twi-ny recommended events

CHAMBRE

Jack Ferver channels Lady Gaga and Jean Genet in brilliant CHAMBRE (photo by Jason Akira Somma)

CROSSING THE LINE: CHAMBRE
New Museum Theater
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Installation: through October 4
Performances: October 1-2, 7:00, October 3, 3:00 & 7:00, October 4, 3:00, $15
www.fiaf.org
www.jackferver.org

Writer, actor, dancer, and choreographer Jack Ferver holds nothing back in his electrifying, emotionally charged performances. In his latest piece, Chambre, he took things to the next level, literally bleeding for his art. In a climactic moment during the work’s official New York City premiere last week at the New Museum, Ferver put his hand through a window in Marc Swanson’s set, shattering the glass and apparently cutting his palm. At first the audience was uncertain, wondering if it was part of the show or just more artifice. Ferver has an innate knack for pushing audiences into bouts of uncomfortable laughter and challenging them to separate the real from the imagined, fact from fantasy. Blood seemed to well on his palm, and his fellow performers, Michelle Mola and Jacob Slominski, very carefully navigated around the sea of glass shards on the floor; the mystery of whether it was real or staged continued into a closing monologue in which a diva-like Ferver complained about barely being able to afford health insurance. Not until later that night did it become clear that it was indeed accidental when Ferver posted a photograph of the broken window on Facebook and publicly apologized to Swanson. But it all fit in rather well with the work itself, a slyly playful and inventive reimagining of Jean Genet’s The Maids, which itself was inspired by the true story of two sisters, Christine and Léa Papin, who perpetrated a horrific crime in France in 1933. At the beginning of Chambre, ticket holders can walk around Swanson’s set, which includes unfinished walls, windows, mirrors, a rack of white dresses (designed by Reid Bartelme), and three statues representing the main characters. After the statues are moved out of the way, Ferver emerges in a glittering, glamorous gold-chained outfit and, with the audience still gathered around him, delivers a deliciously wicked monologue taken verbatim from a bitter deposition Lady Gaga gave in 2013 when being sued by a former personal assistant. It’s a classic celebrity rant: “I’m quite wonderful to everybody that works for me, and I am completely aghast to what a disgusting human being that you have become to sue me like this,” Ferver spits out venomously into a microphone.

Jacob Slominski and Jack Ferver take role-playing to a new level in immersive presentation at the New Museum (photo by Jason Akira Somma)

Meanwhile, the audience can watch him, as well as themselves, in a large horizontal mirror hung from the ceiling behind white-draped rows of seats, multiplying the number of visible Fervers, who is not attacking Lady Gaga as much as celebrity culture. It’s also a terrific lead-in for the role-playing done by Ferver as Christine and Jacob as Léa, mocking how they are treated by Madame (Mola), exaggerating how the wealthy take advantage of and abuse the poor. “I know you are necessary, like ditch diggers and construction workers are necessary, but I hate having to see you,” Slominski-as-Léa-as-Madame says. But soon the sisters take their revenge, doing what so many only fantasize about doing to the rich and privileged. “I’m surprised things like this don’t happen more often,” Ferver says shortly after the opening soliloquy. Eventually, the audience gets to sit down and experience Chambre in a more traditional arrangement, although there’s very little that’s traditional about the thoroughly engaging and entertaining production, which also features a subtly ominous score by Roarke Menzies. Ferver examines class division, sibling rivalry, gender, and the “monetization of performance” as only he can, with a wickedly potent sense of humor loaded with hard-to-swallow truths. In his introduction to Genet’s The Maids and Deathwatch, Jean-Paul Sartre writes, “For Genet, theatrical procedure is demoniacal. Appearance, which is constantly on the point of passing itself off as reality, must constantly reveal its profound unreality. Everything must be so false that it sets our teeth on edge.” Ferver (Rumble Ghost, Night Light Bright Light,), Swanson, Slominski, Mola, and Menzies set our teeth and more on edge with the seriously funny Chambre, which continues at the New Museum through October 3 as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival, an apt name for Ferver’s fiendishly clever work.

OKINAWAN VIBES: PARADISE VIEW

Japan Society is presenting thirtieth-anniversary screening of rarely shown Okinawan gem PARADISE VIEW

MONTHLY CLASSICS: PARADISE VIEW (PARADAISU BYU) (Gō Takamine, 1985)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, October 2, $12, 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society has picked a real gem for its October Monthly Classics presentation, writer-director Gō Takamine’s rarely shown wry black comedy, Paradise View. The thirtieth anniversary screening is also part of Japan Society’s three-month multidisciplinary program “Okinawan Vibes,” which takes a look at the southern island that was occupied by the American military from 1945 to 1972 and, in many ways, is not exactly Japan’s favorite relation; Okinawans, who have their own heritage of language, culture, and religion, have faced longtime discrimination as Japan’s largest minority group. The film opens with a gorgeous shot (the cinematographer is Takao Toshioka) of ant lover Reishu (yakuza actor Kaoru Kobayashi, not the executed child murderer) on a vast beach, collecting sea salt to make him feel better about life, which is rather bleak for everyone on Okinawa, especially now that the occupation is over. The married Reishu has apparently knocked up local simpleton Chiru (Japanese pop star Jun Togawa); island girl Nabee is breaking tradition by marrying a Japanese teacher, Ito; Bindalay (Yoko Taniyama) is quitting her music group, the Tropical Sisters, to go solo, while being stalked by a former boyfriend who dresses as a samurai; a blind man returns home after losing his second family in the Philippines; blue chickens and rainbow pigs roam the land; Reishu’s dog has developed a liking for goat balls, which make the mutt horny; and poisonous snakes are everywhere, from coffins to amphibious trucks. The wacky cast also includes Shinzoku Ogimi, Tomi Taira, and composer and musician Haruomi Hosono as the dude with the great porn stache. “The Japanese are strange creatures,” one ne’er-do-well says. An elderly woman soon laments, “We’ll all be Japanese soon,” after which the man adds, “I wonder if we’ll just end up as a backwater province.” There’s plenty of backwater strangeness in Okinawa, as short vignettes sweetly portray a collection of oddballs doing very odd things while also remaining intensely concerned about holding on to their souls. “I had a dream that a dog ate Reishu’s spirit, then threw it up. He’s lost his spirit! He’s been spirited away!” a deadpan Chiru says, capturing the essence of Okinawan native Takamine’s (Okinawan Dream Show, Untamagiru) brilliant love letter to his homeland. The Japan Society screening will be followed by a reception with Okinawan beer and snacks. The Monthly Classics film series continues on November 6 with Yoji Yamada’s The Yellow Handkerchief, in tribute to star Ken Takakura, who passed away last November at the age of eighty-three.

NYFF53 REVIVALS: RAN

The Fool (Peter) sticks by Hidetaro (Tatsuya Nakadai) as the aging lord descends into madness in Kurosawa masterpiece RAN

RAN (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Friday, October 2, 9:00, and Sunday, October 11, 7:30
Festival runs through October 11
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.org

Inspired by the story of feudal lord Mori Motonari and Shakespeare’s King Lear, Akira Kurosawa’s Ran is an epic masterpiece about the decline and fall of the Ichimonji clan. Aging Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai) is ready to hand over his land and leadership to his three sons, Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), and Saburo (Daisuke Ryû). But jealousy, misunderstandings, and outright deceit and treachery result in Saburo’s banishment and a violent power struggle between the weak eldest, Taro, and the warrior Jiro. Hidetaro soon finds himself rejected by his children and wandering the vast, empty landscape with his wise, sarcastic fool, Kyoami (Peter), as the once-proud king descends into madness. Dressed in white robes and with wild white hair, Nakadai (The Human Condition, Harakiri), in his early fifties at the time, portrays Hidetaro, one of the great characters of cinema history, with an unforgettable, Noh-like precision. Kurosawa, cinematographers Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô, and Masaharu Ueda, and Oscar-winning costume designer Emi Wada bathe the film in lush greens, brash blues, and bold reds and yellows that marvelously offset the white Hidetaro. Kurosawa shoots the first dazzling battle scene in an elongated period of near silence, with only Tôru Takemitsu’s classically based score playing on the soundtrack, turning the film into a thrilling, blood-drenched opera. Ran is a spectacular achievement, the last great major work by one of the twentieth century’s most important and influential filmmakers. Ran, which opened the 1985 New York Film Festival, is screening October 2 at 9:00 and October 11 at 7:30 in the Revivals section of the fifty-third New York Film Festival, which is showing such other revivals as King Hu’s A Touch of Zen and Manoel de Oliveira’s Visit, or Memories and Confessions.

ANTIGONE

Juliette Binoche fights a chill wind in ANTIGONE at BAM (photo by Stephanie Berger)

NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
Through October 4, $30-$135
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

A chill runs through Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Sophokles’s classic tragedy Antigone, continuing through October 4 at BAM’s Harvey Theater. The sizzling-hot van Hove, who has dazzled audiences and critics alike with his recent, unusual presentations of Scenes from a Marriage, Angels in America, and Cries and Whispers, has stripped down the tale of power, family, loyalty, and responsibility in a new translation by Canadian poet Anne Carson (Agamemnon, Electra) that emphasizes the story’s relevance to today’s politics. As the play opens, Antigone (Juliette Binoche, who was last at BAM in 2009 in In-I), clad in black, is fighting off a brisk wind with her sister, Ismene (Kirsty Bushell). Their two brothers have killed each other in the Theban civil war fighting on opposite sides, Eteocles a hero, Polyneices a traitor. The new king, Kreon (Patrick O’Kane), has decreed that Polyneices’s body should be left outside to rot, but Antigone is determined to give her sibling a proper burial, although the punishment for doing so is death. Upon discovering that his niece and future daughter-in-law — Antigone’s father was Kreon’s brother, and she is engaged to marry Kreon’s son, Haimon (Samuel Edward-Cook) — has indeed buried Polyneices, Kreon shows no mercy, commanding Antigone’s execution, as well as that of anyone who supports her. Kreon’s chief adviser, Teiresias (Finbar Lynch), wants him to rethink his position, but Kreon is just as stubborn as Antigone, and it doesn’t take long for the bodies to start piling up.

The guard (Obi Abili) and the king (Patrick O’Kane) look over Antigone (Juliette Binoche) at BAM (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Jan Versweyveld’s stage features a giant circle at the top of the back wall that rotates to reveal a projection of sky and clouds, as if the gods are looking down, judging the trials and tribulations of humanity. In the center of the floor is a rectangular platform that sinks to serve as a grave, lowering Polyneices and Antigone down toward hell and rising up again; it is perpendicular to a narrow walkway and opening used by Kreon, as if he is emerging from the lair of the gods. At the front of the stage is a leather couch, congruent with the costumes by An d’Huys — the men are mainly in suits and jackets as if attending a board meeting. Binoche and O’Kane make fine adversaries, though Antigone shouts too much, and Kreon changes moods a little too randomly. All of the actors except for O’Kane also double as the Greek chorus, who never speak as a unit. Carson’s script contains several contemporary phrases that elicit chuckles from the audience at inopportune moments, and Tal Yarden’s projections are hit-or-miss; the scenes of the vast desert work well, while video of ghostly figures making their way through a present-day city is confusing and feels out of place, though the last shot is effective. Meanwhile, the score weaves in and out of music by Morton Feldman, Arvo Pärt, Henryk Gorecki, and Dmitri Shostakovich before concluding with a sonic blast from longtime BAM favorite Lou Reed as van Hove attempts to relate this story of the state vs. the individual to the twenty-first century. Overall, he only partly succeeds, but by never quite providing the audience with an emotional connection to the characters or narrative, this Antigone will leave you feeling a little too cold. (The September 29 performance will be followed by a talk with Binoche and other members of the company, free for same-day ticket holders.)

FROM MINIMALISM TO ALGORITHM: SEPTEMBER SPRING

“September Spring” combines music, dance, painting, and installation at the Kitchen (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Installation open Tuesday – Saturday through October 10, free
Performances Tuesday to Thursday at 5:00 and Friday and Saturday at 2:00 & 5:00 through October 3
212-255-5793 ext11
thekitchen.org

Writer, photographer, and installation artist Sam Falls has created a beautifully intimate tribute to his late godbrother, Jamie Kanzler, with “September Spring,” continuing at the Kitchen through October 10. In 2013, Kanzler, who wrote poetry under the name September Spring and recorded music as Oldd News, died suddenly at the age of twenty-four. Falls has teamed up with dancers Hart of Gold, the New York-based duo consisting of Elizabeth Hart and Jessie Gold, for the durational work, which combines music, dance, and art in unique ways. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 5:00 and Saturdays at 2:00 and 5:00 since September 9, Hart of Gold has been performing an intricate dance on two stacks of twenty-four canvas rugs each, representing every year Kanzler was alive, separated by a translucent black scrim with a doorway at the center, in the Kitchen’s upstairs gallery. First, dabs of paint are carefully applied across each canvas. Then Hart and Gold, dressed in white, begin moving on the surface to the lo-fi, scratchy sounds of Oldd News, played on a turntable in another room. The dancers initially form a large yellow circle (Kanzler’s favorite color), then follow Falls’s choreography as they create a kind of action painting with their feet, at times evoking how a needle moves across a record, with Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s lighting going from bright to dark to stroboscopic and one of the dancers changing into a black costume. The audience is encouraged to walk around during the show, experiencing it from changing lines of sight. After each performance, which lasts about an hour, the resulting paintings are removed from the stack and hung from cords; although the choreography and color and initial placement of the paint are the same for every performance, each canvas comes out different. The last performance is on October 3, but the exhibition of the paintings will remain on view for another week. Falls, who was partly inspired by Kanzler’s cover version of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” notes in a deeply personal statement, “Jamie had twenty-four dynamic years and over the course of the show the twenty-four rugs become representations of this time, blending the lightness of days to the darkness at the end, the colorful depth of the center, the core of every mortal life.” But despite all the sadness associated with the concept behind the piece, it is an exhilarating experience, focusing much more on life than on death. “September Spring” is part of “From Minimalism to Algorithm,” a series of works curated by Lumi Tan that examine the legacy of Minimalist art in the digital age.

FIRST SATURDAY: HISPANIC HERITAGE

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, October 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum’s October free First Saturday program pays tribute to National Hispanic Heritage Month — which actually runs September 15 to October 15 — on October 3, kicking things off with a performance by Garifuna traditionalist Aurelio Martínez, who is not only a singer-songwriter but was the first black member of Honduras’s National Congress. Known simply as Aurelio, he will be highlighting songs from his latest record, 2014’s Lándini, which includes such tracks as “Sañanaru,” “Milaguru,” and “Durugubei Mani.” (You can sample the songs here; Aurelio will also be playing a free show at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center on October 15.) First Saturday also features live performances by Danza Fiesta: Baile y Teatro Puertorriqueno, DJ duo iBomba (DJ Beto and DJ Ushka), the Gregorio Uribe Big Band, the Humberto Ramírez Quintent, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and Cave Canem poets Willie Perdomo, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Rio Cortez. In addition, Richard Aste and Edward J. Sullivan will lead a curator talk on the new exhibition “Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World,” art workshops will teach participants how to paint still lifes like Francisco Oller, you can settle in for a game of dominoes, Raquel Cepeda will read from and discuss her most recent book, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina, with her husband, Sacha Jenkins, and children are invited to sing and dance to Spanish and English songs with ¡Acopladitos! And the galleries are open late so you can check out such other exhibitions as “The Rise of Sneaker Culture,” “Kara Walker: ‘African Boy Attendant Curio (Bananas),’” “KAWS: ALONG THE WAY,” and “Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence.”

NYFF53 MAIN SLATE: MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART

Zhang Jinsheng (Zhang Yi) shows his love for Shen Tao (Zhao Tao) in materialistic ways in Jia Zhangke’s MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART

MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (SHAN HE GU REN) (Jia Zhangke, 2015)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Monday, September 28, Alice Tully Hall, 6:00, and Tuesday, September 29, Francesca Beale Theater, 9:15
New York Film Festival runs through October 11
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.org

Master Chinese writer-director Jia Zhangke returns to the New York Film Festival with Mountains May Depart, a melancholic look at love and relationships in which one decision can change the rest of your life, as well as an allegory about China itself and its path in the world. Jia’s wife and muse, Zhao Tao, stars as Shen Tao, a flighty, flakey young woman flirting with coal miner Liangzi (Liang Jin Dong) and burgeoning capitalist Zhang Jinsheng (Zhang Yi) in 1999 China, the country on the cusp of an economic crisis. It’s easy to see the young woman’s romantic decision as a microcosm of China’s economic decisions, as the working class battles the wealthy elite, and the effects of both are profound. The setup is reminiscent of the love triangle at the center of François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim, but Jia takes it much further, continuing the story in 2014, and then into 2025, a bleak future where individual happiness is painfully elusive. Jia (Still Life, The World, 24 City) and his longtime cinematographer, Yu Lik-wai, shoot the three time periods in different screen ratios, exemplifying how much things evolve as Chinese capitalism and globalism take over, affecting — and disaffecting — the next generation. But the past is always snapping at the characters’ heels; much of the film takes place in the Yellow River basin, where ancient structures recall China’s history, and in Jia’s vision of the future, vinyl LPs are back in fashion (although handheld devices are much cooler). Music plays a key role in the film, primarily Sally Yeh’s Cantonese song “Take Care” and the Pet Shop Boys’ cover of the Village People’s “Go West,” the latter a title that gets to the heart of the film.

Mia (Sylvia Chang) takes stock of her complicated life in MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART

Zhao is marvelous as the bittersweet Shen, from singing at the colorful Fenyang Spring Festival Gala as the new millennium approaches to trying to restore her relationship with her son (Dong Zijian), who her husband insisted be named Dollar. Her eyes are filled with emotion as she proceeds on a course that was never what she dreamed. In the third section, Sylvia Chang shines as Mia, a sensitive, divorced teacher from Hong Kong who grows close to Dollar in a future world in which English has eclipsed Chinese, so fathers and sons literally do not speak the same language. Navigating the four physical sufferings of Buddhist thought — birth, old age, sickness, and death, Jia avoids showing many key moments in the lives of the characters, often leaving it up to the audience to uncover what has happened over the years and decades, which has a certain grace, although the ambiguous ending is more than a bit frustrating, even if it makes sense as a parable for China as a whole. But it’s all encapsulated in the briefest of kisses in a helicopter that will both brighten and break your heart. And keep an eye out for the guy with the Guangdong Broadsword. Mountains May Depart is screening at the New York Film Festival on September 28 at 6:00 and September 29 at 9:15, with Jia and Zhao in person to talk about the film. In addition, Jia will take part in a free HBO Directors Dialogue at the Howard Gilman Theater on September 29 at 6:00, and Walter Salles’s documentary, Jia Zhangke, a Guy from Fenyang, is being shown at the festival on September 30 and October 1.