twi-ny recommended events

JOSHUA LIGHT SHOW: FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY SHOWS

The Joshua Light Show celebrates half a century of psychedelic grooviness with a pair of shows at the Skirball Center

The Joshua Light Show celebrates half a century of psychedelic grooviness with a pair of shows at the Skirball Center

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl. between Third & Fourth Sts.
September 8-9, $40 (use code JLS1 for 50% discount), 7:30
212-992-8484
nyuskirball.org
www.joshualightshow.com

Formed in 1967 by Joshua White and others, the Joshua Light Show is celebrating fifty years of adding psychedelic visuals to live music with a pair of shows at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. On September 8, the onetime Fillmore resident artists will be working their image-making magic with punk-blues purveyors Boss Hog and the experimental, progressive Dave Harrington Group, while they will join John Colpitts’s Man Forever and electronic music composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith on September 9. Over the years, JLS has stuck to its analog beginnings, using liquid and light, while incorporating digital elements. The current lineup features Alyson Denny, Curtis Godino, Nick Hallett, Seth Kirby, Ana Matronic, Brock Monroe, Gary Panter, Doug Pope, Nica Ross, Briged Smith, Bec Stupak, Jeff Cook, George Stadnik, and White. We caught them in 2012 at Skirball with John Zorn, Lou Reed, Bill Laswell, and Milford Graves and in 2011 at the Hayden Planetarium and were instantly sucked into their groovy world. Tickets are $40 for each show or $60 for both; use code JLS1 to get them for half price.

NOW HEAR THIS PODCAST FESTIVAL

Larry Wilmores Black on the Air podcast is part of festival

Larry Wilmore’s Black on the Air podcast is part of Now Hear This festival

Javits Center
655 West 34th St. at 11th Ave.
September 8-10, Saturday pass $125, Sunday pass $50, three-day GA pass $180, VIP pass $340
nowhearthisfest.com
www.javitscenter.com

You might be used to listening to podcasts with headphones on while at your desk or wandering through the city, but now you can see some of the best of these audio shows at the second annual Now Hear This Podcast Festival, taking place at the Javits Center this weekend. More than two dozen shows are participating, featuring such podcastors as Chris Gethard, Phoebe Judge, Jon Lovett, Aaron Mahnke, Sam Roberts, Jon Gabrus & Lauren Lapkus, Larry Wilmore, LeVar Burton, Alex Schmidt, Colt Cabana, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Kulap Vilaysack & Howard Kremer, and Ryback. Day passes for Friday are sold out, but you can still catch those shows with a three-day pass; single-day passes are still available for Saturday and Sunday. According to the website, among the items not allowed in are pets, weapons, and emotional baggage. Be ready to make some tough choices, as several of the best podcasts are scheduled for the same time; below are only some of the highlights.

Friday, September 8
Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, with Chris Gethard, Fracture Theatre, 7:00

Lovett or Leave It, with Jon Lovett & Friends, Virtue Stage, 7:00

Found, with Davy Rothbard and special guests, Podswag Stage, 7:00

Saturday, September 9
Black on the Air, with Larry Wilmore, Virtue Stage, 11:30 am

Nancy, with Kathy Tu and Tobin Low, Podswag Stage, 1:30

The Flop House, with Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington and guest flopper Ronny Chieng, Fracture Theatre, 3:30

LeVar Burton Reads, with LeVar Burton and special guests, Virtue Stage, 5:30

Comedy Bang! Bang! with Scott Aukerman and special guests, Stitcher Stage, 7:30

Sunday, September 10
Doughboys, with Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell, Virtue Stage, 11:00 am

The Art of Wrestling, with Colt Cabana and special guests, Mack Weldon Stage, 12:15

StarTalk All-Stars, with Helen Matsos and Neil deGrasse Tyson, Virtue Stage, 1:00

The Weeds (from VOX), with Matt Yglesias, Sarah Kliff, and special guest, Fracture Theatre, 1:00

Conversation with the Big Guy, with Ryback, Pat Buck, and friends, Mack Weldon Stage, 1:30

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: AMONG FRIENDS

“Mud Muse” is one of many collaborations in MoMA exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Mud Muse” is one of many collaborations in MoMA exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through September 17
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

“Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” is almost too much of a good thing, a massive MoMA retrospective of the interdisciplinary artist who died in 2008 at the age of eighty-two. The exhausting exhibition consists of more than 250 works, highlighting his collaborations while celebrating the vast nature of his practice. “Oh, I love collaborating, because art can be a really lonely business, if you’re really just working from your ego,” he says in an old interview on the audio guide. The show follows the Texas native from his Black Mountain College years through his time in Italy and North Africa, from his early combines and classical-influenced pieces to performances, silkscreens, objects, “Experiments in Art and Technology” (E.A.T.), and more. Many of his greatest hits are here, including “Bed,” “Monogram,” “Canyon,” “Gift for Apollo,” and his illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, alongside collaborations with Jasper Johns, John Cage, Jean Tinguely, Willem de Kooning, Susan Weil, Brice Marden, Sturtevant, Alex Hay, and more. Among the most unusual works is the bubbling “Mud Muse” created with Carl Adams, George Carr, Lewis Ellmore, Frank Lahaye, and Jim Wilkinson. And most entertaining is Rauschenberg’s involvement in the dance world, making sets for and even performing in pieces by Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown and Laurie Anderson, Harry Shunk and Janos Kender, and others, some filmed by Charles Atlas. The exhibition is supplemented with works by such Rauschenberg contemporaries as Aaron Siskind, Cy Twombly, Lucinda Childs, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Robert Whitman. Meanwhile, the audio guide includes contributions from Yvonne Rainer, Calvin Tompkins, Weil, Marden, Brown, Virginia Dwan, Atlas, Julie Martin, and Rauschenberg’s son, Christopher. So how does one make sense of it all? MoMA is hosting a series of talks and performances to help sort everything out. The exhibition continues through September 17; the below “gallery experiences” are free with museum admission, with no advance RSVP required. (Only the September 12 “Dante Among Friends” performance requires paid ticketing.)

Peter Moore. Performance view of Robert Rauschenberg’s Pelican (1963), 1965. © Barbara Moore/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Peter Moore, “Performance view of Robert Rauschenberg’s Pelican (1963),” 1965 (© Barbara Moore/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York)

Wednesday, September 6, 11:30 & 3:30
“Dance among Friends: Robert Rauschenberg’s Collaborations with Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor,” featuring Changeling, Three Epitaphs, Tracer, You Can See Us, and excerpts from other works, Sculpture Garden

“Robert Rauschenberg’s Process,” with Lauren Kaplan

Wednesday, September 6, 11:30
Thursday, September 7, 1:30
Wednesday, September 13, 1:30
Thursday, September 14, 11:30 & 1:30
“No One Is an Island,” with Kerry Downey

Thursday, September 7, 1:30
“Rauschenberg Among Friends,” with Elisabeth Bardt-Pellerin

Saturday, September 9, 11:30
Sunday, September 17, 1:30
“100 Ways to Make a Picture,” with Petra Pankow

Sunday, September 10, 11:30
Monday, September 11, 11:30
“A Bit of This and That: Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines,” with Jane Royal

Tuesday, September 12
“Collaborators, Friends, Lovers,” with Tamara Kostianovsky, 11:30

“Dante among Friends,” with Robin Coste Lewis and Kevin Young responding in music and poetry to Rauschenberg’s Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, curated and hosted by Terrance McKnight, $5-$15, 7:00

ALEXANDRA PIRICI: THRESHOLD

Bucharest-based artist Alexandra Pirici re-created Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc” in 2014 (photo courtesy of the artist)

Bucharest-based artist Alexandra Pirici re-created Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc” in 2014 (photo courtesy of the artist)

On the High Line at 30th Street between 11th & 12th Aves.
September 5-7, free, 4:00 – 7:00
art.thehighline.org

Donald Trump might be seeking to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, but a very different kind of wall is going up on the High Line this week. On September 5-7 from 4:00 to 7:00, Romanian dancer, choreographer, and performance artist Alexandra Pirici will construct “Threshold” at the gate that separates the eastern and western rail yards at Thirtieth St. The architectural boundary is not made of wire, concrete, or wood but performers who will move about and transform the public space. Among the participants lining the flexible human wall — which visitors can interact with — will be Marissa Brown, Catherine Cabeen, Miguel Angel Guzmán, Samuel Hanson, Casey Hess, Jordan Isadore, Jhia Louise Jackson, Annie Kloppenberger, Elizabeth Mulkey, Candace Tabbs, and Jessica Weinstein. In such pieces as “Leaking Territories,” “Aggregate,” “Monument to Work,” and “If You Don’t Want Us, We Want You,” Pirici, who cites Tino Sehgal, Jérôme Bel, and La Ribot as influences, mixes in the political in both clear and subtle ways. Admission is free, and no advance RSVP is required.

OCTFEST

octfest

The Brooklyn Hangar
2 52nd St., Sunset Park
Saturday, September 9, $60 (two for $100), 1:00 – 9:00
www.octfest.co

You can celebrate Octoberfest a little early at the Brooklyn Hangar on September 9, when an excellent lineup of music joins an all-day beer tasting for OctFest. More than forty breweries are participating in the event, including Radeberger, Kona, Oskar Blues, Blue Point, 4 Hands, Rogue, Stony Creek, Braven, Citizen Cider, Shmaltz, ABK, Lord Hobo, and Alphabet City, offering unlimited craft beer. Considering the bands that are scheduled to play, the $60 ticket is one of the best deals in town — and a pair goes for $100. On the impressive bill are Guided by Voices, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Kilo Kish, Okkervil River, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and the Sadies. The event is sponsored by October magazine, which “aims to capture the spirit, ambition, and wort-soaked labor of the gambrinus pursuit — the making and drinking of the good life.”

DASHAINLAYA

dashainlaya

Who: Cobweb, Raju Lama and the Angels Band, Aditya Lama, Dewaj Thapa, Karanjit Singh, Rahul Rai, Tshering Dorje, Teddy, Kunga Chemi, Suraj, Jay Gurung, Akesha Bista, DJ Rokesh, DJ Reet, DJ Spin
What: DashainLaya concert in Queens
Where: Melrose Ballroom, 36-08 33rd St.,
When: Friday, September 8, 8:00, through Saturday, September 9, 4:00 am, $35-$50
Why: KTMEntertainment is hosting DashainLaya, an all-night festival of Nepalese and Tibetan music, on September 8-9 at the Melrose Ballroom in Queens. A portion of the proceeds from the show, headlined by Cobweb and Raju Lama (playing with the Angels Band) and emceed by Akesha Bista, Miss Nepal 2012, will go to families suffering from the devastating floods in southern Nepal. General admission tickets are $35, while $50 VIP seats come with a meet-and-greet with the artists. Anybody born in September gets in free. This summer, floods in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh have resulted in more than twelve hundred fatalities and affected twenty million people. Of course, if you can, you should also contribute to organizations helping the victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, including the Red Cross, the Humane Society, and many others.