Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg will kick off the New Yorker Festival with a screening of their new film THE SOCIAL NETWORK, which will be followed by a Q&A with the two stars and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin
Multiple venues
October 1-3
Tickets: $25-$150 (most events $25-$35)
www.newyorker.com/festival
And they’re off! The race to get the hottest tickets to this year’s New Yorker Festival will begin September 10 at 12 noon, as literary snobs, wanna-be writers, and the glitterati battle it out to see conversations, lectures, book readings, live music, panel discussions, film screenings, and other events featuring such stars as Steve Carell, James Taylor, Justin Timberlake, Lorrie Moore, Yo-Yo Ma, Stephen King, Regina Spektor, Paul Goldberger, Ian Frazier, Neil Gaiman, Patricia Clarkson, Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith, David Simon, mumblecore masters Andrew Bujalski, Greta Gerwig, and Joe Swanberg, and many others. Good luck getting tickets for “Living History,” in which Peter Carey, E. L. Doctorow, and Annie Proulx share their thoughts with moderator Simon Schama; Paul Reubens talking about life, with Susan Morrison; Werner Herzog telling tales with Judith Thurman; Calvin Trillin’s annual tasting walk from Greenwich Village to Chinatown; a private tour of the Frick with Peter Schjeldahl; and “The Cartoon Caption Game,” in which audience members participate in a live caption-writing contest in the Condé Nast executive dining room.
As the audience enters the fenced-in area on Pike Slip under the Manhattan Bridge, eight women are already strapped into seats along a wall, each performer at a slightly different level on rusted metal ladders hanging from the top. Meanwhile, to their left, a huge salt pile is roped off. The eight dancers — Elizabeth Wilkinson, Mare Hieronimus, Teresa Kochis, Celeste Hastings, Ori Lenkinski, Adi Kfir, Meghan Merril, and Marcy Schlissel — are wearing costumes crafted from sculptural beeswax and lanolin, their legs slathered in goop, the ends of their outfits dangling toward the ground at varying lengths. They slowly start moving, turning a head here, twisting their arms or legs there, as Erin McGonigle’s electronic sound score can barely be heard, competing with the noise from the FDR Drive and the trains passing by directly overhead. Soon the dancers are lashing out at the wall, grabbing at it as if trying to escape, rubbing their bodies against it lovingly, or leaning over seductively, peering out at the crowd gathered below, making deep, emotional eye contact. A site-specific dance installation choreographed by Noémie Lafrance, MELT is a mesmerizing experience, forty minutes of fascinating, fluid movement featuring dancers who make the most of their limited range of motion, their bodies fastened to the wall, forcing them to thrash about with their extremities to the point of both exhilaration and exhaustion. With the sun shining on them, it is like their skin is melting away, their thin costumes dripping off them as they try to hold on to their souls. MELT has been extended through September 12, with two performances a night Thursday through Sunday. Tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door; $20 get you a seat on the asphalt ground, while $40 gets you a comfy beach lounger right up front.