twi-ny recommended events

RSVP ALERT: OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK WEEKEND 2016

(photo courtesy of Perkins Eastman, S9 Architecture)

Behind-the-scenes hardhat tour of the construction site of the New York Wheel is one of Open House New York events that requires advance RSVP (photo courtesy of Perkins Eastman, S9 Architecture)

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
Saturday, October 15, and Sunday, October 16
Advance reservations required for some sites begin October 6 at 11:00 am, $5 per guest
OHNY Passport: $150 (sold out)
212-991-OHNY
www.ohny.org

Reservation lines for the fourteenth annual Open House New York Weekend go live this morning at 11:00, so get ready if you want to gain access to some of New York City’s most fascinating architectural constructions, because last year 7,000 of the 8,500 available reserved tours and dialogues were booked within one hour. Among those locations requiring advance RSVP ($5 per guest, up to two per reservation) for the October 15-16 event are 101 Bicycle Infrastructure: The Intersection of Architecture, Urban Planning & Design; 111 Eighth Avenue Infrastructure Tour (the Google building); the Broadway Malls; Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine Vertical Tours; Cornell Tech + Four Freedoms Park hardhat tour; DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Sanitation Garage & Salt Shed; Fulton Center open dialogue; Ghosts of Penn Station open dialogue; Hallett Nature Sanctuary; the High Bridge; High Line Landscape Tour open dialogue; Jazz at Lincoln Center Renovation Tour; Maple Grove Cemetery; Masonic Hall; the Met Breur open dialogue; the New School: Site Specific Artworks; New York Photo Safari in and around Judson Memorial Church; New York University: Edward Hopper Studio; Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant; NYC Manhole Covers; 125th Street East-West Connection panel discussion; Pier 17 Hard Hat Tour open dialogue; Pier 5 Uplands at Brooklyn Bridge Park hardhat tour open dialogue; Red Hook Walking Tour; Sacred Spaces of the East Village; St. Patrick’s Cathedral open dialogue; Stonewall National Monument; Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse; Times Square Nighttime Spectaculars; United Nations; Victorian Flatbush Walking Tour; Walk the Waterline open dialogue; the Woodlawn Cemetery; and the Woolworth Building. Don’t worry if you don’t get lucky and snag one of these highly coveted reservations, which cost five dollars per guest; there’s still plenty to do and see during Open House New York Weekend, as there are nearly three hundred participating buildings, parks, museums, studios, neighborhoods, and other architectural wonders that will not require an RSVP and are free to enter and enjoy.

THE FRIDAY PARTY AT BROOKLYN OUTPOST

housing-works-benefit

Who: Mutual Benefit, Shamir, Waxahatchee, Sadie Dupuis, Jazmine Hughes, Adam J. Kurtz, Dorothea Lasky, Mychal Denzel Smith, Doreen St. Felix, Brandon Stosuy
What: Housing Works Design on a Dime Benefit
Where: The Courtyard at Industry Park, Second Ave. between 36th & 37th Sts., Brooklyn
When: Friday, October 7, general admission $20, 6:00 – 11:00
Why: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe is holding its first-ever off-site event on October 7, teaming up with the Creative Independent for a benefit featuring live performances by musicians Shamir, Waxahatchee, and Mutual Benefit, book readings and signings by Sadie Dupuis, Dorothea Lasky, Mychal Denzel Smith, and Doreen St. Felix, a presentation by artist Adam J. Kurtz, and remarks from Brandon Stosuy; the event will be hosted by Jazmine Hughes. Complimentary refreshments include snacks from local Brooklyn vendors and potent potables courtesy of Greenport Brewing Company and Whispering Angel Wines; there is limited first-come, first-served seating. All proceeds will benefit Housing Works’ “health care, housing, job training, advocacy, and other services provided to homeless and at-risk New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.” The benefit is part of a Design on a Dime weekend fair running October 6-9 at Industry City, with one-of-a-kind room vignettes by such interior designers as Akhira N. Ismail, Callidus Guild, CAVdesign, David Netto, House of Julien, LABLstudio, Leonora Mahle, Monica Hofstadter, Sheep + Stone, and others.

NILSSON SCHMILSSON: MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Oscar nominees Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman try to make it in the big city in John Schlesinger’s powerful and moving MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY (John Schlesinger, 1969)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Friday, October 7, 2:00 & 7:00
Series runs October 7-9
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In 1968, John Lennon proclaimed, “Nilsson! Nilsson for president!” The race might have been between Richard M. Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, but the smart Beatle was declaring his support for Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, who had covered the Fab Four’s “You Can’t Do That” on 1967’s Pandemonium Shadow Show, a version that incorporated twenty other Beatles songs in its brief two minutes and sixteen seconds. Nilsson, who died in 1994 at the age of fifty-two, would have turned seventy-five this year, so BAM is celebrating his career as a film composer and sometime actor with the BAMcinématek weekend series “Nilsson Schmilsson,” named after his Grammy-nominated 1971 album. The three-day, five-film fest begins with John Schlesinger’s masterful Midnight Cowboy, which stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight as the worst hustlers ever. The only X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar, Midnight Cowboy follows the exploits of Joe Buck, a friendly sort of chap who leaves his small Texas town, determined to make it as a male prostitute in Manhattan. Wearing his cowboy gear and clutching his beloved transistor radio, he trolls the streets with little success. Things take a turn when he meets up with Enrico Salvatore “Ratso” Rizzo (Hoffman), an ill, hobbled con man living in a condemned building. The two loners soon develop an unusual relationship as Buck is haunted by nightmares, shown in black-and-white, about his childhood and a tragic event that happened to him and his girlfriend, Crazy Annie (Jennifer Salt), while Rizzo dreams of a beautiful life, depicted in bright color, without sickness or limps on the beach in Miami.

Adapted by Waldo Salt (Serpico, The Day of the Locust) from the novel by James Leo Herlihy, Midnight Cowboy is essentially a string of fascinating and revealing set pieces in which Buck encounters unusual characters as he tries desperately to succeed in the big city; along the way he beds an older, wealthy Park Ave. matron (Sylvia Miles), is asked to get down on his knees by a Bible thumper (John McGiver), gets propositioned in a movie theater by a nerdy college student (Bob Balaban), has a disagreement with a confused older man (Barnard Hughes), and attends a Warholian party (thrown by Viva and Gastone Rosilli and featuring Ultra Violet, Paul Jabara, International Velvet, Taylor Mead, and Paul Morrissey) where he hooks up with an adventurous socialite (Brenda Vaccaro). Photographed by first-time cinematographer Adam Holender (The Panic in Needle Park, Blue in the Face), the film captures the seedy, lurid environment that was Times Square in the late 1960s; when Buck looks out his hotel window, he sees the flashing neon, with a sign for Mutual of New York front and center, the letters “MONY” bouncing across his face with promise. The film is anchored by Nilsson’s Grammy-winning version of “Everybody’s Talkin’,” along with John Barry’s memorable theme. Iconic shots are littered throughout, along with such classic lines as “I’m walkin’ here!” Midnight Cowboy, which was nominated for seven Oscars and won three (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director), is screening October 7 at BAM Rose Cinemas; “Nilsson Schmilsson” continues through October 9 with Freddie Francis’s Son of Dracula, starring Nilsson and Ringo Starr, Otto Preminger’s bizarre Skiddoo, Robert Altman’s Popeye, and Fred Wolf’s animated The Point.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: BATTLEFIELD

Sean O’Callaghan, Carole Karemera, Ery Nzaramba, Jared McNeill, and Toshi Tsuchitori in BATTLEFIELD (photo by Richard Termine)

Sean O’Callaghan, Carole Karemera, Ery Nzaramba, Jared McNeill, and Toshi Tsuchitori appear in BATTLEFIELD at BAM (photo by Richard Termine)

Next Wave Festival
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
Through October 9, $30-$110
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.bouffesdunord.com

“To hell with the state of humanity,” the blind king Dritarashtra (Sean O’Callaghan) says at the beginning of Battlefield, Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne’s return to their international triumph, The Mahabharata. It’s also a return home for the ancient Sanskrit epic to the BAM Harvey, previously an abandoned movie house that was renovated back in the late 1980s specifically for the nine-hour Mahabharata. In Battlefield, codirectors Brook and Estienne and their C.I.C.T. — Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord company explore a central section of The Mahabharata, focusing on the aftermath of the bloody battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, which left millions dead. The sparse stage is littered with bamboo sticks that represent the victims of the fierce war; there is also a small black rectangular block where various characters sit, mournfully understanding that there is little difference between victory and defeat. The new king, Yudhishthira (Jared McNeill), seeks advice from a soothsayer (Ery Nzaramba, who also plays several victims) and learns a devastating secret from his mother, Kunti (Carole Karemera), while Toshi Tsuchitori, who also performed in the original Mahabharata, sits in a chair off to the side, playing powerfully moving percussion on his African drum. The play evokes both Shakespeare and Brook and Estienne’s adaptation of The Suit, but it is too often flat and lackluster. There are some wonderful moments, particularly the use of colored scarves to identify the characters (the costumes are by Oria Puppo) in addition to sticks that represent various objects, but the stripped-down seventy-minute production feels like it’s all middle, with no beginning or end, existing in its own unclear time and space, even as it makes relevant connections to what is going on in the world today. Brook will participate in a discussion following the October 6 performance. The play runs through October 9, after which BAMcinématek will present the series “Peter Brook: Behind the Camera,” consisting of nine of the Paris-based English director’s films, beginning October 10 at 7:00 with his five-and-a-half-hour adaptation of The Mahabharata, which he will introduce, and continuing through October 20 with such works as The Beggar’s Opera, Lord of the Flies, Swann in Love, King Lear (starring Paul Scofield), and a week-long run of 1968’s Tell Me Lies (A Film About London).

SHEN WEI DANCE ARTS: NEITHER

Shen Wei Dance Arts makes its BAM debut with world premiere of NEITHER (photo by Jasmine Lai)

BAM Next Wave Festival
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
October 5-8, $20-$55, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.shenweidancearts.org

New York-based Shen Wei Dance Arts (Folding, Still Moving) is doing something unusual this week: They will be presenting the world premiere of their latest work, Neither, on a proscenium stage that was actually built for dance and theater. Over the last handful of years, we have seen the immensely talented and creative company perform in the Park Avenue Armory, in the Charles Engelhard Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of the free Celebrate Brooklyn! summer arts series. From October 5 to 8, the troupe will be making its BAM debut at the Howard Gilman Opera House with Neither, a sixty-minute dance adaptation of the 1977 anti-opera composed by Queens-born indeterminate composer Morton Feldman for soprano and orchestra and with a sixteen-line libretto by Samuel Beckett that begins, “to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow / from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither / as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close, once away turned from gently part again.” The work will be performed by Lilly Balch, Cecily Campbell, Kate Jewett, Cynthia Koppe, Janice Lancaster Larsen, Russell Stuart Lilie, Chelsea Retzloff, Jennifer Rose, Zak Ryan Schlegel, Austin Selden, and Alex Speedie, with lighting by Jennifer Tipton and projections by Rocco DiSanti. Shen Wei is the choreographer as well as the costume and set designer; the stage will include mysterious doors and his black, white, and gray abstract painting “Untitled No. 12-1.” The recording of the opera is by Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, conducted by Kwamé Ryan and featuring soprano Petra Hoffmann.

CROSSING THE LINE — MARIA HASSABI: STAGED

Maria Hassabi presented an informal preview of her latest work this summer on the High Line (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
October 4-8, $20, 8:00
Crossing the Line festival continues through November 3
212-255-5793 ext11
thekitchen.org
mariahassabi.com

This past June, Cyprus-born, New York City–based dancer and choreographer Maria Hassabi presented an informal preview on the High Line of a new work that she called Movement #2, another slow, deliberate, meditative piece that displayed the impressive strength and skill of her dancers — Simon Courchel, Molly Lieber, Hristoula Harakas, Oisín Monaghan — while furthering her ongoing investigation into the relationship between performer and audience. One at a time, the dancers inched toward a central space at the 30th St. Rail Yards section of the aboveground park, then came together in a kind of living sculpture as tourists and New Yorkers passed by, many wondering what was going on. Hassabi’s two previous works at the Kitchen, PREMIERE and SHOW, also experimented with the boundaries that generally separate dancer and viewer, a concept that was beautifully laid bare for her site-specific Plastic presentation at MoMA earlier this year. The High Line sneak peek is now making its way down to the Kitchen, expanded into STAGED, part of FIAF’s annual multidisciplinary Crossing the Line festival. Running October 4-8, the piece features Courchel, Harakas, Monaghan, and Jessie Gold, with music by Marina Rosenfeld. “With the decelerated velocity of my work, nuances that are usually dismissed become the center of the work,” Hassabi says about the piece. For more on the Crossing the Line festival, go here.

NEPAL BENEFIT — DEVOTIONAL MUSIC & CHANT: KRISHNA DAS, LAMA TENZIN & FRIENDS

nepal-benefit

Who: Krishna Das, Lama Tenzin, Richard Gere, Former Nuns of Nagi Gompa
What: Benefit concert for Shedrub Development Fund
When: Wednesday, October 5, $50 – $500, 7:30
Where: Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, 263 West 86th St. at West End Ave.
Why:Last November, we went to Boudha, Kathmandu, to study with Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche at his Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery, which, like most of the city, was hit hard by the earthquakes of April and May 2015. On October 5, the second annual benefit for the Shedrub Development Fund will take place at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on the Upper West Side, once again headlined by Grammy-nominated singer Krishna Das, who specializes in the Hindu devotional chant music known as kirtan. Also returning is Lama Tenzin Sangpo, who escaped his native Tibet as a child and received his education and ordination from Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche at the shedra, becoming an accomplished chant master. The “concert of sacred music and chant,” which will be hosted by dedicated student of Tibetan Buddhism Richard Gere, will also feature a performance by the Former Nuns of Nagi Gompa, who are now based in Queens. Tickets for the concert begin at $50 for general admission and $150 for preferred seating. For $500, patrons also are invited to a catered preconcert reception with the artists. (You can watch a video of the rebuilding effort here.)