Audience members gather together for warmth at beginning of SHORE (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St.
April 23-25, $15-$30, 7:30
212-691-6500
newyorklivearts.org
www.catalystdance.com
Emily Johnson’s Shore is another beautifully organic participatory event that brings audience and performer together with the local surroundings. The last part of a trilogy that began with The Thank-you Bar and Niicugni, Shore opens in the outdoor playground of PS 11 on West Twenty-First St., where people gather near the large-scale mural by Os Gemeos and Futura of a cartoonish character wearing shorts covered in flags of the world, which is representative of the four-part work’s inclusiveness. (There are also separate volunteer, feast, and story sections of Shore.) Attendees can go on the slide, commune with a coop of chickens, shoot some hoops, or grab one of the red blankets and huddle for warmth in these cold late-April days. (Note: Get there early if you want a blanket, as there aren’t enough for everyone.) Various performers start humming and singing on the street, confusing passersby, then run around in a circle inside the playground. Johnson, wearing a masklike swipe of red ceremonial makeup over her eyes, gets atop a shaky makeshift podium and tells a story about a dream of birds and Minetta Creek, an underground stream that once snaked its way from Chelsea to the Hudson River.
Emily Johnson has quite a story to tell in SHORE (photo by twi-ny/ees)
Johnson then leads her large cast, including the Shore Choir, and the audience on a silent journey (except for music boxes, carried by some cast members, that play a lovely tune) following the stream’s path to New York Live Arts on Nineteenth St., where Shore continues in the theater, beginning amid dry-ice mist rising from the stage as the audience takes its seats. (Be sure to pick up a program when leaving the playground, as it contains a special treat.) Soon Aretha Aoki in red, Krista Langberg in orange, and Johnson in yellow, the first three colors of the rainbow, are moving across the stage, feet pounding hard, approaching the rest of the performers, who first line up against the back wall, then make their way to the sides. The interplay among the three dancers ranges from strong and determined to tender and intimate, set to a score that goes from stark bursts of sound to acoustic guitar playing to Marv Albert calling a Bulls-Lakers game. Never at a loss for creativity and ingenuity, Johnson has one final gift for the audience as they exit the theater, one that will touch your already soaring heart. Yes, you’ll be very cold at PS11, and the indoors NYLA section goes on a bit too long, but Shore will challenge you, captivate you, and constantly remind you that you are part of something much bigger than just yourself.
On Friday night, January 20, 2006, shortly after having Shabbat dinner with his family, twenty-three-year-old cell-phone salesman Ilan Halimi was kidnapped in Sceaux, and the perpetrators demanded 450,000 Euros as ransom. What happened over the next twenty-four days eventually shocked France and the rest of the world as the details of the abduction, and its frightening anti-Semitic roots, were made public. Director Alexandre Arcady tells the harrowing true story in 24 Days, a gripping procedural that follows the Halimi family and the police as they try to save Ilan’s (Syrus Shahidi) life and find what became known as the Gang of Barbarians, led by Ivory Coast native Youssouf “Django” Fofana (Tony Harrison). Zabou Breitman gives a powerful performance as Ruth Halimi, Ilan’s mother, who quickly grows unhappy with the police’s plan, which involves her ex-husband and Ilan’s father, Didier (Pascal Elbé), challenging Django over the course of hundreds of phone calls, aided by Commander Delcour (Jacques Gamblin) and police psychologist Brigitte Farrell (Sylvie Testud). With time running out and the police refusing to acknowledge the situation as a hate crime, the family becomes even more desperate, leading to a chilling conclusion.
