Pattern Is Movement will join Glass Ghost aboard music cruise — and twi-ny has free tix to give away
The Boat: The Star of Palm Beach
Pier 40, Houston St. & the West Side Highway
Friday, July 16, 7:00 & 10:00
Tickets: $15 ($30 for open tap)
www.marqueeconcerts.com
www.myspace.com/patternismovement
There seem to be more concerts on the water this year than ever, with at least three major promoters staging shows on board boats making their way across the East and Hudson Rivers, offering spectacular evening views of the city in addition to great music. On Friday, July 16, Philly duo Andrew Thiboldeaux and Chris Ward, better known as Pattern Is Movement, will be teaming up with Brooklyn-based duo Eliot Krimsky and Mike Johnson, who make up Glass Ghost, for a pair of sets on The Star of Palm Beach as part of the Boat series. We have a pair of tickets to give away for either of the July 16 sets of jazzy, offbeat electronic noise and thumping indie club music. Just send your name and daytime phone number to contest@twi-ny.com no later than Monday, July 12, at 3:00 pm. You must be at least twenty-one years of age to enter, and the winner will be chosen at random. Good luck!
The year is 1612, and master swordsmen Musashi Miyamoto (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Kojiro Sasaki (Ryo Katsuji) are in the midst of a duel that leaves the latter near death. Instead of finishing him off, Musashi calls for a doctor to save Kojiro. Six years later, with Musashi seeking a more peaceful life during a meditation retreat at a newly constructed Buddhist temple in the middle of nowhere, Kojiro shows up, bloody revenge on his mind. Based on historical accounts, a 1930s serialized novel by Eji Yoshikawa, and Hiroshi Inagaki’s mid-1950s film trilogy starring Toshirō Mifune, the Ninagawa Company’s MUSASHI is a brilliant three-hour morality play running July 7-10 at the Lincoln Center Festival. Written by Hisashi Inoue (who tragically died suddenly in April) and directed by Yukio Ninagawa, MUSASHI is a stirring tale filled with very funny scenes and poignant drama. At the retreat, the priest, Takuan (Naomasa Musaka), sermonizes, the temple founder, Heishin (Keita Oishi), tells stories, patrons Otome Fudeya (Anne Suzuki) and Mai Kiya (Kayoko Shiraishi) make donations, and Musashi and Kojiro continually look over their shoulders, not trusting one another to wait until the end of the retreat to finish what they started. Early on, the production features a wonderfully choreographed dance of trees and pieces of the set as the temple is put together to a jazzy noir score, hinting at a later dance between the characters. Discussions of war and peace and the role of the samurai in a changing Japanese society abound but never get mundane or pedantic; the relatively spare English supertitles keep things simple and to the point. The three hours, with one intermission, breeze by swiftly, with several fascinating surprises that are simply sensational. Tickets are still available for this dazzling production, which combines elements of Noh and Kyogen theater with Zen philosophy and Bushido theory in supremely satisfying ways.
For the next two weeks, MoMA will be celebrating the eclectic career of iconoclastic sixty-year-old British director Sally Potter with a retrospective of her work, from her 1969 short JERK through the new digitized version of her most well known feature, ORLANDO (1992), to her latest, 2009’s RAGE, which was first available on mobile devices before hitting art houses last September. RAGE is set in the world of high fashion, as an unseen teenager who goes by the name Michelangelo is interviewing a group of fourteen people involved in one way or another with a runway show introducing a new perfume known simply as “M.” As the movie proceeds, the carefully crafted characters reveal more and more intimate thoughts and reactions, in front of different-colored screens, as mystery, mayhem, and murder ensue. Among the participants are transvestite model Minx (Jude Law), wartime photographer Frank (Steve Buscemi), cynical critic Mona Carvell (Judi Dench), former “face of the year” Lettuce Leaf (Lily Cole), financier Tiny Diamonds (Eddie Izzard), his bodyguard, Jed (John Leguizamo), and pizza deliveryman Vijay (Riz Ahmed). The lurid tale is slowly unveiled as the mostly self-centered men and women talk about themselves, looking directly into the camera and staying within the same frame as the action can be heard offscreen. The cast, which also includes Bob Balaban, Dianne Wiest, and Simon Abkarian, is exceptional throughout, bringing everything to life even though Potter, who is operating the camera, never leaves the claustrophobic confines of the single tiny space. The story is rather mundane and the themes somewhat clichéd, but the way it all comes together borders on the dazzling. “I don’t want to be famous,” seamstress Anita (Adrian Barraza) says at one point. “I want to be invisible.” She’s the only one. Potter will be at MoMA for Q&As following the July 7 screening of ORLANDO (8:00), the July 8 screening of RAGE (8:00), and the July 9 screenings of THE GOLD DIGGERS (4:30) and YES (8:00).