twi-ny recommended events

CHAN IS MISSING

American-born Chinese cabdriver Jo (Wood Moy) is searching for more than just two grand in CHAN IS MISSING

CHAN IS MISSING (Wayne Wang, 1982)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
September 9-11
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

Wayne Wang’s debut feature, the 1982 indie landmark Chan Is Missing, opens with a Chinese version of Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock,” but subtitles reveal the Chinese lyrics are all about the bleak economic situation. “Red beans, barbeque sauce, tea leaves, all the prices rise / Encumber the whole family, low salaries are just not enough / Till there is not one drop left in the soy sauce bottle / That’s enough, this price increase has to stop.” That sets the stage for the culture clash at the center of the black-and-white film as Wang focuses on Chinese immigrants and ABCs (American-born Chinese) attempting to establish their own identities in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Jo (Wood Moy) and his nephew, Steve (Marc Hayashi), have pooled together $4,000 to buy their own taxi medallion, but after they give someone cash to process the paperwork, the man, named Chan Hung, disappears, along with their hard-earned money. So uncle and nephew turn into detectives, searching for Chan by tracking down his friends, relatives, and acquaintances, but it seems that no one knows where Chan is — or who he is, as each person shares stories of a very different man. Along the way, there are discussions of Mandarin and Cantonese food, the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, Communism and new Chinese money, immigration and assimilation, and local politics and “the legal implications of cross-cultural misunderstandings.” A cook in a Samurai Night Fever T-shirt laments having to make another order of sweet and sour pork instead of pursuing aeronautical engineering, which he studied in school back in China with Chan. A man who knows Chan from a cultural center finds newspaper articles in Chan’s jacket about a murder. A distinguished gentleman in a three-piece suit thinks Chan returned to Mainland China, explaining to Jo, who was born in the United States, “Here in America, people treat you like a foreigner. You don’t belong here.” And a teacher at a newcomers language center talks about how immigrants should become Chinese-American, pulling out that most American of desserts, an apple pie, that has been made using Chinese techniques. “This is all too confusing,” Jo says.

chan is missing

It’s no coincidence that the man Jo and Steve are trying to track down is named Chan, a direct reference to Charlie Chan, the Honolulu detective, usually portrayed by non-Asian actors, who was a controversial stereotype in numerous Hollywood movies. The missing character of Chan also represents the Chinese experience in America as a whole, emblematic of the entire community as it sets down roots in San Francisco, having to work menial jobs to get started. “This mystery is appropriately Chinese; what’s not there seems to have just as much meaning as what is there,” Jo says. When we first see Jo, immediately after the opening credits, while the rock-and-roll song is still playing, he is initially obscured by glare on the windshield of the cab he is driving through the streets of Chinatown, the buildings reflected in the glass. He eventually comes into focus, leading viewers on a journey for identity that is still relevant today. Wang, who was born and raised in Hong Kong and was named after John Wayne, made Chan Is Missing for a mere $22,000. He has gone on to make such Chinese-American films as Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, Eat a Bowl of Tea, and The Joy Luck Club as well as such non-Chinese fare as Smoke, Because of Winn-Dixie, and The Center of the World, his oeuvre echoing how Chinese immigrants try to balance their heritage and the old ways with assimilation. Chan Is Missing is screening September 9-11 at Metrograph in a new 35mm print.

9/11 TRIBUTE: TABLE OF SILENCE PROJECT

Special “Table of Silence Project” performance ritual of peace returns for sixth year to Josie Robertson Plaza (photo by Terri Gold)

Josie Robertson Plaza, Lincoln Center
65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Sunday, September 11, free, 8:15 am
www.tableofsilence.org

Every September 11, there are many memorial programs held all over the city, paying tribute to those who were lost on that tragic day while also honoring New York’s endless resiliency. One of the most powerful is “The Table of Silence Project,” a public performance ritual for peace featuring one hundred dancers on Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center, now paying tribute to the fifteenth anniversary of the attacks. “The idea of a dance ritual came to me during my practice of meditation while drawing labyrinths. I realized that it could be beautiful to create a peace labyrinth, and Lincoln Center, where I often walk, was the obvious sacred space,” choreographer and artistic director Jacqulyn Buglisi explained on the event’s Kickstarter page. “It occurred to me that the architectural design of Josie Robertson Plaza would provide the environment to create concentric circles and, fused with the sacred geometry, manifest mandala energy for peace and harmony.” Beginning at 8:15 am, thirty-one minutes before the first plane hit the World Trade Center in 2001, dancers from Martha Graham, Juilliard, the Ailey School, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the National Dance Institute, STEPS on Broadway, Broadway Dance Center, and other companies, all dressed in white, will slowly begin gathering around the Revson Fountain to a rhythmic drumbeat, followed by silence and then a soft score. Buglisi Dance Theatre partnered with the September Concert and Dance/NYC for the meditative event, which lasts about a half hour and can also be livestreamed here. “The future of humanity depends on what we do in the present,” Buglisi said about the project, which she conceived for the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Buglisi was inspired by Italian artist Rossella Vasta’s ever-evolving series of one hundred ceramic plates that help form the Table of Silence; as Vasta explained on her website, “One hundred is one times 100 and this refers to the original Latin meaning of religion that is derived from ‘religere.’ The dishes become the offering to humanity and represent transcendental values beyond any religion. Silence becomes a sacred space with no religious discrimination.”

NEW YORK OYSTER WEEK 2016

Oysters are on the menu at annual culinary festival featuring bivalve mollusks

Multiple venues
September 16 – October 3, $75-$125
www.oysterweek.com

“Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?” Marcus Licinius Crassus (Sir Laurence Olivier) asks Antoninus (Tony Curtis) in Stanley Kubrick’s sword-and-sandals epic Spartacus. Fortunately, you don’t have to answer that question during New York Oyster Week, which features numerous culinary, ecologically friendly events over the course of eighteen days. The fifth anniversary of this wonderfully slimy celebration begins on September 16 with the NY Harbor Regatta & Regatta Bash on Governors Island ($125-$1,000, 2:00), hosted by Willie Geist and with commentary by Gary Jobson, live reggae music, a full oyster bar, and seafood specialties from Betony, Blue Fin, Crave Fish Bar, and other restaurants. On September 17 in Brooklyn Bridge Park ($95, 5:00), the Brooklyn Oyster Riot boasts a collection of a dozen East and West Coast oysters curated by Master Mermmelier Kevin Joseph of the OysterHood, with dishes created by chef Marc Murphy of Ditch Plains and wine and Brooklyn Brewery beer pairings, along with live music by Jan Bell and the Maybelles and oyster education from the Billion Oyster Project. This year Oyster Week debuts the Big Gay Oyster Brunch, taking place September 18 at 12 noon at Lot 45 in Bushwick ($75), with six ultrapremium oysters, ten craft beers, oyster wine, a trio of special cocktails, and DJ music. Dorlan’s Tavern & Oyster Bar will be home to Cocktail Oysters on September 21 ($75, 5:00) for a lucky fifty people, three hours of five oyster varieties and accoutrements courtesy of Joseph and chef Rob McCue, drinks from mixologist and Dorlan’s owner Jeremy Dahm, and some history about cocktail oysters. On September 23 it’s back to Lot 45 for Shellebration (6:00), consisting of a dozen oyster varieties, sustainable seafood dishes from Lot 45 and chef Behaya Samia, craft beer, cocktails, oyster wine, and more. On September 24 at the Fulton Stall Market ($85, 4:00), the inaugural Old Seaport Oyster Revival honors the rebuilding of the area with oysters, a signature seafood showcase from five old Seaport restaurants, Spirited Pearls and Accoutrement Premier by Joseph and McCue, live music from Mama Juke, and live shucking at the Shuck Truck. The Merroir + Terroir dinner on September 28 is sold out, but you can continue your oyster extravaganza on September 30 with ShuckEasy, comprising a “rare and exotic” raw bar, Spirited Pearls and Accoutrement Premier, and craft cocktails and beer at a secret location. Oyster Week comes to a close on October 1 with OystoberFest at the South Street Seaport ($85, 4:00), with a raw bar of twenty oyster varieties, the Shuck Truck, a beer garden, a cidery, a wine bar, and specialty docktails. And there’s nary a snail in sight.

MetLiveArts: MULATU ASTATKE

Mulatu Astatke will bring the unique sounds of Ehtio-jazz to the Temple of Dendur on September 9

Mulatu Astatke will bring the unique sounds of Ethio-jazz to the Temple of Dendur on September 9

Who: Mulatu Astatke
What: Live concert in the Temple of Dendur
Where: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., 212-535-7710
When: Friday, September 9, $65, 7:00
Why: Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke, the Father of Ethio-jazz, will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the release of his first records, the two-volume Afro-Latin Soul, which were recorded in New York City, with a special performance in the Temple of Dendur at the Met Fifth Avenue on September 9. It should prove to be a fascinating venue for the seventy-two-year-old Astatke, who mixes traditional Ethiopian music with American improvisational jazz to create his unique, experimental sound, which can be heard on such albums as Yekatit, Assiyo Bellema, Mulatu Steps Ahead, and Sketches of Ethiopia. Part of the MetLiveArts program and a collaboration with the World Music Institute, the show will feature Astatke on vibraphone, wurlitzer, and percussion, Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, James Arben on saxophone, Jason Lindner on keyboards, Tal Massiah on bass, and Daniel Freedman on drums.

KUROSAWA x 11: IKIRU

Takashi Shimura does a stellar job with a rare leading role in Kurosawa’s captivating melodrama IKIRU

Takashi Shimura does a stellar job with a rare leading role in Akira Kurosawa’s captivating melodrama IKIRU

IKIRU (TO LIVE) (DOOMED) (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Tuesday, September 6, 1:30 & 7:30
Series continues through September 8
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

In Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 gem, Ikiru, the great Takashi Shimura is outstanding as simple-minded petty bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe, a paper-pushing section chief who has not taken a day off in thirty years. But when he suddenly finds out that he is dying of stomach cancer, he finally decides that there might be more to life than he thought after meeting up with an oddball novelist (Yunosuke Ito). While his son, Mitsuo (Nobuo Kaneko), and coworkers wonder just what is going on with him — he has chosen not to tell anyone about his illness — he begins cavorting with Kimura (Shinichi Himori), a young woman filled with a zest for life. Although the plot sounds somewhat predictable, Kurosawa’s intuitive direction, a smart script (co-written with Hideo Oguni), and a marvelously slow-paced performance by Shimura (Stray Dog, Scandal, Seven Samurai) make this one of the director’s best melodramas. Winner of a special prize at the 1954 Berlin International Film Festival, Ikiru is screening September 6 as part of Metrograph’s “Kurosawa x 11” series, which continues through September 8 with such other treats as Hidden Fortress, Red Beard, and The Bad Sleep Well.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: BRIDGE OVER MUD

Norway’s Verdensteatret pulls into the BAM Fisher this week with the U.S. premiere of experimental, immersive multimedia production (photo courtesy of the artist)

BROEN OVER GJØRME
BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
September 7-10, $25, 7:30 & 9:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
verdensteatret.com

BAM’s 2016 Next Wave Festival kicks off this week with the U.S. premiere of the immersive audiovisual theatrical presentation Bridge over Mud, a multimedia extravaganza by the Oslo-based arts collective Verdensteatret. “Bridge over Mud is in its very nature a fragmented and abstract work. Its main substance rests in a poetic space that stimulates your senses through a symphonic multimedia expression. The form profits both from visual art and video art, sound art and performance,” Elisabeth Leinslie writes in her September 2014 essay “You Walk as Far as the Shoes of Reason Will Take You – Then You Jump,” continuing, “This generates a challenging complexity where opposing forces collide in ‘impossible paradoxes’ on one hand and surprisingly harmonic cadences on the other. It’s a symphony of elements that entice your senses. Listening to this work may take you to places you’ve never been before.” The sixty-minute piece features abstract projections, kinetic sculpture, more than sixty speakers, a tuba player, two vocalists, and nearly two hundred feet of train tracks winding through the intimate Fishman Space at the BAM Fisher. Bridge over Mud was created by company members Asle Nilsen, Lisbeth J. Bodd, Piotr Pajchel, Eirik Blekesaune, Ali Djabbary, Martin Taxt, Espen Sommer Eide, Torgrim Torve, Elisabeth Gmeiner, Niklas Adam, Kristine Sandøy, Thorolf Thuestad, Janne Kruse, Laurent Ravot, and Benjamin Nelson, each of whom brings a unique aspect to the troupe, which “endeavors to use a collaborative process to deeply integrate different artistic disciplines into projects that bridge the gap between artistic borders.” Both exhibition and concert, Bridge over Mud is an attempt by Verdensteatreter (Louder, And All the Question Marks Started to Sing) “to play the whole room like one big instrument.” We can’t wait to check this wild one out.

MOHOLY-NAGY: FUTURE PRESENT

László Moholy-Nagy, “Room of the Present” (Raum der Gegenwart), mixed media, constructed in 2009 from plans and other documentation dated 1930 (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, © 2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society, New York, photo by David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Daily through September 7, $25 (pay-what-you-wish Saturday 5:45 – 7:45)
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

“For a new ordering of a new world the need arose again to take possession of the simplest elements of expression, color, form, matter, space,” László Moholy-Nagy wrote in 1922’s “On the Problem of New Content and New Form.” That belief is on spectacular display in “Moholy-Nagy: Future Present,” which continues at the Guggenheim through September 7. The first major U.S. retrospective of the Austria-Hungary–born utopian modernist in nearly half a century, the show is a natural fit for the swirling ramp of Frank Lloyd Wright’s building, unfurling chronologically as Moholy-Nagy (1895 – 1946; pronounced “muh-HOH-lee nahj) experimented with an ever-widening range of artistic disciplines, melding art, technological innovation, utilitarian design, science, and social transformation. The exhibit begins with a kind of preface, Moholy-Nagy’s “Room of the Present,” which was never realized in his lifetime. The Gesamtwerk (“total work”) features films by Viking Eggeling, Sergei Eisenstein, and Dziga Vertov, photographic slides, posters, sculptures, architectural designs, and, in a box in the center, a re-creation of Moholy-Nagy’s most famous work, the kinetic “Light Prop for an Electric Stage.” It’s an excellent preparation for what follows, more than three hundred diverse works that appear tailor made for the Guggenheim space — in fact, his work is part of the museum’s founding collection (courtesy of Hilla Rebay) and was included at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, the forerunner of the Guggenheim.

László Moholy-Nagy, “A II (Construction A II),” oil and graphite on canvas, 1924 (© 2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society, New York)

Moholy-Nagy, who was also a writer and Bauhaus teacher who left Europe for good in 1937 and moved to Chicago, where he started the New Bauhaus, today’s Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, produced enamel paintings with abstract geometric forms, haunting camera-less photograms, striking typography, avant-garde film, theater and opera stage design, collages using cut-outs resulting in seemingly impossible perspective, and three-dimensional works using such industrial materials as Trolit, Formica, Plexiglas, and Galalith. The exhibition is like marching in a parade of eye-opening creativity, all from the vision of one man. “Dual Form with Chromium Rods” hangs from above, like an imaginary space station. The oil and graphite painting “A 19” captures the essence of Moholy-Nagy’s fascination with color and geometry. “Photogram,” from 1926, reveals the large hand of the artist. “Space Modulator” (1939-45) and “Papmac” feature lines incised on Plexiglas and paint on both the inside and the outside of the plastic. “Slide” is a manipulation in which the Tiller Girls dance troupe appears to be racing down an imaginary slide in a way that would make Busby Berkeley proud. And finally, when you arrive at the top, you get to go back down again, experiencing Moholy-Nagy’s breathtaking oeuvre in reverse; while that is true, of course, for every Guggenheim show, it’s a real joy going backward through this particular artist’s forward-thinking process. “If the unity of art can be established with all the subject matters taught and exercised, then a real reconstruction of this world could be hoped for — more balanced and less dangerous,” Moholy-Nagy wrote in 1943’s “The Contribution of the Arts to Social Reconstruction.” The exhibit, one of the best of 2016, is on for only a few more days; it would be a shame to miss it. It’s also a shame that Moholy-Nagy died of leukemia in 1946 at the age of fifty-one; it would have been thrilling to see what he could have done in the ensuing years, as technological innovation spiraled in the aftermath of WWII.