twi-ny recommended events

ON STAGE IN FASHION: MARK MORRIS AND ISAAC MIZRAHI

Mark Morris and Isaac Mizrahi collaborated on the Met’s production of Gluck’s ORFEO ED EURIDICE (photo by Marty Sohl)

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
Thursday, January 20, free, 6:00
917-275-6975
www.nypl.org

In June 1992, Mark Morris presented the world premiere of THREE PRELUDES, a dance piece set to short works by George Gershwin and featuring costumes by Brooklyn-born designer Isaac Mizrahi. In May 2007, Morris and Mizrahi teamed up again, this time for a production of Gluck’s ORFEO ED EURIDICE at the Met that marked Morris’s debut at the venerable institution. That opera will be back at the Met this spring, playing April 29 – May 14, so in celebration of that and in conjunction with the exhibition “On Stage in Fashion” at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Morris and Mizrahi will take part in a free conversation at the library on Thursday night, moderated by writer and editor Sharon DeLano. The exhibition comprises more than one hundred garments from the Museum of the City of New York and photographs and memorabilia from the NYPL focusing on the collaboration between fashion designers and performers.

PARK HERE: AN INDOOR POP UP PARK

Indoor park has popped up on Mulberry St. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

201 Mulberry St. between Broome & Spring Sts.
Extended through February 13, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Admission: free (picnic and a movie $125)
212-334-0288
www.openhousegallery.org

Well, the weather outside is still rather frightful, but you can find respite in a lovely little park on Mulberry St. that you won’t see on any tourist map. You’d better hurry, though, because it’s temporary. Through February 13, Openhouse Gallery and UrbanDaddy have teamed up to bring us Park Here: An Indoor Pop Up Park in a large space in SoHo. Spread across several rooms, the park consists of synthetic grass, rocks, butterflies, and trees, with the temperature set to a positively balmy seventy-four degrees. You can hang out at a picnic table, read a book in the shade, or just lie across the greenery, taking a much-needed break from the rest of the world. In addition to just plain old relaxation, the park offers daily yoga at noon, bocce ball, croquet, chocolate and wine tastings, food from local vendors, movie nights, and dinner parties. The next chocolate and wine tasting, sponsored by Eat My Chocolate, takes place on Wednesday at 5:30 ($60), while the next picnic and a movie is scheduled for Thursday at 8:30, with a screening of DANGEROUS LIAISONS (Stephen Frears, 1988) catered by Café Boulud, including caviar, sesame seared tuna, terrine grand père, seared filet of beef, wild rice, sliced Comté cheese, a pair of macarons, and an open bar ($125). It might not be your standard picnic, but this is SoHo, ya know.

SIDRA BELL DANCE NEW YORK / GALLIM DANCE

Sidra Bell Dance New York will make its DTW debut with the world premiere of POOL (photo by Jubal Battisti)

Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
January 18-21, $20, 7:30
212-691-6500
www.dancetheaterworkshop.org

Dance Theater Workshop is hosting an intriguing double bill this week, featuring two world premieres by New York City-based companies. Sidra Bell, who recently said that her work should appeal to fans of Miles Davis, William Carlos Williams, and René Magritte, choreographs dances that combine the deeply personal with the intensely physical. Bell makes her DTW debut with POOL, which deals with the memory of a near drowning. Utah-born Juilliard graduate Andrea Miller, who established Gallim Dance in 2008, is presenting the DTW commission FOR GLENN GOULD, inspired by the composer’s two very different versions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations from 1964 and 1981. The January 18 performance will be followed by Coffee and Conversation with DTW artistic director Carla Peterson, while a talk with Dance magazine editor in chief Wendy Perron will take place after the January 21 show.

THE FILMS OF DAVID O. RUSSELL: THE FIGHTER

Brothers Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) and “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) go through good times and bad in THE FIGHTER

THE FIGHTER (David O. Russell, 2010)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Wednesday, January 19, $15, 7:00 (followed by a conversation with Russell, moderated by Spike Jonze)
Series continues through February 6
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.thefightermovie.com

A lot of professional fighters face adversity in and out of the ring, but “Irish” Micky Ward took it to a whole new level on his quest to be welterweight champion of the world, as documented in the winning motion picture THE FIGHTER. Ward (Mark Wahlberg) surrounded himself with his family, with his mother, Allice Eklund (Melissa Leo), as his manager, his half-brother, the Pride of Lowell (for once knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard), Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), as his trainer, and his many big-haired sisters, including Tar (Erica McDermott), Little Alice (Melissa McMeekin), Pork (Bianca Hunter), Red Dog (Dendrie Taylor), and Beaver (Kate O’Brien), part of the team as well. Despite getting pummeled over and over again and continually finding his brother at a condemned crack house, Micky stands by the family until Dicky is back in prison and Micky finally decides to go with a new promoter. As his stock begins to rise again, he is deeply affected by his separation from his family, who are blaming the parting on his new girlfriend, local bartender Charlene (Amy Adams). Based on the true story of the Ward/Eklund clan of Lowell, Massachusetts, THE FIGHTER is a poignant tale of fighting and family, of love and responsibility. Bale is a whirlwind as the effusive, drug-addicted Dicky, who dreams of helping his brother get a title shot even as he misses training sessions because of his dependence on crack. Leo, who nearly steals the show, is virtually unrecognizable as Alice, who can’t understand why Micky would go with a new crew and has quite a few battles of her own with Charlene. And Walhlberg, who trained for several years to get himself in shape for the film, is strong and solid as the conflicted yet determined potential boxing champion. Director David O. Russell (THREE KINGS) gives THE FIGHTER a realistic feel, at times echoing the documentary that HBO is making about Dicky in the movie, and even hiring Ward’s trainer, Mickey O’Keefe, to play himself. In fact, much of the cast got to meet their real-life counterparts, all of whom loved how they were portrayed onscreen, which is actually quite funny once you see how some of them come off. You don’t have to love boxing to love THE FIGHTER, although fans of the sweet science will be impressed by the carefully choreographed fight scenes, complete with the original HBO commentary (and shot by some of the same cameramen).

THE FIGHTER is screening on January 19 at the Museum of the Moving Image, kicking off the series “The Films of David O. Russell.” The special event will be followed by a conversation with Russell, moderated by Spike Jonze, who starred with Wahlberg in Russell’s THREE KINGS. The series continues with SPANKING THE MONKEY (1994) on January 21, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (1996) on January 29, THREE KINGS (1999) on February 5, and I ♥ HUCKABEES (2004) on February 6.

ECSTATIC MUSIC FESTIVAL

Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center
129 West 67th St.
Monday, January 17, free, 2:00 – 9:00
Festival continues through March 12, $25 per concert, four-concert subscription $80
212-501-3330
www.ecstaticmusicfestival.com

Classical and pop combine in myriad ways during the Ecstatic Music Festival, which begins today with a seven-hour free marathon at Merkin Concert Hall, beginning at 2:00 and featuring performances by Buke and Gass with Victoire, Ne(x)tworks, Face the Music, So Percussion, the Chiara String Quartet, Missy Mazzoli, Gabriel Kahane, Hohn Matthias, NOW Ensemble, Julianna Barwick, Ashley Bathgate with Lisa Moore and Michael Gordon, Vicky Chow with Daniel Wohl, Nadia Sirota and Nico Muhly, and others. The festival continues January 19 with Chiara String Quartet, Nico Muhly, and Valgeir Sigurðsson, January 20 with So Percussion and Dan Deacon, January 22 with Craig Wedren, Jefferson Friedman, and ACME, January 30 with Alarm Will Sound and Face the Music, and February 19 with Roomful of Teeth with William Brittelle, Caleb Burhans, and Merrill Garbus before continuing into March.

MLK DAY 2011

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have turned eighty-one this month

In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Arizona congresswoman Gabrilelle Giffords, today’s many tributes to the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., should take on added meaning. At BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, the twenty-fifth annual free event, beginning at 10:30 am, features a keynote address by writer Walter Mosley, live performances by the Persuasions and the Reverend Timothy Wright Memorial Choir of the Grace Tabernacle Christian Center, and a screening of NESHOBA: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM (Micki Dickoff & Tony Pagano, 2010). The Children’s Museum of Manhattan continues its Martin Luther King. Jr., Festival with “Raising Citizens: Make a Difference Medal” at 12 noon. At the newly reopened Museum of the Moving Image, associate producer Richard Kaplan will introduce a free screening of KING: A FILMED RECORD . . . MONTGOMERY TO MEMPHIS at 3:00. At Symphony Space, the fourth annual JCC in Manhattan program, “Artists Celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” includes a keynote address by the Rev. Dr. Suzan D. Johnson Cook, live jazz from Craig Harris, Juel Lane performing choreographer Bridget Moore’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, and singers Neshama Carlebach and Reverend Hambrick with members of the Green Pastures Baptist Church Choir, emceed by Ruth Messinger (free, 6:30). Tonight Jazz at Lincoln Center will present a Jazz Celebration featuring the Juilliard Jazz Ensemble, Cyrus Chestnut, and special guests ($20, 7:30 & 9:30).

BLOOD FROM A STONE

A dysfunctional Connecticut family lets loose in Tommy Nohilly’s BLOOD FROM A STONE (photo by Monique Carboni)

Acorn Theatre, Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Through February 19, $61.25
212-239-6200
www.thenewgroup.org

Recalling the long line of such dysfunctional theatrical families as George, Martha, Nick, and Honey from Edward Albee’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? and the Tyrones from Eugene O’Neill’s LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, debut writer Tommy Nohilly’s BLOOD FROM A STONE is a flawed but compelling, none-too-subtle, extremely bleak production from the New Group. Nohilly, an actor living in Hell’s Kitchen, sets the play in a working-class home in suburban New Britain, Connecticut, around Christmastime earlier this decade. The prodigal slacker son, military vet Travis (Ethan Hawke), has come home for a few days before planning to take off to find himself out on the open road; ostensibly the voice of reason in the family, he is also a stand-in for the audience; unable to take action, he spends most of his time listening and watching, except when having a quick fling with his married high school sweetheart, Yvette (Daphne Rubin-Vega), who lives next door. Travis’s brother, Matt (Thomas Guiry), is considering leaving his wife and two children for a coworker who is married with four children, while sister Sarah (Natasha Lyonne), the person closest to “normal,” is pregnant again. But the stars of the show are their parents, Bill (Gordon Clapp) and Margaret (Ann Dowd), who are constantly at each other’s throats, screaming, yelling, and cursing, both filled with a hateful venom that feels all too real; this is not a couple that is about to kiss and make up under any circumstance, so don’t expect any Christmas miracles. Clapp is outstanding as Bill, a ticking time bomb ready to explode (or implode) at any moment, while Dowd chews up and spits out Derek McLane’s wonderfully vapid set design. Although Nohilly and director Scott Elliott tend to hit hard — the family’s severe dysfunction is mirrored by the house itself falling apart, with ceiling tiles crashing down as the roof leaks huge splashes of rainwater into the kitchen — there are also moments of great subtlety and tenderness, as when Bill and Travis reminisce over late-night ice-cream cones or Travis almost absent-mindedly massages his sister’s feet. In fact, dairy is a key aspect in the play, as milk, the nourishing substance of youth, is guzzled by several characters over the course of four very tense days. An actor’s writer, Nohilly has created numerous scenes in which the performers shine, although the women are too one-note (the playwright and director even go out of their way to have Rubin-Vega gratuitously run naked across the stage), and the play often feels like a series of vignettes instead of a smooth, continuous narrative, too jumpy and random. It’s also top heavy, with the too-long first act running around an hour and a half, followed by the too-short second act, which clocks in at about forty minutes. Still, there’s a lot to like about this intimate production, which also features fine special effects by Jeremy Chernick.