twi-ny recommended events

“NAKED” POLAR BEAR CRUISE

“Naked” Polar Bear Cruise on board the Circle Line raises funds for the Wildlife Conservation Society

Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises, Pier 83
West 42nd St. at 12th Ave.
Saturday, February 25, 10:30 am – 12 noon
Spectators $20, participants free
212-563-3200
www.circleline42.com

Founded in 1903 by the Father of Physical Culture, Bernarr Macfadden, the Coney Island Polar Bear Club celebrates each new year with its members jumping into the ocean on January 1, braving freezing cold weather conditions. But that’s not the only time those crazy old souls take off their clothes and luxuriate in bitter temperatures, which they believe have health benefits for the human body. On February 25, the CIPBC will join forces with the Wildlife Conservation Society for the fourth annual “Naked” Polar Bear Cruise aboard the Circle Line. It’s free to participate, although you are encouraged to solicit donations from friends and family, raising money for every minute you can remain in your bathing suit outside on the cruise ship, with prizes going to the man and woman who last the longest. (No, you will not be jumping into the Atlantic.) Once it gets too much for you, there will be hot chocolate waiting inside. It’s harder than you think; last year only a handful of people made it through the full hour. If you want to go along for the ride but not strip down to your bathing trunks or bikini, it’ll cost you twenty bucks, with all proceeds going to the WCS, which oversees the Bronx Zoo, the New York Aquarium, the Central Park Zoo, the Queens Zoo, and the Prospect Park Zoo.

FIRST SATURDAYS: BLACK MALES DEFYING STEREOTYPES

Chris Johnson and Hank Willis Thomas, with Kamal Sinclair and Bayeté Ross Smith, stills from “Question Bridge: Black Males,” multichannel video installation, 2012 (courtesy of the artists and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, February 4, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum turns its attention to Black History Month for its February First Saturdays program, focusing on the exhibition “Question Bridge: Black Males,” in which Hank Willis Thomas, Chris Johnson, Bayeté Ross Smith, and Kamal Sinclair traveled around the country interviewing 150 black men in a dozen locations and editing the results into a multiscreen video installation. On Saturday night there will be an Action Station where visitors can add their own questions on the topic of identity, a discussion with the creative team, pop-up dances by Renegade Performance Group inspired by the exhibit, an interactive workshop led by “Question Bridge” education director Samara Gaev, and a dance party with DJ Stormin’ Norman featuring songs by black men. In addition, there will be live music by Game Rebellion, curator Shantrelle P. Lewis will discuss her Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts exhibit “Dandy Lion: A Re(de)fined Black Masculine Identity,” hands-on art will help attendees create a mixed-media piece based on Kehinda Wiley’s work, museum guides will lead a tour about defying gender stereotypes, Daniel Bernard Roumain will play parts of his “Symphony for the Dance Floor” with Lord Jamar, Carla Peterson will discuss her book Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City, and the Brooklyn Circus will host a fashion runway show. And the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out “HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” “Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin,” “Raw/Cooked: Shura Chernozatonskaya,” “Newspaper Fiction: The New York Journalism of Djuna Barnes, 1913–1919,” “Work of Art: Kymia Nawabi,” and “19th-Century Modern.”

WIT

Cynthia Nixon gives a remarkably uplifting performance as a terminal cancer patient in Broadway premiere of WIT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Through March 11, $57-$121
witonbroadway.com

It might at first seem odd that a play about a stern forty-eight-year-old teacher obsessed with the Holy Sonnets of John Donne and dying of stage IV metastatic ovarian cancer is called Wit. But as it turns out, kindergarten teacher Margaret Edson’s only play, which was written in 1991, was first performed in 1995, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, and is now making its Broadway debut in a marvelous Manhattan Theatre Club production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, is extremely funny, as well as being emotionally involving and exceedingly intelligent. Tony and Emmy winner Cynthia Nixon beautifully embodies Dr. Vivian Bearing, an English professor who has agreed to participate in an experimental cancer program at a university teaching hospital. The gaunt woman, wearing a hospital gown, a red baseball cap, and white socks, begins the play by directly addressing the audience, explaining that she is in fact a character in a play in which people should not necessarily expect a happy ending. For the next one hundred minutes, Bearing goes through several medical examinations — which harken back to tests she gave her classes — regularly interrupting the action to talk to the audience, mixing an appealing irony and sarcasm into her very serious condition, which she describes as “insidious cancer with pernicious side effects.” Bearing is a fascinating, complex character, whether debating the punctuation of Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” (“And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die”) with her mentor, professor E. M. Ashford (Suzanne Bertish), discussing her options with nurse Susie Monahan (Cara Patterson), or dealing with young clinical fellow Dr. Jason Posner (Greg Keller), who has a lot to learn about bedside manner. Nixon is magnificent as Bearing, a role previously played onstage by Kathleen Chalfant and in an HBO movie by Emma Thompson; for all her eccentricities, Bearing should not be a sympathetic character, but Nixon turns the lonely, snarky woman, who has no real friends or family, into a delightful character who is not afraid to look death in the face. MTC artistic director Lynne Meadow guides the production with a steady, at times gleeful hand, with scenes cleverly changing via a revolving wall in the center of the stage. Nixon and Meadow, who are both breast cancer survivors, do a wonderful job of not allowing any overwrought melodrama to seep into Edson’s carefully composed, tightly constructed play, resulting in a mesmerizing exploration and even celebration of life, death, poetry, and the theater itself.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON CASSAVETES?

Mounira Al Solh’s “Dinosaurs” pays tribute to John Cassavetes at Art in General

Art in General
79 Walker St. between Broadway & Lafayette St.
Friday, February 3, 7:00
212-219-0473
www.artingeneral.org

Pioneering improvisational writer-director John Cassavetes, who made such searing, emotional, cinema vérité films as Shadows, Faces, Husbands, and A Woman Under the Influence, died on February 3, 1989, at the age of fifty-nine. Art in General will honor the influential auteur at a special program on the twenty-third anniversary of his death, “What’s your take on Cassavetes?” being held in conjunction with Mounira Al Solh’s new exhibition, “Dinosaurs,” a film installation inspired by four of Cassavetes’ character-driven works, Faces, Husbands, Opening Night, and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Al Solh will talk about and present clips from the four films, followed by a screening of the complete Faces, which stars Gena Rowlands, Seymour Casssel, John Marley, Fred Draper, and Val Avery and was added to the National Film Registry of the Library Congress last year. Also on view at Art in General right now are Katrin Sigurdardóttir’s “Stage” and Theresa Himmer’s “All State.”

FIRST FRIDAYS: THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975

Angela Davis speaks out about the Black Power movement in compelling documentary

THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 (Göran Hugo Olsson, 2011)
Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse at 166th St.
Friday, February 3, free, 6:00 – 10:00
Admission: free
718-681-6000
www.bronxmuseum.org
www.blackpowermixtape.com

From 1967 to 1975, a group of more than two dozen Swedish journalists came to America to document the civil rights movement. More than thirty years later, director and cinematographer Göran Hugo Olsson discovered hours and hours of unused 16mm footage — the material was turned into a program shown only once in Sweden and seen nowhere else — and developed it into The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, a remarkable visual and aural collage that focuses on the Black Panthers and the Black Power movement, a critical part of American history that has been swept under the rug. Olsson and Hanna Lejonqvist have seamlessly edited together startlingly intimate footage of such seminal figures as Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Stokely Carmichael, including a wonderfully personal scene in which Carmichael interviews his mother on her couch. But the star of the film is the controversial political activist Angela Davis, who allowed the journalists remarkable access, particularly in a jailhouse interview shot in color. (Most of the footage is in black and white.) Davis also adds contemporary audio commentary, sharing poignant insight about that tumultuous period, along with Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets, singer Erykah Badu, professor, poet, and playwright Sonia Sanchez, Roots drummer Ahmir Questlove Thompson (who also composed the film’s score with Om’Mas Keith), and rapper Talib Kweli, who discusses specific scenes in the film with a thoughtful grace and intelligence. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is an extraordinary look back at a crucial moment in time that has long been misunderstood, if not completely forgotten. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is screening on February 3 as part of the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ free First Fridays program honoring Black History Month and will be followed by a Q&A with coproducer Joslyn Barnes. There will also be performances by GIF, Latasha N. Nevada Diggs, Mahogany L. Browne, and M.C. K~Swift, and the galleries will remain open until 10:00, giving visitors plenty of time to check out the exhibition “Urban Archives: Emilio Sanchez in the Bronx” and the Acconci Studio long-term installation “Lobby-for-the-Time-Being.”

BILL MORRISON — A MODERN MASTER OF SILENT FILM: DECASIA

DECASIA (Bill Morrison, 2002)
World Financial Center Winter Garden
200 Vesey St.
Friday, February 3, free, 7:30
212-945-0505
www.artsworldfinancialcenter.com
www.billmorrisonfilm.com

Experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison’s production company is called Hypnotic Pictures, and for good reason; the Chicago-born, New York-based auteur makes mesmerizing, visually arresting works using archival found footage and eclectic soundtracks that are a treat for the eyes and ears. In conjunction with the upcoming theatrical release of his 2011 film The Miners’ Hymns at Film Forum next week, the World Financial Center is presenting “Bill Morrison: A Modern Master of Silent Film,” curated by WNYC’s John Schaefer as part of the “New Sounds Live: Silent Films/Live Music” series. The free four-night festival began Tuesday with a screening of The Miners’ Hymns, accompanied by a live score performed by the Wordless Music Orchestra, and continued Wednesday with Morrison’s latest, The Great Flood. Tonight features 2010’s award-winning Spark of Being, based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with the big finale on Friday, when Morrison’s masterpiece, Decasia, will be shown. Made in 2002, Decasia is about nothing less than the beginning and end of cinema. The sixty-seven-minute work features clips from early silent movies that are often barely visible in the background as the film nitrate disintegrates in the foreground, black-and-white psychedelic blips, blotches, and burns dominating the screen. The eyes at first do a dance between the two distinct parts, trying to follow the action of the original works as well as the abstract shapes caused by the filmstrip’s impending death, but eventually the two meld into a single unique narrative, enhanced by a haunting, compelling score by Bang on a Can’s Michael Gordon, which begins as a minimalist soundtrack and builds slowly until it reaches a frantic conclusion. The on-screen destruction might seem random, but it is actually carefully choreographed by Morrison, who wrote, directed, produced, and edited the film. As an added bonus, Decasia will be accompanied by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble performing Gordon’s score live, which should make for a senses-shattering experience.

JIN XING DANCE THEATRE SHANGHAI: SHANGHAI TANGO

Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai makes a very welcome return to the Joyce with SHANGHAI TANGO (photo by Angelo Palombini)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
January 31 – February 5, $10-$39
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org

Performing in New York City for the first time since undergoing gender reassignment surgery fifteen years ago, ballerina, choreographer, and People’s Liberation Army colonel Jin Xing leads her company, Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai, in a lyrical, beautiful, stirring show at the Joyce. Jin Xing — who was born to Korean parents in Shanghai in 1967, is married to a German man, and has three adopted children — fills Shanghai Tango with ten exquisite works from throughout her career. The show opens with Liu Minzi spinning around and around on her toes, a light shining on her from above, casting a holy glow as twelve dancers pick up flowing white robes that surround her, the spirit of dance gathering her disciples as Dead Can Dance’s “The Host of Seraphim” plays. It’s a captivating narrative that prepares the audience for an evening of gorgeous set pieces featuring colorful, elegant costumes designed by Jin Xing, an eclectic score with music by Johann Strauss, John Williams, Astor Piazzola, and Rene Aubry, a lovely, unique movement vocabulary that mixes modern dance with ballet, numerous references to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and a surprising sense of humor. In “Dance 02,” Dai Shaoting and Han Bin deliver a stunning pas de deux, spending much of the time with their backs on the floor, at one point Dai delicately balancing on Han with one leg on his chest and the other on his raised knee. In “Red Wine,” the male members of the company move around Jin Xing, who is seated in a chair, and ultimately give her the world’s biggest lap dance. In “Four Happiness,” Deng Mengna, Li Meilin, Liu Minzi, and Pang Kun dance on their knees all in a row, with Wang Peng’s lighting casting large shadows of the women on the back wall. In “Shanghai Tango,” Sun Zhuzhen, Han Bin, Wang Tao, and Liu Xianyi pose for an old-time family photo, but Sun is more interested in the man over her right shoulder than in her husband, who is sitting beside her. And all of that happens before intermission. The second act includes five more works that feature yet more dazzling costumes, breathtaking lifts, holds, and carries, sexy poses, a dazzling duet between Lu Ge and Liu Xianyi, such props as red fans, bicycles, and lilting sheets, and other inventive creations by Jin Xing and her remarkably talented company. Shanghai Tango, which continues at the Joyce through February 5 (with a postshow Dance Chat on February 1 and a preshow Dance Talk on February 2), marks the very welcome return of Jin Xing to New York; she’s been away far too long.