twi-ny recommended events

OPENHOUSENEWYORK 2010

The annual openhousenewyork weekend offers free tours of unexpected and unusual places in the city, including the Atlantic Ave. subway tunnel (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
Saturday, October 9, and Sunday, October 10
Admission: free (advance reservations required for some sites)
OHNY Weekend Passport: $150 ($200 includes two tickets to launch party)
212-991-OHNY
www.ohny.org

The eighth annual openhousenewyork weekend takes place October 9-10, and they have just announced this year’s lineup of opendialogues, sustainablenewyork tours and talks, site-specific architecturemoves dance and music performances, OHNY Kids! workshops, and other special activities. Although everything is free, some programs require advance reservations, which go live at 9:00 this morning, so don’t waste any time, because they fill up fast. Among the participating locations, many of which are not usually open to the public (at least not for free), are 1 World Trade Center, the African Burial Ground, the Apollo Theater, the Atlantic Ave. Tunnel, the AVAC System on Roosevelt Island, the Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building, the Gatehouse, Governors Island, the Grand Lodge of Masons, the Jacob Riis Park Bathhouse, the Lighthouse Tender LILAC, an MTA Substation, the Rocking the Boat shipbuilding shop, Tom Otterness’s Brooklyn studio, the DreamYard Project, the Red Hook Sludge Boat, Sixpoint Craft Ales, and the Digester Egg Experience at the Newtown Creek Visitor Center in addition to architecture and design studios, churches and temples, libraries, university centers, cultural institutes, memorials, historic residences, cemeteries, and museums across the five boroughs. Be sure to read the details about each venue, since not all of them are open both days, and keep checking the online schedule because there are regular updates and changes as well as web exclusives. We’ve seen some pretty amazing things over the course of openhousenewyork’s first seven years, gaining access to places we never thought we would, so we highly recommend taking advantage of this terrific opportunity to get an inside look at some of the city’s hidden treasures.

SHIFTING THE GAZE: GALLERY TALKS

Deborah Kass, “Double Red Yentl, Split, from My Elvis,” screen print and acrylic on canvas, 1993



PAINTING AND FEMINISM
Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Select days at 1:00 from October 4 through November 8
Free with museum admission of $12
212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org

The Jewish Museum will be hosting a series of exciting talks and discussions in conjunction with its latest exhibit, “Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism,” which runs through January 30. The series begins October 4 with Joyce Kozloff, whose “Naming II (or Who’s Jewish?)” is in the exhibition, followed by Judy Chicago (“Sky Flesh”) on October 5, Mira Schor (“Silence”) on October 11, a tour with curator Daniel Belasco on October 18, Deborah Kass (“Double Red Yentl, Split”) on October 25, Robert Kushner (“Blue Flounce”) on November 1, and Elisabeth Subrin (“Shulie: Film and Stills by Elisabeth Subrin”) on November 8, with all talks free with museum admission. In addition, the Jewish Museum will be presenting a three-part lecture series by CUNY art history professor Dr. Nanette Salomon, “Shifting Crossroads: Feminism, Art, Modernity, and Difference,” at 11:30 am on October 4 (“The Prequel: Women Painters in Early Modern Europe”), October 11 (“Impressionism and the Moment of Modernism: Women, Jews, and Other ‘Others’”), and October 18 (“Women Painters and the Jewish Museum 2010”); each lecture is $20, or you can get a series ticket for all three for $45.

muMs & AURORA

New York City natives muMs & Aurora will be teaming up for a special show at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on September 30

Nuyorican Poets Cafe
236 East Third St. between Aves. B & C
Thursday, September 30, $10, 7:00
www.nuyorican.org
www.mumsandaurora.tumblr.com

We were thrilled to bump into muMs da Schemer the other day, the poet, playwright, director, and actor perhaps most well known as Poet on the HBO prison drama OZ. Born Craig Grant in the Bronx, he has also appeared in such television series as COLD CASE, DEF POETRY JAM, THE GOOD HEART, LAW & ORDER, BOSTON LEGAL, and CHAPPELLE’S SHOW, where he famously portrayed Lysol in the “Mad Real World” sketch. He immediately pulled out a flyer trumpeting his latest gig, teaming up with New York City singer-songwriter, actress, and violinist Aurora Barnes for a series of shows at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. “I’m going back to where I started,” he said. “It’s a real pleasure.” Backed by a band, muMs & Aurora are “folk music’s answer to hip-hop,” performing such songs as “Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” “Fifty Times / Ploylessness,” “Survivor,” and “Bring on the Fire,” alternating between Aurora’s sweet melodies and muMs’s spoken word poetry. They also do a mash-up of muMs’s “Truth” with Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Move On” from SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, so you never really know where they’re going to take you next. The duo, who previously collaborated on muMs’s play PARADOX OF THE URBAN CLICHÉ for the LAByrinth Theater Company, will be at the Nuyorican on September 30 at 7:00.

ELEGANT ELEGIES: THE FILMS OF MASAHIRO SHINODA

Masahiro Shinoda’s SAMURAI SPY is a genre film with many unexpected twists and turns

NYFF MASTERWORKS: SAMURAI SPY (IBUN SARUTOBI SASUKE) (Masahiro Shinoda, 1965)
New York Film Festival
Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday, October 5, 9:00, and Wednesday, October 6, 4:00
Series runs September 25 – October 10
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

It’s fourteen years after the Battle of Sekigahara, and the Tokugawa is still battling the Toyotomi as spies cross the land, leaving paths of blood in their wake. Caught in the middle is Sartobi Sasuke (Koji Takahashi) of the Sanada clan, who is after the truth. This is not your average samurai flick — there’s a little sex, nudity, Christianity, dismemberment, and even leprosy, although the plot is plenty confusing; good luck trying to figure out who is on which side, but always keep a look out for those men in the mysterious masks, as well as Sakon (Tetsuro Tamba), the dude in the silly white costume. The minimalist, noirish score by Toru Takemitsu is right on. SAMURAI SPY is part of the NYFF Masterworks section of the forty-eighth New York Film Festival, in the series “Elegant Elegies: The Films of Masahiro Shinoda,” which honors the genre-bending Japanese New Wave auteur with screenings of such works as THE ASSASSIN, KILLERS ON PARADE, MOONLIGHT SERENADE, and PALE FLOWER.

RICHARD DAWKINS: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

Richard Dawkins will discuss his latest book at a free discussion and signing September 29 at the Cooper Union

Cooper Union Great Hall
7 East Seventh St. at Third Ave.
Wednesday, September 29, free, 6:30
212-353-4196
www.cooper.edu
www.richarddawkins.net

In his latest book, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH: THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION, now available in paperback (Free Press, August 2010, $16.99), controversial scientist, philosopher, and atheist Richard Dawkins writes in the preface, “The evidence for evolution grows by the day, and has never been stronger. At the same time, paradoxically, ill-informed opposition is also stronger than I can remember. This book is my personal summary of the evidence that the ‘theory’ of evolution is actually a fact — as incontrovertible a fact as any in science.” Dawkins, who has also written such tomes as THE GOD DELUSION, THE SELFISH GENE, and A DEVIL’S CHAPLAIN, will be at the Cooper Union on September 29 for a free reading and discussion about THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, followed by a book signing. Dawkins loves the spotlight, so this should be an entertaining and enlightening evening.

WHATEVER BLOG PARTY

Shark? will be part of a great lineup of local bands playing the latest Whatever Blog Party at Glasslands (photo by Amy Grimm)

Glasslands Gallery
289 Kent Ave.
Wednesday, September 29, $8, 8:00
www.whatever-amy.blogspot.com
www.glasslands.blogspot.com

Amy Grimm, who runs the Whatever Blog, is holding her latest monthly party on September 29 at Glasslands, featuring an ultrahip lineup of indie bands, all for only eight bucks. Grimm writes that the Señors of Marseille “have a really full, rich sound with beautiful harmonies that hark back to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, with a twist of ’90s Brit pop (think Supergrass and Cornershop) and a hint of old school R.E.M thrown in for good measure.” Shark? had to cancel their scheduled appearance at the July Whatever Blog Party, but they’re now back, “a mega rad Brooklyn band [that] has a really cool, very ’60s garage pop sound mixed in with some early R.E.M. with a sense of humor,” in Grimm’s words. Another New York City band, Bottle Up and Go, “has a really cool, distinctive sound that is kinda like if you put the White Stripes, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Zeppelin, and Little Richard in a blender,” Grimm explains on her site. “Bottle Up and Go is really primal and raw live.” After catching the Sundelles at Public Assembly during the Northside Festival, Grimm wrote, “I was very impressed. Their sound was very old school three chord punk done right.” In addition, there will be DJ sets by Nick Kinsey and Wyndham Boylan-Garnett from Diamond Doves and Elvis Perkins in Dearland. (For more on Amy, you can check out our twi-ny talk with her here).

WILLI DORNER: BODIES IN URBAN SPACES

Willi Dorner will lead audiences on a free tour of site-specific dance installations on Monday at sunset

Crossing the Line Festival
Central Plaza at Coenties Slip Park at Pearl St.
Between Broad St. & Hanover Sq.
Monday, September 27, free, 5:46 pm
www.fiaf.org

On Sunday morning at sunrise, multimedia choreographer Willi Dorner led people on a walk through the Wall Street area, encountering human sculptures who performed site-specific dances for the traveling audience. On Monday afternoon at sunset, the Vienna-based Dorner will lead another group on a free tour, once again filled with surprise performances incorporated into the urban design of Lower Manhattan. The two-part moving installation brings to a close FIAF’s annual Crossing the Line Festival, consisting of music, dance, art, literature, theater, forums, film, and more.