twi-ny recommended events

TWI-NY TALK: RAYYA ELIAS

Rayya Elias and Elizabeth Gilbert will be at powerHouse on April 2 for launch of HARLEY LOCO paperback (photo by Bill Miller)

RAYYA ELIAS IN CONVERSATION WITH ELIZABETH GILBERT
powerHouse Arena
37 Main St. at Water St., Brooklyn
Wednesday, April 2, free (advance RSVP appreciated), 7:00
718-666-3049
www.powerhousearena.com
www.rayyaelias.com

“This book is the story of my life,” Rayya Elias writes in the first chapter of the painfully poignant yet ultimately inspiring Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side (Penguin, March 2014, $16). “This is my truth, and it may not be pretty, but I own it.” Pretty it isn’t, as the Syrian-born Elias details her battles with drug addiction, her time in prison, her struggles with sexual identity, and her eventual recovery from a shocking rock bottom. Clean since August 1997, Elias is a gregarious woman with an infectious personality that lights up a room. She “always wanted to be the center of attention,” she notes in the book, and she’s spent much of the last year doing just that, promoting Harley Loco — the title refers to her Rikers Island nickname — around the world. A musician, filmmaker, hair stylist, and major football fan, Elias will be at Brooklyn’s powerHouse Arena on April 2 for the launch of the paperback edition of her memoir. She will once again be joined by her close friend Elizabeth Gilbert, the bestselling author of such books as The Signature of All Things and Eat, Pray, Love who wrote the introduction to Harley Loco. Last fall, we appeared on Elias’s sports-and-fantasy podcast, “Football Riffs and Chicks,” and now she is returning the favor, answering intimate questions for a very personal twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: You just lost your pitbull, Ricky. How are you doing?

Rayya Elias: Well, the grief comes and goes. It’s only been a few days since he passed, so I’m still in shock, I think. Ricky was my kid and companion for thirteen years, so there is a huge gaping hole in my heart. We were meant for each other; he was beaten up quite dramatically (used as a bait dog), and he had the scars to prove it, yet he was so good inside. We did quite a bit of healing together.

twi-ny: For the last year, you’ve spent a lot of time on the road promoting your memoir. What’s that experience been like, especially as you have to keep going back over some very difficult times in your life?

Rayya Elias: Writing the book was the ultimate cathartic experience for exercising those demons. Sometimes, when I was in the midst of working on the book, I doubted my own memory because it was almost too much to grasp. It got pretty deep.

twi-ny: What’s been the best part of the tour?

Rayya Elias: When I was on the road promoting it, it became like a testimonial. My favorite part was that people came out of the woodwork to tell me their stories, whether it was an eighteen-year-old child who had gone missing due to drugs or a gray-haired lady who related to being fat as a kid or being bullied as a teenager. So many people wanted to be heard because they related to many parts of my story. That’s what really kept me in the zone.

twi-ny: How about the worst?

Rayya Elias: There is no worst. Honestly, I love all of it. It’s something I’ve longed for, so I’m taking it all in, the hotels, the road food, even the airports, and especially when friends I haven’t seen in years show up at a reading/performance, I love it.

twi-ny: Is there a question that you’ve been surprised you haven’t been asked yet?

Rayya Elias: Not really; people have pretty much dissected it. I was really happy that a college radio station in Brisbane, Australia, asked about methadone detox. No one in the States really bothered giving that one any thought. I was pretty grateful, as I have a strong opinion about it!

twi-ny: You’re very good friends with Elizabeth Gilbert. How did the two of you meet?

Rayya Elias: Liz and I have been friends since the year 2000. She came into my studio and needed an intervention. Not a drug intervention like I was used to, but a hair intervention. I cut her hair and we told each other stories. She was writing for GQ at the time and asked me to style a story that Mary Ellen Mark was shooting. We clicked on a level that neither of us really understood. It was deep, and very real, and she became a part of my life. Then, many years later, she bullied me into writing my memoir. Ha!

twi-ny: Do you want to offer a sneak peek at the powerHouse event? For example, will you have your guitar with you?

Rayya Elias: I will absolutely have my guitar, and I will play a few songs. A new one is called “Touch the Ground,” inspired by Liz’s book The Signature of All Things. I recorded it, and with Barb Morrison producing, it sounds amazing.

twi-ny: Last November, we appeared on “Football Riffs and Chicks.” That was a lot of fun. Will there be another season?

Rayya Elias: I loved having you and Ellen on “FR&C”; it was so much fun. Yes, I will definitely do it again; this year I will concentrate a little more on fantasy, I think.

twi-ny: Your fantasy football team, which is named the Pittbulls, after Ricky, finished in a three-way tie for the best record in our fantasy football league. Were you happy with your team’s performance?

Rayya Elias: I’m never happy with my team’s performance unless I win. My guys were getting hurt every week, so I really had to study and pick up the next best available athlete for the position. It was hard going. I can’t imagine what the real live sport is like for the coaches. That’s why I’m in awe of the game.

twi-ny: You were born in Syria and still have family there; how has the political situation there affected them and you?

Rayya Elias: It’s been extremely difficult. The country is torn, my family is torn, my heart is broken for the Syria I visited just four years ago. I spent Christmas and New Year’s with family in Aleppo and Damascus. Now they are struggling and I haven’t heard from some of them in quite some time. No one saw it coming because the country seemed to be on the verge of a tourism breakout and everything seemed to be going well.

twi-ny: Okay, so you’re a writer, musician, hair stylist, podcast host, filmmaker, and big-time football fan; what’s next for you?

Rayya Elias: I’m wrapping my head around a new book, a novel of sorts. I’ve never tried to write fiction, but I’m gonna give it a whirl. Music is something that is constant in my life, so that’s a given. The rest is up to what inspires me. I’m the type of person who loves to be involved in creative endeavors and make stuff. Once an idea enters my head and my heart, it starts to take over my being, and once it’s too much to hold in, then I gotta let it out. If I can’t keep it in, I gotta let it out!

WHITNEY BIENNIAL PERFORMANCES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

Lisa Anne Auerbach will activate her “American Megazine” on Friday nights at the Whitney Biennial (photograph © Lisa Anne Auerbach)

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Through May 25, $18 (pay-what-you-wish Fridays 6:00 – 9:00)
Many programs require advance registration and/or tickets
212-570-3600
www.whitney.org

The 2014 Whitney Biennial, the last to be held in Marcel Breuer and Hamilton P. Smith’s 1960s building on the corner of Madison and Seventy-Fifth, is another mixed bag, further complicated by the curious decision to have three floors organized by three different curators, creating a more disjointed survey of the state of American art than usual. Perhaps the best time to take in this year’s model is when you get the added bonus of a special performance or program, many of which require advance RSVP or tickets. On May 7 at 7:30 ($8), the curators, Stuart Comer, Anthony Elms, and Michelle Grabner, will participate in a roundtable discussion with Jay Sanders that should shed plenty of light on their choices, but there are lots of other events as well. From April 2 to 6 in the second-floor Kaufman Astoria Studios Film and Video Gallery, Academy Records and Matt Hanner present the concurrent film loop The Bower with the three-hour audio No Jets, combining visuals of a cherry tree with audio of flight delays immediately following the events of September 11, while Gary Indiana’s Stanley Park merges images of a Cuban prison with shots of jellyfish. Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst’s twenty-three-minute short, She Gone Rogue, plays April 2-6 and 9-13 in the lobby gallery. On April 4, New York City teens in grades nine through twelve are invited to a free artist workshop led by the collective My Barbarian; the program continues April 11 with Joshua Mosley. On Friday nights through May 23, Lisa Anne Auerbach will activate her large-scale American Megazine on the third floor.

Miguel Gutierrez and Mickey Mahar team up for dance performance that examines midcareer anxiety (photo by Eric McNatt)

On April 6 at 4:00, James Benning’s re-creation of the 1969 classic Easy Rider will be shown in the Kaufman gallery in conjunction with Julie Ault’s “Afterlife: a constellation.” Composer Robert Ashley and director Alex Waterman will present the world premiere of their opera, Crash, April 10-13 ($20); their Spanish-language TV opera, Vidas Perfectas, runs April 17-20 ($20), while their reimagined speaking opera, The Trial of Anne Opie Wehrer and Unknown Accomplices for Crimes Against Humanity, with Amy Sillman, Wayne Koestenbaum, Mary Farley, and Barbara Bloom, plays April 23-27 ($20). Fred Lonidier will lead a teach-in on April 11 at 7:00 that looks at art and labor. On April 12 and 26 ($10 per family), Whitney Wees offers kid-friendly tours and workshops for families with children ages four to five, in addition to the sketching tour “Sculpture and Drawing” for families with kids ages six to ten ($10); also on April 12, Mosely will be leading an Artist’s Choice Workshop for families with children ages eight to twelve ($10), and the Open Studio program, for kids of all ages, will examine Sheila Hicks’s “Pillar of Inquiry / Supple Column.” (Other family workshops are scheduled for April 26 in the Whitney Studio, May 2 with Dan Walsh, May 10 for kids with autism and with My Barbarian, and May 17 with Sara Greenberger Rafferty.) From April 16 to 20, Taisha Paggett will debut a new performance piece in the lobby gallery. On April 17 at 7:00 ($8), Miguel Gutierrez and My Barbarian’s Alexandro Segade have put together “Take Ecstasy with Me,” an evening of performances and reflections by Kalup Linzy, Jacolby Satterwhite, Nao Bustamante, Jorge Cortiñas, A. L. Steiner, Kate Bush Dance Troupe, Juliana Huxtable, and others, inspired by the work of the late Cuban theorist José Esteban Muñoz; Gutierrez will perform the duet Age & Beauty Part 1: Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note or &:-/ with dancer Mickey Mahar April 23 – May 4 ($20).

Anthony Elms, Stuart Comer, and Michelle Grabner will discuss their curatorial choices at May 7 panel discussion (photo by Filip Wolak)

On April 18 at 7:30, Kevin Beasley, with Leon Finley and Christhian Diaz, will present the interactive audio piece “Public Programs in Sonic Masses.” (Beasley will also host a teen workshop on May 2 and activate his sound sculptures on May 14 at noon, May 16 at 1:00, and May 17 at 3:00 in the lobby gallery.) On April 26 at 6:30 ($8), Triple Canopy will investigate “Media Replication Services.” Doug Ischar’s Come Lontano, Tristes Tarzan, and Alone with You will screen April 30 – May 4 in the Kaufman gallery. On May 1 at 6:30 ($8), Joseph Grigely will deliver a “Seminars with Artists” lecture about communication and miscommunication, followed by Susan Howe’s talk on the “telepathy of archives” on May 14 at 6:30 ($8) and Amy Sillman examining the materiality of color on May 22 at 6:30 ($8). On May 6 at 7:00 ($8), Ault, Benning, and William Least Heat-Moon will discuss “Histories of Place.” On May 11, Travis Jeppesen will read his novel The Suiciders in a durational performance on the third floor. And on May 19 at 7:00 ($8), Dawoud Bey will lead a roundtable Conversations of Art discussion about the portrayal of southern blacks during the civil rights movement. Tickets are available in advance for all of the above events that require an additional fee, as indicated in parentheses; some free programs require preregistration, so don’t hesitate if you want to attend any of these Whitney Biennial bonuses.

SUMMATION DANCE: FOURTH ANNUAL NYC SEASON AT BAM

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
April 2-5, $16-$27, 8:00
www.summationdance.org
www.bam.org

The all-woman, New York City-based Summation Dance, which was founded in 2010 by Sumi Clements and Taryn Vander Hoop after they received their MFAs in dance performance and choreography from NYU, returns to BAM for its fourth season April 2-5, presenting two world premieres at BAM Fisher’s Fishman Space. The company, whose stated mission “is to find the beauty in struggle and the humor in the mundane,” has previously created such dynamic pieces as 2013’s Shift and 2012’s Deep End. At BAM, Summation will debut artistic director Clements’s Updating Route, Please Standby, which explores the unexpected roads life can take, featuring a score by Lorn, and Hunt, which delves into the persecution of witches throughout history, with original music by Kyle Olson. The dancers consist of Clements, Vander Hoop, Angela Curotto, Allie Lochary, Dani McIntosh, Julie McMillan, Devin Oshiro, Meg Weeks, and Megan Wubbenhorst; the costumes are by Brigitte Vosse. VIP tickets ($100) are available for the April 2 performance, which include beer, wine, and dinner on the rooftop; Saturday night’s show is already sold out.

HAROLD RAMIS TRIPLE FEATURE

Bill Murray wished a public farewell to old friend Harold Ramis at this year’s Oscars

SEE IT BIG! COMEDIES
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, March 30, free with museum admission, 2:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

At this year’s Oscars, after he and Amy Adams presented the nominees for Best Cinematography, Bill Murray said, “Oh, we forgot one: Harold Ramis for Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day.” Ramis, the Chicago-born writer, director, and actor who initially gained fame as a member of SCTV, had passed away six days earlier at the age of sixty-nine. While Ramis did not make or appear in the kinds of films that the academy tends to honor, he was part of some of the most entertaining films of the past thirty-plus years. He directed Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Groundhog Day, and Analyze This, wrote or cowrote National Lampoon’s Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Back to School, and Analyze This, and appeared in Stripes, Ghostbusters, and As Good as It Gets, among others. (Now’s not the time to talk about Stuart Saves His Family, Bedazzled, or Club Paradise.) His work might not have always shown a great deal of depth, but the man knew funny. The Museum of the Moving Image is honoring Ramis with a triple feature on Sunday, March 30, as part of its “See It Big! Comedies” series. The mini-festival begins at 2:00 with one of the most riotous films ever made, Animal House, which gave a whole new view of the college experience while establishing John Belushi’s place in film history forever. Ramis cowrote Animal House, which was directed by John Landis, with Chris Miller and Doug Kenney, who plays Stork (“What the hell are we supposed to do, you moron?”). Amid all the sexual innuendos and gross-out humor are some smart social statements about class, society, power, and the education system.

Neurologist Harold Ramis has some news for weatherman Phil Connors in GROUNDHOG DAY

Animal House is followed at 4:30 by Ramis’s best film as a director, 1993’s Groundhog Day, in which Murray stars as a bitter and cynical local television weatherman who finds himself waking up on the same day over and over, but with the ability to change things, learning how the smallest shift can impact so many people. Despite being very, very funny, the endlessly clever film, which Ramis cowrote with Danny Rubin and in which he appears as a neurologist, also has a sweet love story (with Andie MacDowell). Like its plotline, Groundhog Day can be watched over and over and over again, offering something new with each viewing. The three-pack concludes at 7:00 with the dark caper comedy The Ice Harvest, which Ramis directed from a script by Richard Russo and Robert Benton, based on the novel by Scott Phillips. The 2005 film features John Cusack, Connie Nielsen, and Billy Bob Thornton as characters involved in a mob heist that goes wrong. In a statement shortly following Ramis’s death, Murray, who had had a long falling-out with Ramis, said, “He earned his keep on this planet.” As this triple feature shows, indeed he did.

BREATHE IN

The arrival of a foreign exchange student threatens to come between a married couple in BREATHE IN

BREATHE IN (Drake Doremus, 2013)
Opens Friday, March 28
www.facebook.com

In his 2011 Sundance award-winning Like Crazy, Drake Doremus intimately explored the intense relationship between a British exchange student (Felicity Jones) and an American classmate (Anton Yelchin) who meet at an L.A. college. Director Doremus, cowriter Ben York Jones, and Felicity Jones have teamed up again for another poignant love story, Breathe In. This time Jones (The Invisible Woman) stars as high school senior and pianist Sophie Williams, who comes to upstate New York as part of a semester abroad program. She is staying with the Reynolds family — Keith (Guy Pearce), a music teacher and part-time cellist who dreams of getting a chair at the symphony; his devoted wife, Megan (Amy Ryan), who collects cookie jars; and their daughter, high school senior Lauren (Mackenzie Davis). It doesn’t take long before a serious attraction develops between Keith and Sophie, one that builds slowly and organically while threatening to upend what had apparently been a stable, happy family. Doremus handles his purposely clichéd setup with a tender intelligence that prevents Breathe In from turning into what could have been yet another film about a frustrated older man risking everything to get in bed with a much younger woman. Doremus builds believable situations in the sensitively drawn story, in which the actors often improvise as their characters search for their place in life. Jones is alluring as the complex Sophie, Davis is impressive in her film debut, and Ryan makes the most of a relatively one-note part, but the film belongs to Pearce (The Hurt Locker, L.A. Confidential, Prometheus), an underrated actor who reinvents himself once again, playing Keith with a brittle hesitancy and understated vulnerability that intimately evoke the inner struggles and temptations we all experience. Breathe In is a poignant family drama that feels like a slice of real life.

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER

Documentary turns the camera on mysterious street photographer Vivian Maier (photo by Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER (John Maloof & Charlie Siskel, 2013)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, March 28
www.vivianmaier.com
www.findingvivianmaier.com

By their very nature, street photographers take pictures of anonymous individuals, capturing a moment in time in which viewers can fill in their own details. In the wonderful documentary Finding Vivian Maier, codirectors John Maloof and Charlie Siskel turn the lens around on a street photographer herself, attempting to fill in the details of the curious life and times of Vivian Maier, about whom very little was known. “I find the mystery of it more interesting than her work itself,” says one woman for whom Vivian Maier served as a nanny decades earlier. “I’d love to know more about this person, and I don’t think you can do that through her work.” In 2007, while looking for historical photos for a book on the Portage Park section of Chicago, Maloof purchased a box of negatives at an auction. Upon discovering that they were high-quality, museum-worthy photographs, he set off on a mission to learn more about the photographer. Playing detective — while also developing hundreds of rolls of film, with thousands more to go — Maloof meets with men and women who knew Maier as an oddball, hoarding nanny who went everywhere with her camera and shared little, if anything, about her personal life. “I’m the mystery woman,” Maier says in a color home movie. Her former employers and charges, including talk-show host Phil Donahue, debate her background, the spelling and pronunciation of her name, her accent, and how she might have felt about a documentary delving into her secretive life.

Street photographer Vivian Maier captured a unique view of the world in more than 100,000 pictures (Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

Street photographer Vivian Maier captured a unique view of the world in more than 100,000 pictures (photo by Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

Maloof also discusses Maier’s work with such major photographers as Joel Meyerowitz and Mary Ellen Mark. “Had she made herself known, she would have become a famous photographer. Something was wrong. . . . A piece of the puzzle is missing,” Mark says while comparing Maier’s work to such legends as Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Helen Levitt, and Diane Arbus. Maloof tries to complete what becomes an ever-more-fascinating puzzle in this extremely enjoyable documentary that gets very serious as he finds out more about the mystery woman who is now considered an important twentieth-century artist. Finding Vivian Maier also has an intriguing pedigree; codirector and producer Siskel (Religulous) is executive producer of Comedy Central’s Tosh.0, executive producer Jeff Garlin (I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With) is a comedian who played Larry David’s best friend and agent on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Kickstarter contributor and interviewee Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, Lie to Me) is an Oscar-nominated actor who collects Maier’s work. Finding Vivian Maier opens March 28 at Lincoln Plaza and the IFC Center, with Maloof, who has also published two books on Maier, 2011’s Vivian Maier: Street Photographer and last fall’s Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits, appearing at IFC for Q&As following the 5:50 and 7:55 screenings on Friday and Saturday night of opening weekend.

ONE NITE ONLY: THE SIMPSONS MOVIE

Homer makes a different kind of pig of himself in THE SIMPSONS MOVIE

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (David Silverman, 2007)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Monday, March 31, 10:00
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
www.simpsonsmovie.com

In 1999, Comedy Central’s South Park hit the big screen, announcing it was “Bigger Longer & Uncut.” After eighteen years, perennial Fox favorite The Simpsons finally went bigger and longer as well, although not nearly as uncut. (However, it does include the hysterical appearance of Bart’s [Nancy Cartwright] little willie in addition to a few hints of bestiality and other family-friendly no-nos.) After Grandpa Abe (Dan Castalleneta) has an apocalyptic vision at church, Homer (Castalleneta) adopts a pig (don’t ask) and eventually creates an environmental disaster that devastates Springfield, leading President Arnold Schwarzenegger (Harry Shearer) and EPA head Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks) to place the town in a dome, cutting it off from the rest of the world. Forced to flee in a Frankenstein-like manner, the Simpsons make a run for it, but can they leave their beloved Springfield behind? Directed by longtime Simpsons team member David Silverman and written by nearly a dozen regulars (including co-executive producer James L. Brooks and creator Matt Groening), the movie starts out impressively, much like the TV series did, then gets confused along the way, much like the TV series did, and then devolves into some ridiculous scenarios, much like the TV series does now. The Simpsons always works better the more realistic it is, so things do get out of hand here. Although not a blockbuster, The Simpsons Movie is still an entertaining hour and a half that is more than just a very long episode; it has bigger ideas, a grander look, Green Day playing the theme song, and numerous self-referential jokes to ensure that you don’t feel like you’re sitting on your couch on Sunday night. Nearly all the regulars make at least a cameo appearance, and maybe, just maybe, Maggie speaks. The jokes continue through the closing credits. The Simpsons Movie is screening March 31 at 10:00 as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “One Nite Only” Series in honor of the one-year anniversary of the Brooklyn venue’s Simpsons Club and will be preceded by its all-time-favorite Simpsons episode, along with a Simpsons-inspired cocktail menu and a raffle of Simpsons goodies.