twi-ny recommended events

NORDIC OSCAR CONTENDERS: THE HUNT

Mads Mikkelsen was named Best Actor at Cannes for his portrayal of a teacher falsely accused of child abuse (photo by Per Arnesen)

THE HUNT (JAGTEN) (Thomas Vinterberg, 2012)
Scandinavia House
58 Park Ave. at 38th St.
Thursday, January 16, $10, 7:00
Series concludes January 22
212-779-3587
www.magpictures.com/thehunt
www.scandinaviahouse.org

After losing his job as a teacher and going through a difficult divorce, Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) begins working at a kindergarten in a small, tight-knit community and starts dating a coworker, Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), but his life quickly hits rock bottom when he is falsely accused of child abuse in Thomas Vinterberg’s harrowing drama The Hunt. Mikkelsen was named Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his deeply sensitive portrayal of a gentle man who suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of virtually everyone in town immediately after little Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), the daughter of his best friend, Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen), claims that Lucas did bad things to her. Grethe (Susse Wold), the school administrator, doesn’t even give Lucas a chance to defend himself before he loses his job and is ultimately arrested, his only supporters being his son (Lasse Fogelstrøm) and his longtime friend Bruun (Lars Ranthe). Mikkelsen (Pusher, A Royal Affair, After the Wedding) goes from utter disbelief to quiet desperation to all-out rage as Lucas, an everyman who can’t believe what is happening to him, not understanding how nearly everyone has turned their back on him, many attacking him in public and private for something that he didn’t do. Dogme 95 cofounder Vinterberg (Dear Wendy, Festen), who cowrote the Cannes award-winning script with Tobias Lindholm (R, A Hijacking), expertly builds the tension as Lucas’s, and the town’s, growing paranoia threatens to explode. He personalizes the drama in a way that avoids blanket statements about child abuse and faulty and repressed memories while instead focusing on how a young girl’s lie can spiral horrifically out of control. The Hunt, which is on the Oscar shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film, is screening January 16 at 6:00 as part of the Scandinavia House series “Nordic Oscar Contenders,” which began January 8 with the Swedish entry for the Academy Awards, Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die, and continues January 22 with Iceland’s Of Horses and Men, directed by Benedikt Erlingsson.

Nominated for one Academy Award: Best Foreign Language Film (Denmark)

COIL 2014: TYSON VS. ALI

Multimedia presentation imagines intriguing “What if” boxing scenario (photo by Paula Court)

REID FARRINGTON: TYSON VS. ALI
3LD Art + Technology Center
80 Greenwich St.
Extended through February 2, $20
www.ps122.org/tyson-vs-ali
www.reidfarrington.com

Two of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time never got a chance to go toe-to-toe in the ring, but Reid Farrington creates a dream match-up that never was in his multimedia presentation Tyson vs. Ali. Extended at 3LD Art & Technology Center through February 2 as part of PS122’s Coil festival, Tyson vs. Ali takes place in a full-size boxing ring, with the audience sitting cater-corner on two sides. The hour-long show is timed like an actual fight, with three-minute rounds separated by sixty seconds each. Actor and playwright Dennis A. Allen II, actor Roger Casey, athlete, actor, and dancer Femi Olagoke, and professional boxer Jonathan Swain continually switch up playing either Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali as the two champs spout off about their life and career and mow down opponents. In the early rounds, the men get in the ring two at a time and blast away at each other, mimicking the action in archival footage of Tyson and Ali, which is projected onto screens moved around by actor, producer, and Photoville cofounder Dave Shelley, who serves as referee (as well as several of Iron Mike’s trainers); video is also projected onto the two back walls. The movement is choreographed beautifully by Laura K. Nicoll, who has worked with Farrington on such previous shows as The Passion Project and A Christmas Carol, making it feel like a real boxing match, especially as the sweat flies. Although the performers may not be throwing their hardest punches, they connect with some pretty tough shots in this intensely physical performance that is sure to take its toll on them.

Ref tries to break up battle of heavyweight champs in TYSON VS. ALI (photo by John Hurley)

A longtime boxing fan, Farrington (Gin & “It”), with script writer Frank Boudreaux, does an excellent job bringing the sweet science to the stage, examining the hype surrounding the champs, delving into their backgrounds and religious beliefs, exploring why they fight, and displaying their unique styles in and out of the ring. Ali fought from 1960 to 1981, while Tyson battled from 1985 to 2005, so their careers did not overlap, although they did both fight Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick, and they have a father-and-son connection as well, as Ali went up against Joe Frazier twice and Tyson knocked out his son, Marvis. (They also fought the Spinks brothers, with Ali splitting two fights with Leon and Tyson destroying younger sibling Michael.) So it’s a thrill seeing Ali duke it out with Tyson with the gloves on and off, pounding each other with both physical and vocal jabs, body shots, and uppercuts and waxing poetic in between rounds into microphones that hang from the ceiling and are set up just outside the ropes. The rounds, which follow the slowly building pace and energy of a heavyweight championship bout, have such titles as “The Body,” “Beauty and Brutality,” “Origin Myths,” “Endurance / Strategy,” and “Race/Lineage,” as Tyson and Ali pay tribute to those who came before. They also pay tribute to themselves and, in a 1990 clip from The Arsenio Hall Show, each other. “Once I’m in the ring, I’m a god. No one can beat me,” Olagoke says as Tyson. “I know I have him. He goes down. He’s out. I’m victorious. The greatest fighter that ever lived.” To which Allen as Ali responds, “The stage is set for me to be ranked the greatest of all time!” Who really is the greatest? You’re going to have to see the show to find out.

DAN ZHU, DODO JIN MING, AND FRIENDS

Chinese musician Dan Zhu will give a free performance inspired by DoDo Jin Ming’s “The Sky Inside” exhibit at Laurence Miller

DODO JIN MING: THE SKY INSIDE
Laurence Miller Gallery
20 West 57th St., third floor
Tuesday, January 14, free, 6:30
Exhibition continues Tuesday – Saturday through January 25
212-397-3930
www.laurencemillergallery.com
www.danzhumusic.com

In November, Chinese violinist Dan Zhu gave an impromptu solo performance at the Laurence Miller Gallery in Midtown, inspired by fellow Beijing native DoDo Jin Ming’s latest exhibit, “The Sky Inside,” which had just opened. Now that the exhibit is entering its last two weeks, Zhu is coming back, this time for an announced concert taking place January 14 at 6:30 that also celebrates the upcoming Chinese New Year. Zhu, who has played his 1763 Carlo Antonio Testore violin at festivals around the world and for such conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, and Krzysztof Penderecki, has found inspiration in the seascapes and landscapes taken by Jin Ming, a classically trained concert violinist who gave up that instrument for a camera after seeing a Joseph Beuys show in 1988. For “The Sky Inside,” Jin Ming once again combines two black-and-white negatives to create haunting images, this time of mysterious woods and rocky shores along with, occasionally, a ghostly figure. “My pictures reflect how I feel about the world around me. They are more pictures of nature than of the landscape,” she has said about her work. “They are metaphors not description. They are like poetry and music. This is my journey, through darkness to find a way.” Zhu and Jin Ming will be making visual and aural poetry and music together on Tuesday night at 6:30, followed by a reception; admission is free.

BALLETNEXT: THREE WORKS BY BRIAN REEDER

Michele Wiles and Jens Weber will perform in an updated version of Brian Reeder’s PICNIC as part of BalletNext season at NYLA this week (photo by Nisian Hughes)

SURMISABLE UNITS / DIFFERENT HOMES / PICNIC
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
January 14-18, $15-$30
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.balletnext.com

Founded in 2011 by longtime ABT dancer Michele Wiles, BalletNext is a platform for the Baltimore-born Wiles to collaborate with a wide range of dancers, choreographers, and musicians, encouraging risk-taking as the company explores the future of classical ballet. From January 14 to 18, BalletNext will be at New York Live Arts, presenting three works choreographed by former NYCB and ABT dancer Brian Reeder. The world premiere of Surmisable Units, set to Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase,” opens with a solo by Wiles, who is then joined by the rest of the company. In the New York premiere of Different Homes, Wiles and former Ballet Nacional de Monte Carlo principal Jens Weber perform a pas de deux to music by Benjamin Britten, their hands never touching. The program also includes an updated version of the 2012 work Picnic, based on Peter Weir’s 1975 film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, about young girls who go missing during a school outing in Australia; the piece features Edwardian costumes and music by Dmitri Shostakovich. The music to all three works will be performed live by the BalletNext Ensemble, led by Israeli cellist Elad Kabilio and featuring Juilliard pianist Ben Laude; the well-pedigreed company consists of Wiles, Weber, former NYCB dancer Kaitlyn Gilliland, NYBT principal Steven Melendez, former Morphoses dancer Sarah Atkins, BalletNext dancer Tiffany Mangulabnan, and Manhattan Youth Ballet alumna Brittany Cioce, now a BalletNext apprentice.

WILD DAYS — COMING OF AGE IN 2014: COMMITMENT

K-pop star T.O.P., aka Choi Seung-hyun, stars as a teenage assassin in COMMITMENT

KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: COMMITMENT (DONG-CHANG-SAENG) (Park Hong-soo, 2013)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, January 14, free, 7:00
212-759-9550
www.koreanculture.org
www.wellgousa.com

After their father (Park Sung-woong) is declared a traitor to North Korea and killed, Lee Myung-hoon (Choi Seung-hyun) and his younger sister, Lee Hye-in (Kim Yoo-jung), are placed in a forced labor camp. When Myung-hoon is nineteen, North Korean agent Moon Sang-chul (Jo Sung-ha) offers him a way out: if he agrees to be a spy/assassin for Kim Jong-Il’s regime, he and his sister will eventually be freed. Accepting the mission, Myung-hoon goes to Seoul, where he attends high school as a cover and makes friends with a loner girl (Han Ye-ri) with the same name as his sister. This Hye-in wants to be a dancer, which brings up memories of Myung-hoon’s childhood dreams of becoming a successful pianist — a long way from being an expert killer, as he carries out his jobs with pinpoint precision. But as Kim Jong-il suddenly falls ill and his son, Kim Jong-un, prepares to take over as supreme leader, all bets are off and it gets harder and harder to know who’s on which side. One day Myung-hoon is messing with a group of tough students who are bullying Hye-in, and the next he is in the middle of a complex plot involving drugs, laundered money, diamonds, and double crosses. Also known as Alumni, Park Hong-soo’s Commitment is an exciting if bumpy thriller about family, loyalty, and friendship. Choi, who is better known as K-pop star T.O.P. of Big Bang, is dark and moody as the teenage assassin who will do anything to protect his sister, while Kim’s character goes through a sudden, hard-to-believe change about halfway through the film. Things get far too convoluted in the final scenes, the plot heading off in all kinds of ridiculous directions, but Choi manages to make it all worthwhile. Commitment, which is playing in several New York City theaters right now, can be seen for free on January 14 at 7:00 at Tribeca Cinemas, kicking off the Korean Movie Night series “Wild Days: Coming of Age in 2014.” Presented by the Korean Cultural Service, the series continues on January 28 with Kwak Kyung-taek’s Friend: The Great Legacy and February 11 with Won Shin-eon’s The Suspect before concluding February 25 with Kang Yi-kwan’s Juvenile Offender.

DANISH PAINTINGS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE TO THE MODERN BREAKTHROUGH: COPENHAGEN AND VANGUARD EUROPE

Harald Slott-Møller, “Summer Day,” oil on canvas, 1888 (collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr.)

COPENHAGEN AND VANGUARD EUROPE
Scandinavia House
58 Park Ave. at 38th St.
Monday, January 13, free, 6:30
Exhibit continues Tuesday-Saturday through January 25, free, 12 noon – 6:00
212-847-9740
www.scandinaviahouse.org

More than three dozen works by two dozen artists who were part of the tremendous surge in painting in Denmark from the early eighteenth to early twentieth centuries are on view in the Scandinavia House exhibit “Danish Paintings from the Golden Age to the Modern Breakthrough: Selections from the Collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr.” On January 13 at 6:30, Dr. Patricia G. Berman, who cocurated the exhibition with Dr. Thor J. Mednick and is the author of In Another Light: Danish Painting in the Nineteenth Century, will deliver the free illustrated lecture “Copenhagen and Vanguard Europe,” focusing on Denmark’s capital city as a center for avant-garde artists in the 1890s, particularly while the nation tried to redefine its identity during the social, financial, and political upheaval that followed the Napoleonic wars. Professor Berman has lectured often at Scandinavia House; her clarity and charm make the enormous amount of fascinating information she’s able to deliver all the more enlightening. The lovely show has been extended through January 25 and is highlighted by such beautiful canvases as Harald Slott-Møller’s “Summer Day,” in which two women delicately stand in shallow water on a beach; Bertha Wegmann’s “Interior with a Bunch of Wild Flowers, Tyrol,” a still-life with several surprising items; P. S. Krøyer’s “Self-Portrait, Sitting by His Easel at Skagen Beach,” with its earth-toned foreground colors set off against the blue of the sky and sea; and Vilhelm Hammershøi’s “Interior with a Woman Standing,” a stunning composition featuring open and closed doors, a shadowy woman, and a mysterious silence, as if the viewer is being invited in to something they will never learn anything more about. The show also includes works by Ludvig Find, Christen Købke, Otto Bache, Jens Juel, and husband and wife Anna Ancher and Michael Ancher, among others. The paintings are all from the collection of New York City native John Langeloth Loeb Jr., who served as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark from 1981 to 1983 and then as a delegate to the United Nations.

DAVID BROZA WITH SPECIAL GUEST MIRA AWAD

David Broza brings his mission of peace, love, and understanding to the Highline Ballroom on January 14

Highline Ballroom
431 West 16th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday, January 14, $25-$45, 8:00
212-414-5994
www.highlineballroom.com
www.davidbroza.net

“Don’t want to preach to no one tonight / Just want to tell my tale,” Israeli folk legend David Broza sings on “One to Three,” the opening track of his new album, East Jerusalem / West Jerusalem (S-Curve, January 14, 2014). Broza, who was raised in Israel, Spain, and England, has a rather simple goal: helping bring peace and love to the war-torn Middle East, as displayed in such previous songs as “Yihieh Tov (It Will Be Good).” For the new record, Broza brought together a diverse group of international musicians, who gathered for eight days in Palestinian composer Said Murad’s East Jerusalem studio, where they recorded a mix of covers and originals, live and without overdubs, including the first songs Broza has ever written in English. Produced by Steve Earle and Steve Greenberg, the album features collaborations with Wyclef Jean on the title song, Arab-Israeli singer Mira Awad on the gorgeous duet “Ramallah — Tel Aviv,” Palestinian hip-hop due G-Town, Hadag Nachash frontman Shaanan Streett, and Earle on “Peace Ain’t Nothing But a Word,” and the Jerusalem Youth Chorus on Cat Stevens’s “Where Do the Children Play” and Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ’bout) Peace Love & Understanding.” Broza’s cover of Elvis Costello’s “Everyday I Write the Book” is a sly comment on how the Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs follow different holy tomes, while he references “the holy book” again in “The Lion’s Den,” an adaptation of a poem written by Judea Pearl about his son, slain journalist Daniel Pearl.

Although some of the music and lyrics, which often evoke such other singer-activists as Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and George Harrison, occasionally border on the treacly, Broza boldly makes his point as clear as possible; he also covers Timmy Thomas’s “Why Can’t We All Live Together” as well as Pink Floyd’s “Mother.” He chose the latter as a message to Roger Waters, who has been outspoken in his support of the Palestinians and public demands for an Israeli boycott. “Regardless of his views on the issue of Israel and Palestine, Roger Waters has written one of the most anti-boycott, boundary-breaking songs ever in ‘Mother,’” Broza recently said. “So yes, not only have I recorded this extraordinary song, but I have recorded it in East Jerusalem using Israeli and Palestinian musicians. . . . Instead of shutting down communication, come to my country and engage in the open exchange of ideas that will make change happen.” The album’s centerpiece is “Key to the Memory,” with lyrics by Broza, Middle Eastern music by Murad, and verses sung in alternating Arabic, English, and Hebrew by Broza and Awad. “May the wind in your eyes / be the carrier of love / May the pain in your heart / turn into the will to survive,” they sing in three languages. Broza will be celebrating the release of East Jerusalem / West Jerusalem and sharing his dream of peaceful coexistence on January 14 at the Highline Ballroom, where he will be joined by Awad and other contributors to the record.