twi-ny recommended events

MIKA ROTTENBERG: BOWLS BALLS SOULS HOLES

Mika Rottenberg’s latest multimedia architectural installation links bingo with global climate change (photo courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery)

Mika Rottenberg’s “Bowls Balls Souls Holes” is another unique, fascinating, fun, and complex installation (photo courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery)

Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday — Saturday through June 14, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-627-6000
www.andrearosengallery.com

BedStuy-based multimedia artist Mika Rottenberg explores chance, luck, environmental concerns, and mass production on a global scale in her latest architectural video installation, “Bowls Balls Souls Holes.” Born in Argentina and raised in Israel before moving to Brooklyn, Rottenberg creates immersive pieces that combine video and sculpture focusing on wildly imaginative Rube Goldberg-like experimental contraptions that bring together radically diverse labor-intensive elements, along with a cast of men and mostly women who can do extreme things with their bodies. In “Tropical Breeze,” the characters (including professional body builder Heather D. Foster) made an actual product, Lemon-Scented Tropical Breeze Moist Tissue Papers; in “Mary’s Cherries,” various women (including fetish wrestler Rock Rose) perform household-like tasks that use red fingernails to make maraschino cherries. In “Cheese,” which was part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial, old-fashioned Rapunzel-esque farm girls use their very long hair to help make the title product. In one of Rottenberg’s crazier setups, “Squeeze” involves butt misting, wall tongues, and the stomping of iceberg lettuce. And in 2011, Rottenberg teamed up with Jon Kessler for the Performa 11 commission “Seven,” a unique chakras juicer that linked a New York lab with an African community.

Mika Rottenberg’s latest multimedia architectural installation links bingo with global climate change (photo courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery)

In the twenty-eight-minute “Bowls Balls Souls Holes,” Rottenberg links a Harlem bingo parlor with polar icebergs and a large sleeping woman who dreams of the moon and wakes up every time a drop of water falls from above and sizzles on her bare shoulder. Occasionally, the bingo caller releases a colored clothespin down a hole, sending it on a journey through multiple trapdoors until it is caught way below by a man (Guinness Book of World Records champion face stretcher Garry “Stretch” Turner, who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome) who attaches it to his face. The idea of things coming full circle is central to the work, which features many kinds of round objects while also evoking a highly unusual assembly line. As with her other pieces, “Bowls Balls Souls Holes” is filled with some hysterical bits, in addition to some out-and-out confusing ones, which is always part of the fun. (Don’t try too hard to figure everything out.) The video is supplemented with related sculptures, from the bingo board and jars with boiling water to a trio of swirling ponytails and an air conditioner dripping water onto a hot frying pan.

AILEY AT LINCOLN CENTER 2014

New production of Hans van Manen’s POLISH PIECES (seen here performed by Antonio Douthit-Boyd and Akua Noni Parker) is part of Ailey’s second consecutive Lincoln Center season (photo by Andrew Eccles)

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
June 12-16, $25 – $135
212-496-0600
www.alvinailey.org
www.davidhkochtheater.com

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is already an end-of-year tradition, moving into City Center every December. The celebrated company is now reinvigorating the start of summer with its second consecutive June season at Lincoln Center, this time paying tribute to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of the company founder and namesake at the age of fifty-eight. From June 11 to 22, AAADT will present thirteen works in four different programs at the David H. Koch Theater, with a special free bonus on opening night, when former company members Nasha Thomas-Schmitt and Renee Robinson teach how to dance the “I’ve Been ’Buked,” “Wade in the Water,” and “Rocka My Soul” sections of Revelations at 5:30 on Josie Robertson Plaza. Program A (June 12, 14, 18, 22) features Wayne McGregor’s Chroma, the world premiere of Robert Moses’s The Pleasure of the Lesson, the San Francisco-based choreographer and composer’s first piece for Ailey, and Revelations. Program B (June 13, 15, 21) consists of Ronald K. Brown’s gorgeous Grace, the company premiere of Asadata Dafora’s 1932 Awassa Astrige/Ostrich, a solo piece set to African music by Carl Riley, Bill T. Jones’s D-Man in the Waters (Part 1), and Ohad Naharin’s glorious Minus 16. Program C (June 14, 15, 20) honors the collaboration between Ailey and Duke Ellington with the classic Night Creature and Pas de Duke, associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya’s 2013 restaging of The River, and Revelations. Program D (June 17, 21, 22) comprises Canadian choreographer Aszure Barton’s contagious and energetic Lift, new productions of David Parsons’s signature strobe-heavy solo Caught, set to music by Robert Fripp, and Hans van Manen’s Polish Pieces, with music by Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, and Revelations. The family matinees on June 14 and 21 will be followed by a Q&A with members of the company.

MUSEUM MILE FESTIVAL 2014

Uptown institutions stay open late and open their doors for free for Museum Mile Festival

Multiple locations on Fifth Ave. between 82nd & 105th Sts.
Tuesday, June 10, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Admission: free
www.museummilefestival.org

There’s really only one main problem with the annual Museum Mile Festival: It’s too short. On Tuesday, June 10, from 6:00 to 9:00, nine uptown art and cultural institutions will open their doors for free and fill Fifth Ave. between 82nd & 104th Sts. with family-friendly activities for the thirty-fifth year. There will be live outdoor performances by the Asphalt Orchestra, Sammie & Trudie’s Imagination Playhouse, Silly Billy the Very Funny Clown, Avenida B, Josh the Juggler, Bill Ferguson, and Magic Brian, in addition to face painting, art workshops, chalk drawing, the Museum of Motherhood, and more. The participating museums (with at least one of their current shows listed here) are El Museo del Barrio (“Presencia: Works from El Museo’s Permanent Collection”), the Museum of the City of New York (“Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile,” “In a World of Their Own: Coney Island Photographs by Aaron Rose”), the Jewish Museum (“Other Primary Structures,” “Mel Bochner: Strong Language”), the National Academy (“The Annual 2014: Redefining Tradition”), the Guggenheim (“Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe”), the Neue Galerie (“Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937”), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“Charles James: Beyond Fashion,” “Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy”), along with the Africa Center / Museum (which is building a new home) and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (which is undergoing a major renovation). Don’t try to do too much, because it can get rather crowded; just pick one or two exhibitions in one or two museums and enjoy.

TICKET ALERT: U.S. OPEN 2014

The U.S. Open serves up quite a New York experience every summer in Queens (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
August 25 – September 8
www.usopen.org
u.s. open 2013 slideshow

Tickets for one of New York City’s most grand events, the U.S. Open, go on sale to the general public at 9:00 am on June 9, so get ready to act fast to see 2013 champions Rafael Nadal, who captured his second U.S. Open title last year, and Serena Williams, a five-time winner looking for a hat trick, defend their titles against a parade of international competitors. First held in Rhode Island in 1881, the U.S. Open has been a New York City institution since 1968, when the tennis championship became the fourth leg of the grand slam, following the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon. Initially taking place in Forest Hills, in 1978 the U.S. Open moved to the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, where it begins August 25 and runs through September 8. Things actually get started on August 23 with Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, featuring family-friendly clinics and workshops and games and activities, with appearances by tennis professionals and live music from pop stars. If you’ve never been to the Open, you must experience this rousing New York City institution, even if you’re not a big tennis fan. You can check out exciting matches up close and personal on the smaller courts, overpay at the Food Village, and marvel at the beautiful expanse from the top of Arthur Ashe Stadium. Be sure to read the very specific rules about what you can and can’t bring in through the security line, as well as what happens if your session is rained out. And as always, if you buy a day ticket, you can stick around for night matches as well, except for those in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

Homer (Harold Russell), Fred (Dana Andrews), and Al (Fredric March) wonder what awaits them back home in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (William Wyler, 1946)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
June 6-12
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

It is more than fitting that a new restoration of William Wyler’s American classic, The Best Years of Our Lives, opened on the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, just as serious questions about the Veterans Administration’s care of military personnel have been dominating the news. The 1946 film, which won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, tells the story of three men returning to their suburban homes in the close-knit town of Boone City. The well-off Sergeant First Class Al Stephenson (Best Actor winner Fredric March) is welcomed with open arms by his wife, Milly (Myrna Loy), his adult daughter, Peggy (Teresa Wright), and his boss at the bank, Mr. Milton (Ray Collins). Hero bombardier Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) has trouble finding a decent job as well as locating his good-time-girl wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo), while developing an interest in young Peggy. And Petty Officer Second Class Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) can’t believe that his longtime sweetheart, Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell), will still want him now that he has two hooks for hands. The three very different men all find that getting back to a normal, civilian life is much more painful than they imagined in a changing midcentury America.

Al looks on as Homer (Harold Russell) and Butch (Hoagy Carmichael) duet in American classic

Wyler (Dodsworth, Ben-Hur), himself a WWII veteran, directs the film with a realistic feel, building slowly on such emotions as fear, love, compassion, and understanding. Andrews’s familiar stiffness adds an inner strength to Derry while March again shows off his superb skills as a banker with a new take on the meaning of success. And Russell, who lost his hands while making a military training film, is subtly powerful as Homer, representing all men and women who return home from war incomplete, both physically and psychologically. (Russell won two Oscars for the role, one as Best Supporting Actor, the other an honorary award “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.”) The Best Years of Our Lives also features splendid deep-focus photography by master cinematographer Gregg Toland, a wonderfully taut script by Oscar winner Robert E. Sherwood based on war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor’s Samuel Goldwyn-commissioned novella Glory for Me, and an aching score by Oscar winner Hugo Friedhofer. Despite its age, The Best Years of Our Lives still feels relevant and prescient, tackling a number of difficult topics with grace and elegance as three families reconsider just what the American dream means.

EGG ROLLS AND EGG CREAMS FESTIVAL 2014

Annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams fest flies into the Lower East Side on June 8 (photo by Kate Milford)

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, June 8, free, 12 noon – 4:00 pm
212-219-0302
www.eldridgestreet.org

The fourteenth annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams block party once again will bring together the Jewish and Chinese communities of the Lower East Side on June 8 for what is always a fun day of food and drink, live music and dance, history, culture, and lots more. Among the highlights of the festival are the kosher egg creams and egg rolls, yarmulke and challah workshops, tea ceremonies, a genealogy clinic, Yiddish and Chinese lessons, Hebrew and Chinese calligraphy classes, mah jongg, cantorial songs, Jewish paper cutting and Chinese paper folding, face painting, and free tours (in English and Chinese) of the wonderfully renovated Eldridge St. Synagogue, which boasts the East Window designed by Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans. In past years, the festival has included performances by the Chinatown Senior Center Folk Orchestra, Qi Shu Fang’s Peking Opera, the Shashmaqam Bukharan Jewish Cultural Group, Ray Muziker Klezmer Ensemble, and Cantor Eric Freeman, some of whom will be back again for this year’s multicultural celebration.

FIRST SATURDAYS: BROOKLYN LGBTQ PRIDE

Judy Chicago, “Birth Hood,” sprayed automotive lacquer on car hood, 1965/2011 (Courtesy of the artist. © Judy Chicago. Photo © Donald Woodman)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, June 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00 ($10 discounted admission to “Ai Weiwei: According to What?”)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum is currently home to four temporary exhibitions that deal with different types of activism, which together fit in extremely well with its June free First Saturdays program, a tribute to “Brooklyn LGBTQ Pride.” Now on view are “Ai Weiwei: According to What?,” a stirring retrospective that examines social, historical, and political elements of art and freedom in China ($10 discounted admission on Saturday after 5:00); the expansive “Swoon: Submerged Motherlands,” which incorporates feminist ideals into such environmental issues as climate change and waste; the gripping “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties,” which looks at the depiction of the civil rights movement in painting, sculpture, and photography; and the colorful “Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago’s Early Works, 1963–74,” which follows Judy Chicago before she became a feminist icon. On June 7, there will be live performances by the Shondes, Rivers of Honey, and AVAN LAVA, a movement workshop led by Benny Ninja Training Academy in memory of voguing master Willi Ninja, an excerpt from The Firebird, a Ballez by Katy Pyle and the Ballez, the drag-oriented BUSHWIG festival hosted by Horrorchata and Macy Rodman, a talk by multidisciplinary artist and activist Alexander Kargaltsev on being a gay Russian artist, a hands-on art workshop in which participants will create a dancing figure in clay, a discussion with members of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and pop-up gallery talks. (Some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center.)