Maria Hassabi premiered SOLO at FIAF’s 2009 Crossing the Line Festival
Saturday, September 17, Crossing the Line Festival: Fiction & Non-Fiction, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, 972 Fifth Ave., free, 212-355-6100, 2:30 – 6:00
SHOW: The Kitchen, 512 West 19th St., November 3-5, $15, 212-255-5793, 8:00
www.fiaf.org/crossingtheline
www.thekitchen.org
www.mariahassabi.com
In such recent productions as Solo and SoloShow, dancer and choreographer Maria Hassabi has displayed a remarkable dexterity, her lithe body interacting with a rolled-up carpet or dangling off the edge of a black platform. When we saw her listed on the French Institute Alliance Française’s website as one of the participants of the free “Fiction & Non-Fiction” kickoff to the 2011 Crossing the Line Festival on September 17, we immediately scheduled an interview with her. Alas, in checking the website later, her scheduled site-specific performance around the Cultural Services of the French Embassy building on Fifth Ave. had disappeared. Does that mean the Cyprus-born Hassabi won’t be participating? Even without her, the lineup is extremely impressive, with works by Trajal Harrell & Perle Palombe, Kimberly Bartosik, Raimund Hoghe & Takashi Ueno, Roderick Murray, and others. (Be sure to get a drink at Prune Nourry’s “Spermbar.”) We’re still holding out hope that Hassabi, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and a New Yorker since 1994, has something special planned for the afternoon, which runs from 2:30 to 6:00.
This year’s Crossing the Line Festival, which continues through October 17, also features Nick van Woert’s “Terra Amata” exhibition at the FIAF Gallery, Xavier le Roy’s “More Mouvements für Lachenmann” at Florence Gould Hall, Bartosik’s “i like penises: a little something in 24 acts” at Danspace Project, Sophie Calle’s free site-specific “Room” installation at the Lowell Hotel, and Rachid Ouramdane’s “Ordinary Witnesses” and “World Fair” at New York Live Arts. Hassabi is definitely scheduled to present the world premiere of her latest piece, SHOW, November 3-5 at the Kitchen. Whether or not she’ll be part of tomorrow’s fête, we’re still delighted that she answered some questions for us, even if she did skip over the one about what she was planning for “Fiction & Non-Fiction.”
twi-ny: What is it that draws you to the Crossing the Line Festival?
Maria Hassabi: What draws me to this festival primarily is the two curators (Lili Chopra and Simon Dove). I admire and respect both of them. I love working and being in conversation with them, feel lucky to be part of what they do, and excited to see what they’ve curated.
twi-ny: Are there any particular performances you’re looking forward to seeing at the festival?
MH: The usual suspects, which in this case, performance-wise, means pretty much all. Sadly, I will be missing many of them as I will be out of town.
twi-ny: You premiered SOLO and SOLOSHOW at PS122, and in November you’ll be premiering SHOW at the Kitchen with frequent collaborator Hristoula Harakas and Will Rawls. What is it about Hristoula that makes her so compatible with your choreography?
MH: There are many of my frequent collaborators in SHOW, including Hristoula, Marcos Rosales, Scott Lyall, Joe Levasseur. I like working with the same people. With Hristoula, we have worked together since 2002. I treasure such a long-term collaboration, and Hristoula’s ethics of work are irreplaceable. Of course, she’s undoubtedly a gorgeous performer.
twi-ny: You are a remarkably flexible dancer. Do you have a special exercise regimen or a secret you’re willing to share?
MH: I was born flexible! Then I slept all the way until I went onstage! You know, muscle atrophy helps!
After his wife, Tanya (Yuliya Aug), suddenly dies, paper factory boss Miron Alekseevich (Yuri Tsurilo) recruits his best friend and employee, Aist Sergeev (Igor Sergeyev), to join him in a Finno-Ugric ritual farewell to the young woman. The two Merjan men prepare the body in the traditional way — which includes a thorough cleansing and the tying of colored threads to her pubic region — and then begin the multiday journey to Lake Nero. Aist, who lives a relatively solitary life, brings with him his pair of beloved buntings, the two men in the car and the two caged birds off on a road trip of a very different kind, with the deceased woman wrapped in a blanket in the back. Along the way, Miron “smokes,” telling Aist intimate details of his and Tanya’s sex life, which is also part of the Finno-Ugric funeral tradition. Siberian-born director Aleksei Fedorchenko’s third feature film, Silent Souls is a touching, elegiac poem about love, friendship, and the ancient rituals of a Russian culture that has not fully assimilated into the modern Slavic ways. Beautifully shot by Mikhail Krichman and with an evocative score by Andrei Karasyov, the film includes long scenes with minimal camera movement, placing the viewer in the car as the men drive down a dirt road or in a hotel room as Miron gives Tanya an erotic vodka bath in a poignant flashback. The two men never talk about work, about the state of the world, about what comes next in their lives. Instead, they quietly go about their business, keeping their traditions alive. Previously shown at the New York, Toronto, and Venice film festivals, Silent Souls is an extraordinary seventy-five-minute adventure into the heart and the soul.
Nothing is off limits for South Park dudes Trey Parker and Matt Stone in this marionette musical actioner that mixes Top Gun, Mission: Impossible, and The Matrix with that old classic television puppet show Thunderbirds. Kim Jong Il is determined to unleash his weapons of mass destruction on an unsuspecting world, and it is up to Team America and its newest member, actor Gary Johnston, formerly of the hit musical Lease, to stop the North Korean leader’s heinous plan. But Team America is a reckless bunch that has a tendency to destroy major cities and landmarks (the Eiffel Tower, the Sphinx) as it attempts to take out terrorists. Meanwhile, love threatens to complicate the success of their mission. Parker and Stone skewer international politics, the military, celebrity, and the media in this very dirty, very funny flick; among their victims are Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Peter Jennings, Hans Blix, George Clooney, and, mercilessly, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. There’s lots of blood and gore, a very hot puppet sex scene, and the best description ever about the three kinds of people in the world. Although it often misses its target or goes way too far — it could have been a classic like South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut — it’s still a good way to spend a Saturday night out at the movies. And on Saturday, September 17, it will be offering even more, as the 92YTribeca screens it as part of its “Sing-along” series, adding the words on-screen so you can curse along with the characters to your heart’s delight — and they’ll even include props, trivia, and a free beer to help get things going.