twi-ny recommended events

SAKURA MATSURI: CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL 2011

The annual two-day Sakura Matsuri will beautify Brooklyn this weekend (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
900 Washington Ave. at Eastern Parkway
Saturday, April 30, and Sunday, May 1, $10-$15
718-623-7200
www.bbg.org

For many New Yorkers, it isn’t really spring until the cherry blossoms are in bloom at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The spectacular trees should be gushing this weekend for the annual Sakura Matsuri, two days of Japanese art, food, and culture that usually is jam-packed with families, photographers, and other celebrants. The weather is currently forecast as partly cloudy with a high of sixty-seven, perhaps not ideal but a whole lot better than rain. There will be special events held throughout the beautiful botanic garden, including a children’s Suzuki recital, anime stand-up comedy, Butoh dance, cosplay cabaret, origami workshops, an ikebana flower exhibit, an interactive tea installation, a vintage kimono display, fish-printing demos, enka poetry, manga and anime artist and book signings, logic puzzles and other games, numerous bonsai events, garden tours, Japanese karate demonstrations, and much more, with such special guests as April Vollmer, Godfather of Sudoku Maki Kaji, Jack Schwartz, Fumiko Allinder, Michele Brody, Grandmaster Kaicho T. Nakamura, and Pokémon voice artist Veronica Taylor; below are some of the recommended highlights.

Saturday
Hanagasa Odori: Flower Hat Dance Procession, Japanese Folk Dance Institute of NY, Osborne Garden North, 1:00

Nihon Buyo Classical & Ryukyu Buyo Okinawan Dance, Dancejapan with Sachiyo Ito, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 1:15

BBG Parasol Society Promenade, with live music by happyfunsmile, registration 11 a.m.–1 p.m. behind Cherry Esplanade Stage, parade from Cherry Esplanade Stage to Osborne Garden, 3:00

Traditional Tea Ceremony, Urasenke Chanoyu Center, A.T. White Amphitheater, 3:30

Split Spirits/Spirit Splits: A Samurai Drama, Samurai Sword Soul, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 4:15

Sunday
Taiko Drumming, Soh Daiko, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 12 noon

Origami Paper Folding with Jeremy Aaron Horland, Lily Pool Terrace, 1:00

Butoh Dance, Dean Street FOO Dance, Osborne Garden North, 2:00

Cooking Demonstration: Authentic Dashi Making, with Momo Sushi Shack’s Chef Makoto Suzuki and Phillip Gilmour, A.T. White Amphitheater, 3:00

Cosplay Fashion Show, hosted by Uncle Yo, with live music by Morning Musuko, Cherry Esplanade Stage, 6:15

THE ESCAPE ARTIST

John Kelly examines the chiaroscuro world of Caravaggio in THE ESCAPE ARTIST at Performance Space 122

Performance Space 122
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
Through April 30, $15-$25
www.ps122.org

Visual and performance artist John Kelly, who recently embodied Austrian painter Egon Schiele in the final presentation of his multimedia piece Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte at La MaMa and has previously examined such figures as Antonin Artaud, Jean Cocteau, and Joni Mitchell, is delving into the shadowy world of Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) this weekend at PS 122 in the solo work The Escape Artist. The 2010 Ethyl Eichelberger Award winner has collaborated with avant chanteuse Carol Lipnik on several original songs for the show, including “The Dazzling Darkness,” “Cara Viaggio,” and “Beauty Kills Me,” as well as versions of the James Bond theme “You Only Live Twice” and Monteverdi’s “Oblivion Soave,” with arrangements by John DiPinto, who also plays the piano, accordion, and flute, Nioka Workman on cello, and Justin Smith on violin. The three-channel video design is by Jeff Morey. The Escape Artist was previously performed in various workshop and work-in-progress productions at Dixon Place, the Park Ave. Armory (where Kelly is an artist in residence), Galapagos, MASS MoCA, and the San Diego Art Museum; the run at PS 122 is its official world premiere. A limited amount of tickets are still available for tonight’s 8:00 performance and tomorrow’s 8:00 and 10:00 shows, which conclude the two-week schedule, but you better grab them fast or they’ll be gone.

Update: In The Escape Artist, John Kelly portrays a man who, shortly after being blown away by seeing paintings by Caravaggio in a museum, suffers a serious trapeze accident that lands him in the hospital with a possible broken neck. Kelly spends the majority of the seventy-five-minute multimedia production flat on his back on a table that represents a gurney, his head immobilized, as he ponders his future through songs and images influenced by works by the daring Italian Baroque artist. Kelly often stares into a camera above that projects him onto the center of a three-channel video installation, making it appear that he is looking directly at the audience as he shares his fears while drifting in and out of consciousness, his dreams and an out-of-body experience projected onto the screens. Kelly is often flanked by videos of characters re-creating actual canvases by Caravaggio, but with such additions as a rope that represents the trapeze accident; the men occasionally sing backup, their prerecorded vocals melding perfectly with Kelly’s often live projection in the middle. Kelly also adds wonderful touches of carefully controlled movement, lifting his legs slightly, raising an arm, pointing a finger, that signal his desperate need to be free of his physical (and mental?) constraints and return to the art of creation. Despite a questionable finale in which he brings out an electric guitar, The Escape Artist is another splendid evening of experimental theater from one of New York City’s most adventurous artists.

ToastArtWalk

Photographer Jennifer Kotter will open up her studio to visitors as part of annual ToastArtWalk in TriBeCa

Multiple locations throughout TriBeCa
Friday, April 29, 6:00-9:00
Saturday, April 30, 1:00-6:00
Sunday, May 1, 1:00-6:00
Monday, May 2, 1:00-6:00
Admission: free
www.toastartwalk.com

The fifteenth annual TriBeCa Open Artist Studio Tour begins tonight, with nearly a hundred TriBeCa artists opening up their studios in three dozen buildings. The neighborhood is sure to be packed on Saturday, as the Tribeca Film Festival holds its Family Festival Street Fair and Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day, so as long as you’re there, be sure to add in a few studio visits as well. The official TOAST website lists detailed information about each participating artist, including samples of their work; we’re looking forward to checking out Jennifer Kotter’s architectural photographs at 105 Hudson St., Katherine D. Crone’s visual journal installations at 515 Greenwich, Mark Demos’s light paintings at 368 Broadway (which were a highlight of the recent Fountain Art Fair), Deborah Gieringer’s mystery-laden drawings at 108 Franklin St., Loretta Mae Hirsch’s feminist drawings and paintings at 368 Broadway, Theresa Greenberg’s colorful accordion collages at 50 White St., Jonathan Lux’s cinematic narrative paintings at 368 Broadway, and Toshiko Nishikawa’s paintings and installations at 122 Duane St. (her recent “Senbazuru” show at the Vilcek Foundation was a big hit).

13 ASSASSINS

A small group of samurai sets out to end a brutal madman’s tyranny in Takashi Miike’s brilliant 13 ASSASSINS

13 ASSASSINS (JÛSAN-NIN NO SHIKAKU) (Takashi Miike, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, April 29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.13assassins.com

Japanese director Takashi Miike’s first foray into the samurai epic is a nearly flawless film, perhaps his most accomplished work. Evoking such classics as Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Mizoguchi’s 47 Ronin, Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen, and Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter, 13 Assassins is a thrilling tale of honor and revenge, inspired by a true story. In mid-nineteenth-century feudal Japan, during a time of peace just prior to the Meiji Restoration, Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), the son of the former shogun and half-brother to the current one, is abusing his power, raping and killing at will, even using his servants and their families as target practice with a bow and arrow. Because of his connections, he is officially untouchable, but Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira) secretly hires Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) to gather a small team and put an end to Naritsugu’s brutal tyranny. But the lord’s protector, Hanbei (Masachika Ichimura), a former nemesis of Shinzaemon’s, has vowed to defend his master to the death, even though he despises Naritsugu’s actions. As the thirteen samurai make a plan to get to Naritsugu, they are eager to finally break out their long-unused swords and do what they were born to do. “He who values his life dies a dog’s death,” Shinzaemon proclaims, knowing that the task is virtually impossible but willing to die for a just cause. Although there are occasional flashes of extreme gore in the first part of the film, Miike keeps the audience waiting until he unleashes the gripping battle, an extended scene of blood and violence that highlights death before dishonor. Selected for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for the Silver Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, 13 Assassins is one of Miike’s best-crafted tales; nominated for ten Japanese Academy Prizes, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Daisuke Tengan), Best Editing (Kenji Yamashita), Best Original Score (Koji Endo), and Best Actor (Yakusho), it won awards for cinematography (Nobuyasu Kita), lighting direction (Yoshiya Watanabe), art direction (Yuji Hayashida), and sound recording (Jun Nakamura).

DER RAÜBER (THE ROBBER)

Marathon champion can’t stop his thieving ways in THE ROBBER

DER RAÜBER (THE ROBBER) (Benjamin Heisenberg, 2010)
Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St., 212-924-3363
Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, April 29
www.kino.com/bigscreen

Director Benjamin Heisenberg and star Andreas Lust take viewers on a breathless thrill ride in The Robber. Adapted from Martin Prinz’s novel about real-life 1980s Austrian marathon champion and bank robber Johann Kastenberger, The Robber focuses on Johann Rettenberger (Lust), a grim, ultra-serious man who has just been released from prison after serving six years for armed robbery. Although he tells his parole officer (Markus Schleinzer) that his thieving days are over, Rettenberger seems unable to stop grabbing his shotgun, donning his trademark facemask, and stealing cars and robbing banks. But his motives remain unclear, as he merely stashes the cash under his bed, not using it for himself or giving it away. He initially does not appear prone to violence either, but his cold-blooded stares and inability to really connect with others signal a man threatening to explode at any moment. When not robbing banks, Rettenberger is either training for or running in marathons, a skill that also helps him avoid the police. Despite Rettenberger’s intensely secretive personality, a social worker named Erika (Franziska Weisz) falls for him, putting him up in her house while she imagines he is looking for work and trying to get his life back together. But not even love can warm the frigid heart of this stone-cold thief. The Robber features several exciting, stunningly shot and edited chase scenes (courtesy of cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider and Heisenberg, who also served as editor and cowrote the screenplay with Prinz) with Rettenberger on foot, especially the long finale, evoking such films as Marathon Man and The Bourne Ultimatum. (Bonus fact: Kastenberger’s story also inspired Kathleen Bigelow’s Point Break.) Lust turns Rettenberger into a complex antihero; even though there is nothing likable about the character, audiences will not be able to stop rooting for him to get away with it all.

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

Werner Herzog goes spelunking in 3-D in latest doc

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (Werner Herzog, 2010)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, April 29
www.wernerherzog.com

An adventurer as much as a filmmaker, German director Werner Herzog has headed into the Amazon in Fitzcarraldo (1982), burning Kuwaiti oil fields in Lessons of Darkness (1992), and Antarctica in Encounters at the End of the World (2008). In his latest documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, he goes where few have ever gone before. In December 1994, speleologists Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel, and Christian Hillaire discovered the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in France, a vast series of chambers filled with remarkable paintings and engravings as well as animal bones, including the skulls of the extinct cave bear. The works were painted onto and carved into the walls, not limited to flat surfaces but around formations that jut out into the cavern. Dating back more than thirty thousand years, they are the oldest cave paintings ever found, well preserved through crystallization over the centuries and now by the intense and careful protection of the French government. Only a handful of scientists have been given access to the cave, until last spring, when Herzog, who has been entranced by cave paintings since he was twelve years old, was allowed to bring in a shoestring crew using specially devised equipment to film the space over the course of six four-hour sessions. The four-person crew — including Herzog manning the lights and his longtime cinematographer, Peter Zeitlinger, behind the 3-D camera — were not allowed to touch anything and had to stay on a narrow metal walkway that winds through the cave. They were accompanied by a team of specialists on the rare public journey: handprint expert Dominique Baffier, cave bear researcher Michel Philippe, the husband and wife team of Gilles Tosello and Carole Fritz, who map out the social connection between art and archaeology, Jean Clottes, the former director of the Chauvet Cave Research Project, and current director Jean-Michel Geneste. In true Herzog style, he also speaks with a master perfumer and two prehistoric flute archaeologists. Herzog’s decision to use 3-D — for what he says will be the only time in his career — was a stroke of genius, allowing viewers to feel like they’re walking through the cave with him, nearly able to reach out and touch the remarkable drawings, engravings, and skeletons. Herzog’s narration does get too dreamy at times, veering off on philosophical tangents before he adds a cool but silly coda, but, as always, he adds his trademark humor and charm. (Cave of Forgotten Dreams opens Friday, April 29, in 3-D at the IFC Center and in regular 2-D at Lincoln Plaza Cinema.)

PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL: KARMA CHAIN

Khenpo Lama Pema Wangdak will kick off human Karma Chain of “telephone” on the High Line on Saturday morning

The High Line
Under the Standard, New York
848 Washington St. at 13th St.
Saturday, April 30, free, 11:00 am
www.rmanyc.org
www.pen.org
karma chain slideshow

In conjunction with the seventh annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, the Rubin Museum is sponsoring a rather unique game of “telephone” Saturday morning on the High Line, revolving around the idea of karma. Karma, which means “cause and effect,” is a lot more than just trying to influence how you’ll come back in your next life; karma is basically neutral, what’s happening now, based on innumerable conditions created by previous actions. We are all creating karma right now, at the same time, impacting future events. On Saturday morning, what will probably be a very large number of people from all walks of life will descend on the High Line and form an extended human Karma Chain across a significant portion of the elevated park, set on the old abandoned railway lines on the West Side. At one end of the chain, Khenpo Lama Pema Wangdak — teacher, founder of the Vikramasila Foundation, and creator of Bur Yig (Tibetan Braille) — will whisper a sutra, a verse from the teachings of the Buddha, to the person next to him; that sutra will then be verbally passed down the line, person to person, across three city blocks as it makes its way toward the anchor at the other end, author Salman Rushdie, chair and founder of the festival, who will announce both the starting sutra and what it transformed into. It should be another fascinating and fun one-of-a-kind event of the sort that the Rubin is becoming known for, a gathering that should provide good karma for all those involved. Registration is free and open to the general public and must be completed by 10:45 am on the High Line under the Standard at Washington & 13th Sts.