twi-ny recommended events

SELECTED SHORTS / CELEBRATE YOUR VILLAGE! GREENWICH VILLAGE STORIES

SELECTED SHORTS
Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Wednesday, April 23, $28, 7:30
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.gvshp.org

CELEBRATE YOUR VILLAGE!
Three Lives & Company
154 West Tenth St.
Tuesday, April 29, free, 6:00
212-741-2069
www.threelives.com

“My mother used to say, ‘If you want to be young forever, move to the Village,’” Isaac Mizrahi writes in his contribution to the new book Greenwich Village Stories: A Collection of Memories (Universe, March 2014, $29.95), continuing, “I arrived more than twenty years ago and have lived here ever since. I will probably move out feet first.” A lot of people feel that way about Greenwich Village, one of the most famous and fanciful locations in the world. The book features brief recollections by more than sixty downtown New Yorkers, from fashion designers and musicians to poets and actors, from writers and politicians to newscasters and local business owners. Edited by Judith Stonehill, co-owner of the New York Bound Bookshop, which opened in 1976 at the South Street Seaport and closed in 1997 at its later home in Rockefeller Center, the book, a project of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation contains pieces by Wynton Marsalis, Malcolm Gladwell, Patricia Clarkson, Calvin Trillin, Linda Ellerbee, Nat Hentoff, Donna Karan, Lou Reed, Mimi Sheraton, Mario Batali, Karen Finley, and Ed Koch, among many others, each memory accompanied by a related photograph or painting. “Walking through the Village is to brush against immortality,” Stonehill writes in the foreword. “Our cherished neighborhood is no longer as creative and raffish these days, or so it’s said, but there are many things that seem unchanged in the Village.” On April 23, contributors Dave Hill, Penny Arcade, Simon Doonan, Ralph Lee, and Mizrahi will gather at Symphony Space for a special Selected Shorts presentation, reading their pieces, joined by Village residents Parker Posey and Jane Curtin, who will read Village-set fiction, in an evening hosted by BD Wong. In addition, on April 29 at 6:00, Three Lives & Company invites people to “Come Celebrate Your Village!,” a reception, meet and greet, and book signing with Greenwich Village Stories contributors Lauren Belfer, Karen Cooper, Tony Hiss, Bob Holman, Anita Lo, Matt Umanov, and Trillin.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: BALLET 422

Viewers are taken behind the scenes as Justin Peck creates a new work for New York City Ballet

BALLET 422 (Jody Lee Lipes, 2014)
Tuesday, April 22, AMC Loews Village 7, $20.50, 7:00
Wednesday, April 23, Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea, $20.50, 6:30
Sunday, April 27, AMC Loews Village 7, $20.50, 11:30 am
www.tribecafilm.com

In Ballet 422, Jody Lee Lipes takes viewers behind the scenes as twenty-five-year-old New York City Ballet dancer Justin Peck choreographs the 422nd original piece for the prestigious company, Paz de la Jolla. One of fifty dancers in the Corps de Ballet, which the film calls “the lowest rank” of the NYCB, Peck was named by company head Peter Martins to be the New York Choreographic Institute’s first active choreographer-in-residence for the 2011-12 season, and he is the only current NYCB dancer to choreograph for the company. Documentarian and cinematographer Lipes (NY Export: Opus Jazz, Tiny Furniture) focuses on the fascinating collaboration that goes into creating a ballet. “As a former soloist with New York City Ballet, I had long dreamed about pulling back the veil on the making of a new ballet,” producer Ellen Bar explains on the film’s Hatchfund page, which has raised more than $55,000 for the project. “Even as a dancer who was often part of the choreographic process, I never saw the other artistic and technical elements develop until the very end. Wouldn’t it be amazing to invite audiences into a world they can never visit in person and to let them watch it unfold in real time?” Lipes does just that, showing Peck and ballet master Albert Evans working out specific moves with principal dancers Sterling Hyltin, Amar Ramasar, and Tiler Peck; costumers Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung discussing materials with the performers; Mark Stanley detailing the lighting design; and Peck meeting with conductor Andrews Sill, who reveals that the orchestra is not particularly fond of playing the ballet’s musical score, Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu’s “Sinfonietta la Jolla.”

Sterling Hytlin, Amar Ramasar, and Tiler Peck rehearse with Justin Peck on 422nd original piece for New York City Ballet

There are no talking heads in the film, no experts chiming in on the beauty and intricacy of ballet, no one pontificating on how unusual it is for such a young dancer to already be choreographing his fifth work for the company, following Year of the Rabbit, Tales of a Chinese Zodiac, In Creases, and Capricious Movements. No one stops and looks into the camera, sharing their fears, hopes, or dreams; Lipes doesn’t even identify who’s who, instead allowing the drama to play out sans editorial comment. A few times, the camera goes with Peck as he puts on his backpack and heads home to his unglamorous Queens apartment, and the surprise ending puts everything in fabulous perspective. You don’t have to love ballet or know anything about it to enjoy Ballet 422, an intimate, compelling inside look into the creative process, but don’t be surprised if you soon find yourself ordering tickets for an upcoming NYCB production — perhaps even Peck’s Year of the Rabbit, which is being performed by NYCB on April 30 and May 3 at the David H. Koch Theater.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “DON’T MESS AROUND WITH MY BOY” BY THE DYSORDERLIES

Sunday is Easter and the sixth day of Passover, and New York City band the Dysorderlies will be celebrating both at a special afternoon show at 2:30 at Otto’s Shrunken Head. An indie group with an engaging sound that boasts roots in the ’60s and ’70s, the Dysorderlies perform socially conscious rock-and-roll that takes on such topics as bullying (“Don’t Mess Around with My Boy”) and homelessness (“Jerry”) without becoming didactic or overwrought. Other highlights include “One Love,” “Puppy,” and “Chance Meetings.” Founded in April 2013 by singer-guitarists Nikki Neretin, MD, and Chip Calcagni, the lineup will also include bassists Artie Greenidge and Peter Archer and guest drummer Matt Crawford, sitting in for Guillermo Garavito. The Dysorderlies will be followed at 4:00 by Yogurt Abusers, featuring a pair of fourteen-year-olds, trumpeter Sam Friedman and guitarist Henry Nelson. Neretin, who works as a director of homeless services in the city, requests that people bring pairs of socks that can be donated to her clients; in addition, she has promised that matzah and Easter eggs will be served.

A TRIBUTE TO THE LATE GREAT CAROLINA SLIM

THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF SOCIETY BLUES
Littlefield
622 DeGraw St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Saturday, April 19, $10, 8:00
www.littlefieldnyc.com

Brooklyn musician Jeremiah Lockwood has kept his feet wet with a steadily evolving cortege of musical projects over the past decade. Besides leading his acclaimed band the Sway Machinery, he’s embarked on adventures exploring musical forms from Mali and other parts of North Africa while integrating his upbringing, which was steeped in the nigunim of Jewish cantorial music. Lockwood got his start, though, playing in the New York City subways alongside his mentor, the Piedmont blues guitarist Carolina Slim. After meeting the musician as a fourteen-year-old, Lockwood took lessons from him, and what began as an apprenticeship seemingly dreamed up by a jaded screenwriter — the young white teen learning the ropes from the older African American traditionalist — evolved into a vital musical partnership. As Lockwood grew as a musician, the two accompanied each other for more than a decade, playing house parties, street fairs, and throughout the city’s transit system.

Jeremiah Lockwood and Carolina Slim back in 1993; Lockwood will pay tribute to the late blues great at special show at Littlefield on April 19

Born Elijah Staley, Slim hailed from South Carolina and made his home in New York for decades, teaching, composing, and performing in the venerable Piedmont style of blues that stretches back to the early twentieth century and counts such artists as Blind Willie McTell and the Rev. Gary Davis among its progenitors. Carolina Slim passed away this February at the age of eighty-seven, and, along with several other local musicians whom the older guitarist befriended and mentored, Lockwood has arranged a concert celebrating his career and life to be held at Brooklyn’s Littlefield venue. Under the banner of the Fraternal Order of Society Blues, the performers, including jazz percussionist Ricky Gordon, Brotherhood of the Jug’s Ernesto Gomez, and Slim friend Chris Cook, will be gathering for “A Tribute to the Late Great Carolina Slim” on April 19. Lockwood is calling the memorial a “séance of the spirits of American music”; the night should be filled with plentiful memories and great music paying respect to a true character in the long blues tradition.

RECORD STORE DAY 2014

Bruce Springsteen’s brand-new four-track EP will be released for Record Story Day on Saturday

Multiple locations
Saturday, April 19
www.recordstoreday.com

On April 19, music on vinyl will be celebrated at the eighth annual Record Store Day, when purveyors of music around the world will be selling seven-, ten-, and twelve-inch discs that have either been created exclusively for RSD, are special limited runs of previously available material, or are releasing that day. Participating stores in New York City include Rock and Soul Records, Permanent Records, Academy Records, Second Hand Rose Music, Captured Tracks, Rockit Scientist Records, Kim’s Video & Music, Disc-O-Rama, Turntable Lab, A-1, Good Records, Other Music, Record Runner, In Living Stereo, Downtown Music Gallery, Rebel Rebel, Generation Records, Rough Trade, Bleecker Street Records, and Village Music World. Not all releases are available at all locations, so you might want to call ahead to find out if a particular store has just what you’re looking for. The full list includes hundreds of singles, EPs, and LPs from multiple genres; below are some of our favorites.

Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin: Songs from Common Ground
The Animals: The Animals EP
Sam Cooke: Ain’t That Good News
Cut Copy: “In These Arms of Love” / “Like Any Other Day”
Deerhoof & Ceramic Dog: Deerhoof / Ceramic Dog split
Jerry Garcia: Garcia
Green Day: Demolicious
Gil Scott-Heron: Nothing New
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts: Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth
Joy Division: An Ideal for Living
The Julie Ruin: “Brightside” / “In the Picture”
Jon Langford & Skull Orchard: “Days and Nights” / “Here’s What We Have”
The Last Internationale: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Indian Blood
Man Man: The Man in Turban with Blue Face
Nirvana: “Pennyroyal Tea” / “I Hate Myself and Want to Die”
The Pogues: Live with Joe Strummer
Public Enemy: Evil Empire of Everything
The Ramones: Meltdown with the Ramones
R.E.M.: Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions
School of Seven Bells: Put Your Sad Down
Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band: “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” / “Baby Please Don’t Go”
Bruce Springsteen: American Beauty
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction
Tame Impala: Live Versions
Xiu Xiu: Unclouded Sky
Frank Zappa: “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” / “Down in De Dew

PAWEŁ ALTHAMER: THE NEIGHBORS

Visitors can contribute to “Draftsmen’s Congress” through Sunday, then take a piece home with them April 23-27 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Second & fourth floors: Wednesday – Sunday through April 20, $16
Thursday, April 17, 11:00 am – 9:00 pm: one-day exhibition of new sculptures, 231 Bowery, free
April 23-27, “Draftsmen’s Congress” disassembled and distributed to public for free
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org

The work of Polish artist Paweł Althamer is very much about collaboration, cooperation, and community, fostering a positive sense of togetherness and sharing without getting treacly. As his first U.S. museum retrospective, “Paweł Althamer: The Neighbors,” winds down at the New Museum, Althamer still has a few surprises in store, as he says in the exhibition catalog, “to share the experience of what we are doing — to see people doing one thing together. . . . The idea is to switch the rules of the game a little so that everybody is included.” Since the show opened back in February, museum visitors and local organizations have been contributing in its evolution, painting on the walls and floors in the participatory, palimpsestual “Draftsmen’s Congress.” The painting will come to a stop on Easter Sunday, but that’s not the end of the piece; from April 23 to 27, the work will be disassembled, cut into pieces, and handed out to visitors free of charge, furthering Althamer’s democratization not only of the creation of art but of its ownership. On April 17, Althamer, whom Joanna Mytkowska’s catalog essay calls “The People’s Artist,” has collaborated with Dogon sculptor Youssouf Dara, the Bowery Mission, and other neighbors for a free one-day exhibition that will be held in the New Museum’s next-door space at 231 Bowery. (Dara’s work can also be seen in the museum’s window display.)

Paweł Althamer’s “Venetians” mix with visitors on the second floor (Courtesy New Museum, New York. Photo: Benoit Pailley)

In addition, the second floor of “The Neighbors” will remain on view through April 20, where museumgoers can walk among dozens of Althamer’s “Venetians,” gray, life-size steel-and-plastic skeletal sculptures of strangers he encountered in the Italian city and made face casts of, with a specific focus on those who often find themselves excluded or marginalized in one way or another. “It’s about being with them and identifying with them,” Althamer tells cocurator Massimiliano Gioni in the catalog. “People are generally scared of outsiders, but if we can confront and then lose our fear, it’s fantastic.” It’s no accident that the figures, which have gathered around eight video screens showing Althamer’s “So-Called Waves and Other Phenomena of the Mind,” in which he films himself in various altered mental states, have an alienlike quality. (The third floor, which closed April 13, featured many sculptural portraits, which he refers to as “totems,” of the artist himself and members of his family, as well as the miniature landscape “Mezalia” and an accompanying film.) Social collaboration is at the heart of Althamer’s practice, and that extends even to museum admission, as visitors can get in free if they bring a new or gently used men’s coat, which will be donated to the Bowery Mission.

AN AUTEURIST HISTORY OF FILM: POINT BLANK

Lee Marvin doesn’t like what he sees in psychedelic noir POINT BLANK

POINT BLANK (John Boorman, 1967)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
April 16-18, 1:30
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

John Boorman’s Point Blank is an oxymoronic psychedelic film noir, a violent psychological thriller about a determined man dead set on vengeance. Lee Marvin — on quite a hot streak following Cat Ballou, Ship of Fools, The Professionals, and The Dirty Dozen — stars as the one-named Walker, a sincere, old-fashioned man who is double-crossed by his wife, Lynne (Sharon Acker), and friend, Mal Reese (John Vernon, in his film debut), when a deal goes bad on Alcatraz. Searching for Reese, Walker hooks up with Lynne’s sister, Chris (Angie Dickinson), a sexy femme fatale who owns a hot club in the Bay Area. As Walker makes his way up the criminal organization ladder in his quest to get the $93,000 he’s owed, he leaves behind a bloody trail that keeps getting messier and messier. Adapted by Alexander Jacobs and David and Rafe Newhouse from Donald Westlake’s first Parker novel, The Hunter, Boorman’s film is like the antihero Walker himself, purposefully out of time and place. Walker is essentially an anachronism as he makes his way through Point Blank, evoking John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in John Ford’s classic Western The Searchers. The Summer of Love seems to have had no effect on Walker, who still primarily dresses in dull colors — until Chris brings out the color in him, particularly in one memorable scene in which they both are wearing bright yellow and spy on Reese’s hideaway through a yellow telescope. Film noir is by definition set in a black-and-white world, but Walker can’t hide from the old ways anymore, as he shows when groovy colored lights flash on him in Chris’s club.

Angie Dickinson and Carroll OConnor join Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

Angie Dickinson and Carroll O’Connor deal with a fed-up Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

Although it was only Boorman’s (Deliverance, Hope and Glory) second film, Marvin gave him final cut, resulting in a wild, unusual ride further enhanced by Henry Berman’s machine-gun editing. The solid supporting cast includes Keenan Wynn, Carroll O’Connor, Lloyd Bochner, and James B. Sikking, with music by Johnny Mandel. The first film to be partially filmed on Alcatraz, Point Blank is a gritty crime procedural that has long been underrated and is more than worthy of another visit. Westlake’s book has also been the basis of Ringo Lam’s Full Contact with Chow Yun-fat, Brian Helgeland’s Payback with Mel Gibson, and Taylor Hackford’s Parker with Jason Statham. Point Blank is screening April 16-18 at 1:30 as part of MoMA’s ongoing series “An Auteurist History of Film,” which continues April 23-25 with Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour and April 30 – May 2 with Milos Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball.