twi-ny recommended events

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: CaribBEING IN BROOKLYN

“Doria Dee Johnson at her home in Chicago, Illinois, 2017” (photo by Melissa Bunni Elian for the Equal Justice Initiative)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, August 5, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum starts preparing for the West Indian American Day Carnival events over Labor Day weekend with the August edition of its free First Saturday program. (First Saturdays is skipped in September.) There will be live performances by RIVA & Bohio Music and the Drums and Bugles International Bands Association; the mobile art center caribBEING House, where visitors can share their own stories; a gallery tour of “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85” with Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art curatorial assistant Allie Rickard; pop-up gallery talks of “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas” with teen apprentices; a screening of Matt Ruskin’s Sundance Audience Award winner Crown Heights, introduced by actress Natalie Paul and followed by a Q&A with film subject Colin Warner, community activist Rick Jones, and attorney Ames Grawert; a sneak peek of Cori Wapnowska’s documentary Bruk Out!, followed by a talkback with Wapnowska and Dancehall Queen Famous Red, moderated by Hyperallergic editor Seph Rodney; a Book Club event with Oneka LaBennett reading and discussing her new book, She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn, followed by a signing; an Artist’s Eye talk by Melissa Bunni Elian on her contribution to “The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America”; a wukkout! movement workshop based on high-energy soca dancing; a hands-on workshop in which participants can make paintings with watercolor and salt; and a Flag Fete in which visitors can bring their own national flag, joined by female-identified Caribbean artists Sol Nova, Young Devyn, and Ting & Ting featuring Kitty Cash and special guests.

PANORAMA 2017 WRAP-UP

A Tribe Called Quest put on a superlative and moving last New York City show, a tribute to Phife Dawg and their fans (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Everyone
What: Panorama festival
Where: Randall’s Island Park
When: Friday, July 28, through Sunday, July 30, 12 noon – 11:00 pm
Why: Resting for a moment near the main stage, twi-ny struck up a conversation with a few of the thousands of music fans who traveled by ferry, bus, and shuttle to enjoy the three days of perfect summer sunshine, thoughtful event planning, and spectacular music that came together for Panorama NYC. From outstanding sets from headliners Girl Talk, Frank Ocean, Solange, A Tribe Called Quest, and Nine Inch Nails to newer performers including Foxygen, Dhani Harrison, and Angel Olsen to the excellent food, futuristic HP Lab, and dance music (and free water everywhere!), all of us agreed that in more than twenty-five years of NYC festivals, highlighted by the great late 1990s Guinness Fleadh (1997–99), the Beasties’ epic Tibetan Freedom Concert (1997), and a brief flash of Catalpa (2012), Panorama NYC has outdone them all, achieving possibly the best vibe ever at a NYC-based festival. For two years in a row, Goldenvoice, which produces Coachella, FYF, Stagecoach, and many other music fests, has done a fabulous job with vendors, sponsors, staging, and transport, creating an inclusive, joyful weekend of music and art that should not be missed. Below are just a few of our many photos; you can find more from Friday here and from Sunday here.

Rev. Vince Anderson and His Love Choir brought plenty of hugs to Panorama on Sunday (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Future art and technology combine at the HPLab installation

Future art and technology combine at Ekene Ijeoma’s interactive “Heartfelt” installation (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The glowing orb at HPLab responds to touch.

Future Wife’s glowing “Boolean Planet” orb responds to touch (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Dhani Harrison rocks a lot harder than his dad George, on the Parlor Stage.

Dhani Harrison has a harder edge on the guitar than his Beatle dad, George (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Bishop Briggs brought infectious energy to the Panorama Stage on Sunday afternoon.

Bishop Briggs delivered infectious energy on the Panorama Stage on Sunday afternoon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

NIN and Trent Reznor brought the weekend to a close with their unparalleled raw intensity.

NIN and Trent Reznor brought the weekend to a dramatic close with their unparalleled raw intensity (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FASHION AND FILM: VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS

Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) comes of age rather early in Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (VALERIE A TÝDEN DIVŮ) (Jaromil Jireš, 1970)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Thursday, August 3, 7:30
Series continues select Thursdays through August 31
718-384-3980
nitehawkcinema.com

Nitehawk Cinema’s “Fashion and Film” series, presented in conjunction with i-D magazine, consists of four movies selected by fashion designers, each preceded by a short “Designers on Their Favorite Films” prerecorded introduction. It kicks off August 3 with Czech New Wave auteur Jaromil Jireš’s (The Cry, The Joke) extremely strange, totally hypnotic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, chosen by Shane Gabier and Christopher Peters’s Creatures of the Wind. Based on the 1945 Gothic novel by Vítězslav Nezval (which was written ten years earlier), Valerie is a dreamy adult fairy tale, inspired by “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and other fables, about the coming of age of Valerie, a nymphette played by thirteen-year-old Jaroslava Schallerová in her film debut. Valerie lives with her icy, regal grandmother, Elsa (Helena Anýzová), in a remote village, where visiting missionaries and actors are cause for celebration. In addition, Valerie’s best friend, Hedvika (Alena Stojáková), is being forced to marry a man she doesn’t love. Valerie, who is in possession of magic earrings, is being courted by the bespectacled, bookish Eaglet (Petr Kopriva) as well as the Constable (Jirí Prýmek), who just happens to be an evil, ugly vampire who has a mysterious past with Elsa. Also showing an untoward interest in the virginal Valerie is the local priest, Gracián (Jan Klusák).

But don’t get too caught up in the hallucinatory narrative, which usually makes little sense. Characters’ motivations are inconsistent and confusing (especially as Jireš delves deeper and deeper into Valerie’s unconscious), plot points come and go with no explanation, and the spare dialogue is often random and inconsequential. And don’t try too hard looking for references to the Prague Spring, colonialism, and communism; just trust that they’re in there. Instead, let yourself luxuriate in Jan Curík’s lush imagery, Lubos Fiser and Jan Klusák’s Baroque score, Ester Krumbachová’s enchanting production design, and Jan Oliva’s weirdly wonderful art direction. Valerie’s white bedroom is enchantingly surreal, a private world in a darkly magical Medieval land beset by incest, rape, fire, murder, self-flagellation, paganism, and monsters, everything dripping with blood and sex. No, this is most definitely not a fantasia for kids. “Fashion and Film” continues August 10 with Gus Van Sant’s To Die For, selected by Adam Selman, August 17 with Sally Potter’s Orlando, chosen by Joseph Altuzarra, and August 31 with Douglas Keeve’s Unzipped, picked by film subject Isaac Mizrahi, who will be on hand to talk about the film and his career.

IN CONCERT — BJÖRK: BIOPHILIA LIVE

BJÖRK: BIOPHILIA LIVE (Nick Fenton & Peter Strickland, 2014)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Thursday, August 3, 7:00 & 9:30
Series runs through August 13
718-636-4100
www.biophiliathefilm.com
www.bam.org

“Welcome to Biophilia, the love for nature in all her manifestations, from the tiniest organism to the greatest red giant floating in the farthest realm of the universe. . . . In Biophilia, you will experience how the three come together: nature, music, technology. Listen, learn, and create. . . . We are on the brink of a revolution that will reunite humans with nature through new technological innovations. Until we get there, prepare, explore Biophilia.” So announces British naturalist Sir David Attenborough at the beginning of Björk: Biophilia Live, Nick Fenton and Peter Strickland’s lovely film of Icelandic musician Björk’s final show of her Biophilia tour, a more-than-two-year journey in which she presented a dazzling multimedia concert experience based on her 2011 album and genre-redefining interactive app. Filmed at the Alexandra Palace in London, the cutting-edge in-the-round show features Björk performing such complex songs as “Thunderbolt,” “Moon,” “Crystalline,” and “Virus” from the hit record, accompanied by the twenty-woman Icelandic chorus Graduale Nobili and a group of visually dramatic instruments built and/or adapted specifically for her, including a pendulum-swinging gravity harp, the percussive hang, a gameleste, and a Tesla coil. In addition, most songs have related animation that ranges from the far reaches of space to deep inside the human body. Fenton, a longtime documentary editor, and Strickland, the writer-director of such fiction films as Berberian Sound Studio and Katalin Varga, often splash the animation on the front of the screen, immersing the viewer in a vast array of shapes, colors, and scientific imagery, like a turned-around Joshua Light Show.

But even amid all the gadgetry and computers, Björk is the real star, ever charming in a wild wig and futuristic costume as she sings in her engaging accent and unique voice, enchanting the audience for more than ninety minutes as she brings together nature, music, and technology in a whole new way. We saw the show when it came to Roseland in March 2012 and can heartily affirm that Fenton and Strickland have done a wonderful job capturing the feeling of being there, something that is rare in concert films. Björk: Biophilia Live is screening August 3 at 7:00 & 9:30 in the BAMcinématek series “In Concert,” which continues through August 13 with such other live-music films as Bill and Turner Ross’s Contemporary Color, Will Lovelace & Dylan Southern’s Shut Up and Play the Hits, and Mel Stuart’s Wattstax.

WHY MAN CREATES — THE WORK OF SAUL BASS

Saul Bass (middle) on the set of his Oscar-winning short Why Man Creates

Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Wednesday, August 2, 7:00, and Monday, August 7, 8:45
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

Bronx-born graphic designer Saul Bass had a long and fruitful career designing titles and posters for movies, from 1954’s Carmen to 1995’s Casino, including such all-time greats as Vertigo, The Man with the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder, and Spartacus. He is also responsible for logos for the Girl Scouts, the United Way, Bell Telephone, Geffen Records, AT&T, ALCOA, and many more. But Bass, who passed away in 1996 at the age of seventy-five, was also an Oscar-winning film director, and his legacy is being celebrated on August 2 and 7 at Metrograph with the special program “Why Man Creates — the Work of Saul Bass.” The evening, which will be introduced by visual artist and director Chris Rubino and writer Mayo Simon, is named for Bass’s hugely entertaining 1968 short, Why Man Creates, which won the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary Subject. The twenty-five-minute film traces the history of artistic, scientific, and technological innovation, divided into “The Edifice,” “Fooling Around,” “The Process,” “The Judgment,” “The Search,” and “The Mark” as well as “A Parable” and “A Digression,” using playful animation, an unpredictable score, man-on-the-street interviews, and more, taking on such important issues as hunger, the Big Bang theory, and death, all with a wickedly wry sense of humor. Also on the bill are Bass’s 1980 Oscar-nominated The Solar Film, an early look at solar energy, with Michael Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” lending it all an Exorcist-like feel; Saul Bass: In His Own Words; a trailer reel; a commercial reel; title sequences; and a special guest. Be sure not to get there late; as Bass, who partnered with his wife, Elaine, on much of his work, noted in a 1977 interview, looking back at the start of his title-designing career, “I had felt for some time that the audience involvement with a film should really begin with the very first frame.” The Bass program, which also includes a week-long revival (August 4-10) of his only full-length feature film, 1974’s Phase IV, is part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ new year-long residency at Metrograph, which began last week with George Stevens’s A Place in the Sun.

LINCOLN CENTER OUT OF DOORS: ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO’S REMAIN IN LIGHT / IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE

Angélique Kidjo performs Talking Heads’ Remain in Light at Bonnaroo last month

Damrosch Park Bandshell
60 Lincoln Center Plaza
Wednesday, August 2, free, 7:30
www.lincolncenter.org
www.kidjo.com

In October 1980, Talking Heads released its fourth studio album, Remain in Light, which was heavily influenced by African rhythms and melodies and specifically the music of Nigerian star Fela Kuti. The record was a big hit, featuring such songs as “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On),” “Crosseyed and Painless,” “Houses in Motion,” “The Great Curve,” and the classic “Once in a Lifetime.” (The reissued CD contained the bonus track “Fela’s Riff.”) Were Remain in Light released today, it likely would have been condemned by many as blatant cultural appropriation, but not everyone might agree. “It was a record that was ahead of its time, and it was radically different from other pop music around,” Vernon Reid told the BerkshireWeb in 2001, shortly before his band, Living Colour, played the entire album at Mass MoCA. “It was an evolution of the coming together of African music, electronics, funk, and a kind of post-punk new wave, a culmination of things that had already been in the air.” This past May, the Benin-born, Brooklyn-based singer Angélique Kidjo reclaimed the record at Carnegie Hall, reinterpreting it song by song, joined by Talking Heads leader David Byrne, the Antibalas Horns, and Nona Hendryx, who appeared on the original LP.

On August 2, the Grammy-winning Kidjo, who has released such albums as Logozo, Oremi, Black Ivory Soul, and Djin Djin over the course of her twenty-five-year career, will perform the record again in a free show at the Damrosch Bandshell as part of the annual summer Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival. In 2013, she staged a fabulous free live River to River show in Rockefeller Park, inviting dozens of fans (yours truly among them) onstage to dance with her during a smokin’ hot version of Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up.” Opening at Damrosch Park is Ibibio Sound Machine, making its U.S. debut; the group was founded by London-born Nigerian singer Eno Williams. Lincoln Center Out of Doors continues through August 13 with such other events as a silent screening of the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski on August 3, Nick Lowe’s Quality Rock ‘n’ Roll Revue with Los Straitjackets and Cut Worms on August 5, and The Jayhawks: A Celebration of Chuck Berry (with Reid as music director) on August 12 as part of AmericanaFest NYC.

NAPOLI, BROOKLYN

Three sisters (Lilli Kay, Elise Kibler, and Jordyn DiNatale face unexpected tragedy in Napoli, Brooklyn (photo by Joan Marcus)

Laura Pels Theatre
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 3, $99
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

Right before intermission in Meghan Kennedy’s Napoli, Brooklyn, director Gordon Edelstein stages a spectacular, shocking event, made all the more surprising because it’s based on a little-remembered occurrence that took place in Park Slope in 1960. What came before intermission is not nearly as exciting, and what comes after might not be as fascinating as it could have been, but the event itself and its revolutionary effect on the characters’ approach to life makes it worth a trip to the downstairs Laura Pels Theatre at the Roundabout, where the show is running through September 3. The Muscolino family is led by the emotionally and physically abusive Nic (Michael Rispoli) and his worried and frightened wife, Luda (Alyssa Bresnahan), who cuts up onions to induce the tears she can’t let flow: “Why does He not let me cry? He knows I need to,” she says about God as she chops away. One of their daughters, twenty-year-old Vita (Elise Kibler), has been sent to live in a convent. Another, sixteen-year-old Francesca (Jordyn DiNatale), wants to run away with her girlfriend, Connie Duffy (Juliet Brett). And the third, twenty-six-year-old Tina (Lilli Kay), works hard in a tile factory. “What’s it like, bein’ loved?” Tina asks one of her coworkers, Celia Williams (Shirine Babb). Meanwhile, Connie’s father, Albert (Erik Lochtefeld), can’t help but flirt with Luda whenever she comes into his butcher shop. As everyone except Nic considers some kind of change in their life, a tragedy befalls the neighborhood that has each person rethinking their future.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes turns into a brawl in new Meghan Kennedy play (photo by Joan Marcus)

Napoli, Brooklyn is, for the most part, a fairly standard family drama, with not enough twists and turns aside from the major one at the end of the first act. The relationship between Francesca and Connie doesn’t feel real, and Nic is too much of a caricature. Kennedy, whose Too Much, Too Much, Too Many ran at the Roundabout Underground in 2013, doesn’t give quite enough depth to the characters as they explore their lives and debate the existence of God in the second act when they come together for the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Long Wharf artistic director Edelstein (Satchmo at the Waldorf, My Name Is Asher Lev) makes good use of Eugene Lee’s functional set, in which nearly all the locations are always onstage. But the first-set closer is a doozy, so you’re likely to forgive the syrupy, message-laden narrative and leave the theater wanting to find out more about that real-life devastating catastrophe in Brooklyn that, before this play, wasn’t even a historical footnote to the vast majority of us.