twi-ny recommended events

FLUX FACTORY AUCTION AND GALA

Center 548
548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday, December 15, $15-$1,000, 7:00
718-707-3362
www.fluxfactory.org

Long Island City’s Flux Factory, “a not for profit arts organization supporting innovation in things,” will be holding its annual auction Wednesday night in Chelsea, with live performances, light food and drink, and an impressive list of artists selling works to benefit the art collective. Among the participating artists are Andrea Dezsö, Dan Colen, Kathryne Hall, Marie Losier, Molly Surno, Peter Doig, Ryan McNamara, Stefany Anne Golberg, Swoon, and Ward Shelley, with Angela Washko, Daupo, Douglas Paulson, Elizabeth Larison, Gabriela Vainsencher, Sarah Glidden, and Will Harris serving as “knock-off” live artists, creating customized copies on demand. Guests of honor Elizabeth Dee and city councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer will also be feted by a performance by Alison Ward, video art by Jaime Iglehart, Matthew-Robin Nye’s creative seating, silkscreening by Bread and Butter Collective, and DJ Sondies leading a dance party. You don’t have to attend the festivities in order to bid on the works, which are all detailed online.

PAUL WINTER PRESENTS: WINTER SOLSTICE

The Paul Winter Consort and friends will once again celebrate the solstice at St. John the Divine

Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Ave. at 112th St.
December 16-18, $35-$80
www.stjohndivine.org
www.solsticeconcert.com

Billed as “New York’s Holiday Celebration of Music, Dance, and the Return of the Sun,” the Paul Winter Consort will once again pay tribute to the shortest day of the year at the thirty-first annual Winter Solstice concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for four shows December 16-18. A few days before the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere, the six-time Grammy-winning soprano saxophonist and his group — Paul McCandless on double reed, Paul Sullivan on keyboards, Eugene Friesen on cello, Jamey Haddad and Bill Cahn on percussion, and Tim Brumfield on St. John’s pipe organ — will be joined by special guests Armenian vocalist Arto Tunçboyaciyan, gospel singer Theresa Thomason, and the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. “For me,” Winter explains on his website, “this solstice celebration is an ever-renewing thrill — whether watching the sun gong ascend twelve stories with its player to the vault of the cathedral or hearing the ‘tree of sounds’ as it slowly turns, reflecting a myriad of lights from its hundreds of bells, gongs, and chimes.” Longtime Winter fans are in for an additional treat, as the consort will be holding the New York premiere of songs from its brand-new album, MIHO: JOURNEY TO THE MOUNTAIN (Living Music, September 2010), which features such tracks as “Words of Wish Fulfillment,” “Dawn Raga,” “Elephant Dance,” “Koto Spring,” “Singing to the Mountain,” and “Morning Sun.”

CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN — BOOK RELEASE EVENT!

Carolee Schneeman will introduce MEAT JOY and other short works at Anthology Film Archives on December 16 in celebration of the publication of her letters

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Thursday, December 16, 7:30
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.dukeupress.edu

American performance artist Carolee Schneeman has been shaking up the art world since the late 1950s, staging happenings and making short films in which she bares it all in shocking, controversial ways, holding nothing back. Among her many works are FUSES, MEAT JOY, MORTAL COILS, and VULVA’S MORPHIA, which investigate such themes as erotics, kinetics, dreams, war, and cats. Born in Pennsylvania in 1939, Schneeman has opened up a fascinating aspect of her life in the new book CORRESPONDENCE COURSE: AN EPISTOLARY HISTORY OF CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN AND HER CIRCLE (Duke University Press, November 2010, $99.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback), allowing Duke University professor Kristine Stiles to publish letters that Schneeman has kept throughout her career. “The letters were edited and selected for how they document charged personal and artistic struggles, arguments, and displays of ego; how they illuminate internecine aesthetic politics, conflicting ethics, and values; and how countless mundane activities constitute the exasperating vicissitudes of making art, building an artistic reputation, and negotiating an industry as unpredictable and demanding as the art world in the mid-to-late twentieth century,” Stiles writes in the preface. “For her part, Schneeman discusses financial dilemmas; grapples with her career; shares her success, joy, and love; and contends with loneliness, aging, and disappointment.” Schneeman will celebrate the publication of the book on Thursday, December 16, at Anthology Film Archives, where she will introduce and screen FUSES, MEAT JOY, KITCH’S LAST MEAL, ASK THE GODDESS, and MYSTERIES OF THE PUSSIES and discuss her work and career in what should be quite an unusual evening.

THE RED & WHITE PARTY 2010

Hank & Cupcakes headline the sizzling hot Red & White Party at (le) poisson rouge on Tuesday night (photo by Alan Lugo)

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Tuesday, December 14, $15, 8:00
212-228-4854
www.lepoissonrouge.com
www.ps122.org

The sixth annual Red & White Party is ready to blow your mind on December 14, with the festivities spreading across two spaces at (le) poisson rouge on Bleecker St. In the lounge beginning at 8:00, Jomai Etu of the Tribe of Magic will be manning the turntables, joined by various special surprise guests, with Maga Bo taking over at midnight at Joro Boro at 1:00. On the main stage, Caveman gets things going at 9:00, followed by Hank & Cupcakes at 10:00, DJ Roxy Cottontail at 11:00, DJ Michael Magnan at 12:30, and Die J! Mars at 2:00. Promising a cross-section of “subversive and seductive underground sounds,” the party also suggests wearing dancing shoes and drinking helmets.

DRAW BOOK RELEASE PARTY

Karen O’s “So Trashed” is among the many works collected in DRAW

Fuse Gallery
93 2nd Ave between Fifth & Sixth Sts.
Wednesday, December 15, free, 7:00 – 10:00
212-777-7988
www.fusegallerynyc.com

In October 2006, Erik Foss and Curse Mackey curated “Draw,” an exhibition at Fuse Gallery of drawings by illustrators, skateboarders, animators, graphic novelists, musicians, tattoo artists, and others. The show traveled to Austin, London, San Francisco, and, most recently, Mexico City, where El Museo de la Ciudad de México has put together the catalog with curator Miguel Calderon. On December 15, Fuse will host a party for the launch of the book, making one hundred advance copies available for a mere $25, with posters going for $10. The 256-page book features drawings by such artists and musicians as Raymond Pettibon, Tom Sachs, Chris Johanson, Terence Koh, Dan Colen, Swoon, Ozzy Osbourne, DAZE, Karen O, R. Crumb, HR Giger, Clive Barker, Barry McGee, Rick Griffin, Ron English, Neck Face, David Byrne, Hank Williams III, WK Interact, Doze Green, Tara McPherson, Les Claypool, and Shawn Barber. Also on view in the gallery is Benjamin Bertocci’s “Stutter.”

BAMcinématek: MACBETH

BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Monday, December 13, $12, 7:00
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Back in March and April of 2008, BAM presented director Rupert Goold’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s MACBETH, a multimedia production from the Chichester Festival Theatre starring Patrick Stewart as the embattled title character. We called it “bold, boisterous, and very loud . . . Stewart is a solid if unspectacular and unconventional Macbeth, giving noogies, poking playfully at ties, and pointing with pickles — and he seems to make one helluva killer ham sandwich.” The show later moved to Broadway and was filmed for broadcast on public television. The 161-minute film, which also stars Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth and Michael Feast as Macduff, will be screened at BAM on Monday night, introduced by Stewart, who is currently on Broadway in a revival of David Mamet’s A LIFE IN THE THEATRE.

TAKEMITSU: RAN

The Fool (Peter) sticks by Hidetaro (Tatsuya Nakadai) as the aging lord descends into madness in Kurosawa masterpiece RAN

RAN (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, December 12, 1:00, 4:00, 7:00
Monday, December 13, 1:00, 4:00
Series continues through December 16
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Inspired by the story of feudal lord Mori Motonari and Shakespeare’s KING LEAR, Akira Kurosawa’s RAN is an epic masterpiece about the decline and fall of the Ichimonji clan. Aging Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai) is ready to hand over his land and leadership to his three sons, Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), and Saburo (Daisuke Ryû). But jealousy, misunderstandings, and outright deceit and treachery result in Saburo’s banishment and a violent power struggle between the weak eldest, Taro, and the warrior Jiro. Hidetaro soon finds himself rejected by his children and wandering the vast, empty landscape with his wise, sarcastic fool, Kyoami (Peter), as the once-proud king descends into madness. Dressed in white robes and with wild white hair, Nakadai (THE HUMAN CONDITION), in his early fifties at the time, portrays Hidetaro, one of the great characters of cinema history, with an unforgettable, Noh-like precision. Kurosawa, cinematographers Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô, and Masaharu Ueda, and Oscar-winning costume designer Emi Wada bathe the film in lush greens, brash blues, and bold reds and yellows that marvelously offset the white Hidetaro. Kurosawa shoots the first dazzling battle scene in an elongated period of near silence, with only Tôru Takemitsu’s classically based score playing on the soundtrack, turning the film into a thrilling, blood-drenched opera. RAN is a spectacular achievement, the last great major work by one of the twentieth century’s most important and influential filmmakers. Film Forum is screening RAN as part of its two-week tribute to Takemitsu, which concludes this week with DODES’KA-DEN (Akira Kurosawa, 1970), EMPIRE OF PASSION (Nagisa Oshima, 1978), BALLAD OF ORIN (MELODY IN GREY) (Masahiro Shinoda, 1977), BAD BOYS (Susumu Hani, 1961), and SHE AND HE (Susumu Hani, 1963).