Yearly Archives: 2012

HILARY EASTON + COMPANY: THE CONSTRUCTORS

Hilary Easton celebrates her twentieth anniversary this week with two new shows at BAC

Baryshnikov Arts Center, Howard Gilman Performance Space
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
May 17-20, $20
212-868-4444
www.bacnyc.org
www.hilaryeaston.com

Native New Yorker Hilary Easton is celebrating her company’s twentieth anniversary in style this week at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The Manhattan-based dancer and choreographer will be presenting the world premiere of the evening-length piece The Constructors, which will be performed by Alexandra Albrecht, Michael Ingle, Joshua Palmer, Emily Pope-Blackman, and Sarah Young, with music by Mike Rugnetta, lighting by Kathy Kaufmann, and costumes by Madeleine Walach. The Constructors delves into the nature of collaboration through a series of kinetic tasks that break down the barrier between audience and performer. In addition, as a special bonus, on Thursday and Friday Easton will be performing a new solo, The Heart Is Like a Toboggan, with a costume by fashion designer Cynthia Rowley. An artists’ dialogue will follow the Sunday matinee, with Easton and her company discussing the making of The Constructors; ticket holders from any of the performances can attend the presentation for free.

NYPH ’12

DJ Spooky’s immersive “Sinfonia Antarctica” should be a highlight of the 2012 New York Photo Festival

NEW YORK PHOTO FESTIVAL 2012
powerHouse Arena (37 Main St.) and other locations throughout Dumbo
May 16-20, free – $20
nyph.at

The fifth annual New York Photo Festival takes place throughout Dumbo beginning with the vernissage May 16, followed by four days open to the general public. Although admission to all exhibits is free, a $15 ticket (in advance, $20 on-site) is good for presentations and receptions, food samples, and various local discounts. NYPH ’12 features four guest curators. Glenn Ruga’s “On the Razor’s Edge: Between Documentary and Fine Art Photography” consists of works by Bruce Davidson, Reza, Eugene Richards, Rina Castelnuovo, and Platon at powerHouse Arena. Also at pH Arena, Claude Grunitzky’s “The Curse and the Gift” looks at photography as a way of life, with work from Evangelia Kranioti, Irmelie Krekin, and Christian Witkin. At 56 Water St. and pH Arena, Amy Smith-Stewart’s “What Do You Believe In” collects multidisciplinary images from such artists as Jen DeNike, Hank Willis Thomas, Xaviera Simmons, and Daniel Gordon, examining at how photography is a forum for ideology. And DJ Spooky’s “Sinfonia Antarctica (The Book of Ice)” takes place out on the streets, with digital media, live performances, sculpture, and more. Satellite and affiliate shows include “Tokyo-Ga” and “PRC in NYC” at 111 Front St., “The Art of Documentary” at pH Arena, “Liberty and Justice (for All): A Global Photo Mosaic” honoring Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros at VII Gallery, Jeanette May and Jocelyn Chase’s “Creature Features” at A.I.R. Gallery, Rania Matar’s “A Girl and Her Room” at Umbrage Gallery, Andrew Frost’s “The Northeast Kingdom” at United Photo Industries, “Ken Rosenthal: Photographs 2001-2009” and “Vojtech V. Slama: Wolf’s Honey” at Klompching Gallery, “America” at Generation Gallery, and Robin Bowman’s “It’s Complicated ― The American Teenager” at spring. The festival will also host workshops, tutorials, gallery talks, lectures, book signings, and panel discussions; among the highlights are “What Do You Believe In” with Smith-Stewart, DeNike, Simmons, and Matthew Spiegelman (May 17, 3:00); “On the Razor’s Edge: Form and Content in Documentary Photography” with Ruga, Davidson, Lori Grinker, Platon, and Reza (May 17, 7:00); “The Curse and the Gift” with Grunitzky, Kranioti, Krekin, and Witkin (May 18, 3:00); an immersion experience by DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid (May 18, 8:00); “Tokyo-Ga” with Naoko Ohta, Haruna Kawanishi, Yasutaka Kojima, and Corinne Tapia (May 19, 2:00); and Adriana Teresa in conversation with Erin Trieb (May 19, 3:00).

BIG DANCE THEATER: COMME TOUJOURS HERE I STAND

Big Dance Theater reinvents Varda classic onstage in multimedia production

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
May 16-19, $15-$30, 7:30
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.bigdancetheater.org

Agnès Varda’s 1961 Nouvelle Vague classic, Cléo from 5 to 7, is as much about filmmaking as it is about its subject, a small-time chanteuse wandering the streets of Paris as she fearfully awaits the results of a biopsy. New York-based Big Dance Theater, under the artistic direction of husband-and-wife team Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, reinvents the seminal real-time film onstage in the vastly entertaining Comme Toujours Here I Stand. Turning the process itself into the narrative, BDT creates a multimedia mix of dance, music, and video centered around the making of the film, with a diva star playing the diva star. Parson and Lazar, who based the production on Varda’s screenplay — they didn’t watch the movie itself until things were well under way — brilliantly incorporate a wonderful set featuring three vertical multipurpose screens and a rolling staircase, along with original songs by Robyn Hitchcock. Evoking New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard, much of the action takes place in between shots, “off camera,” involving the cast and crew, focusing on Cléo’s ever-more-frustrated costars, one of whom is in a continuing phone drama with her boyfriend. Fans of the film won’t be disappointed — BDT includes all the familiar scenes, from visits to a fortune-teller and a hat shop to a musical interlude with Cléo’s pianist and a walk in the park with a poetic soldier. Refreshingly, Comme Toujours Here I Stand, which was first presented at the Kitchen in October 2009 and will now be performed May 16-19 at New York Live Arts, also maintains Varda’s focus on women’s experience and interaction with each other. (There will be a preshow talk on May 16 with Brian Rogers and a postshow talk May 18 with Cathy Edwards.)

GRAND ILLUSION

Jean Renoir’s GRAND ILLUSION is celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary with a brand-new 35mm print screening at Film Forum

GRAND ILLUSION (Jean Renoir, 1937)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Through May 24
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

If you’ve never seen this remarkable cinematic achievement, prepare to be overwhelmed by Jean Renoir’s antiwar masterpiece, screening through May 24 at Film Forum in an all-new 35mm restored print in honor of the film’s seventy-fifth anniversary. The first foreign film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, Grand Illusion is set in a POW camp during WWI, where everyman pilot Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin), by-the-book Captain de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay), lovable Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), and others are being held by the aristocratic Captain von Rauffenstein (an unforgettable Erich von Stroheim). Proclaimed “cinematic public enemy no. 1” by Joseph Goebbels, Grand Illusion takes on anti-Semitism, class structure, and religion in addition to war, a humanist film that is as relevant as ever seventy-five years after its initial release. Illustrator Paul Davis will be at Film Forum on May 15 following the 7:45 show to sign copies of his specially created poster celebrating the anniversary.

VIDEO OF THE DAY ― VIOLENS: “ALL NIGHT LOW”

On its new album, True (Slumberland, May 15, 2012), Brooklyn-based trio Violens takes a major leap forward from its 2010 full-length debut, Amoral. Featuring multi-instrumentalist Jorge Elbrecht, Iddo Arad on synths and guitar, and Myles Matheny on bass, with Will Berman adding drums, Violens creates soaring, harmonic ’80s-style pop that recalls Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet, and New Order on such songs as “Totally True,” “Der Microarc,” and “Melting,” then turning more aggressive on the propulsive “Lavender” and “All Night Low.” Violens will be holding an album release party on May 16 at (le) poisson rouge with Kuroma and the New Lines.

KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: KING AND THE CLOWN

Korean smash KING AND THE CLOWN is based on the Royal Records of the Chosun Dynasty

EPIC ROMANCE: KING AND THE CLOWN (WANG-UI NAMJA) (Lee Jun-ik, 2009)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, May 15, free, 7:00
Series runs every other Tuesday through June 19
212-759-9550
www.koreanculture.org
www.tribecacinemas.com

Adapted from Kim Tae-woong’s award-winning play Yi (You) and inspired by the Royal Records of the Chosun Dynasty, Lee Jun-ik’s historical epic, King and the Clown, was a critical and popular smash in Korea despite its homosexual subtext. In the early sixteenth century, a troupe of traveling minstrels is making its way across the country when Jang-saeng (Kam Wu-seong) decides that he no longer wants Gong-gil (Lee Jun-ki), an androgynous member of the group who plays all the sexy female characters, to be pimped out to towns’ local leaders. After a deadly fight, the two clowns are on the run, soon taking up with another small troupe and getting arrested for mocking King Yeonsan (Jeong Jin-yeong) and his mistress, Jang Noksu (Kang Seong-yeon). Facing execution, they are saved when the king takes a liking to them, and especially to Gong-gil. But as they continue to stage routines criticizing important ministers and other VIPs, they make high-ranking enemies and once again find their lives in danger. While the first half of King and the Clown tends to be a bit goofy, it sets up the masterfully told second half, an intense, compelling combination of love, fear, politics, and power. Jeong is excellent as Yeonsan, capturing the yin-yang of a leader trying to break free of his late father’s far-reaching grasp, laughing at the clowns one moment, brutally killing someone the next. Lee is alluring as Gong-gil, a beautiful boy uncomfortable with his role but willing to do whatever is asked of him. But the film’s centerpiece is Kam as Jang-saeng, a confident, forward-thinking, risk-taking performer who believes in justice, honor, and creative and personal freedom. King and the Clown is screening for free May 15 at Tribeca Cinemas as part of the Korean Cultural Service film series “Epic Romance,” which continues June 5 with Kim Dae-woo’s Forbidden Quest and June 19 with Kim Yong-gyun’s The Sword with No Name.

BELLA GAIA

Art and science converge in multimedia BELLA GAIA

BEAUTIFUL EARTH: A POETIC VISION OF EARTH FROM SPACE
Eyebeam Art & Technology Center
540 West 21st St. between 10th & 11th Aves.
May 15-16, $25-$30, 8:00
www.bellagaia.com
eyebeam.org

Composer, director, and violinist Kenji Williams has been touring the world with Bella Gaia: A Poetic Vision of Earth from Space an immersive multimedia exploration of the planet as seen by astronauts. Produced in association with NASA, Bella Gaia, which translates as “Beautiful Earth,” features an eight-piece ensemble performing live in front of a large-screen backdrop showing views of Earth, with Deep Singh on tabla, vocals, and percussion, Yumi Kurosawa on koto, Lety Ellaggar on nay and sax, Kristin Hoffmann on vocals and keyboards, and Williams on violin and laptop, with dance by Irina Akulenko, Lale Sayoko, and Kaeshi Chai. Bella Gaia comes to Eyebeam Art & Technology Center for two shows on May 15 and 16 at 8:00, taking viewers on a fantastical and environmental journey across land, sea, and sky, a “living atlas” that travels from the Amazon to the Arctic, revealing natural beauty and man-made wonders as the Anthropocene continues. “Bella Gaia shows you how humans and nature are connected, and how art and science are connected,” Williams explains. “Itʼs an exploration of the relationship between human civilization and our ecosystem.”