Yearly Archives: 2012

BELMONT STAKES

I’ll Have Another will not be going after the Triple Crown at Belmont after all (photo by Susie Raisher)

Belmont Park
2150 Hempstead Turnpike
Elmont, New York
Saturday, June 9, $10-$20, first race at 11:35 pm
516-488-6000
www.belmontstakes.com
2011 belmont slideshow

On May 5, a 15-1 shot pulled off an upset in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. Two weeks later, the Thoroughbred, a 3-1 underdog, captured the Preakness at Pimlico. Tomorrow, I’ll Have Another and jockey Mario Gutierrez were 4-5 favorites to win the Triple Crown at the 144th Belmont Stakes, slated to face off against such tough competition as Union Rags and Dullahan in what could have been a race for the ages. But shockingly, trainer Doug O’Neill suddenly announced today that I’ll Have Another would not be having another, scratching from the race because of tendinitis. So there should be plenty of grandstand and clubhouse tickets available for the contest, which is likely to fall far short of the initially expected ninety thousand spectators who were hoping to see history when the three-year-old son of Flower Alley and Arch’s Gal Edith took off from the eleventh post in pursuit of the first Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. In addition to the 6:40 now-more-subdued main event, Belmont offers a full day of races, beginning at 11:35, so there’s still nothing quite like hanging out at the track. And don’t just grab a quick, measly bite from one of the basic vendors; instead, make your way to the outside food festival and activities area, and be sure to get up close and personal with the horses as they parade around prior to each race. And getting there is a cinch on the Long Island Rail Road.

FRANCESCA WOODMAN / THE WOODMANS

Francesca Woodman, “Space2, Providence, Rhode Island,” gelatin silver print, 1976 (© George and Betty Woodman)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Friday – Wednesday through June 13, $18 (pay-what-you-wish Saturday 5:45-7:45)
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

Tragically, Francesca Woodman’s story usually begins at the end: The innovative, influential photographer killed herself in 1981 at the age of twenty-two. But by that time she had already amassed an impressive, deeply personal collection of intimate, haunting photographs, something she began when she was just thirteen. The daughter of artists George and Betty Woodman, Francesca attended the Rhode Island School of Design, traveled to Rome and Athens, and moved to New York City during her short lifetime, all the while taking primarily black-and-white photographs in which her often nude body merges with both physical and psychological space, becoming part of the architecture as well as the ether. She huddles in a corner, disappears in a window, and covers parts of herself with detritus. Only hair and a bit of forehead are visible in a cast-iron bathtub. The lower half of her body sits over an impression of herself on a dusty floor. In an outdoor shot, she wears tree bark on her arms, transforming into part of the forest. And in one of her later works, a large-scale purplish diazotype, or blueprint, she poses as a caryatid, her arms covering her face. The retrospective also includes a half dozen recently discovered experimental videos that bring her photographic sensibility to life. Artists from Bruce Nauman and Cindy Sherman to Marina Abramović and Lucas Samaras feature themselves in their work, but in Woodman’s oeuvre, the artist is visible in a completely different way, trapped in a moment of space and time, the past, present, and future mysterious and uncertain. (Woodman’s “Blueprint for a Temple” is also part of the Met’s current “Spies in the House of Art: Photography, Film, and Video” exhibition, and some of her later work was recently highlighted at a small but intriguing show at Marian Goodman.)

The tragic life of artist Francesca Woodman and her family is the focus of intriguing documentary (untitled photo by Francesca Woodman, 1977-78, Rome, courtesy Betty and George Woodman)

THE WOODMANS (C. Scott Willis, 2010)
Now available on DVD
www.kinolorber.com

There’s something inherently creepy about The Woodmans, C. Scott Willis’s documentary about an intriguing family of artists. For the first half of his debut theatrical release, Willis, an eleven-time Emmy winner who has spent most of his career working for television news organizations, speaks with successful ceramic sculptor Betty Woodman, who had a terrific retrospective at the Met in 2006; her less-well-known husband, painter and photographer George Woodman; and their son, video artist and professor Charles Woodman, focusing on the missing member of the family, photographer Francesca Woodman, who is heard from through excerpts from her diary and seen in her videos and photographs. For those who don’t know Francesca’s fate, Willis builds the tension like a mystery, although it’s obvious something awful occurred. The Woodmans gets even creepier once Willis reveals what happened to Francesca, a RISD grad who quickly made a name for herself in the late 1970s taking innovative and influential nude black-and-white photographs of herself. As the parents talk about their daughter’s life and career, Betty explains how she got pregnant more to experience childbirth than to actually be a nurturing mother, and George expresses his jealousy at how Francesca was so admired in the art world, outshining both her parents. That they tend to do so with a calm matter-of-factness contributes to the uncomfortable nature of the film.

STAUNCH: A GREY GARDENS CELEBRATION IV

Fourth annual Grey Gardens festival takes place this weekend at the Maysles Institute

GREY GARDENS (David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer, 1976)
Maysles Institute
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
June 8-10, suggested donation $10, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org

One of the most influential documentaries ever made, Grey Gardens looks at the bizarre lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, in their dilapidated home in East Hampton. The elder Edie was the sister of Jackie Onassis’s father, so it was hard for the American public to believe that in the mid-1970s, relatives of Jackie O’s were living in such squalor. Little Edie bandies about in odd clothing, singing and dancing, believing that she can still resurrect her once-promising career as an entertainer. Meanwhile, her elderly mother cracks wise at her daughter while also remembering her own long-gone days as a singer. The women seem to be caught up in a world all their own, far from reality, but filmmakers Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer, and Ellen Hovde don’t judge them in any way; they just let them be as the women greet guests and grumble about whatever they can. Selected for the New York and Cannes Film Festivals, Grey Gardens, which has also been turned into a fiction film and a Broadway musical, will be screening June 9 at 7:30 at the Maysles Institute as part of STAUNCH! A Grey Gardens Celebration IV, which runs June 8-10 and focuses this year on Jerry Torre, the Marble Faun from the original film. The weekend festival includes the world-premiere screening of Steve Pelizza and Jason Hay’s new documentary, The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens, on Friday at 7:30, followed by Q&A and reception with Torre, Albert Maysles, Pelizza, and Hay. The Maysles brothers’ 2006 sequel, The Beales of Grey Gardens, will be shown on Sunday at 7:30.

TWI-NY TALK: SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS

Southern Culture on the Skids will be serving up culinary delights at the annual Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park

Friday, June 8, Maxwells, 1039 Washington St., Hoboken, 201-653-1703, $15, 9:00
Saturday, June 9, Big Apple Barbecue, Madison Square Park, free, 4:30
www.scots.com

For nearly thirty years, Chapel Hill’s Southern Culture on the Skids has been keeping southern culture alive, serving up its unique brand of rockabilly surf country punk on such records as Voodoo Beach Party, Dirt Track Date, Plastic Seat Sweat, Liquored Up and Lacquered Down, and The Kudzu Ranch. Its latest swampy, bluesy collection, Zombified (September 2011, Kudzu), continues the band’s wicked sense of humor and playfulness, featuring such songs as “Undertaker,” “Bloodsucker,” and “Idol with the Glowin’ Eyes.” Guitarist Rick Miller, drummer Dave Hartman, and bassist Mary Huff will be at Maxwell’s on Friday night, followed by a hotly anticipated free performance at Saturday’s Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in Madison Square Park. Miller recently filled us in on some of the band’s culinary plans for the weekend.

twi-ny: The Big Apple Barbecue is famous for its ridiculously long lines, and host Danny Meyer is perhaps equally famous for making everyone, including his relatives, wait on lines and get no special treatment. Do you have any idea what the food situation will be for you?

Rick Miller/SCOTS: I don’t know. We usually get a free lunch ticket and are left on our own to wander about. Hard to take a dip in the meat fountain before you play, though. Those smokey burps halfway into the set can slow a fellow down!

twi-ny: You’re from North Carolina, which will be represented by smokemaster Ed Mitchell and his whole hog. Is that where we’ll find you before or after your set? What other barbecue are you planning on checking out at the block party?

SCOTS: Oh yeah — in the Carolina Q is where we’ll be. When it comes to the other smoking meat — brisket is the ticket!

twi-ny: You’ll be playing to an enormous crowd on Saturday, most of whom will be covered in dripping sauce and stale beer and stuck on long lines away from the music area. Do you plan on tailoring your set to this very different kind of devil’s stomping ground?

SCOTS: Might start with “Come and Get It (Before It Done Gets Cold)” or “Too Much Pork for Just One Fork.” “Pig Pickin’” will be on the table as well, and of course “8 Piece Box” for the fowl fans. And for dessert we’ve got “Day Old Banana Puddin’.” Don’t forget to bring your wet naps and moist towelettes — it might get messy!

twi-ny: You have a smokin’ new album out called Zombified. What kind of southern food and drink goes best with it?

SCOTS: Deviled ham and moonshine!

twi-ny: You’ll also be at Maxwell’s in Hoboken on June 8, where you’ll be playing to a smaller but more SCOTS-dedicated audience. What have you got planned for that show?

SCOTS: We will prepare a rock-and-roll hot bar! A buffet of greasy grooves — the surf-and-turf sounds for downwardly mobile socialites!

PARAMOUNT IN THE 1970s: HAROLD AND MAUDE

Harold (Bud Cort) has a little bit of an obsession with death in very different kind of romantic comedy

HAROLD AND MAUDE (Hal Ashby, 1971)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, June 8, 7:00, and Saturday, June 9, 3:00
Series runs through July 1
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Bud Cort (Harold) and Ruth Gordon (Maude) are magnificent in this glorious black comedy from director Hal Ashby (The Last Detail, Shampoo, Being There) and writer Colin Higgins. Harold is an eighteen-year-old rich kid obsessed with death, regularly flirting with suicide. Maude is a fun-loving, free-spirited senior citizen approaching her eightieth birthday. Ashby throws in just the right amount of post-1960s social commentary, including a very funny antiwar scene, without becoming overbearing, as this could have been a maudlin piece of sentimental claptrap, but instead it’s far from it. Even the Cat Stevens soundtrack (“If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” “Tea for the Tillerman,” “Where Do the Children Play?”) works. Harold and Maude is a tender, uproarious, bittersweet tale that is one of the best of its kind, completely unforgettable, enlightening, and, ultimately, life-affirming in its own odd way. Harold and Maude is screening June 8 & 9 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Paramount in the 1970s,” a month of films from the studio that changed the shape of American popular cinema during the decade that began with the Vietnam War and ended with the Reagan revolution. The series, which celebrates Paramount’s centennial, also includes such terrific films as Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and The Tenant, John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man, and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation.

QUEER NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

Silvia Costa’s LA QUIESCENZA DEL SEME will examine birth and consciousness at the Queer New York International Arts Festival

Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement (and other locations)
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
June 7-15, $20
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.queerny.org

In March 2011, Zvonimir Dobrović, the curator and producer of the Eastern European Perforacije Festival, put together the inaugural American Perforations Festival at Club La MaMa, a collection of eclectic theatrical productions from Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Macedonia. Dobrović, who is also the artistic director of Queer Zagreb, has now teamed up with art historian and independent curator André von Ah to present the first Queer New York International Arts Festival. Taking place June 7-15 primarily at the Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side, QNYI features multidisciplinary projects that recontextualize and reconsider what constitutes queer art. The opening-night party, held June 7 at the Delancey, includes performances by Carol Pope, Carmelita Tropicana, Eyes Wild Drag, Sarah-Louise Young, Raul de Nieves, Justin Sayre, Kayvon Zand, and others, with DJ sets by JD Samson, DJ R!C, and DJ Malakai. The shows begin with Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte’s Macadamia Nut Brittle, which is inspired by writings by Dennis Cooper and focuses on four characters in search of their identity. In Tadaku Takamine’s Kimura-San installation, the artist documents how he cared for a paraplegic, including sexually. In Auto + Batterie, David Wampach uses dissonant music, live drumming, extreme choreography, and whipped cream to bring together sound and movement. In Guintche, a drawing by Marlene Monteiro Freitas explodes into life and becomes unstoppable. Silvia Costa of Plumes dans la tête examines birth and not-birth in La Quiescenza del seme. Igor Josifov’s 2-Dimensional reconfigures performer and audience, as people walk over the Macedonian artist, who is trapped under a plexiglass structure. Body parts figure significantly throughout the festival; François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea look deep into “a reflection of the denial of the anus in dance” in Paquerette at the Invisible Dog in Brooklyn, while Biljana Kosmogina’s ‘P’ Campaign follows the exploits of the presidential candidate Vagina. And East Village Boys are hosting the art exhibit “For personal use” June 7-16 at the Impossible Project, with specially commissioned works by Mx Justin Vivian Bond, Jeff Hahn, Jayson Keeling, Josh McNey, and others.

TWI-NY TALK: RAQUEL CION

The Lounge at Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
Friday, June 8, free, 9:30
212-219-0736
www.dixonplace.org

Last Friday night, Raquel Cion packed the Lounge at Dixon Place for her latest show, Gilding the Lonely, billed as “An Evening of Cabaret” that explores being single in the big city. Accompanied by 3 Teens Kill 4 drummer Bill Gerstel and downtown pianist Lance Cruce, Cion, wearing a dazzling, form-fitting gown designed by David Quinn, goes through a repertoire of carefully chosen, mostly deep-cut ballads by David Bowie, Prince, the Rolling Stones, and Dwight Yoakam (!) while sharing personal stories about dating actors, being scarred for life by The Giving Tree, and needing to replace a lightbulb. Cion will be back at Dixon Place on June 8 at 9:30 for an encore presentation of Gilding the Lonely; get there early if you want to grab a seat.

twi-ny: You played to a packed house last Friday. Are you happy with how things went?

Raquel Cion: Very much so! It was a blast. The audience was so present. The Lounge at Dixon Place is such a great place to hone a show. Ellie Covan and her staff are very supportive of new work while giving artists such freedom. You work it out and just show up and do it. There’s a wonderful sense of trust in that. In 2010, I work-shopped another cabaret-esque show, Cou-Cou Bijoux: Pour Vous, in the Lounge. This past fall I ran into Ellie and she asked if I wanted to bring anything to the Lounge. I told her I had been throwing around some ideas for another cabaret and within a week we had booked the space even before anything on the creative side was created. Nothing like a deadline!

So, yeah, it was a blast. Working with Lance, Bill, and our amazing director, Hillary Spector, has been really great and, well, challenging. It’s NYC and we all have such packed schedules, so rehearsals were very limited. Bill did the first incarnation of the show this past December, so we had a context for the material. All of us come from such different backgrounds, stylistically and aesthetically. Bill’s a full-on kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll drummer but is incredibly sensitive to the emotional arc of the whole show and really provides a backbone to it. Lance comes from a more traditional cabaret background and has been valiant in dealing with much of the song selection, which required him to play by ear and make huge jumps between different styles of music and get them to flow together. Hillary and I come from the theater world. It’s quite the mix. So we had to find, and quickly, where those worlds intersected. I think those differing perspectives serve the show really well. Like with any show, you create your own language. Thankfully, the audience really could understand and connect deeply with our vernacular.

twi-ny: Your show deals with various aspects of loneliness. How do you think being lonely in New York City compares to loneliness in other places?

Raquel Cion explores loneliness in nontraditional cabaret show at Dixon Place (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Raquel Cion: Hmmm . . . I’ve lived some other places and uh, yeah, I think being lonely in NYC is different. Though loneliness is universal, no one is immune. But there is something about feeling lonely in New York that has its own particular flavor. Sometimes it feels like an everlasting gobstopper in how it can change flavor and how you gotta just suck it (up). We’re constantly in relationship with others, be they familiar or not. We’re so thrown together, and each one of us has such drive, be it personal, professional, or, hell, just getting on the train. The constant information of “others” for me can increase that feeling of loneliness. It’s perhaps that compare/despair thing that the twelve steppers speak of, that wanting that our wonderful but sometimes overwhelming city can set up for us or bring out in us. And it’s particular, what we want. Strangely enough, even though I have been wrestling big-time with these feelings of loneliness, I am fierce about getting time to be alone. I think that’s a New York thing, too. Carving out our particular world within the worlds of this city and, well, finding who can inhabit that world intimately with us isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially as one gets older. I don’t mean to sound trite, but I don’t think I’m alone in this.

twi-ny: You sometimes perform under your real name, Raquel Cion, and other times as your alter ego, Cou-Cou Bijoux. What are the differences between the two?

Raquel Cion: When I speak of Cou-Cou Bijoux it’s like she is her own person. She feels that way. To backtrack a bit, I’ve always loved to sing but was mostly an apartment singer. Yeah, it encompassed much more than the shower. Cou-Cou Bijoux was created with Katherine Valentine for her show The Va Va Voom Room. Coming as I said before from a theatrical background, singing from a character was much easier and got me singing in front of people. Which due to some horrible posttraumatic-college-voice-class-syndrome hadn’t happened in a long while. Cou-Cou was that character that let me be a singer because she is a singer and, well, she’s also a hot mess, so as she would say in her French accent, “everything is possible.”

So singing as myself has been a process, one that is still revealing itself to me in beautiful and unexpected ways. I still approach song from an acting perspective; that’s where it translates to me. Telling the story. Connecting emotionally. Singing as me is still a bit terrifying but incredibly satisfying. When I was in the process of creating this show and was flipping out about its structure, etc., a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you ask Cou-Cou about it? She knows how to put a show together.” Okay, now I just sound schizophrenic.

twi-ny: Although you refer to the show as “An Evening of Cabaret,” it has a decidedly rock-and-roll aesthetic, with cover versions of songs by David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, and Prince, among others. What do those artists bring to the loneliness table?

Raquel Cion: Damn, you found me out! Yeah, it’s not a traditional cabaret. I don’t know if I’d know how to do that, actually. I’m a ridiculously huge Bowie fan. His voice, his music, his presence in the world — see, told you — just immediately comfort me on such a deep level. So, when I’m feeling lonely or pretty much any feeling, Bowie both sends me and grounds me. In terms of that “no one is immune from loneliness” thing that I mentioned, all these great songwriters are able to sink down into those feelings and we go with them. When choosing songs for the show, they broke down into a few categories for me: those songs that present a vision of happily ever after, those songs that drive you deeper into loneliness, and the songs where there’s an equanimity in regard to the very human experience of loneliness. The songs actually encompass a few styles; there’s pop, rock, R&B, punk/wave, country, and a show tune, to name a few. They’re some of the songs I love and turn to when I’m feeling lonely. I’m very moved by the quality of singers’ voices. I’m also a sucker for melody and a good modulation. If I connect to the sound of someone’s voice, that’s pretty much it for me; I’m in and in for life.

twi-ny: Who are some of the other artists that have influenced you?

Raquel Cion: Wow, there are so many influences. Did I mention Bowie? (Tee hee.) Seriously, the list is endless and can go from things like Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam to Vladimir Nabokov. I’m a bit of a magpie.

twi-ny: Is it possible to be covered in more glitter than you were last Friday night?

Raquel Cion: As I said, I’m a bit of a magpie. I love sparkly things! But to answer your question, yes, yes, yes! There can always be more glitter. Just ask a Dazzle Dancer.