The Intrepid serves as home base for annual Fleet Week celebration (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Pier 86, 12th Ave. & 46th St.
May 26 – June 1
Admission: adults $22, children three to seventeen $17 www.intrepidmuseum.org
All ashore that’s going ashore! The Navy, Army, and Coast Guard sail into New York Harbor today for the annual Fleet Week celebration, a week of special activities based at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum on the far West Side. The festivities get under way this morning with the Parade of Ships and continue with pier displays from the American Red Cross, the Air Force Global Strike Command, the FDNY, and many others. There will be tours of Army Boat Vessel LSV-1, demonstrations by the Coast Guard Search & Rescue team, competitions including the tug of war and inflatable jousting, the Memorial Day flyover and Three Volley Salute, a Broadway showcase hosted by the ladies of LEND ME A TENOR, and live performances by the Northeast Navy Show Band, the West Point Band, the Rockettes, Miss Babs & the Kickin’ Boogie Band, and Reckon So, and much more.
The Butterfly Conservatory closes for the summer on May 31 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th St.
“The Butterfly Conservatory: Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter” through May 31, timed-entry tickets
“Lizards & Snakes: Alive!” through September 2, timed-entry tickets
Admission: $24 with one special exhibition, $32 for all special exhibitions and films
212-769-5200 www.amnh.org
While the American Museum of Natural History is world renowned for its dinosaur collection and taxidermied dioramas, there are currently two exhibits on view that involve living creatures. There’s only one week left to step inside the glassed-in Butterfly Conservatory, in which more than five hundred butterflies and moths flitter about with adults and children alike, landing on heads and clothing, using their long proboscis to suck up fruit juice, and relaxing on leaves and plants. Most of the butterflies have a life span of only a few weeks, so every time you go, you’re sure to see something new. Just be careful where you step, in case one of them is on the ground below you. And don’t be so quick to scratch that itch – it could be a member of the Order Lepidoptera fluttering on your nose. The butterflies will be going on hiatus following Memorial Day weekend, returning to the Upper West Side in October.
Frilled lizards are among more than sixty cool creatures in “Lizards & Snakes: Alive!” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
More than five dozen squamates wriggle and writhe in “Lizards & Snakes: Alive!,” which continues through September 2. Arranged in separate glass cases based on their evolution, ancestry, and other relationships (some of which is detailed in diagrams of life called cladograms), such amazing animals as a Madagascan giant day gecko, a tropical girdled lizard, a rhinoceros iguana, an eastern green mamba, a Gabon viper, a Gila monster, and a red spitting cobra are on view in miniature habitats. Interactive stations and fascinating facts add insight to the life of these creepy, crawly creatures. On June 19 and 25, Chad Peeling will lead the special family program “Wild, Wild World: Snakes and Lizards,” offering an inside look at squamates. In addition, there are still spots left for “A Night at the Museum” those same days, when kids can sleep over at AMNH and go on their own adventures through one of the world’s finest natural history institutions. (Also on view at the museum is “Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World” through August 15, “Race to the End of the World” through May 29, and the Hayden Planetarium film JOURNEY TO THE STARS.)
Bill Shannon is in the midst of a three-month residency at Dance New Amsterdam
DOUZ AND MILLE @ DNA PRESENTS BILL SHANNON
Dance New Amsterdam
280 Broadway, second floor
Exhibition runs through June 18, free
Lecture/performance: May 25, $17, 8:00
Traffic: June 2-4, $20-$25, 4:30
212-625-8369 www.dnadance.org www.douzandmille.com www.whatiswhat.com
When Bill Shannon was five years old, he was diagnosed with Legg-Calvé Perthes disease, a degenerative, bilateral hip deformity that has required him to use crutches and braces for most of his life. The onetime Easter Seals poster child, who turns forty this year, used breakdancing and skateboarding as a way to project his burgeoning creativity, eventually developing the Shannon Technique, which combines his remarkable dexterity on crutches with the sociological phenomena of interacting with a public that has has preconceived notions and differing levels of comfort in the presence of so-called disabled people. On the stage and in the streets, Shannon, who is in the midst of a three-month residency at Dance New Amsterdam (DNA), has created a fascinating visual vocabulary that involves such moves as the sweeper, frontside airs, toeflips, splitmids, the elbow stall, and nohanders and nofooters, using what he refers to as “disability based utilitarianism” in his dance and choreography, incorporating playful tricks as well as emotionally wrought movement that uses natural sound and light in addition to hip-hop music.
His crutches become an extension of his body instead of a prop or a handicap as he elicits fascinating reactions from the public, experiences that he has documented in a series of videos that are collected on the second floor of DNA, twenty monitors that depict “The Evolution of William Foster Shannon.” The videos include Shannon going up and down the steps of an art museum receiving “help” from strangers, riding through the streets on crutches and a skateboard with multiple cameras attached to give amazing views of his travels, his stunning duet with a woman in a wheelchair, and side-by-side depictions of his attempts to pull off certain specific moves, one video featuring his failures, the other his successes. In another outdoor performance in a small downtown New York City park, he hides himself in a white outfit and becomes “invisible,” slowly making his way through the area as people mostly ignore him. On May 25, Shannon will be giving a lecture/performance at DNA that should be both entertaining and intriguing, as he is an engaging character with endless insights into such interactivity as the “face of distraction,” “questioning the stare,” and the “weight of empathy,” terms he uses in describing his unique art form.
Bill Shannon’s “Spatiotemporality” video exhibit continues at DNA through June 18 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
“Many people from all walks of life experience stereotypes projected upon them in a public context,” Shannon explains on his website. “The difference in my opinion between reactions to my ambiguous and wide ranging representation of disability and the stereotypes other people endure related to their ability, age, race, class, culture, gender, and sexual orientation is the ease at which people will communicate with me directly and indirectly about the details of my life and identity and the cumulative volume of communication about these details over my lifetime.” Audiences will get the extreme pleasure of watching Shannon in action in his live street piece “Traffic”: From June 2 to 4, Shannon will present a Transient Specific Street Performance, starting at DNA and gliding down the streets of Lower Manhattan on his crutches and skateboard, turning the urban landscape into his stage while the audience follows him in a bus. Don’t miss any of these rare chances to see Shannon in action.
While BookExpo America is an industry-only event taking place May 25-27 at the Javits Center, the organizers at BEA have wisely added New York Book Week, five days of readings, signings, Q&As, and discussions that are open to the public and mostly free. On Monday, Louis Gossett Jr. will chat up AN ACTOR AND A GENTLEMAN at the B&N at 1972 Broadway; on Tuesday, Zetta Elliot, Tonya Cherie Hegamin, Kekla Magoon, and Rita Williams-Garcia will be at the New York Public Library’s 125th St. branch; on Wednesday, William Peter Blatty will participate in a “Meet the Author” session at the Yorkville Library; on Thursday, Jonathan Franzen and David Means will be at the Brooklyn Public Library; and on Friday, baseball star Lee Smith and cowriter Fran Zimnuch will be at Borders Wall St. signing FIREMAN: THE EVOLUTION OF THE CLOSER IN BASEBALL. Among the ticketed events are “An Hour (or Two) with Daniel Handler” at WORD (May 25, $20), “Stories by Writers from THIS AMERICAN LIFE with Special Guest Ira Glass” at Symphony Space (May 26, $27), and “A Conversation with Scott Turow” at the TimesCenter (May 26, $30).
Israel will celebrate its sixty-second birthday on Fifth Ave. on May 23 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
LIGHTS . . . CAMERA . . . ACTION . . . ISRAEL!
57th to 74th St. up Fifth Ave.
Sunday, May 23, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
Admission: free www.salutetoisrael.com
Fifth Ave. will turn blue and white on May 23 as the annual Salute to Israel Parade makes its way from 57th to 74th St., celebrating the sixty-second birthday of the State of Israel. This year’s grand marshal is Meshulam Riklis – yes, the very financier who married Pia Zadora and produced her “breakthrough” film, BUTTERFLY – and features such special guests as Israeli-born Sacramanto King Omri Casspi, boxing champs Yuri Foreman and Dmitriy Salita, supermodel Adi Neumann, and former Knick Allan Houston, who, along with Charlie Ward, made some extremely controversial anti-Semitic remarks back in 2004. Nearly fifty politicians are expected to show that they’re friends of Israel by marching in the parade, along with such participants as the 92nd St. Y, Dor Chadash, the JCC, Rjeneration, Skaters & Bladers for Israel, the UJA, the Chai Riders Motorcyle Club, and dozens of temples and schools. This year’s theme is Lights . . . Camera . . . Action . . . Israel!, as the parade retells the story of the nation’s ongoing heritage. Jews are well known for their digestive problems, so leave it to the parade coordinators to actually include the location of all sixteen portable toilets along the route, just in case that last meal at Katz’s still isn’t sitting quite right.
On his self-released album PLAYING WITH FIRE, the one-named Wallace exposes his demons in snarls worthy of Jim Morrison and Eddie Vedder over acoustic guitar lines reminiscent of Neil Young and Jerry Garcia, looking deep within himself on such brooding songs as “All for Tonight” and “Out of My Head.” Wallace, who was born and bred in New England and is now based in Brooklyn, breaks out the harmonica for the bluesy “So Long” and goes a little country on “A Pity.” “Woke up to another day / Can’t seem to shake the hate / Talking to my heart in vain / Then tried to cover the pain,” he sings on “The Lies.” We’re guessing you shouldn’t expect a lot of uplifting pop ditties when Wallace comes to the Rockwood Music Hall on May 22 at 7:00, following Stephen Brock and Jeremy Parise and preceding Will Knox.
Shepard Fairey show will close Deitch Projects in SoHo (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Deitch Projects, 18 Wooster St., through May 29
Mural wall, Broadway & Houston St., through December
Ace Hotel, Broadway & Houston St.
Cooper Square Hotel, East Fifth St. at Third Ave.
Admission: free www.deitch.com www.obeygiant.com shepard fairey slideshow
L.A.-based street artist is all over New York this month. He’s featured prominently in the Banksy movie EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, has designed several murals throughout the city, and is currently staging the final show at Deitch Projects in SoHo. Fairey, who is proud of “manufacturing quality dissent since 1989,” is celebrating May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, with these series of works, commenting on labor rights, social unrest, government interference, corporate domination, and the continuing struggle for artistic, political, and personal freedom. At Deitch, he has hung dozens of portraits of such icons as Neil Young, Keith Haring, Bob Dylan, jimi Hendrix, Cornel West, Woody Guthrie, John & Yoko, Joe Strummer, and the Dalai Lama as well as political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burmese monk, Arab women, and other revolutionary figures.
Shepard Fairey gets political in series of works all over city (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
His black-and-red color scheme relates to Soviet propaganda posters, evoking a powerful mix of capitalism and totalitarianism, while also sometimes adding Arabic designs that have a strong potency post-9/11. The Obey Giant creator has also included a stunning painting of a deserted gas station, a beautiful blue wave, and a large mural that calls for people to raise their voices and fight the system. The mural is similar to outdoor projects that he has installed at Broadway and Houston and on a temporary wooden wall along the Ace Hotel at 29th and Broadway; in addition, he has another piece on the side of the Cooper Square Hotel on Third Ave. On the murals, a newspaper article proclaims, “Right wing denies science of climate change,” artist Jasper Johns sits with a target on his chest, Arab women hide parts of their faces, roses emerge from rifles, and a police officer says, “I’m gonna kick your ass . . . and get away with it!” The show at Deitch runs through May 29, while the Broadway & Houston mural continues through the end of the year.
