twi-ny recommended events

FOREVER

Dael Orlandersmith shares intimate details of her dysfunctional childhood in FOREVER (photo by Joan Marcus)

New York Theatre Workshop
79 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 31, $75
nytw.org

Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith returns to New York Theatre Workshop with the searing Forever, a harrowing, deeply intimate one-woman show about the severely dysfunctional relationship between a daughter and her alcoholic mother. In the semiautobiographical work, Orlandersmith (Yellowman, Monster, The Gimmick) spends a gripping eighty minutes discussing her artistic influences while looking back at damaging scenes from her past as she walks through Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, paying tribute to Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Richard Wright, and other writers and musicians who helped her survive a brutal childhood in Harlem. “All of us have come / All of us who are seeking / have come to be with these people here in Pere Lachaise — who beyond our parents helped us give birth to ourselves,” she says. Statuesque and elegant in a long black dress, her braided hair falling over her shoulders and reaching toward her hips, she recalls a broken friendship with a local tomboy, being beaten by her mother over math homework, and how she felt when her mother tells her she is “fat / hateful / disgusting.” She shares her physical and psychological pain with the audience, making direct, lingering eye contact that is both soothing and uncomfortable. “I can’t believe I still can feel her slap. She’s been gone / dead / over twenty years but I can still see / feel / hear her laughing,” she says. Orlandersmith tells the story with a lyrical, poetic rhythm that is captivating and unique. She describes her Caesarian birth thusly: “October 29, 1959 / I was torn from blood/guts/water / Spanked into consciousness / Spanked into living.” Later she adds, “A scar I made a long time ago coming through you / I stare at it / Wondering how I could have been born from it / How I could have been born from you.”

Dael Orlandersmith’s tale of her relationship with her mother is both harrowing and uplifting (photo by Joan Marcus)

About midway through Forever, which is calmly directed by Neel Keller, with excellent lighting by Mary Louise Geiger and sound by Adam Phalen, Orlandersmith relates a long, agonizing episode from her childhood in nerve-racking detail, one of the most powerful and frightening things you’re ever likely to experience from a show; it’s difficult to watch, but you won’t be able to avert your eyes from hers, finalizing an unbreakable bond between performer and audience that will stay with you long after you leave the theater. Ultimately, she tries to find closure as she revisits her mother’s death. Forever is both heartbreaking and uplifting, a shocking, poetic exploration of family, memory, and the ties that bind; it was particularly poignant the night we saw it, on the eve of Mother’s Day. Before and after the show, people are invited to write their own tributes to those they’ve lost on notecards they can tape to the long, narrow bulletin boards lining the side walls, and following the show, attendees can walk around Takeshi Kata’s central staging area and check out dozens of Orlandersmith’s family photographs on similar boards around the set. The notecards and photographs are a brilliant touch, a physical evocation of how the past embraces and surrounds both the audience and the performer’s emotional experience, providing yet more intimacy and reminding you of your own relationships. (The May 20 show will be followed by a discussion with photographers James and Karla Murray and NYU adjunct professor Cynthia Copeland, moderated by Alexander Santiago-Jirau, who will also lead a Shop Talk after the May 27 show.)

THEATRE FOR ONE: I’M NOT THE STRANGER YOU THINK I AM

Christine Jones’s mobile Theatre for One will present short plays by major playwrights in three locations May 18 – June 6 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, Zuccotti Park, Grace Building
May 18 – June 6, free, 12 noon – 7:00 pm
www.artsbrookfield.com
www.theatreforone.com

Theater can be an intimate experience, and it doesn’t get much more intimate than Christine Jones’s Theatre for One, which is exactly that: performances by one actor for one audience member at a time, inside a mobile four-by-eight-foot theater. TFO will feature new five-minute works by award-winning playwrights Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss), Will Eno (The Realistic Joneses), Lynn Nottage (Ruined), José Rivera (Marisol), Thomas Bradshaw (Intimacy), Zayd Dohrn (Sick), and Emily Schwend (Take Me Back). The mobile theater is a collaboration between the architecture firm LO-TEK and the Tony-nominated Jones, who has designed the sets for such shows as Spring Awakening, American Idiot, and Coraline and is the director of the current immersive hit Queen of the Night. The short plays, which together are being called I’m Not the Stranger You Think I Am, will be performed by six actors and are directed by Jones, Rivera, Jenny Koons, and Brian Mertes; the mobile theater will be at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place May 18-24; Zuccotti Park May 27-31; and the Grace Building June 2-6. Admission is first come, first served, and free, with each person able to see one of the plays, between 12 noon and 7:00 pm.

FREE SUMMER DANCE 2015

A canary torsi’s COURT/GARDEN (photo by Jose Espaillat)

A Canary Torsi’s COURT/GARDEN will be performed at Federal Hall June 19-20 (photo by Jose Espaillat)

The free summer dance season is upon us, with presentations in parks all around the city, including participatory programs in addition to companies from around the world and site-specific projects by local favorites. Bryant Park will be hosting several dance series, while Central Park (and others) has SummerStage and Prospect Park has Celebrate Brooklyn! River to River boasts the most exciting lineup, but you need to reserve your free space in advance. You’ll find other festivals below; more information will be added as it becomes available.

Wednesday, May 20
Dancing in Bryant Park: Swing and Lindy Hop, Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Thursday, May 21
Celebrate Brooklyn! Dance Parties: Electro Soul, with Jamie Liddell, Fixed, and Brooklyn United Marching Band, Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, 7:00

Wednesday, May 27
Dancing in Bryant Park: Samba e Mais, Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Thursday, May 28
Celebrate Brooklyn! Dance Parties: Latin Jazz, with Poncho Sanchez, Bobbito Garcia, and Salsa Salsa Dance, Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, 7:00

Wednesday, June 3
Dancing in Bryant Park: Tango, Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Saturday, June 6
SummerStage: KanKouran West African Dance Company, with Pre-Show Master Class led by Assane Konte, Red Hook Park, 7:00

Sunday, June 7
SummerStage: BattleFest League Dancers and screening of Flex Is Kings (Michael Beach Nichols and Deidre Schoo, 2013), Red Hook Park, 7:00

Wednesday, June 10
Dancing in Bryant Park: Bachata, Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Wednesday, June 17
Dancing in Bryant Park: West Coast Swing, Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Wednesday, June 17
and
Thursday, June 18
Hudson River Dance Festival, with Paul Taylor Dance Company, Parsons Dance, and Ballet Hispanico, Pier 63, Hudson River Park, Chelsea Piers, 6:30

Friday, June 19
Bryant Park Presents Modern Dance, Bryant Park Stage, 6:00

SummerStage: Laurie M. Taylor/Soul Movement, with Pre-Show Master Class led by Karisma Jay, Herbert Von King Park, 7:00

Friday, June 19, 8:00
and
Saturday, June 20, 3:00 & 8:00
River to River: Court/Garden, by A Canary Torsi, Federal Hall,

Friday, June 19
Sunday, June 21
Monday, June 22
River to River: Dance My Life, by Souleymane Badolo, Pier 15, advance RSVP required, 3:00

Friday, June 19
through
Sunday, June 28
River to River: Souvenir: Undone, site-specific dance project by Rachel Tess, St. Cornelius Chapel, Governors Island, advance RSVP required, 1:00 and/or 4:00

Twyla Tharp brings back THE ONE HUNDREDS in Rockefeller Park (photo © Tony Russell)

Saturday, June 20
SummerStage: Hearts of Men, with Pre-Show Master Class led by members of Hearts of Men, Herbert Von King Park, 7:00

River to River: The One Hundreds, by Twyla Tharp, Rockefeller Park, advance RSVP required, 7:00

Sunday, June 21
River to River: Trisha Brown: In Plain Site, Wagner Park, New York, by Trisha Brown Dance Company, Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, advance RSVP required, 4:00 & 6:00

Monday, June 22, 6:30
Tuesday, June 23, 3:00
Wednesday, June 24, 1:00
River to River: A Body in Places: A Body in a Station, by Eiko Otake, location to be announced

Tuesday, June 23, 9:30
and
Sunday, June 28, 6:00
River to River: R2R Living Rooms with C∆N-D + DRELLA, VBar Seaport, RSVP recommended

Wednesday, June 24
Latin Dancing Festival, Fountain Terrace, Bryant Park

Dancing in Bryant Park: Cuban Salsa, Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Wednesday, June 24, 3:00
Thursday, June 25, 8:30
Friday, June 26, 8:30
River to River: The Set Up: Saya Lei, by Wally Cardona, Jennifer Lacey, and Jonathan Bepler, location to be announced, advance RSVP required

Wednesday, June 24, 5:00
Friday, June 26, 5:30
Saturday, June 27, 7:00
River to River: White, by Michelle Boulé, location to be announced, advance RSVP required

Thursday, June 25
and
Friday, June 26
River to River: 3 After 4, Experiment 4, by Sarah Michelson, location to be announced, advance RSVP required, 7:00

Thursday, June 25, 4:00 (open dress rehearsal)
Friday, June 26, 4:00
Saturday, June 27, 2:00
Sunday, June 28, 2:00
River to River: Love of a Poet, by John Kelly, Arts Center, Governors Island, advance RSVP required

Friday, June 26
Bryant Park Presents Modern Dance, Bryant Park Stage, 6:00

SummerStage: Hybrid Movement Company, the Incredible Incredible, and IMPACT Repertory Theatre
Crotona Park, 7:00

Friday, June 26, 1:00
Saturday, June 27, 5:00
Sunday, June 28, 5:00
River to River: Fall of the Rebel Angels: X, by Catherine Galasso, Yellow House, Nolan Park, Governors Island, advance RSVP required

Friday, June 26, 3:00
Saturday, June 27, 3:30
Sunday, June 28, 3:30
River to River: Cribles/Governors Island, by Emmanuelle Huynh – Company Mùa, Parade Ground, Governors Island, advance RSVP required

Saturday, June 28
River to River: Open Studios with Eiko & Emmanuelle Huynh, Arts Center, advance RSVP required, Governors Island, 1:00

River to River: Open Studios with Wally Cardona, Jonathan Bepler, and Dr. Chikako Yamauchi, Arts Center, Governors Island, advance RSVP required, 2:00

Thursday, July 2
SummerStage: Un Break à Mozart, the DASH Ensemble, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 7:00

Friday, July 3
Bryant Park Presents Modern Dance, Bryant Park Stage, 6:00

Saturday, July 5
SummerStage: Global Family Day, with Shine and the Moonbeams and special guest the Noel Pointer Youth Orchestra, the Red Trouser Show, Batoto Yetu, Ziporah Roney and Collaborative Artists, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 2:00

Friday, July 10
Bryant Park Presents Modern Dance, Bryant Park Stage, 6:00

Saturday, July 11
SummerStage — Hip Hop Dance: From the Street to the Stage, with a Master Class led by Brandon “Peace” Albright, St. Mary’s Park, 7:00

Rashida Bumbray & Dance Diaspora Collective will perform RUN, MARY, RUN in Queensbridge Park on July 18 (photo by John Rogers)

Saturday, July 18
SummerStage — Rashida Bumbray & Dance Diaspora Collective: Run, Mary, Run, with Master Class led by Jamel Gaines, Queensbridge Park, 7:00

Friday, July 24
Lincoln Center Out of Doors — Dorrance Dance: The Blues Project Revisited with Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely, Damrosch Park Bandshell, 7:30

Saturday, July 25
Lincoln Center Out of Doors Family Day: Heidi Latsky Dance, Josie Robertson Plaza, 3:30

Lincoln Center Out of Doors Family Day: National Dance Day, Josie Robertson Plaza, 4:00

Saturday, July 25, 12 noon, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00
and
Sunday, July 26, 4:00 – 6:00
Lincoln Center Out of Doors Family Day — Bridgman|Packer Dance: Truck, Jaffe Drive / Toll Porte-cochère

Sunday, July 26
Lincoln Center Out of Doors — Chinese American Arts Council Dancers: From Chinatown with Love, Hearst Plaza, 3:00

Wednesday, July 29
SummerStage: PHILADANCO! and TU Dance, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 7:00

Thursday, July 30
Passport Thursdays – India: Parul Shah Dance Company, Haider (Vishal Bhardwaj, 2014), Queens Museum

Saturday, August 1
Lincoln Center Out of Doors: A Celebration of the Life of Geoffrey Holder, with the panel discussion “The Life and Work of Geoffrey Holder” and screening of documentary Carmen and Geoffrey (Nick Doob, 2005) and rare archival footage, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 1:00

Lincoln Center Out of Doors: Garth Fagan Dance, Carmen de Lavallade: The Creation, the Ebony Ecumenical Ensemble, Damrosch Park Bandshell, 7:30

Sunday, August 2
Lincoln Center Out of Doors: Heritage Sunday — Opening Doors: Celebrating Immigrant New York, featuring Abdoulaye Diabaté and Super Manden, Boodoosingh Tassa Drummers, Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, Csűrdöngölő Folk Ensemble, and Ikhlaq Hussain, Hearst Plaza, 1:00

Monday, August 3
through
Saturday, August 8
Dance at Socrates: Week 1, Socrates Sculpture Park

Thursday, August 6
Lincoln Center Out of Doors: We Like It Like That! A Boogaloo Celebration with Joe Bataan; Ray Lugo and the Boogaloo Destroyers with special guest Richie Ray and Pete Rodriguez; ABAKUÁ Afro-Latin Dance Company; DJ Turmix, Damrosch Park Bandshell, 7:00

Celebrate Brooklyn! LeeSaar the Company, Ohad Naharin & Guest Dancers from Batsheva Dance Company, Prospect Park Bandshell, 8:00

Monday, August 10
through
Saturday, August 15
Dance at Socrates: Week 2, Socrates Sculpture Park

Saturday, August 8
SummerStage: Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, Master Class: Karisma Jay, East River Park, 7:00

Thursday, August 13
Passport Thursdays – South Korea: Korean Traditional Music & Dance Center, Miss Granny (Hwang Dong-hyuk, 2014), Queens Museum

Monday, August 17
through
Saturday, August 22
Dance at Socrates: Week 1, Socrates Sculpture Park

Friday, September 4, 6:00
Saturday, September 5, 5:00
Sunday, September 6, 3:00 & 5:00
Suite Summer Festival, with In-Sight Dance Company, Socrates Sculpture Park

FRIEZE ART FAIR 2015

Participants paint Jonathan Horowitz’s “100 Dots” at Frieze (photo by twi-ny/ees)

FRIEZE ART FAIR
Randall’s Island Park
May 14-17, $28-$109
friezenewyork.com

The ferry, the crowds, the food, and the fashion may all seem familiar and as well done as ever at Frieze, but what’s new under the big white tent? Well, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise got a lot of press because of Jonathan Horowitz’s participatory project, “700 Dots,” which enlisted early attendees’ minds, hearts, hands, and Instagram feeds by providing them with brushes, black acrylic paint, a white square, a $20 check, and lots of helpful support for painting a perfect eight-inch circle. The circles became part of Horowitz’s project, which actually consists of seven sets of ten-by-ten grids of 100 dots, two of which had sold for $100,000 a piece by Thursday. Single-artist stands captured most of our attention, and the Frame section, for galleries less than eight years old showing solo exhibitions, felt particularly strong. In fact, the Stand Prize, a $15,000 award sponsored by Champagne Pommery and given by a panel of distinguished judges, went to a Frame gallery for the revelatory Martha Araújo show at Galeria Jaqueline Martins (São Paulo), focusing on Araújo’s body-based performative practice in Brazil from the 1970s through the present, little known to date.

Gallerists prepare a performance of Kris Lemsalu’s “Whole Alone 2” at Temnikova & Kasela, Frieze New York 2015 (photo by twi-ny/ees)

Also in Frame, as fairgoers arrived just after eleven on Thursday morning, gallerists at Temnikova & Kasela (Tallinn, Estonia) prepared Kris Lemsalu’s “Whole Alone 2,” a sculptural installation and performance that featured a well-manicured woman under an intricately enameled and rhinestone-bedazzled tortoiseshell, while London’s Supplement Gallery showed Philomene Pirecki’s lovely and more subtly nontraditional painting, comprising old paintings processed into supports for new, and sculptures made of layers of images of previous works, processed as photographs of digital screen images and overlaid with transparencies of water droplets. The latest medium seems, somewhat bewilderingly, to be ceramics, as artists as diverse as Lucio Fontana, Milena Muzquiz, Takuro Kuwata, and Dan McCarthy all displayed glazed clay pieces, some quite beautiful, such as Fontana’s “Dolphins” and “Piatto-Battaglia,” some less so, like the scary yellow glazed smiley Face Pots by McCarthy.

MAD. SQ. ART: EXPLAINING PUBLIC ART

Jaume Plensa’s “Echo” is a prime example of the innovative public art program in Madison Square Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

One Madison Ave. at 23rd St., twelfth floor
Monday, May 18, free with advance RSVP, 9:00 am
www.madisonsquarepark.org

One of our favorite places to experience public art is in Madison Square Park, where the Mad. Sq. Art program has featured site-specific works by Antony Gormley, Alison Saar, Roxy Paine, Rachel Feinstein, Leo Villareal, Shannon Plumb, Jim Campbell, and so many others over the years. On May 18, the park will host a morning symposium, “Explaining Public Art,” in the One Madison Ave. building, starting with a welcome from Madison Square Park Conservancy board chairman David Berliner, executive director Keats Myer, and Parks Department director of art & antiquities Jonathan Kuhn, followed by an introduction by senior curator Brooke Kamin Rappaport. Beginning at 9:15, eight Mad. Sq. Art participants will make presentations: Richard Deacon, Orly Genger, Paula Hayes, Mel Kendrick, Jaume Plensa, Jessica Stockholder, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Teresita Fernández, whose new installation, “Fata Morgana,” is being installed right now for a June 1 opening. At 10:30, there will be three panel discussions, one on “Site” with Bill Fontana and Charles Long, moderated by Ariella Budick; a second on “Medium,” with Sandra Gibson, Luis Recoder, and Villareal, moderated by Phong Bui; and a third on “Public,” with Feinstein, Plumb, Bill Beirne, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Jacco Olivier, moderated by Robin Cembalest. The symposium concludes with a keynote conversation between Bloomberg Philanthropies arts program head Kate D. Levin and Ford Foundation president Darren Walker. Admission is free, but advance RSVP, is required. New York City just wouldn’t be the same with public art, so this should be a fascinating way to gain insight into its creation and development.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “ENGLISH TONGUE” BY PALMA VIOLETS

Who: Palma Violets
What: British buzz band comes to New York City behind second album
Where: Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., and Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North Sixth St.
When: Monday, May 18 (Bowery Ballroom), and Wednesday, May 20 (MHOW), $18, 9:00
Why: British quartet Palma Violets made headlines at SXSW this past March when security had to physically pull them offstage, then block them from returning. The NME faves have become well known for their chaotic sets, so there’s no telling what will happen when they come to New York City next week for two shows in support of their sophomore album, Danger in the Club (Rough Trade, May 5), the follow-up to 2013’s 180, which featured their indie smash, “Best of Friends.” The new disc contains thirteen tracks, including the short intro “Sweet Violets,” “Hollywood (I Got It),” the frenetic “Girl, you couldn’t do much better on the beach,” “Danger in the Club,” “Gout! Gang! Go!,” and “English Tongue”; that last track was recently released as a video directed by Don Letts, who has made such films as The Punk Rock Movie, Dancehall Queen, Soul Brittania, and several about the Clash, which Palma Violets have cited as a major influence. Vocalist/guitarist Sam Fryer, vocalist/bassist Chilli Jesson, keyboardist Peter Mayhew, and drummer Will Doyle will be at the Bowery Ballroom on May 18 and the Music Hall of Williamsburg on May 20, with Public Access T.V. opening both shows.

WIKIPEDIA EDIT-A-THON: SELECTIONS FROM THE GUGGENHEIM COLLECTION

Attendees of the inaugural Guggathon edit new Wikipedia entries last October (photo by Kris McKay © 2014 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Tuesday, May 19, free with advance registration, 3:00 – 7:00
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

Ever look at a Wikipedia page and want to make changes to an entry but didn’t know if you were allowed to or how to do it? On May 19 from 3:00 to 7:00, the Guggenheim is hosting its second Wikipedia Edit-a thon, as the uptown institution donates one hundred images to the online encyclopedia and invites the general public to help flesh out the entries, either at the museum or remotely. Among the images that will become part of Wikipedia Commons are works by Edgar Degas, Paul Klee, Vincent Van Gogh, and others. The Guggenheim’s inaugural Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was held last October, dedicated to museum architecture. Tuesday’s Guggathon begins with a welcome address from Guggenheim curatorial assistant Natalia Lauricella and remarks from Wikimedia NYC president Richard Knipel, who will then lead a training session for registered attendees. Then the hands-on editing — participants must bring their own laptops and power cords — takes place from 4:15 to 5:45, followed by a review of the results. At 6:00, gallery educator Lewis Kachur will give a private tour of the Thannhauser Collection.