twi-ny recommended events

CINDY KANE: EYES ON THE GROUND — JOURNALS OF WAR

Powerful Flatiron exhibit pays tribute to war journalists (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Sprint Prow Art Space
Flatiron Building
175 Fifth Ave. at Broadway & Fifth Ave.
Daily through April 15, free
www.cherylmcginnisgallery.com
www.cindykane.com

Although hats were often featured in the nineteenth-century shop windows of Fifth Avenue’s fashionable Ladies Mile, a different kind of headgear is on display there now. In 2008, visual artist Cindy Kane began creating collages on fifty used Vietnam War-era military helmets she purchased online. She contacted journalists who had covered international conflicts, asking them to contribute items from their reporting. Kane, who is based in Martha’s Vineyard, then took the objects — handwritten notes, photographs, press badges, foreign currency, e-mail exchanges, airline tickets, Band-Aids, expense bills, and other memorabilia — and layered them, decoupage-style, onto the helmets, each one dedicated to an individual journalist. The Helmet Project, which was first seen in a different iteration in New York City in 2009, has been transformed into “Eyes on the Ground — Journals of War,” a powerful exhibition extended through April 15 at the Sprint Prow Art Space in the Flatiron Building. The triangular street-level glass-walled gallery, pointing north on the corner of Twenty-Third St. and Broadway, contains the fifty helmets hanging from the ceiling at varying levels, paying tribute to the men and women who risk their lives to reveal the truth behind what is happening in battles around the world, from Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan to El Salvador, Bosnia, and Democratic Republic of Congo, from the Balkans, Israel, and Russia to the Sudan, Libya, and New York City in September 2001. Curated by Cheryl McGinnis, the installation is a poignant reminder of the importance of a free press and the dangers these award-winning journalists face every day. Among the participants, many of whom have won Pulitzers in addition to other prestigious prizes, are Geraldine Brooks, Chris Hedges, Jeri Laber, Ward Just, Martha Raddatz, Steve Mumford, Deborah Amos, Scott Simon, Lynsey Addario, Nelson Bryant (who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day), and Anthony Shadid, the Washington Post Middle East correspondent who died from an asthma attack in 2012 while trying to leave Syria.

Award-winning journalist Chris Hedges is among fifty reporters contributing to Cindy Kane’s “Eyes on the Ground” exhibit (photo by Richard Kranzler / courtesy of Cheryl McGinnis Gallery)

Hanging in the Prow Art Space, the helmets are unidentified, essentially representing all war journalists, but details about each reporter are included in the online site, including a short biography and what paraphernalia they contributed. Cairo-based McClatchy journalist Hannah Allam wrote to Kane, “Each item has a story,” while CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier explained, “It was harder than I thought to face gathering these.” Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Brooks sums it all up with this statement: “The unexpected juxtaposition of an anonymous military helmet and deeply personal memorabilia provides a profound comment on the universality and the particularity of war. Each helmet, with its unique ephemera and calligraphy, offers an abbreviated portrait of an individual reporter; together, encircling the viewer, the Helmet Project becomes a monument to the hardships, the losses, and the absolute necessity of war reporting.”

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY: BLOODLINES

Who: Stephen Petronio Company
What: “Bloodlines”
Where: Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St., 212-691-9740
When: April 7-12, $10-$69
Why: Stephen Petronio Company concludes its thirtieth anniversary celebration with its annual season at the Joyce, kicking off its latest project, “Bloodlines,” a five-year initiative in which the company will perform works by other choreographers in addition to its namesake artistic director, starting with Merce Cunningham’s 1968 RainForest, featuring Andy Warhol’s “Silver Clouds,” costumes sliced by Jasper Johns, and a live score by David Tudor performed by John Driscoll, Phil Edelstein, Matt Rogalsky, and Stephan Moore. The program also includes the world premiere of Petronio’s Locomotor Non Locomotor, the follow-up to last year’s Locomotor; the new piece has music by hip-hop producer Clams Casino (who, coincidentally, released the EP Rainforest in 2011), costumes by Narciso Rodriguez, and vocal contributions by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. (“Bloodlines,” which seeks to foster an artistic dialogue between paired works and choreographers, will continue with Trisha Brown’s Glacial Decoy and pieces by Anna Halprin, Lucinda Childs, and others. “Hanging with giants has its advantages to a mind in formation,” Petronio writes in his 2014 memoir, Confessions of a Motion Addict.) Former Merce Cunningham dancer Melissa Toogood will appear as a special guest, along with company members Davalois Fearon, Gino Grenek, Barrington Hinds, Jaqlin Medlock, Nicholas Sciscione, Emily Stone, and Joshua Tuason. Petronio will participate in a postperformance Curtain Chat following the April 9 show.

HAUTE COUTURE ON FILM: FUNNY FACE

Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) is not happy about fashionistas taking over the bookstore where she works in FUNNY FACE

CinéSalon: FUNNY FACE (Stanley Donen, 1957)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, April 7, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
Festival runs April 7 – May 26
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

The French Institute Alliance Française’s third annual “Fashion at Fiaf” festival kicks off April 7 with the “’s wonderful, ’s marvelous” 1957 romantic musical comedy Funny Face. When Quality magazine editor and publisher Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) decides she’s after the next big thing, photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire playing a fictionalized version of Richard Avedon, who served as a consultant on the film and took the photos) asks, “Are there no models who can think as well as they look?” So they descend on a “sinister” bookstore in Greenwich Village, Embryo Concepts, to show the intellectual side of star model Marion (real-life model Dovima), but instead Dick believes that the bohemian bookstore’s mousy, idealistic sales clerk, Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn), might just be exactly what they’re looking for, a fresh face with “character, spirit, and intelligence.” Jo is steadfastly averse to the plan at first, until Dick convinces her that it would be a great opportunity for her to see Paris and go to a lecture by her favorite philosopher, professor Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair), the father of empathicalism. So Maggie, Dick, Jo, and their crew head over to France, where Jo will soon be strutting down the runway in a line specially created for her by superstar designer Paul Duval (Robert Flemyng). But once they get to the City of Lights, everything goes more than a bit haywire as haute couture battles counterculture chic.

Audrey Hepburn is glamorous in Givenchy in classic musical

Partially based on an unproduced show by screenwriter Leonard Gershe called Wedding Bells — which was inspired by the real-life relationship between Avedon and model and actress Doe Nowell — and including four songs from George Gershwin’s 1927 musical, also called Funny Face (and starring Astaire and his sister, Adele), the film is an utter delight from start to finish. Despite an age difference of nearly thirty years, Hepburn and Astaire have genuine chemistry as their characters fall for each other. Unlike 1964’s My Fair Lady, in which Hepburn’s singing voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon, she does all of her own vocalizing in Funny Face, including a lovely solo on “How Long Has This Been Going On?,” and she uses her childhood dance training to fabulous effect in a stunning modern dance scene in a dark and smoky bohemian club. Astaire is a joy as Avery, particularly in the dazzling solo number “Let’s Kiss and Make Up,” performed with hat, raincoat, and umbrella. And Thompson, in her only major film role — she was already in the midst of her four-book children’s series about Eloise, the girl who lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York City — gets things going with the glorious opener “Think Pink!,” her character inspired by Harper’s Bazaar editors Carmel Snow and Diana Vreeland. Among the other songs by George and Ira Gershwin are “On How to Be Lovely,” “He Loves and She Loves,” “Clap Yo’ Hands,” and “Bonjour, Paris!” The costumes, of course, are spectacular, courtesy of Edith Head and Hubert de Givenchy, as are Eugene Loring’s choreography and Stanley Donen’s direction as the story roams around many of Paris’s iconic locations. Everything about the film, which was nominated for four Oscars but came up empty, is fun and fashionable, including cameos by model Suzy Parker; Carole Eastman, who would go on to write Five Easy Pieces and The Fortune; Hepburn’s mother; and a group of girls dressed up like French children’s book favorite Madeline.

Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) want to kiss and make up with Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) in FUNNY FACE

Funny Face is screening April 7 at 4:00 & 7:30 as part of the FIAF CinéSalon series “Haute Couture on Film”; both screenings will be followed by a wine reception, and journalist Anne-Katrin Titze will introduce the later show. The series continues through May 26 with such other films as Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, John Cassavetes’s Gloria, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, and Jean Negulesco’s How to Marry a Millionaire. “Fashion at Fiaf” also includes talks with Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, Kate Betts, and Garance Doré and a gallery show of the work of photographer Grégoire Alexandre.

TICKET ALERT: BLACK N’ BLUE BOWL

Who: The Regulators, BURN, Crumbsuckers, Candiria, Madball, Sick of It All, the Rival Mob, Turnstile, Earth Crisis, Fury of Five, Expire, Suburban Scum, Everybody Gets Hurt, Dave Smalley, and more
What: 2015 Black N’ Blue Bowl
Where: Webster Hall, 125 East 11th St.,
When: Saturday, May 16, and Sunday, May 17, $40 single day, $70 weekend pass, 1:30
Why: Formerly known as the Superbowl of Hardcore, the newly redubbed Black N’ Blue Bowl comes to Webster Hall — the event began in the 1980s at the old Ritz in the same space — on May 16-17 with more than two dozen hardcore punk bands, including an exclusive appearance by the reunited BURN. “Hardcore music has been instrumental in my life and I’m excited about getting onstage with Gavin again,” BURN leader Chaka Malik said in a statement. “We’ve been approached to do this for well over a decade and it never felt like it was the right time,” guitarist Gavin Van Vlack added. “Finally the stars have aligned at a time when it all feels so right, where the pure desire that Chaka and I have to play these songs has come to fruit.” Other highlights include the Regulators, with Darryl Jenifer and Dr. Know from Bad Brains and John Joseph and Mackie Jayson from Cro-Mags, and the Wilding Incident, with Lord Ezec on vocals, Jimmy Williams on drums, and Sacha Jenkins on guitar.

PAULA HAYES: GAZING GLOBES

Paula Hayes’s “Gazing Globes” offers a different way to look at Madison Square Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MAD. SQ. ART
Madison Square Park
23rd to 24th Sts. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
Daily through April 19, free
www.madisonsquarepark.org
www.paulahayes.com
gazing globes slideshow

In exhibits such as “Nocturne of the Limax maximus” at MoMA and “Land Mind” at Lever House, visual artist and landscape designer Paula Hayes created living botanical environments, terrariums that held plants and fish while emphasizing the relationship between humanity and nature. Now Hayes, who was born in Massachusetts and is based in New York City, has incorporated outdated technology into the mix with “Gazing Globes,” an illuminating site-specific display in the southwest gravel section of Madison Square Park. Eighteen glass orbs, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty-four inches in diameter, sit on fiberglass pedestals of varying heights between two and four feet, filled with detritus from analog radios, electronic transistors, vacuum tubes, rubber tires, and other technological and industrial waste, along with crystals, forming futuristic miniature postapocalyptic cities of blue, green, purple, gold, and black, layered with dust made from crushed CDs. The spheres change with the weather and the time of day, morphing from snow globes to colorful crystal balls to enchanting glowing orbs at night as they also reflect the surrounding architecture of the Flatiron District. As spring heats up and Teresita Fernández’s massive, five-hundred-foot-long “Fata Morgana” goes up in the park, “Gazing Globes” will mutate yet again, offering yet more fascinating glimpses into our past, present, and future.

GREAT KILLS

Robert (Peter Welch), Tim (Robert Homeyer), and Mr. G (Joe Pantoliano) concoct a crazy scheme in GREAT KILLS (photo by Rosalie Baijer)

Theater for the New City, Community Space
155 First Ave. between Ninth & Tenth Sts.
Wednesday – Sunday through April 12, $20
212-254-1109
www.theaterforthenewcity.net

Tom Diriwachter captures the zeitgeist of the borough that never changes, Staten Island, in his involving new play, Great Kills, making its world premiere at Theater for the New City in the East Village. When you first encounter Mark Marcante’s set, you’re likely to think the story takes place in the 1970s, as the appliances in the kitchen are old, the décor static, with books stacked all over the floor, issues of National Geographic strewn about, and an ancient television front and center. But as soon as the TV is turned on and a sportscaster (voiced by director Jonathan Weber, who runs the New York Mets blog The Ballclub) announces that Mets pitcher Jason deGrom is facing Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto, it becomes apparent that the time is the present, as characters reach into their past to prepare for the future. Robert Homeyer stars as Tim, a tall, awkward, bearded forty-year-old former adjunct professor now working at a local B&N. An angry and desperate ne’er-do-well, Tim lives with his father, Mr. G (Joey Pantoliano), a gruff, grizzled drunk who’s been a painter at the Meadowbrook state institution for thirty-seven years, but the facility will be closing following a series of investigative reports that depicted it as a “horror show.” (That part of the plot was inspired by Geraldo Rivera’s real-life reporting on Staten Island’s Willowbrook facility.) When Tim finds out that Meadowbrook has apparently discarded a huge amount of cabinets, he decides to take them off their hands and make a fortune reselling them, claiming he’s seen similar items going for eighteen hundred bucks in the Village. So he calls in his childhood friend Robert (Peter Welch), a successful restaurateur, to help with the scheme. Wearing a sharp suit, Robert is suspicious of Tim and the plan, but he’s willing to listen, for reasons that eventually become apparent. And through it all, Mr. G just keeps on drinking and grumbling.

Emmy winner Joe Pantoliano is a hoot as an aging drunk in play set in Staten Island (photo by Rosalie Baijer)

Great Kills is built around a suspect, questionable premise, and although it all makes sense in the end, it works best as a character study of three very different men. The way they interact with one another — Robert with Tim, Tim with Mr. G, Mr. G with Robert — is what drives the play, which features dark humor and gritty, rapid-fire dialogue with clever wordplay from lifelong Staten Islander Diriwachter. Robert: “We’re friends.” Tim: “We are friends.” Robert: “We’ve been friends a long time.” Tim: “We used to ride bikes together.” Robert: “I’d take a bullet for you.” Tim: “I’d . . . wrestle a bear for you.” Robert: “I don’t know why you’d ever have to do that.” Tim: “I’m just saying.” Robert: “But business is business.” Robert is cool and self-confident, Tim edgy and unnerving, Mr. G a grunting widower who serves as comic relief, but each one has surprises in store as the plot unfolds in real time. The Hoboken-born Pantoliano, who won an Emmy for his role as Ralphie Cifaretto on The Sopranos, starred with Rosie Perez on Broadway in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, and has appeared in such other films as Memento, The Matrix, and Risky Business, is a hoot as Mr. G, just wanting to be left to his baseball and booze. He is practically one with his comfy chair, getting up only to grab another beer or a shot. Indie film actor, writer, and director Welch, who is also a fine art photographer, gives just the right edge to Robert, who keeps hanging around even as the plan gets more complicated. And Theater for the New City regular Homeyer plays Tim as a man uncomfortable in his own skin, believing that the world owes him a whole lot more. It might be Mamet-lite, but this tale of losers, idealists, and never-will-bes is an engrossing look at modern men and the American dream, with a sharp Staten Island tang.

FULL BUNNY CONTACT

Full Bunny Contact pits giant bunnies against humans on a crazed Easter egg hunt (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FULL BUNNY CONTACT
The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center
107 Suffolk St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
April 1-5, $10-$60
www.fullbunnycontact.com
full bunny contact slideshow

Easter is a time of family and tradition, and we have discovered a new holiday tradition that we hope to be part of our family for a long time to come. Full Bunny Contact is a warped carnival of crazed games and oddball prizes, continuing at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center on the Lower East Side through Easter Sunday. Humans in huge, shabby chic bunny suits roam the space, mildly menacing carnies who lend just the right note of wackiness to the numerous carnival tests of strength and skill: In Shoot the Peep, you fire away a paintball rifle at a life-size version of the sweet treat. Bunny Ball involves tossing a football into a basketball hoop being defended by a giant furry bunny, while Egg Putt has no defensive bunnies but does require you to pitch and putt a decidedly nonround rubber egg into a hole. Little Bunny Fu Fu’s Revenge/Warrior Joust lets you and a bunny climb on padded pedestals and attempt to knock the other off. Ride the Rabbit features a mechanical bull with a bunny mask that first moves tamely before twisting and spinning a lot more fiercely. And the premiere event, Full Bunny Contact, is a cage match in which you try to fill your basket with eggs as a team of evil bunnies is out to stop you. You can also take a picture with the Insult Bunny, play rather basic games of ring toss and Tic-Tac-Toe, and get your fortune told by a psychotic bunny who can say and do just about anything, including pound a nail up his nose. Earning a silver or gold egg entitles you to spin the prize wheel to win very kitschy items that look like they’ve been gathering dust in someone’s attic since the 1950s. General admission is $10, and individual game tickets are an additional charge; for $60, you can go hog wild and play everything — and are given a pair of light-up bunny ears as a keepsake of this very different kind of celebration of the resurrection. Special events include a Bunny Beauty Pageant on Thursday night, an egg-decorating contest on Friday, a Temper Tantrum Easter Candy Contest on Saturday afternoon for kids and Saturday night for adults, and a Masters of Egg Putt shootout on Sunday.