twi-ny recommended events

WIM WENDERS: PORTRAITS ALONG THE ROAD

Extensive Wim Wenders retrospective at the IFC Center will feature numerous appearances by the eclectic auteur

IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
August 28 – September 24
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.wim-wenders.com

One of the most eclectic, iconoclastic auteurs in the history of cinema, German author, director, and photographer Wim Wenders has built an impressive film resume over the last forty-five years, from music and dance documentaries to road movies and postapocalyptic tales, from mysteries and fantasies to gripping emotional dramas and a Hawthorne adaptation. The IFC Center is celebrating his career with a wide-ranging four-week series featuring dozens of his full-length and short films, from 1972’s The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick to a sneak preview of his newest work, Every Thing Will Be Fine, including the New York City premiere of Palermo Shooting and the world premiere of the 4K restoration of The State of Things. Wenders will be at the IFC Center for Q&As following select screenings of The American Friend, Buena Vista Social Club, Kings of the Road, Pina, Tokyo-Ga, Paris, Texas, and other films; in addition, Wenders, who just turned seventy, will sign copies of his latest photography book, Wim Wenders: Written in the West, Revisited, after the Q&A following the 7:20 screening of Palermo Shooting on September 2, and he will participate in the special discussion “Liquid Space: A Conversation on 3D” on September 6.

SAMARA GOLDEN: THE FLAT SIDE OF THE KNIFE

Samara Golden’s “The Flat Side of the Knife” offers a breathtaking perspective on reality (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Through August 30, suggested admission $10 (free with paid MoMA ticket within fourteen days except during Warm Up), 12 noon – 6:00
718-784-2084
momaps1.org
the flat side of the knife slideshow

In such installations as “Mass Murder,” “The Fireplace,” “Bad Brains,” and “Rape of the Mirror,” Michigan-born, LA-based artist Samara Golden creates surreal multimedia interiors that combine a ghostlike quality with abstract memories; looking at them, you can almost see what’s occurred in their nonexistent past. That is certainly true about her latest project, “The Flat Side of the Knife,” which continues in MoMA PS1’s vertical, multistory Duplex Gallery through August 30. Visible from several viewing points at different levels, the work is an Escher-like depiction of an impossible room with staircases, beds, a rug, windows looking out at the ocean, musical instruments, wheelchairs, plants, books, and other items, all of which are reflected in mirrors that result in a dizzying yet breathtaking illusion of reality turned upside down and inside out. Golden calls it the sixth dimension — she has also referred to her installations as exorcisms — where the past, present, and future combine, evoking abandoned film sets where something clearly happened, but there’s no way to tell exactly what; that is left for viewers to figure out, searching inside their own consciousness for clues and answers. While at PS1, be sure to also check out “Halil Altindere” Wonderland,” “Wael Shawky: Cabaret Crusades,” “Math Bass: Off the Clock,” “Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys: Fine Arts,” “IM Heung-soon: Reincarnation,” and the Young Architects Program courtyard project “COSMO” by Andres Jaque and the Office for Political Innovation. And on Saturday, August 30, the next-to-last Warm Up dance party features Matias Aguayo, Kingdom, D∆WN, DJ Windows 98, Murlo, and FALSE WITNESS.

A DELICATE SHIP

The Playwrights Realm
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
416 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Daily through February 21, $10-$35
www.playwrightsrealm.org

Lovers Sarah (Miriam Silverman) and Sam (Matt Dellapina), a couple for just less than a year, are having a pleasant little Christmas Eve in Brooklyn until the incendiary Nate (Nick Westrate) unexpectedly knocks on Sarah’s door, bringing a whirlwind of snark and cynicism with him. Nate is Sarah’s best friend since childhood, but she has conveniently avoided telling Sam about him and their regular conversations. It’s not so much that she’s hiding Nate from Sam; she just doesn’t know what to do about him. Nate is a sarcastic, malicious thirtysomething who says exactly what’s on his mind, no matter how hurtful it can be — or maybe precisely because of how nasty it is. He sees Sam as a threat to his special, unusual relationship with Sarah, and he lets him know that right from the start. “Where are you coming from?” Sam asks. Nate sneeringly replies, “In what sense? Physically? Intellectually? Emotionally?” Sarah adds, as an excuse, “Sorry — he’s crazy,” to which Nate chimes in, “Only for you.” Sarah is a social worker, but she cannot rein in Nate’s lack of social skills; he wants to exist in a world where there is only Sarah and Nate, as if no one else matters, especially Sam, a genuine, nice guy who lets slip that he wants to marry Sarah, which really sets Nate off, and he begins insulting Sam every chance he gets, mining the past to try to prove that Sam will never know and understand Sarah as only he can. Nate jumps all over Sam, a paralegal, amateur philosopher, and singer-songwriter, but Sam is soon giving as good as he gets as the three become immersed in a compelling and involving tug of war over life and death, loneliness and romance, children and parents.

Sarah (Miriam Silverman) and Sam (Matt Dellapina) try to survive a crazy Christmas Eve in A DELICATE SHIP (photo © 2015 Jenny Anderson)

An Alumni Production from the Playwrights Realm, which presented Ziegler’s Dov and Ali in 2009, A Delicate Ship is a tense and fascinating exploration of childhood innocence and the supposed experience that comes with maturity, of the things that change, and the things that don’t. “I don’t actually see why anyone would want to be anything but a child,” Nate says. “It’s not a theory. It’s a statement about life. That the primary joys we experience are as children.” Sarah answers, “I don’t agree.” But Nate is resolute, telling her, “Because agreeing would be admitting your life is getting gradually but steadily worse and that’s an existential predicament you do not wish to acknowledge.” Nate might be a noxious, mean-spirited asshole, but he also makes some insightful points, along with plenty of inciteful ones. Ziegler, whose Photograph 51 is currently playing in London with Nicole Kidman, writes with a sharp love of language and a poetic rhythm that is utterly captivating. Throughout the play, characters turn to the audience and share their thoughts and memories, scenes from the past and hints at the future, while the other characters watch and sometimes even comment. Director Margot Bordelon captains this delicate ship with a sure hand, balancing Sam’s low-key nature with Nate’s unpredictable bravado, navigating steadily through choppy emotional waters. Reid Thompson’s living-room set, which features a Christmas tree, a door standing by itself, and a stone path where Nate sometimes treads, feels real in more ways than one, the smell of evergreen wafting through the air. The cast is superb, their movements across the stage beautifully choreographed, particularly Drama Desk Award winner Westrate’s Nate, who just can’t keep still, like an overactive child. Ziegler (The Minotaur, BFF) was inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” as well as W. H. Auden’s poem about that work, “Musée des Beaux Arts,” both of which can be seen right outside the theater. Auden writes, “In Bruegel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may / Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, / But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone / As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green / Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen / Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, / Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.” Icarus tried to fly to the sun, but his wax wings melted and he fell into the sea. Ziegler’s A Delicate Ship has lofty goals itself, but it soars, never melting, a poetic, unrelenting journey into the heart and soul of what makes us who we are, who we want to be, and who we never will be.

ANDREI TARKOVSKY, SCULPTING IN TIME: DIRECTED BY ANDREI TARKOVSKY

Documentary follows Andrei Tarkovsky making THE SACRIFICE and getting philosophical about art, film, and time

DIRECTED BY ANDREI TARKOVSKY (Michal Leszczylowski, 1988)
Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Eighth Ave.
Friday, August 28, $10, 7:00
Series continues Friday nights through August 28
212-299-7777
madmuseum.org

After seven consecutive Friday nights presenting all seven of Soviet auteur Andrei Tarkovsky’s feature-length films (Solaris, Stalker, Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, The Mirror, Nostalghia, and The Sacrifice, each one a masterpiece in its own right), the Museum of Arts & Design — it’s affectionately known as MAD for a reason — is concluding its “Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time” series on August 28 with the 1988 documentary Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. During the shooting of what would be Tarkovsky’s last film, The Sacrifice, coeditor Michal Leszczylowski kept his own camera going, filming Tarkovsky as he collaborated with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, production designer Anna Asp, star Erland Josephson, and others, carefully orchestrating each shot, anxious about the lighting, the angles, the position of a table. Yes, that is the job of all directors, but Tarkovsky takes it to whole ’nother level, sometimes worried about the slightest hair flip, then barely concerned about a specific piece of dialogue. It is fascinating watching him in action, working with a translator to sift through the Russian, English, and Swedish being spoken on the set. The Sacrifice is about a man who is willing to suddenly give up everything to save himself; it looks like there’s not much that Tarkovsky wouldn’t sacrifice to make sure his film is perfect. Leszczylowski supplements the behind-the-scenes footage with stories from Tarkovsky’s wife, assistant director Larisa Tarkovskaya (Larisa Kizilova), as well as narration by Brian Cox, reading from Tarkovsky’s book Sculpting in Time, his poetic defense of cinema as art melding beautifully with images of the great director creating some of the most artistic cinema ever put on celluloid.

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: SUMMER HD FESTIVAL

Free summer festival screens recent Met performances outside in HD (photo by Richard Termine/Metropolitan Opera)

Lincoln Center, Josie Robertson Plaza
Columbus Ave. at 63rd St.
August 28 – September 7, free, starting time between 7:30 and 8:00
212-769-7028
www.metopera.org

Catching an opera at the Met can be a tough ticket, but you’ll have no such worry at the fabled institution’s annual Summer HD Festival, ten days of free screenings of works that graced the opera house’s stage between 2007 and 2015, now shown outside by the fountain in Josie Robertson Plaza. The series kicks off August 28 with a bonus film, Robert Wise’s West Side Story, much of which was filmed in the pre-Lincoln Center neighborhood. There will be 3,100 first-come, first-served seats available each night, featuring such “The Met: Live in HD” presentations as Bizet’s Carmen, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Elīna Garanča and Roberto Alagna; Verdi’s Macbeth, with Anna Netrebko as Lady Macbeth and Željko Lučić as her ill-fated husband; Puccini’s Il Trittico, a triple bill directed by Jack O’Brien and conducted by James Levine; and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, directed by Michael Grandage and conducted by Fabio Luisi.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “RED STILETTOS” BY THE PRIMADONNA REEDS

Who: The PrimaDonna Reeds
What: CD release concert & party
Where: SPiN, 48 East 23rd St. between Park & Madison Aves., 212-982-8802
When: Saturday, August 29, $10 in advance, $14 at the door, 7:30
Why:Lower East Side six-piece the PrimaDonna Reeds are celebrating the release of their debut CD, Red Stilettos, in the kind of style that would probably make Oscar-winning namesake Donna Reed proud. On Saturday night, singer Karena Reiter, guitarists JC Ryder and Quinn Sheppard, bassist John Sheppard, drummer Slamin’ George Morales, and backup vocalist Christa McNamee will be at SPiN NYC on East Twenty-Third St. highlighting the record, which includes such tracks as “Planetary City Soldier,” “Cell Phone Funk,” and “Give Me the Key.” Attendees will receive a free three-song preview disk consisting of “Red Stilettos,” “Cell Phone Funk,” and “To Feel You.” (You can check out a handful of PrimaDonna Reeds songs here.) Also on the bill are Sylvana Joyce & the Moment, the Vinyl Plane, the Dave Fields Band, and Gusher. And at midnight, an after-party fashion show will feature such models as Ali Bukhari, Starlana Johnson, and Angelina Torreano.

JUNG UK YANG: A MAN WITHOUT WORDS

“A Fatigue Always Comes with a Dream” is centerpiece of Jung Uk Yang exhibition in Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Jung Uk Yang
What: “A Man Without Words”
Where: Doosan Gallery, 533 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
When: Through Thursday, August 27
Why: Korean artist Jung Uk Yang’s first solo show in the United States is an intriguing collection of four kinetic sculptures that incorporate movement with light, shadow, and/or sound in fun, mesmerizing ways. Referencing people’s basic, everyday lives, Yang constructs mechanical installations using wood, thread, and motors. On entering Doosan Gallery in Chelsea, visitors are met by “Be of One Same Mind,” an ovular piece that flutters in greeting. On the other side of the wall, “The Hardship Is Whispering Hope” sits on the floor, casting a large shadow, moving ever so slowly until ringing a bell. The intricately designed “Only the Turtle Does Not Know about Our Weekends” features a bevy of moving parts and abstract faces behind a wooden frame, as if a kind of living portrait of humanity. And the centerpiece of the exhibit, the eye-catching “A Fatigue Always Comes with a Dream,” bathes the back room in stunning shadows, a solitary lightbulb in the middle of moving parts including empty bottles held by thread, honoring South Korean apartment security guards who work overnight, confined to their little glass booths.