twi-ny recommended events

JESSICA LICHTENSTEIN: PLAY

Jessica Lichtenstein plays with the idea of sexuality and female empowerment in exhibition at gallery nine5

gallery nine5
24 Spring St. between Mott & Elizabeth Sts.
Extended through January 13, free
212-965-9995
www.gallerynine5.com
www.jessicalichtenstein.com

Taking on fetishism, commercialization, sexuality, infantilization, and reappropriation, New York City artist Jessica Lichtenstein celebrates female empowerment in her tantalizing exhibition “Play,” on view at gallery nine5 through January 13. Referencing such successful mass-produced artists as Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst as well as Playboy’s Vargas girls, Lichtenstein repurposes Japanese anime figurines and pages from erotic comic books, filling display cases with vignettes of highly sexualized dolls performing household duties like cleaning and cooking, exercising, and getting dressed. But what at first appears to be things that can be found in many toy shops turns out, upon closer inspection, to be collections of highly sexualized, scantily clad and/or topless women acting out common male fantasies, with such titles as “Ooh La La,” “Innocent Vixen,” “Lady Leisure,” “Naughty by Nature,” and “T.R.O.U.B.L.E.” The exhibition also features oversized text sculptures and lightboxes that depict the words “Play,” “Lust,” “Yum,” and “Bloom,” composed with colorful images from erotic cartoons, including a wild scene at a water park and on a fantastical planet and a different kind of cherry blossom tree on which one character invitingly declares, “Have a lot of fun with us.” There are also several chairs covered with Victorian-esque decoration that is also not what it first appears. Lichtenstein has compared the show to a Rorschach test, and that is an apt description, as visitors might find the objects on view titillating, silly, humorous, disgusting, insulting, enlightening, embarrassing, delightful — or any combination of those valid reactions.

FIRST SATURDAYS: OUT AND PROUD

Charles Demuth’s “Dancing Sailors” is part of “HIDE/SEEK” exhibition at Brooklyn Museum (courtesy Demuth Museum, Lancaster, Pennsylvania)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, January 7, 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 will be celebrating gay pride in its January First Saturday program, featuring a screening of Rent (Christopher Columbus, 2005) hosted by Peppermint, live performances by Nhojj, Ariel Aparicio, Melissa Ferrick, and 3 Teens Kill 4, an artist talk with Lyle Ashton Harris and a curator talk with Jonathan Katz about the exhibition “HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” live-model sketching, a dance party led by DJ Tikka Masala, a book club reading of Chulito by author Charles Rice-Gonzalez, an artist talk with Kymia Nawabi, the second-season winner of Bravo’s Work of Art, and a multimedia, interactive Brown Bear performance installation by A. K. Burns and Katherine Hubbard that includes free haircuts. Among the other special exhibitions on view are “Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties,” “Sanford Biggers: Sweet Funk — An Introspective,” “Lee Mingwei: ‘The Moving Garden,’” “Eva Hesse Spectres, 1960,” “Matthew Buckingham: ‘The Spirit and the Letter,’” and “ReOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio.”

TWI-NY TALK: DAN EFRAM — BRIAN ENO’S “HERE COME THE WARM JETS” LIVE

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St.
Sunday, January 8, $15, 9:30
212-967-7555
www.joespub.com
www.facebook.com

Brian Eno might be best known today for such ambient albums as Music for Films and Music for Airports and his production work for a diverse range of artists (U2, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay), but in the 1970s he made a series of seminal records that served as a kind of bridge between glam and prog rock and avant and experimental pop. After three years as a member of Roxy Music, Eno released the solo LPs Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy), Another Green World, and Before and After Science, all within a remarkable four-year period. On January 8 at Joe’s Pub, a group of musicians will gather together to pay tribute to Here Come the Warm Jets by doing something that Eno never did: Play every song from the album live. Initiated by recording engineer Rob Christiansen, produced by Dan Efram, and hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer, the event features an all-star band consisting of Vernon Reid, Travis Morrison, Sohrab Habibion, Paul Duncan, Joan Wasser, Dom Cipolla, and others re-creating Eno’s masterpiece, which was recorded with such guest musicians as Robert Fripp, Chris Spedding, Phil Manzanera, John Whetton, and Andy Mackay. The scorching guitars of “Baby’s on Fire” and “Blank Frank,” the electronic fun of “The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch” and “Driving Me Backwards,” and the sweet harmonies of “Cindy Tells Me” and “Some of Them Are Old” should fill Joe’s Pub with beautiful sounds, but don’t look for important messages in the lyrics, about which Eno, who came up with the words via scatlike nonsense syllables, has said, “Essentially all these songs have no meaning that I invested in them.” In preparation for what should be a great night, we’ve been listening to Here Come the Warm Jets repeatedly, just as we did in our college years, taking us back and lifting us away all over again. Efram, the founder and president of Tractor Beam and an adjunct professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, also has been having a blast with the record, as evidenced by this twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: What kind of personal associations do Here Come the Warm Jets and Brian Eno have for you?

Dan Efram: My first introduction to Eno was through his production work and only then became aware of his ambient compositions — à la Music for Airports and Music for Films. It was only when I started studying audio engineering myself that some of my musician friends turned me on to Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain, and Another Green World. Finding out that he had these extremely broad sensibilities was fascinating — with Warm Jets perhaps the most whimsical ear candy that I had come across.

twi-ny: So many amazing musicians played on the original record; how did you come up with the lineup that will be at Joe’s Pub? How closely will they be re-creating HCTWJ?

Dan Efram: Rob Christiansen, the musical director and a terrific, knowledgeable musician and engineer in his own right, has done a great job in trying to analyze the sounds of the original album. He’s taken great pains in order to figure out the sounds on the album, when the band should experiment and when to replicate. This balance is fun to watch!

We chose our lineup with the goal to represent the many different generations of musicians that are hardcore fans of the album and wanted to celebrate this album in the best spirit possible. As a coincidence, we realized that its fortieth anniversary was nearing and that we could help celebrate its legacy by giving fans this unique chance to experience it for themselves in a live setting. We can only hope that those in attendance get as much of a kick out of listening to it live as the musicians will have performing it for them.

twi-ny: Are there other classic albums, either by Eno or other artists, that you might want to tackle next?

Dan Efram: In early 2011, I was fortunate to produce Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers album live with musical director Chris Stamey, which really introduced me to the idea that some of these wonderful albums could have a life beyond their vinyl grooves, that people really wanted to experience some of these adventurous albums live — if the program was approached with the correct spirit. If all goes well on Sunday, we are hoping to try to perform Here Come the Warm Jets in selected markets in North America and Europe in 2013. With some good fortune, we have a shot.

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.