twi-ny recommended events

THEATER & CINEMA: VA SAVOIR

Jeanne Balibar is extraordinary in Jacques Rivette masterpiece

CINÉSALON: VA SAVOIR (WHO KNOWS?) (Jacques Rivette, 2001)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, September 29, $14, 4:00 & 7:30 (later screening introduced by Mathieu Bauer)
Series continues through October 27
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

Jacques Rivette’s Va Savoir is a long, talky French movie about very beautiful, very complicated, sex-crazed men and women — and it just might be the master filmmaker’s crowning glory, a magnificent masterpiece that deserved its slot as the New York Film Festival’s opening night selection back in 2001. This erotically charged, very funny drama is set around a traveling theater company’s return to Paris to put on Pirandello’s As You Desire Me in the original Italian. Ugo (Sergio Castellitto), the director and costar of the play, is romantically involved with Camille (Jeanne Balibar), the lead actress, who visits her former lover Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffé), a philosopher with a thing for Heidegger, who is now living with Sonia (Marianne Basler), a dance instructor who is being chased by Arthur (Bruno Todeschini), a ne’er-do-well whose half sister, Do (Hélène de Fougerolles), has taken a liking to Ugo and offers to help him find an unpublished ghost play by Carlo Goldini, which her mother (Catherine Rouvel) just might have. Every minute of this film is pure magic, and at the center of it all is the fantastique Camille, an instinctual, graceful actress whom everyone — men and women — fall in love with, played by the fantastique, instinctual, graceful Balibar, whom audiences will fall in love with as well. French film enthusiasts should watch for Claude Berri in a small role. Lovingly photographed by William Lubtchansky and edited by his wife, Nicole Lubtchansky, Va Savoir is screening at 4:00 and 7:30 on September 29 in FIAF’s CinéSalon series “Theater & Cinema”; the later show will be introduced by Mathieu Bauer. (FIAF is screening the 154-minute version, not the 220-minute director’s cut.) The Tuesday festival continues through October 27 with such other stage-related dramas as Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria, Arnaud Desplechin’s Esther Kahn, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Games of Love and Chance, and François Truffaut’s The Last Metro.

NEW YORKER FESTIVAL

The recently reunited Sleater-Kinney will sit down with Dana Goodyear at 2015 New Yorker Festival (photo by Brigitte Sire)

Multiple venues
October 2-4, $40-$45
festival.newyorker.com

Sure, programs with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sigourney Weaver, Jim Gaffigan, Patti Smith, Billy Joel, Toni Morrison, Larry Wilmore, Trey Anastasio, Junot Díaz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Malcolm Gladwell are already sold out, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still some pretty cool events you can check out at this year’s New Yorker Festival. Taking place October 2-4 at such locations as the Directors Guild Theatre, SIR Stage37, the Gramercy Theatre, One World Trade Center, and the SVA Theatre, the three-day series of discussions, interviews, preview film screenings, theatrical sneak peeks, and special presentations examines contemporary culture as only the New Yorker can. Talk isn’t necessarily cheap; it will cost you $40-$45 to see chats with Andrew Jarecki, Don DeLillo, HAIM, Ellie Kemper, Jason Segel, Jeffrey Tambor, Jesse Eisenberg, Marc Maron, Reggie Watts, Sleater-Kinney, Adam Driver, Julianna Margulies, and Zaha Hadid in addition to the below highlights.

Friday, October 2
Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists, with Liana Finck, Emily Flake, Mort Gerberg, and Robert Mankoff, moderated by Roz Chast, Directors Guild Theatre, $45, 9:30

Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson Talk with Emily Nussbaum, SVA Theatre 1, $45, 10:00

The New R&B, with Azekel Adesuyi, Bilal, James Fauntleroy, and Kelela, moderated by Andrew Marantz, Gramercy Theatre, $45, 10:00

Saturday, October 3
Larry Kramer talks with Calvin Trillin, SVA Theatre 2, $40, 10:00 am

Justice Delayed, with Shawn Armbrust, Tyrone Hood, Patrick Quinn, and Ken Thompson, moderated by Nicholas Schmidle, Directors Guild Theatre, $40, 10:00 am

Creating Complicated Characters, with Joshua Ferris, Yiyun Li, and Lionel Shriver, moderated by Willing Davidson, Gramercy Theatre, $40, 1:00

Sneak Preview: The Lady in the Van, starring Maggie Smith and Jim Broadbent, followed by a conversation between Judith Thurman and director Nicholas Hytner, Directors Guild Theatre, $45, 6:30

Sunday, October 4
Cleo: A reading of Lawrence Wright’s new play, directed by Bob Balaban, with Damian Lewis as Richard Burton, Directors Guild Theatre, $40, 11:00 am

Congressman John Lewis talks with David Remnick, Directors Guild Theatre, $40, 2:00

JR talks with Françoise Mouly, Gramercy Theatre, $40, 2:30

THIGH-HIGHS/REGULAR EINSTEIN/LAZY LIONS/DOUG GILLARD/FIELD GUIDES

Who: The Thigh-Highs (7:00), Regular Einstein (8:00), Lazy Lions (9:00), Doug Gillard (10:00), Field Guides (11:00)
What: “A riotous rockstravaganza with five acts fraternally banding together for a mini-fest of mountainous proportions”
Where: Piano’s, 158 Ludlow St. at Stanton St., 212-505-3733
When: Saturday, September 26, $10, 7:00 – 12 midnight
Why: You know that this mini-fest is the real deal because Jim Allen of Lazy Lions recently posted on Facebook, “I just passed up a free ticket to a private performance by one of my musical heroes so I could attend band practice tomorrow. So you people have to help make this Saturday’s gig worth it!” Meanwhile, Paula Carino of Regular Einstein has promised that this show at Piano’s will be “super-fun,” and we don’t doubt it, given this superior lineup, including twi-ny faves Regular Einstein and Lazy Lions, along with the Thigh-Highs; Doug Gillard, formerly of Guided by Voices and currently in Nada Surf; and Field Guides anchoring the evening. And it will only cost you ten bucks, so you really have no excuse not to check out what should be a great night of pure pop nirvana.

MUSEUM DAY LIVE! 2015

Multiple venues
Saturday, September 26
Admission: free for two people with printed ticket
www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday

The eleventh annual free museum day, sponsored by Smithsonian magazine, takes place on Saturday, September 26, with institutions all over the country opening their doors to people who have downloaded a free ticket for two from the above website. There’s only one ticket allowed per household/e-mail address, so be careful before filling out the online form; some of the museums are free anyway, either all the time or on Saturdays, while others might be between exhibits so there won’t be all that much to see. The participating venues in the five boroughs include the Asia Society Museum (“Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms”), the Society of Illustrators (“Chip Kidd Presents: Batman Black and White: The Sketch Covers”), the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, Alice Austen House (“Becoming Clear Comfort: History of a Landmark”), the Fraunces Tavern Museum (“Lafayette”), the Hispanic Society, Historic Richmond Town (“Made on Staten Island”), the Jewish Museum (“Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television”), the Morgan Library (“Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars,” “Alice: 150 Years of Wonderland”), the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden (“Woven into Mourning: Memorial Hairwork in the Nineteenth Century”), the Museum of American Finance (“America in Circulation: A History of US Currency”), the Studio Museum in Harlem (“Stanley Whitney: Dance the Orange”), the Museum of Arts & Design (“Ralph Pucci: The Art of the Mannequin”), the Museum of Chinese in America (“SUB URBANISMS: Casino Urbanization, Chinatowns, and the Contested American Landscape”), the New York City Fire Museum (“FDNY in 1970s”), the Noble Maritime Collection (“Robbins Reef Lighthouse: A Home in the Harbor”), the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum (“Hubble@25”), the Rubin Museum of Art (“Becoming Another: The Power of Masks”), the Skyscraper Museum (“Ten Tops”), the Staten Island Museum (“Remember the Mastodon: Diversity & Preservation”), the Ukrainian Museum (“Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s”), the U.S. Lighthouse Tender LILAC, and the Van Cortlandt House Museum. Of course, if you pair up with friends and relatives, you can get more tickets for multiple places.

DINE AROUND DOWNTOWN 2015

28 Liberty Plaza
Between Liberty & Pine and Nassau & William Sts.
Wednesday, September 30, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Admission: free, dishes $3-$7
212-566-6700
www.downtownny.com

Sponsored by the Downtown Alliance and hosted by chef Amanda Freitag, the fourteenth annual Dine Around Downtown will feature signature dishes from more than fifty Lower Manhattan restaurants, from pizza places and burger joints to steak and seafood houses. Among the participating eateries are ATRIO Wine Bar, Barbalu, Bavaria Bier Haus, the Capital Grille, City Hall, Cowgirl Sea-Horse, Delmonico’s, the Dubliner, Financier Patisserie, Haru, Le District, Les Halles, Lubolang, the Malt House, Mad Dog & Beans Mexican Cantina, OBAO Water Street, the Paris Café, Route 66 Smokehouse, Stone Street Tavern, SUteiShi, Trinity Place, and Ulysses’ Folk House. There will also be live entertainment. Each plate goes for $3 to $7, with proceeds benefiting the Downtown Alliance, which “is striving to make Lower Manhattan a wonderful place to live, work, and play by creating a vibrant multi-use neighborhood.”

ART ON GOVERNORS ISLAND

Mary Ellen Mark’s last photographs are on view on Governors Island (photo courtesy ICP)

Governors Island
September 26-27, free (ferry $2 round trip), 10:00 am – 7:00 pm
212-673-9074
govisland.com

Fall might be upon us, but it will remain summer for one last blowout weekend on Governors Island. On September 26-27, the remainder of the summer art installations and special projects will come to an end, so this is your last chance to see some very impressive and wide-ranging shows. Most prominent is Mary Ellen Mark’s “Picture This: New Orleans,” a powerful exhibit that turned out to be the famous photojournalist’s last assignment, a CNNMoney commission that sent the Philadelphia-born Mark to document life in the Big Easy a decade after Katrina. Presented by ICP, “Picture This: New Orleans” features large-scale photos of current residents with fascinating stories, along with a video that takes you behind the scenes of the shoots. Mark passed away in May at the age of seventy-five.

Take your time while investigating Sean Boggs’s Paper Polygons (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Take your time while investigating Sean Boggs’s mysterious “Paper Polygons” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The eighth annual Governors Island Art Fair is up and running, spread across more than a dozen rooms in decommissioned army barracks and former military residences along Colonel’s Row and outside on the grounds. Sponsored by 4heads, a nonprofit founded in 2008 by Nicole Laemmle, Jack Robinson, and Antony Zito to offer free space to artists to explore their vision, the fair features painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, video, installation, and sound works. Each artist or independent gallery/collective is assigned his or her own room where they can create to their heart’s content. We highly recommend the second floor of 404A, which features Sean Boggs’s “Paper Polygons,” a circle consisting of hand-cut blue and purple paper triangles, squares, pentagons, and hexagons that shift ever-so-slightly as the installation rotates almost imperceptibly; it’s like watching a clock, but it’s oh-so-satisfying when you see one of the small objects move, like catching a shooting star. Down the hall is Jillian Rose’s “two arrowheads a string of beads and a handful of nails,” a room where a ratty chair and table are precariously about to topple over, white paint is peeling and cracking everywhere, and splinters of wood appear to be growing over the wall, fireplace, and furniture; referencing the early history of Governors Island, the piece gives you the eerie feeling that something not so positive happened there, but you don’t quite know what it could be.

One of the highlights of the Governors Island Art Fair is Jillian Rose’s site-specific “two arrowheads a string of beads and a handful of nails” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is sponsoring several exhibitions in Building 110, including “(Counter)Public: Art, Intervention & Performance in Lower Manhattan from 1978-1993,” which features photographs and video documenting works by John Kelly, Richard Serra, Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring, Agnes Denes, and Eiko & Koma, among others. To help celebrate closing weekend, LMCC is hosting open studios with artists in residence, so you’ll be able to meet and talk with Okwui Okpokwasili on Saturday at 1:00, Kyle deCamp at 3:00, and twenty other artists all weekend. A.I.R. Gallery, an advocate for women in the visual arts, has filled a house with work by New York artists while partnering with UnderwaterNewYork. Safe Streets Art Foundation is presenting “Escaping Time: Art from U.S. Prisons,” comprising more than two hundred pieces by inmates from around the country and a look at prison reform. In addition, Brooklyn ARTery is showing “The Art of Mourning: Contemporary Works by Painter John Brendan Guinan” alongside DIY classes and a gift shop of one-of-a-kind items, the New-York Historical Society has the pop-up exhibit “Revolution: Independence and NYC,” local artifacts are on display in “Hidden Beneath Our Feet — Working Archaeology on Governors Island,” the Dysfunctional Collective is presenting “The Paper House,” members of the Sculptors Guild will be on hand for the site-specific “Under Construction Part II,” and the Summer Museum focuses on holographic art. And be sure to come hungry, as Governors Island has a bunch of cool food trucks as well as longtime mainstay, the Caribbean-flavored Veronica’s Kitchen.

NYC DUMPLING FESTIVAL

Dumpling eating contest is centerpiece of festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Sara D. Roosevelt Park
East Houston St. between Forsythe & Chrystie Sts.
Saturday, September 26, 12 noon – 5:00 pm
Tasting tickets: $20 for four plates
www.dumplingfestival.com

Nearly every culture makes some kind of dumpling, involving meat and/or vegetables tucked inside a wrapper made of flour or rice. So the NYC Dumpling Festival, held on the outskirts of Chinatown in Sara D. Roosevelt Park, is not merely a celebration of the Chinese delicacy but of dough-encased delights from all over the world. In past years, you could find such “dumplings” as pierogi, ravioli, empanada, mandoo, bao, shumai, and momo. The twelfth annual festivities, emceed by Danielle Chang and Anita Marks and featuring a special appearance by competitive eating favorite Takeru Kobayashi, includes fare from Dumpling Go, Bibigo, Tang’s Natural, Mika, TBaar, and festival sponsor Chef One, which serves frozen bagged dumplings. Of course, the highlight is the dumpling eating contest; last year’s men’s champion, James “the Bear” McDonald, downed eighty-six dumplings in two minutes, while women’s champ Molly Schuyler beat the Bear with a record ninety. In addition, there will be live performances by beatboxer Sung Lee, Korean drummers KTMDI (Janggu), the Lion Dance Crew from Wan Chi Ming Hung Gar Institute, Bellyqueen, and Yut and the Hot Four. All proceeds from the festival benefit the Food Bank for New York City, so you won’t have to feel too guilty about stuffing your face, if you’re patient enough to navigate the long lines.