twi-ny recommended events

GENERATED@WAVEHILL: BRANCH DANCES AT WAVE HILL

Merián Soto’s BRANCH DANCES will incorporate winter into site-specific performance January 7 at Wave Hill

Wave Hill
West 249th St. at Independence Ave.
Saturday, Jnauary 7, free with grounds admission of $8, 3:00
718-549-3200
www.wavehill.org
www.branchdances.blogspot.com

As part of the generated@wavehill project, Puerto Rico–born choreographer Merián Soto is in the midst of a commissioned twelve-month residency at Wave Hill, one of the city’s most beautiful oases. Branch Dances consists of four seasonal site-specific performances on the grounds of Wave Hill, the public gardens and cultural center in the Bronx that started life as William Lewis Morris’s country home in 1843. The Philadelphia-based Soto, who earned degrees from NYU and Columbia, is up to the second section of Branch Dances, taking place on Saturday at 3:00, with dancers Beau Hancock, Shavon Norris, Jumatatu Poe, Olive Prince, and Marion Ramirez and percussionist Robert (Tigger) Benford incorporating winter into their organic movements. On her blog, Soto explains, “The branch dances are slow, meditative works designed as performance frames for an improvisational movement practice I have been developing since 2005. Focusing attention on connecting somatic, energetic, and mental processes, the dances with branches are centered on consciousness in action, in performance, in practice. The work involves the practice of moving into stillness; the detailed sequencing of movement through inner pathways; the investigation of gravity through dynamic shifting into balance and alignment; and the investigation of speed including very slow movement approaching stillness.” The forecast is for clear skies with temperatures in the forties, with the sun setting at 4:43. If you go a little early, admission to the grounds is free from 9:00 am to 12 noon, so you can take your time checking out the greenhouse, the Glyndor Gallery, and the conservatory, where you’ll find such blooming plants as the golden mimosa, canary bellflower, evolvulus, flame vine, and paintbrush lily.

WINTER RESTAURANT WEEK

Monday – Friday, January 16 – February 10
Prix-fixe lunch $24.07, dinner $35
www.nycgo.com/restaurantweek

Reservation lines are now open for Winter Restaurant Week, with hundreds of eateries offering $24.07 lunches and/or $35 dinners participant in the popular event’s twentieth year, including 10 Downing Food & Wine, ‘21’ Club, 5 Ninth, Artisanal, B. Smith’s, Barbetta, Boulud Sud, Capsouto Frères, City Crab, Estiatorio Milos, I Trulli, Les Halles, Lure Fishbar, Maze, Megu, Mercer Kitchen, Nice Matin, the Palm, Petrossian, Quality Meats, Red Rooster Harlem, the Russian Tea Room, Shun Lee Palace, Steak Frites, TAO, Tribeca Grill, the Water Club, Wildwood Barbecue, and so many others. As an added bonus, if you use your American Express card on three or more Restaurant Week meals, you’ll get a $20 statement credit. As always, be sure to check your desired location online, since many of the restaurants post exactly what the special menu consists of so you know just what treats you’re in for.

SON OF PONY: ANNUAL BUKOWSKI TRIBUTE READING

Fourth annual Bukowski tribute takes place January 6 at Cornelia St. Cafe

Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia St. between West Fourth & Bleecker Sts.
Friday, January 6, $7 (includes free drink), 6:00 – 8:00
212-989-9319
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

If the massive New Year’s Day marathons at the Poetry Project and the Bowery Poetry Club were a little too much for you to take all at once, the Cornelia Street Cafe is holding its fourth annual tribute to the rather iconoclastic, eclectic, and iconic Charles Bukowski, author of such books as Factotum, Barfly, Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window, Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, and Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit. Hosted by Kat Georges, the evening includes poetry readings and performances by Peter Carlaftes, Thomas Fucaloro, Angelo Verga, George Wallace, and Ron Singer, videos of Bukowski, prizes, book giveaways, and, appropriately, one free drink with admission. Also appropriately, a post on the bukowski.net forum notes that this is “an event that would have made Bukowski wretch.” And if you want to read your own favorite piece by Bukowski or your own poem inspired by the writer, you can sign up to participate as well, but you need to get there before six.

LIVE ARTERY

Juliana F. May / MAYDANCE will present GUTTER GATE during Live Artery festival at New York Live Arts

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
January 6-8, advance reservations required
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org

In conjunction with this week’s APAP/NYC 2012 Conference, New York Live Arts is hosting “Live Artery,” an exciting series of performances consisting of previously featured pieces and works in progress. Taking place January 6-8 in the David R. White Studio, Jerome Robbins Studio, and Bessie Schönberg Theater, the mini-festival includes Juliana F. May / MAYDANCE’s Gutter Gate, Jodi Melnick’s Solo, Deluxe version, Reggie Wilson’s theREVISITATION, Yasuko Yokoshi’s Bell,, David Neumann’s Restless Eye,, Levi Gonzalez’s intimacy, and Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company presenting excerpts from Story/Time, Body Against the Body, and D-Man in the Waters. During the weekend, the Live Lounge in the lobby will offer complimentary wine and snacks, free WiFi, and a place for performers, presenters, fans, and others to congregate.

Update: First presented at Dance Theater Workshop in February 2011, Juliana F. May / MAYDANCE’s Gutter Gate made an extremely welcome return January 6-7 to the space, now known as New York Live Arts, as part of the annual APAP/NYC Conference. With the audience sitting in a single row of folding chairs on three sides of the stage, Ben Asriel, Madeline Best, Anna Carapetyan, Eleanor Smith, and Maggie Thom emerge in the center with chairs of their own, Joan Baez’s rollicking country cover of Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate” playing on the soundtrack, begining a thrilling sixty minutes of abstract movement inspired by Aristotle’s theories of causality and necessity. The dancers remove the chairs and run around the floor individually and in unison, removing parts of their clothing as they stop, pause, approach the audience, break off into pairs, put their clothing back on, then take it off again. Soon they are making guttural sounds that threaten to cross the line into questionable performance art but always manage to stay on track as the dancers’ communicate with one another and the audience via different forms of verbal and physical language, including flopping breasts and penis and Thom’s darting eyes, which perform a dance all their own. The movements are beautiful, devolving into ever-more elemental gestures, coinciding with Chris Seeds’s electronic score, which eventually fades into silence.

PROFESSIONAL BULL RIDERS MADISON SQUARE GARDEN INVITATIONAL

Colby Yates and Luke Snyder prepare for Garden event by going to the top of the Empire State Building last month (photo by Brad Barket)

Madison Square Garden
31st to 33rd Sts. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
January 6-8, $15-$205
800-732-1727
www.thegarden.com
www.pbrnow.com

The World’s Most Famous Arena is promoting this year’s Professional Bull Riders Madison Square Garden Invitational as “three snot-spewing, bone-crushing, adrenaline-soaked performances,” and that pretty much gets right to the point of this heated competition that starts the new year in a wild and woolly way. While the feared Bushwacker recovers from successful arthroscopic surgery, such other bulls as Shaky Waters, Buckshot, Mean Machine, La Grange, Frost Bite, Yellow Dog, Complete Debacle, and John Doe will try to throw such riders as Cord McCoy, Kody Lostroh, Ryan Dirteater, Cody Nance, Douglas Duncan, Paulo Lima, Stormy Wing, and 2011 MSG Invitational champion Valdiron de Oliveira off their backs in less than eight seconds. The sixth annual event also includes meet and greets with Lima, de Oliveira, and Duncan at the Garden’s mall entrance, an autograph session at the Penn Station K-Mart, and a fan club breakfast at Niles.

FIRST LOOK

Chantal Akerman’s ALMAYER’S FOLLY will kick off Museum of the Moving Image’s “First Look” series on Friday night

Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
January 6-15, opening night $15, all other films free with museum admission, series pass $40
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Curators Dennis Lim, Rachael Rakes, and David Schwartz have put together an impressive lineup of films for the Museum of the Moving Image’s inaugural “First Look” series, amassing a wide range of international works from established and emerging directors. The thirteen-film festival gets under way January 6 at 7:00 with Chantal Akerman on hand to screen and talk about her latest, Almayer’s Folly (La folie Almayer), based on Joseph Conrad’s first novel, followed by a reception. Other screenings that will be presented by filmmakers include Mark Jackson’s psychological thriller, Without (January 7, 5:00), with star Joslyn Jensen and photojournalist Jessica Dimmock joining him; Gonçalo Tocha’s It’s the Earth Not the Moon (January 8, 2:30), shot on the remote island of Corvo; Philippe Grandrieux’s It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi and Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt’s Palaces of Pity (Palácios de Pena) (January 8, 7:00, Schmidt in person); Valérie Massadian’s Nana and Lisandro Alonso’s Untitled (Letter to Serra) (January 14, 5:00, Massadian in person); Gastón Solnicki’s Argentine family portrait Papirosen (January 15, 2:30); and Raya Martin’s Buenas Noches, España, Ars Colonia, and Boxing in the Philippine Islands (January 15, 7:30). All screenings include access to the museum’s exhibits, which currently feature “Surviving Life: Collages by Jan Svankmajer,” “Ming Wong: Persona Performa Panorama,” “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World,” and the permanent shows “Behind the Screen” and “Tut’s Fever, 1986-88.”

AMERICAN REALNESS

After delighting audiences at BAM, John Jasperse’s CANYON will celebrate the thrill of the dance at Abrons Arts Center (photo by Tony Orrico)

Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
January 5-15, Show & Tell free, other performances $15
212-352-3101
www.abronsartscenter.org

No, it’s not yet another reality show. “American Realness” is an eleven-day live performance festival that offers fans of contemporary dance, music, and theater an opportunity to catch productions they might have missed as well as the chance to see works in progress scheduled to debut later this year. Held at Abrons Arts Center in conjunction with the Association of Performing Arts Presenter’s Conference, “American Realness” features second looks at such 2011 works as John Jasperse’s Canyon, which celebrates the thrill of the dance while ostensibly being about nothing; Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey’s Tool Is Loot, the result of a yearlong investigation into collaboration; Jack Ferver and Michelle Mola’s Me, Michelle, about ego and power in the form of Cleopatra; and Eleanor Bauer’s (Big Girls Do Big Things), a solo in which Bauer goes through a series of metamorphoses. The festival also includes the New York premiere of Laura Arrington’s Hot Wings, which examines feminine identity; the U.S. premiere of Daniel Linehan’s Montage for Three, in which two dancers re-create images from found photographs; Trajal Harrell’s Antigone Jr., the next stage of his “Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church”; and the pairing of Ishmael Houston-Jones’s mean Cait: a fairytale in progress and Yvonne Meier’s Mad Heidi. The free “Show & Tell” section (advance RSVP required) includes such conversations as “Why a dramaturge?” with Reggie Wilson and Susan Manning and “Surfacing & Song-Based Performance” with Holcombe Waller, Cynthia Hopkins, and Miguel Gutierrez in addition to sneak peeks at such works in progress as Big Dance Theater’s Ich, KürbisGeist, Luciana Achugar’s FEELingpleasuresatisfactioncelebrationholyFORM, and Keith Hennessy’s Turbulence (a dance about the economy).