (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations
June 23-24, free – $165
www.nycpride.org
2011 gay pride parade slideshow

Expect massive celebrations of the passage of the same-sex marriage bill during this year’s annual gay pride weekend. Things hit their stride on Saturday, beginning with the NYC Dyke March at 5:00 at Bryant Park, followed by the VIP Rooftop Party at Hudson Terrace ($45), which boasts three floors of dancing with spectacular views of the city, and the ever-popular Rapture on the River ($25-$75), which is moving to Pier 57 and features a live performance by Hunter Valentine. The LGBT street fair Pridefest takes place on Hudson St. between Abingdon St. & West Fourteenth St., featuring lots of vendors, a kids space, and performances by the cast of Wicked, Jessica Betts, Shiragirl, Billy Winn, Robin Cloud, Christine Martucci, Amdias, Beleke, Soneboy, the Glamazons, and others. On Sunday, the March will head from Thirty-sixth & Fifth to Christopher & Greenwich, led by grand marshals Cyndi Lauper, Chris Salgardo, Phyllis Siegel, and Connie Kopelov, with awards given out for Best Use of Theme, Most Original, Best Marching Contingent, Best Decorated Vehicle, and Best Musical Contingent. Following the March, the party continues on Pier 57 for the wild and crazy Dance on the Pier ($90-$165), with DJs Eddie Baez, the Perry Twins, and Boris and live performances by Eva Simons, Lauper, and others.

PHOTOVILLE

Model of Photoville by Dave Shelley of United Photo Industries (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Pier 3 Uplands, Brooklyn Bridge Park
June 22 – July 1, free
photovillenyc.org

Following hot on the heels of last month’s New York Photo Festival in DUMBO, the inaugural Photoville begins today, held in a collection of shipping containers across sixty thousand square feet on Pier 3 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Sponsored by United Photo Industries, the show will feature exhibits from around the world, a series of workshops and talks, a dog run surrounded by a photo fence, an interactive greenhouse with camera flowers designed by André Feliciano, and a beer garden where visitors can down Brooklyn Brewery selections while watching nighttime projections and eating food from a rotating group of trucks. Getting there will be part of the fun, with a display on board the East River Ferry of shots either of the various vessels in the fleet or taken from them. Among the more than two dozen exhibitions are analog photos from Lomography, the multimedia presentation “2084” from SVA, Russell Frederick’s “Dying Breed: Photos of Bedford Stuyvesant,” Bruce Gilden’s “No Place Like Home: Foreclosures in America,” Sim Chi Yin’s “China’s Rat Tribe,” Wyatt Gallery’s “Tent Life: Haiti,” 2012 Pulse Prize winner Sigrid Viir’s “Routine Crusher,” Josh Lehrer’s “Becoming Visible” series of portraits of homeless transgender teens, Lorie Novak’s multimedia installation “Random Interference,” and Candace Gaudiani’s “Between Destinations” photos taken from inside train windows. Advance registration is recommended for such panel discussions and artist talks as “Li Hao: ‘Worshippers’” and “Cruel and Unusual: The Prisons, the Photography or Both?” on June 23, “The New Documentary” and “Human Rights Through Visual Storytelling” on June 24, “The Art of Fashion Portraiture” on June 28, “Photographs Not Taken” on June 29, and “Janelle Lynch: ‘Los Jardines de Mexico’” and “Photography as Activism” on July 1.