twi-ny recommended events

NEW YORK DANCE PARADE

Myriad forms of dance are celebrated at annual parade (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Parade: Broadway & 21st St. to Tompkins Square Park, 1:00
DanceFest: Tompkins Square Park, 3:00 – 7:00
Saturday, May 19, free
www.danceparade.org
dance parade 2011 slideshow

The sixth annual New York Dance Parade gets its groove on this Saturday, when some six thousand dancers will perform sixty different movement styles beginning at 1:00 at Broadway and 21st St. and continuing down to Tompkins Square Park, where DanceFest takes over from 3:00 to 7:00, with live performances, workshops, demonstrations, information booths, special presentations, and other activities, followed by an after-party at Webster Hall. This year’s grand marshals are former ABT prima ballerina Ashley Tuttle, innovative choreographer Elisa Monte, “disability-based utilitarianism” mastermind Bill Shannon, and DJ and music producer Jonathan “JP” Peters. The parade started as a response to New York’s antiquated Cabaret Law, which in 1926 held that dance was not a form of artistic expression and was not protected by the Second Amendment. The event’s mission is “to promote dance as an expressive and unifying art form by showcasing all forms of dance, educating the general public about the opportunities to experience dance, and celebrating diversity of dance in New York City.” Among this year’s participants are Argentine Tango Dancers of Greater New York City, Bellydance America’s Bellydance Raks Stars, Body & Pole/Pole Riders, Brasileirando, Broadway Bodies, Carmen Caceres & Unsteady Collective, Cheer New York, Cumbe: Center for African and Diaspora Dance, Dance New Amsterdam, Dhoonya Dance, El Teatro Rodante Hispanico, Elea Gorana Dance, Hoboken Hip Hop, Inner Spirit Dance Company, Korean Traditional Music and Dance Institute, Liberated Movement, Lori Belilove and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company, Metropolidance, Mortal Beasts & Deities, NY Hustle Flash Mob, Smoothskate Entertainment, Sophisticated Veil Dancers, SwiShwiSh Dance, Warriors, Xquisite Cadavers, Zouk Nation, and many more.

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW is a luridly delightful throwback to the midnight movies of yore

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (Panos Cosmatos, 2011)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, May 18
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.magnetreleasing.com

Writer-director Panos Cosmatos’s debut feature is a creepy homage to those rainy Saturday afternoon low-budget horror movies of the 1970s. Paying tribute to such films as John Carpenter’s Dark Star, Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm, Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, and even Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cosmatos has created a mysterious psychological thriller set in a futuristic past, going from 1983 to 1966, with cinematographer Norm Li alternating between black-and-white scenes to a world bathed in a lurid red, ruled by a cosmic white pyramid. Michael Rogers, sporting the best hairstyle this side of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, stars as Barry Nyle, a psychiatrist whose only patient, kept trapped in a padded cell, is Elena (Eva Allan), a frightened young woman trying to regain control of her life — something that Nyle is not about to allow. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a head trip of a flick, a midnight movie with a thumping electronic score by Sinoia Caves, wonderfully cheesy production design by Bob Bottieri, and some classically inexplicable moments filled with strange close-ups, blurry visions, and appropriately substandard acting. Just listening to Nyle breathe deep and heavy is a hoot. We have no idea what the movie is about, but that didn’t detract from our enjoyment of it; in fact, it might have helped.

NEVER STAND STILL

Documentary celebrates the long history of Jacob’s Pillow as a mecca for dance (photo by Christopher Duggan)

NEVER STAND STILL: DANCING AT JACOB’S PILLOW (Ron Honsa, 2011)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St.
May 18-24
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
firstrunfeatures.com

In conjunction with the eightieth anniversary of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Ron Honsa has made Never Stand Still, a documentary that celebrates the long history of the national historic landmark dedicated to the art of movement. Narrated by Bill T. Jones, the seventy-five-minute documentary looks back at the founding of the Pillow, located in Becket, Massachusetts, through exciting archival footage of Ted Shawn and his wife, Ruth St. Denis, Shawn’s all-male troupe, and the construction of the first American theater dedicated specifically to dance. Honsa speaks with such legendary dancers and choreographers as Merce Cunningham, Suzanne Farrell, Mark Morris, Judith Jamison, Paul Taylor, and Marge Champion, who all discuss the importance of the Pillow as a nurturing creative mecca that continues to bring performers and audiences together from all over the world. “It was a place where people could, quietly or not, think differently and act differently,” Cunningham says in one of his last interviews. Gideon Obarzanek calls the Pillow “one of the few places you can come and really feel and understand the past in order to move into the future.” Honsa focuses on a series of companies and creators as they rehearse and perform at Jacob’s Pillow, including Obarzanek’s Chunky Move, Rasta Thomas and Bad Boy Dance, solo artist Shivantala Shivalingappa, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Jens Rosén and Stockholm 59° North, Nikolaj Hübbe and the Royal Danish Ballet, and Bill Irwin, who pays tribute to the movement skills of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Honsa (The Men Who Danced) gives equal time to the past, present, and future of dance, incorporating classical, modern, contemporary, hip-hop, experimental, ballet, and other styles and genres, playing no favorites. The film runs May 18-24 at the Quad; Honsa and special guests will participate in a Q&A following the 6:15 screening on opening night.

POLISSE

POLISSE follows a Child Protection Unit as it performs its daily duties in Paris

POLISSE (Maïwenn, 2011)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, May 18
www.sundanceselects.com

Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for thirteen Césars, Polisse is an intimate portrait of the men and women who work in the Child Protection Unit of a Paris police precinct. After seeing a television documentary about the CPU, French writer-director-producer-actress Maïwenn (Le bal des actrices, Pardonnez-moi) spent time with the team, basing the screenplay, which she wrote with Emmanuelle Bercot, on her own experiences as well as the stories she heard while embedded with the plainclothes officers. Maïwenn plays a fictionalized version of herself in the film, starring as Mélissa, a young woman who has been embedded with the CPU, taking photographs of the unit in the station house, out on calls, and even in their off time. Polisse does a fabulous job depicting the myriad intricacies of investigating claims of child abuse and pedophilia, showing how careful the team must be when speaking with the children as well as the adults, knowing that the slightest misunderstanding could result in devastating circumstances. Maïwenn includes only bits and pieces of the interrogations, placing the audience in the position of wondering what the truth is and understanding how hard it is to make those decisions. The first half of Polisse is absolutely gripping, but the second half gets bogged down in the soap-opera relationships of the members of the unit as well as a special detail they get assigned to that makes little sense. The large cast, which also features Karin Viard, Joeystarr, Marina Foïs, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Karole Rocher, Frédéric Pierrot, Frédéric Pierrot, and Bercot as Sue Ellen, do a terrific job creating the camaraderie among the officers, from supporting one another to going out drinking to getting into serious arguments, like an extended family that, in this case, spends much of its time investigating dangerous problems in other families.

WES ANDERSON’S WORLDS: THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS is part of Wes Anderson festival at Museum of the Moving Image

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (Wes Anderson, 2001)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, May 19, and Sunday, May 20, 6:30, free with museum admission of $10
Series runs May 18-27
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

In his hysterical 2001 black comedy The Royal Tenenbaums, eclectic indie auteur Wes Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox) created one of the kings of dysfunctional film families. Directly inspired by J. D. Salinger’s Glass clan (Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beam), the Tenenbaums of New York City have more than their fair share of distress. After being kicked out of the house for being a lousy father and husband, Royal (Gene Hackman) returns, claiming he is dying of stomach cancer. His wife, noted archaeologist Etheline (Anjelica Huston), is now seeing her accountant, the straitlaced Henry Sherman (Danny Glover). Finance wiz Chas (Ben Stiller) is having difficulty getting over his wife’s death in a plane crash, becoming absurdly overprotective of his two young sons’ (Grant Rosenmeyer and Jonah Meyerson) safety. Tennis prodigy Richie (Luke Wilson) is recovering from a very public breakdown and soon has to admit to himself that he is madly in love with his adopted playwright sister, Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is married to strange neurologist Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) and having an affair with longtime family friend and Western novelist Eli Cash (cowriter Owen Wilson). Narrated by Alec Baldwin, The Royal Tenenbaums completed an impressive opening hat trick from Anderson, who had previously made Bottle Rocket (1996) and Rushmore (1998). The marvelously funny flick is screening May 19 & 20 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Wes Anderson’s Worlds,” which is being held in conjunction with the opening of Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom. The festival begins May 18 with Rushmore and continues through May 27 with screenings of all of his feature-length films, each of which will include a video introduction from Anderson.

WES ANDERSON’S WORLDS: RUSHMORE

Jason Schwartzman is a different kind of teenager caught up in an adult world in Wes Anderson’s RUSHMORE

RUSHMORE (Wes Anderson, 1998)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, May 18, free with museum admission of $10, 7:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
rushmoreacademy.com

In conjunction with the opening of Wes Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom, which hits theaters May 25, the Museum of the Moving Image is hosting a retrospective of all six of the native Texan’s previous feature-length films, beginning May 18 with Rushmore, a dazzlingly dark, sublime masterpiece. Anderson created one of the all-time great quirky indie characters in Max Fischer, played with relish by Jason Schwartzman. Max is a troubled genius at the private Rushmore Academy, where his eccentricities make him somewhat of an outcast. His best friend is wealthy iconoclast Herman Blume (Bill Murray in a career-redefining role), but their relationship turns sour when it becomes apparent that they both have their hearts set on beautiful teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). A unique take on disaffected youth, Rushmore, which also features such Anderson regulars as Luke Wilson and Seymour Cassel and was cowritten by Owen Wilson, helped launch a new wave of American independent cinema with its offbeat narrative and eclectic soundtrack, which includes songs by Donovan, the Rolling Stones, Django Reinhardt, Cat Stevens, Yves Montand, and the Faces, along with original material by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh. Rushmore is screening May 18 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Wes Anderson’s Worlds,” which continues through May 27 with screenings of Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited, each of which will include a video introduction from Anderson. In addition, Anderson has chosen to show Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons as a film that inspired him.

A GREAT NIGHT IN HARLEM

The eleventh annual Great Night in Harlem takes place May 17 at the Apollo with another all-star lineup

Apollo Theater
253 West 125th St.
Thursday, May 17, $55-$1500, 7:00
212-245-3999 ext10
jazzfoundation.org
www.apollotheater.org

On August 12, 1958, fifty-seven jazz musicians and singers posed for what became an iconic photograph taken by Art Kane for Esquire. Among the legends gathered in front of 17 East 126th St. were Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Marian McPartland, Milt Hinton, Maxine Sullivan, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, and Thelonius Monk. For the last ten years, that austere occasion has been honored at the annual Great Night in Harlem concert, a gala fundraiser for the Jazz Foundation of America’s Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund, which is dedicated to helping older jazz and blues musicians in crisis. The eleventh annual Great Night in Harlem takes place May 17 at the Apollo Theater with another fabulous all-star lineup produced by Hal Willner, with live performances by Macy Gray. Dr. John, Randy Weston, Bono, Bettye LaVette, Paquito D’Rivera, George Wein, the Rebirth Brass Band, the Treme Brass Band, David Johansen, Stanley Jordan, Sweet Georgia Brown, Essie Mae, John D. Holeman, Lakecia Benjamin, Grace Kelly, Bill Saxton, Steven Bernstein, Curtis Fowlkes, Don Byron, James Carter, Craig Handy, Victor Lewis, Geri Allen, Mark Whitfield, Art Baron, Jerry Dodgien, Kenny Davis, Ambrose Akinmusire, Frank Greene, Ray Anderson, and many others. In addition, Darrell Hammond will provide the comic relief; don’t be surprised if he turns in a “Bill Clinton at the Apollo” routine. This year’s gala, which seeks to raise $1.6 million, is presenting the Dr. Billy Taylor Humanitarian Award to Claude Nobs, one of the founders of the Montreux Jazz Festival.