twi-ny recommended events

A MUSICAL MEDITATION AND CELEBRATION OF RADICAL HEALING

Who: Nona Hendryx, Nubian Q.U.E.E.N.X., Monique Wilson, Hope Masike, Sara Curruchich English, Lebo Mashile, iskwē | ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ, Rosa Chávez, Liza Jessie Peterson, Be Steadwell, Angela Davis, Divinity Roxx, Sophia Ramos, Cyndi Lauper, Phylicia Rashad, Billie Jean King, Joy Harjo
What: Global virtual music and activism event
Where: StreamYard and Zoom
When: Friday, August 14, $8 – $250, 4:00
Why: On August 14 at 4:00, musician, writer, actress, activist, and legendary powerhouse Nona Hendryx will host an epic virtual concert in support of women’s collective power for social justice. Held in conjunction with feminist organization JASS, “Radical Healing” will feature an international lineup of singer-songwriters, activists, and spoken-word artists celebrating multiracial and multicultural transformation. “By radical healing, we’re acknowledging the power of music to lift our spirits and connect us across all our differences,” Hendryx said in a statement. “We recognize that we can’t build and sustain strong movements for the long haul with broken people who bear the brunt of crises and violence. We need moments of shared joy and connections as much as information and strategy. Some of the most amazing music ever created has been birthed from struggle.” Hendryx will be joined by Monique Wilson, Hope Masike, Sara Curruchich English, Lebo Mashile, iskwē | ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ, Rosa Chávez, Liza Jessie Peterson, Be Steadwell, Angela Davis, Divinity Roxx, Sophia Ramos, Nubian Q.U.E.E.N.X., Cyndi Lauper, Phylicia Rashad, Billie Jean King, Joy Harjo, and others, participating from five continents. General tickets are $25 ($8 for students) and $250 to gain access to a Zoom Q&A with the artists.

JON LANGFORD AND SALLY TIMMS

Mekons members Jon Langford and Sally Timms will play livestreamed gig from Chicago club on August 14

Who: Jon Langford, Sally Timms
What: Livestream concert
Where: Hideout online
When: Friday, August 14, suggested tip $15, 8:00
Why: The Mekons are one of the greatest bands of the last fifty years. Formed in 1976, the British punks have continued to make fab records and tour relentlessly, but they’ve been sidelined because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, that doesn’t mean they’ve gone silent. On April 6, founding frontman Jon Langford, who’s been very busy during the Covid-19 crisis, performed a livestreamed concert on the back of a pickup truck for Chicago club FitzGerald’s, driven through the streets of Berwyn, Illinois, playing to people on sidewalks and porches. And on June 19, the group released its latest album, Exquisite, based on the concept of the exquisite corpse; the liner notes explain it “was recorded in lockdown on mobile phones, broken cassette recorders, clay tablets & other ancient technologies in Aptos, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York & Devon,” featuring the nom de plumes Baron Von Munchio, Comteboy de Langreamont, Honeyman Ray, Luanora Carrington (ex-Lubu Roi), the Marquis Tomato de Ironingboard, Ricmedios Bellvaro, Sallyvador Dolly, and St. Yves Pantalon-Mécanique adding music and lyrics one at a time. (Did I mention they have a wicked sense of humor?)

On August 6, Langford and vocalist Sally Timms, who teamed up for a show at the Hideout Inn in Chicago on January 19, played outdoors at the Virtue Cider Taproom in Fenville, Michigan; on August 14, the duo will return to the Hideout, but this time they will perform without an audience, as the concert will be livestreamed from an empty club; admission is free, but a $15 tip-jar donation is suggested. (Langford will be back at the Virtue lawn on August 20 with John Szymanski and play solo on the patio of FitzGerald’s on August 26.) Describing the show, the Hideout points out, “Jon Langford and Sally Timms are punk rock refugees from across the pond. Mostly they play music with fundamentalist Punk Rock icons the Mekons but have other hobbies which usually involve cross-dressing, pirate songs, and sitting round at the Hideout Tavern in Chicago defying the forces of time, entropy, and Corporate Capitalism.” Don’t miss it.

THE NEO-POLITICAL COWGIRLS: ANDROMEDA’S SISTERS

Who: Blythe Danner, Susie Essman, Tamara Tunie, Catherine Curtin, Joy Behar, Laura Gomez, Ellen Dolan, Florencia Lozano, Welker White, Portia, Kathryn Grody, Nehassaiu DeGannes, Dahlia Lithwick, Amy Spitalnick, Roberta Kaplan, Kerry Kennedy, more
What: An Arts and Advocacy Forum in Two Parts
Where: Zoom link sent with ticket purchase
When: Friday, August 14, 7:00, and Thursday, September 3, 5:00, $25-$120
Why: In June 2019, the nonprofit organization the Neo-Political Cowgirls presented “Andromeda’s Sisters,” what they called a “Two Day Gala of Powerful Arts and Advocacy” at Guild Hall. The event featured workshops and one-act readings by an all-star lineup of actresses performing monologues by female-identifying playwrights. The cast is now reuniting for a virtual restaging and expansion, beginning August 14 at 7:30, with Blythe Danner as accused Salem witch Goody Garlick in a work written for her by Lucy Boyle; Catherine Curtin as a wife who discovers her husband is cheating on her in a monologue written for her by Joy Behar; Florencia Lozano as the other woman in Dipti Bramhandkar’s The Funeral; Laura Gomez as a woman who visits a sex shop in Bramhandkar’s Brown Girl’s Guide to Self-Pleasure; Welker White as the title character in Lynn Grossman’s BITCH; Ellen Dolan as a mother and a grandmother in Sarah Bierstock’s MAD (Mothers and Daughters); Tanya Everett’s One Thousand Miles, about a relationship webinar; Portia reading the late poet June Jordan’s “A Poem About My Rights”; a movement piece by Mia Funk; and two extracts from choreographer Vanessa Walters’s ongoing “Ripening” project.

Founded in 2007 by Kate Mueth, the Neo-Political Cowgirls “are committed to making work for women and about women — to creating a space where women and girls from all walks of life can share their experiences, joys, concerns, and spirits through professional dance.” The gala gets its name from the legend in which Princess Andromeda, captured by Poseidon, is saved by the daughters of the God of the Sea, leading to the idea that sisters should seek to help one another in these difficult times. As the NPC website asserts, “When we ‘swim’ to help our sisters, even if it may go against our own best interests in the moment, it’s astounding what can happen for all of those involved.” The second part takes place on September 3 and focuses on advocacy, with journalist Dahlia Lithwick interviewing Amy Spitalnick of Integrity First for America and litigator Roberta Kaplan about their upcoming court case against neo-Nazis; a cocktail hour; Kerry Kennedy giving the keynote address about fighting femicide; and Gomez, Curtin, and Lozano reading from Kennedy’s 2000 book, Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World. Tickets are $25 ($50 with donation) for the monologues and readings at both parts and $120 for those in addition to the cocktail hour and access to breakaway rooms with some of the invited guests.

JACOB’S PILLOW: BEREISHIT DANCE COMPANY AND MORE

Bereishit Dance Company’s BOW is part of Jacob’s Pillow Virtual Festival (photo © Christopher Duggan, courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow)

Who: Bereishit Dance Company, Maura Keefe, Soon-ho Park
What: Virtual festival stream of dance and discussion
Where: Jacob’s Pillow YouTube
When: Thursday, August 13, free, 7:00 (available through August 15 at midnight)
Why: While you can’t head out to the Berkshires to watch dance at historic Jacob’s Pillow, you can catch highlights from the last ten years at home during the institution’s Virtual Festival, which continues through August 29. On August 13 at 7:00, you can see two works from Bereishit Dance Company’s 2016 Pillow debut, streamed in conjunction with the Korean Cultural Center New York: the male duet BOW_CONTROL from BOW, which incorporates the Korean art of archery into its movement, reimagining the bow as a musical instrument instead of a weapon; and Balance & Imbalance, featuring five dancers, two drummers, and a pansori singer exploring action and reaction in nature. The performance will be preceded by a talk with Pillow scholar-in-residence Maura Keefe and followed by a discussion with Bereishit founder and choreographer Soon-ho Park. The free stream will be available through August 15 at midnight. The festival has previously featured such companies and choreographers as Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Desmond Richardson, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Sascha Radetsky, Limón Dance Company, and Ballet Hispánico; coming up are Aszure Barton, Tero Saarinen Company & the Boston Camerata, Ami Shulman, and more.

IN THE STUDIO: MARTA MINUJÍN

Marta Minujín received the Cultural Achievement Award at Americas Society in 2018 (photo by Beatriz Meseguer)

Who: Marta Minujín, Aimé Iglesias Lukin
What: Artist conversation
Where: Americas Society Instagram Live, (archived on YouTube)
When: Wednesday, August 12, free, 5:00
Why: This past fall, Argentine artist Marta Minujín remounted her seminal La Menesunda interactive installation at the New Museum, an exciting and fun multimedia labyrinth that anticipated Instagram-friendly pop-up galleries way back in 1965. The seventy-seven-year-old Buenos Aires-based Minujín is now returning — virtually, of course — to Americas Society, where in 1968 she installed Minucode at the Center for Inter-American Relations, now known as Americas Society, for a live discussion from her studio with the institution’s visual arts director and chief curator, Aimé Iglesias Lukin; part of the Americas Society program “In the Studio,” the free talk will take place on August 12 at 5:00, after which it will be archived on YouTube. The Wednesday series previously featured such artists as Naufus Ramiréz-Figueroa, Gabino Castelán, Gonzalo Fuenmayor, Sara Ramo, and Juan José Olavarría; up next on August 19 will be Ulrik López.

CANCELED: TICKET ALERT: AN EVENING OF WORDS AND MUSIC WITH PATTI SMITH

Who: Patti Smith, Tony Shanahan
What: Patti Smith’s only live, staged appearance in 2020
Where: Murmrr Theatre
When: Now canceled: Friday, September 4, $30, 9:00
Why: In her follow-up to the hugely successful Just Kids and M Train, poet, punk goddess, and visual artist Patti Smith writes in her latest memoir, Year of the Monkey (Penguin Random House, September 1, $16):

“I decided on the Waterfront for dinner but went the opposite way and passed a wall covered in murals, Chagall-like scenes from Fiddler on the Roof, floating violinists amidst tongues of flame that produced a disconcerting sense of nostalgia. When I finally circled back and entered the Waterfront, I thought I had made a mistake. The layout looked totally different than in the afternoon. There was a pool table and nothing but fellas of all ages with baseball caps and huge glasses of beer with slices of lemon. Several looked at me as I entered, an unthreatening alien, then went about the business of drinking and talking. There was a hockey game on a big screen with no sound. The din, the drone, was all male, amiable male, laughing and talking, broken only by the tapping of a ball with a cue stick, the ball dropping into the pocket. I ordered coffee, a fish sandwich and salad, the most expensive plate on the menu. The fish was small and deep-fried, but the lettuce and onions were fresh. The same starfish mug, the same brew. I laid my money on the table and went out. It was raining. I put on my watch cap. Passing the mural, I nodded to the Yiddish fiddler, commiserating an unspoken fear of friends slipping away.”

Tickets are now on sale to watch Smith’s live, virtual, one-time-only show on September 4, in which she will read excerpts from Year of the Monkey, which comes out in paperback on September 1, and other writings and perform songs with longtime bassist Tony Shanahan. The live performance, held in conjunction with the Community Bookstore in Park Slope, will take place at an empty Murmrr, the Brooklyn club at the historic Union Temple by Grand Army Plaza. The livestream will be filmed by cinematographer Matthew Schroeder with multiple cameras; it will be Smith’s only stage appearance of 2020. Tickets are $30 and include a copy of the paperback. [Ed. note: This event has been canceled as of 8/14.]

A LIVE STREAM WITH ARMISTEAD MAUPIN IN CONVERSATION WITH IAN McKELLEN

Who: Armistead Maupin, Ian McKellen
What: Livestream conversation
Where: Fane Online
When: Wednesday, August 12, $25, 1:30 (available for forty-eight hours)
Why: On August 12 at 1:30, author Armistead Maupin (Significant Others, Mary Ann in Autumn) will sit down with his good friend Sir Ian McKellen (The X-Men, Lord of the Rings) at the Crazy Coqs nightclub in London to discuss Maupin’s life and career, focusing on his 2017 nonfiction book, Logical Family: A Memoir. McKellen appeared as Archibald Anson Gidde in three episodes of Tales of the City, the original 1993 miniseries based on Maupin’s bestselling novels. In October 2015, Maupin presented the Mill Valley Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award to McKellen; the actor has referred to the author as his ”godfather.” Tickets are $25 in the US and £25 in the UK (accompanied by a signed copy of the book).