Manhattan Movement & Arts Center
248 West 60th St. between Amsterdam & West End Ave.
March 23-25, $35, 8:00
212-787-1178
www.facebook.com
www.manhattanmovement.com
An audiovisual spectacle that melds commercial hip-hop with contemporary dance, VATIC promises to get people out of their seat — especially during the first act, which has very limited seating. Artistic director and choreographer Dana Foglia, with guest choreographer Joanna Numata, has followed up Apollonia Productions’ Cy.clo.thy.mi.a. with another wild show that seeks to take audiences to the next level, featuring unique costumes, eye-popping acrobatics, and other cutting-edge elements. From the Latin, “Vatic” means “prophetic” or “oracular,” giving the program a futuristic bent. Vatic opened last night and continues Thursday and Friday at 8:00 at the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center with dancers Justin Conte, Ryan Davis, Apolla Echino, Courtney Goerge, Nekai Johnson, Meeka Kameoka, Rie Komine, Natsuki Miya, Nadine Olmo, Philip John Orsano, Moncef Outiche, Mishay Petronelli, Alan Robert, Yvonne-Marie Sain, and Ai Shimatsu.
François Truffaut shot out of the blocks in 1959 with the classic 400 Blows, and he followed it up with Shoot the Piano Player, a magnificent noir about a virtuoso saloon piano player and his always-in-trouble brother. French crooner Charles Aznavour is super-cool as the secretive, shy pianist with a hidden past who gets caught up in his crooked brother’s dangerous predicament, against his better judgment. Comedy mixes with pathos, dance-hall jollies lead to murder and kidnapping, and lost love holds a curse in a dark, haunting film you will never forget. Two years later, Truffaut made Jules and Jim, a triangle classic about two best friends, played by Oskar Werner (Jules) and Henri Serre (Jim), World War I, and the woman they both love, the free-spirited Catherine (the marvelous Jeanne Moreau), one of the most charming, entertaining films you will ever see. Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim kick off the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Janus Classics series on March 24, followed by Milos Forman’s Loves of a Blonde (1963) and The Firemen’s Ball (1967) on March 25, Jean Renoir’s The Golden Coach (1952) and The Rules of the Game (1939) on March 28, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) and Cries and Whispers (1972) on March 29, and more. 
Over the last fifty years, the former Soviet Union has experienced monumental social, cultural, economic, and political change, from the Cold War through Glasnost and Perestroika and its ultimate downfall as a world power. Making her feature-length directing debut, Robin Hessman gets up close and personal with five men and women who lived through those tumultuous years and share their fascinating experiences: Borya and Lyuba Meyerson, married history teachers who live with their son, Mark, in the apartment where Borya grew up; Ruslan Stupin, Borya’s childhood friend who was a punk rock star and is now passing on his counterculture values to his son, Nikita, who is worried about fitting in at school; Olga Durikova, a single mother also living in her childhoold apartment; and Andrei Yevgrafov, who has firmly embraced capitalism, owning a series of fancy men’s dress shirt stores. Combining archival footage and home movies with contemporary interviews, Hessman talks to the five protagonists about their early days as members of such Communist youth groups as the Octoberists, the Pioneers, and the Komsomol as well as how their lives changed as the Soviet leadership moved from Leonid Brezhnev to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. They speak open and honestly about the Soviet Union in ways rarely seen in the West, resulting in an intimate portrait of a momentous time of upheaval that is often misunderstood and has never before been so personalized on-screen.
