twi-ny recommended events

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL 2017

Tanztheater Wuppertal/Pina Bausch’s Café Müller returns to BAM for Next Wave Festival (photo by Bo Lahola)

BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St.
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave.
BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Pl.
September 14 – December 16
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

As usual, we are considering moving in to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for three months after the announcement of the lineup for the thirty-fifth BAM Next Wave Festival, running September 14 through December 16 at the Harvey, the Howard Gilman Opera House, and the Fisher. “This year’s Next Wave showcases artists from Switzerland to Senegal in creative dialogue with historic events, personal histories, and the present moment,” longtime BAM executive producer Joe Melillo said in a statement. The roster includes old favorites and up-and-comers from around the world, with several surprises. Dance enthusiasts will be particularly impressed with the schedule, which begins September 14-24 with a superb double bill of Tanztheater Wuppertal/Pina Bausch’s Café Müller and The Rite of Spring, which were part of the first Bausch program at BAM back in June 1984. For The Principles of Uncertainty (September 27-30), Maira Kalman teams up with John Heginbotham, Dance Heginbotham, and the Knights to bring her online graphic diary to life. New York Live Arts artistic director and cofounder Bill T. Jones returns to BAM with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and composer Nick Hallett for A Letter to My Nephew (October 3-7), about his nephew, Lance T. Briggs, who battled illness and addiction. Senegalese artist Germaine Acogny takes center stage for the emotional solo piece Mon élue noire (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2 (October 4-7), choreographed specifically for her by Olivier Dubois of Ballet du Nord, set to music by Stravinsky. Also on the movement bill are Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY’s Saudade, Cynthia Oliver’s Virago-Man Dem, ODC/Dance, Brenda Way, and KT Nelson’s boulders and bones, David Dorfman Dance’s Aroundtown, Hofesh Shechter Company’s Grand Finale, Xavier Cha’s Buffer, Big Dance Theater’s 17c, and Tesseract, a multimedia collaboration between Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener.

Schaubühne Berlin presents the U.S. premiere of its unique take on Richard III at BAM Next Wave Festival (photo by Arno Declair)

The festival also boasts impressive theater productions, kicking off October 11-14 with Schaubühne Berlin’s tantalizing version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, translated and adapted by Marius von Mayenburg, directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and starring Lars Eidinger. Théâtre de la Ville, Paris is back November 2-4 with Albert Camus’s State of Siege, directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota. Tony-winning Belgian director Ivo van Hove takes on Ayn Rand in Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s four-hour The Fountainhead November 28 to December 2. Rachel Dickstein and Ripe Time bring Naomi Iizuka’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Sleep to the Fisher November 20 to December 2. Fresh off her Broadway stint in Marvin’s Room, Lili Taylor stars in Farmhouse/Whorehouse: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra, directed by Lee Sunday Evans (December 12-16). Geoff Sobelle, who went solo at BAM for The Object Lesson, is joined by an ensemble of designers and dancers for Home (December 6-10). And be on the lookout for Manfred Karge, Alexandra Wood, and Wales Millennium Centre’s Man to Man, Thaddeus Phillips and Steven Dufala’s A Billion Nights on Earth, the Cameri Theatre of Tel-Aviv’s adaptation of Etgar Keret’s Suddenly, directed by Zvi Sahar and PuppetCinema, Manual Cinema’s Mementos Mori, Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project’s /peh-LO-tah/, and James Thierrée and Compagnie du Hanneton’s La grenouille avait raison (The Toad Knew).

Music aficionados have plenty to choose from, with Olivier Py Sings Les Premiere Adieux de Miss Knife, Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, and Vân-Ánh Võ’s My Lai, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Counts’s Road Trip, Gabriel Kahane’s Book of Travelers, Rithy Panh, Him Sophy, Trent Walker, Jonathan Berger, and Harriet Scott’s Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, Wordless Music Orchestra and Chorus’s two-part John Cale: The Velvet Underground & Nico, and the New York premiere of American Repertory Theater’s Crossing, an opera inspired by Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” composed, written, and conducted by Matthew Aucoin and directed by Diane Paulus. The season is supplemented with several postperformance talks and master classes.

CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL 2017

Annie Dorsen turns FIAF auditorium into planetarium for Crossing the Line Festival

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 6 – October 15, free – $60
212-355-6160
crossingthelinefestival.org
www.fiaf.org

FIAF’s annual Crossing the Line Festival enters its second decade with the eleventh edition of its always exciting multidisciplinary lineup featuring unique and eclectic works from around the world. This year’s focus is on Congolese choreographer and CTL veteran Faustin Linyekula, who will be presenting the world premiere of the site-specific Banataba at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (9/9, 9/10, 9/12, $65), the U.S. premiere of In Search of Dinozord with Studios Kabako at the NYU Skirball Center (9/22, 9/23, $40), and the world premiere of Festival of Dreams at Roberto Clemente Plaza on 9/23 and Weeksville Heritage Center on 9/24 (free, 3:00). The festival begins September 6-7 with Ryoji Ikeda’s supercodex (live set) at the Met ($45-$60), a follow-up to his dazzling Superposition from 2014. In #PUNK, taking place 9/14-15 in FIAF’s Tinker Auditorium ($30), Zimbabwe-born, New York–based Nora Chipaumire channels the musical rage of Patti Smith; the 9/14 show will be followed by a Q&A with Chipaumire and Linyekula, moderated by Ralph Lemon. Performance festival regular Annie Dorsen (Magical, Yesterday Tomorrow) takes a new narrative approach to the internet in The Great Outdoors, 9/21-23 in FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall ($35). Alessandro Sciarroni continues his “Will you still love me tomorrow?” trilogy with the New York premiere of UNTITLED_I will be there when you die at La MaMa 9/28-30 ($25, 8:00).

Moroccan dancer-choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen’s Corbeaux (Crows) is a site-specific living sculpture that will move throughout the Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court 9/30 and 10/1 (free with museum admission). Drag fave Dickie Beau conjures Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland in Blackouts 10/5-8 at Abrons Arts Center ($30). Adelheid Roosen and Nazmiye Oral transform FIAF’s Le Skyroom into an intimate living room in No Longer without You 10/12-15 ($25), in which traditional Muslim immigrant Havva Oral and her Westernized daughter, Nazmiye, discuss faith, sexuality, identity, and more. In addition, Alain Willaume’s immersive exhibition, “VULNERABLE,” will be on view 9/15 to 10/28 in the FIAF Gallery (free), and Sophie Calle’s Voir la mer, set by the Black Sea in Istanbul, will be projected on Times Square billboards every night in October at 11:57 as part of the monthly Midnight Moment program.

TICKET ALERT: JOHN CLEESE AND MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

john cleese monty python holy grail

NJPAC
1 Center St., Newark
Sunday, September 24, $44-$99, 3:00
973-297-5843
www.njpac.org

In 1975, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, and John Cleese made one of the funniest movies ever, the outrageously hysterical Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In the span of ninety-two minutes, the Monty Python troupe skewered royalty, government, religion, poverty, history, masculinity, the French, and just about everything else under the sun. On September 24, Cleese, who also starred in Fawlty Towers and was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for A Fish Called Wanda, in which he also played Barrister Archie Leach, will be at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center for a screening of Holy Grail, followed by a discussion with Montclair Film executive director Tom Hall. VIP tickets include a photo op with Cleese, who in the movie portrays Sir Lancelot the Brave (“We were in the nick of time. You were in great peril”), the Black Knight (“Just a flesh wound”), the French Taunter (“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries”), Tim the Enchanter (“Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit”), and other roles.

THE TERMS OF MY SURRENDER: REVISITED

The Donald hovers over Michael Moore in The Terms of My Surrender (photo by Joan Marcus)

Belasco Theatre
111 West 44th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through October 22, $29 – $149
www.michaelmooreonbroadway.com

I attended the star-studded August 10 opening of Michael Moore’s Broadway debut, the mostly one-man show The Terms of My Surrender, in which the Flint native rails against Donald Trump and shares stories about how one person can make a difference. In my review the next day, I noted that there was a handful of important flaws; other critics were somewhat less generous (amid some raves). With all that is going on in the world, overwhelming us on a constant basis, I decided to revisit the Belasco Theatre the next week to see if Moore and director Michael Mayer had made any important changes and how Moore might incorporate the violent white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The show turned out to be much better the second time around. Moore was more comfortable (though not when it comes to dancing), several cringeworthy lines and a dreadful bit were cut, and no special guest arrived for the interview segment. Trump’s words relating to Charlottesville were projected across the stripes on the American flag that hovers behind Moore, and the proceedings had a more agreeable narrative flow. Moore did note at one moment that he went ahead with a line his producers wanted him to get rid of, and he made a point of explaining that he would not have done the show unless the producers agreed that all balcony seats would sell for $29, something he did not say on opening night, so perhaps the show has indeed undergone some necessary and successful nipping and tucking. Whatever the case, The Terms of My Surrender improved greatly upon repeat viewing, even if Moore is still preaching to the converted. However, I’m unlikely to go back a third time; as with presidents, two “terms” are enough.

COCKTAILS AT COOPER HEWITT — JONAH BOKAER: THE DISAPPEARANCE PORTRAITS

Jonah Bokaer concludes Cooper Hewitt series on August 24 with The Disappearance Portraits (photo by KSharkeyMiller)

Who: Jonah Bokaer
What: The Disappearance Portraits
Where: Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 90th St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
When: Thursday, August 24, $13-$15, 6:00
Why: The summer Thursdays Cocktails at Cooper Hewitt series concludes August 24 with American choreographer and visual artist Jonah Bokaer’s The Disappearance Portraits, taking place in the Smithsonian Design Museum’s Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden. Bokaer, whose previous works include Eclipse, Triple Echo, Rules of the Game and Neither, will be performing to original music by Soundwalk Collective. The site-specific live installation was inspired by research Bokaer conducted into his family history and the Mediterranean migration crisis.

CHARLIE PARKER JAZZ FESTIVAL 25th ANNIVERSARY

Multiple locations
August 23-27, free (some events require advance RSVP)
cityparksfoundation.org/charlieparker

City Parks Foundation’s annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival turns twenty-five this year with a series of special events paying tribute to Bird, who lived in New York City from 1939 until his death in 1955 at the age of thirty-four. “In honor of this milestone we have expanded the program to five days, partnered with local institutions on family jazz events and open jam sessions, and are presenting a full evening of dance in the lineup for the first time. We hope all New Yorkers, young and old, jazz aficionados and new fans alike, will join us in honoring the legacy of Charlie Parker and jazz in New York City,” City Parks Foundation executive director Heather Lubov said in a statement. On August 23 at 7:00, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem will host “Harlem Speaks,” a conversation with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. At 7:30, the New School will present “Bird with Strings,” an ensemble of students and veteran players performing the 1950 album Charlie Parker with Strings, featuring such classics as “April in Paris” and “Summertime.” At 10:00 pm, the Shed Open Jam takes place at Silvana. On August 24 at 5:30, Jazz in the Garden features Art Baron playing at the 6BC Botanical Garden. At 6:00, the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music will screen Kasper Collin’s 2017 documentary I Called Him Morgan. At 7:00 in Marcus Garvey Park, Jason Samuels Smith’s “Chasin’ the Bird Remixed” brings together tap dancer and choreographer Smith, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and Derick K. Grant dancing to Parker’s “Donna Lee,” “Salt Peanuts,” and others, preceded by a Walk to SummerStage with the New York Road Runners Club. And at 9:00, the “In Bird We Trust” jam session takes place at Ginny’s Supper Club. On August 25 at 5:30, Jazz in the Garden features Bill Saxton in the Harlem Rose Garden, while at 7:00 the Anat Cohen Tentet plays in Marcus Garvey Park. On August 26 at 3:00, Marcus Garvey Park will be home to a fab concert with the Lee Konitz Quartet, Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science, Louis Hayes, and Charenée Wade. And on Sunday, the grand finale moves to Tompkins Square Park at 3:00 with the Joshua Redman Quartet, Lou Donaldson, Tia Fuller, and Alicia Olatuja. All events are free; some require advance RSVP.

TICKET ALERT — ÓLAFUR ELIASSON: ARCTIC IMAGINATION

olafur nypl

Who: Ólafur Eliasson
What: LIVE from the NYPL
Where: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Celeste Bartos Forum, 476 Fifth Ave. at 42nd St., 917-275-6975
When: Thursday, September 21, $40, 7:00
Why: Danish-born Icelandic artist Ólafur Eliasson has presented environmentally related projects around the world, including here in New York, in such exhibitions and installations as “Volcanoes and Shelters” at Tanya Bonakdar in Chelsea, “The New York City Waterfalls” along the East River, and the career-defining “Take Your Time” at MoMA PS1. Eliasson, who lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin, will be at the New York Public Library on September 21 to participate in “Arctic Imagination” as part of the “Live from the NYPL” series. “Arctic Imagination” is a library initiative involving speakers in the United States and Northern Europe sharing their thoughts on climate change and melting Arctic ice. “In just one hundred years, the Arctic and the North Pole have been transformed from extremely dangerous, mysterious peripheral areas to regions which, in the race against climate change, are now in need of our protection and sense of responsibility,” the project explains in its mission statement. “In 2017 the libraries will be focusing on this theme in ‘Arctic Imagination’ — a series of events, readings, and live conversations in New York, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, and Nuuk.” Eliasson will be in conversation with the NYPL’s Paul Holdengräber. If you are unable to attend the event, which is copresented with the Royal Danish Library and the Consulate General of Denmark in New York, you can follow the livestream here.