twi-ny recommended events

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY: DEFIANCE

Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber star as brothers at odds in gripping Holocaust drama

DEFIANCE (Edward Zwick, 2008)
Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Monday April 8, $25, 7:30
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.defiancemovie.com

In December 2008, there was a spate of Holocaust-related dramas released in theaters, examining the Nazis and the persecution of the Jews from many different angles — with various degrees of success. Among the best of the films — and one that tells a seldom-told tale — is Edward Zwick’s Defiance. Zwick, whose Glory looked at the contribution of African Americans fighting for the North in the Civil War, now turns to WWII, following the Bielski clan as it fights back against the Germans and the local constabulary in Russia. Based on a true story detailed in the book of the same name by Nechama Tec, Defiance stars Daniel Craig as Tuvia, Liev Schreiber as Zus, and Jamie Bell as Asael, three brothers who have left their farm and take refuge in the vast forest they have been playing in since they were kids. As more and more Jews hear about the small community they are establishing hidden among the trees, they flock there. But while Tuvia feels he cannot send anyone away, Zus believes such foolish generosity will result in a lack of food and a greater chance that they will be found and killed. With Tuvia as the group’s reluctant leader, adamant that they should remain in the forest, Zus takes off to join the Russian resistance. “Each day of freedom is a victory,” Tuvia proclaims. “And if we die trying to live, at least we die like human beings.” But as the Germans get closer and the winter grows harsher, the chances of survival seem bleaker and bleaker. Although Defiance does lapse into soap-opera territory and pulls at the emotional heartstrings too often — Zwick and executive producer Marshall Herskovitz were, after all, the creators of Thirtysomething — it is a powerful drama that reveals a rarely shown side of the Holocaust as a group of working-class Jewish men and women refuse to give in or give up, taking up arms and fighting back against impossible odds. The underrated film is being screened April 8 at Symphony Space as part of a special Holocaust Remembrance Day program that benefits School News Nationwide, a Brooklyn-based organization that teaches children journalism skills and tolerance; SNN founder Bill Tingling will introduce the film, there will be a memorial candle lighting and poem, and the screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Holocaust survivor Sally Frishberg and Zvi Bielski, the son of Zus, moderated by Izzy Fridman, the son of a Bielski partisan.

FIRST SATURDAY — “WORKT BY HAND”: HIDDEN LABOR AND HISTORICAL QUILTS

Elizabeth Welsh, “Medallion Quilt,” cotton, circa 1830 (Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Roebling Society)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, April 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum celebrates the recent opening of “‘Workt by Hand’: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts,” which examines the craft and culture behind approximately three dozen masterpieces from the collection, at the April free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess, Adia Whitaker and Ase Dance Theater Collective, Jesse Elliott (These United States) and friends, and Brooklyn Ballet, which will present Quilt with violinist Gil Morgenstern. Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art curator Catherine Morris will give a talk on “‘Workt by Hand,’” Robyn Love will share her knitting project “SpinCycle,” there will be a screening of Barbara Hammer and Gina Carducci’s Generations, followed by a Q&A with Carducci, a felt collage workshop, a book club discussion with Bernice McFadden about her latest novel, Gathering of Waters, and a zine-making cookbook workshop with Brooklyn Zine Fest and Malaka Gharib and Claire O’Neil of The Runcible Spoon. In addition, the galleries will remain open late so visitors can check out “LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital,” “Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the ‘War’ and ‘Death’ Portfolios,” “Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum,” “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,” “Raw/Cooked: Marela Zacarias,” “Aesthetic Ambitions: Edward Lycett and Brooklyn’s Faience Manufacturing Company,” and more.

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled (Two Heads on Gold),” acrylic and oil paintstick on canvas, 1982 (© the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP, Paris, ARS, New York 2013)

Gagosian Gallery
555 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through April 6, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-741-1111
www.gagosian.com

You can expect tremendous crowds Friday and Saturday at Gagosian’s West 24th St. space as the blockbuster “Jean-Michel Basquiat” exhibition comes to a close. Eight years ago, the Brooklyn Museum presented the revelatory, chronological “Basquiat,” which cast the street-artist-turned-Warhol-progeny in a whole new spotlight, displaying his awe-inspiring talent from his early days as a graffiti artist to his drug-addled, rambling final canvases prior to his overdose death in 1988 at the age of twenty-seven. This show comes as financial interest in Basquiat is reaching new peaks, with an untitled 1981 work selling for $16.3 million at Phillips de Pury & Company last year and the Wall Street Journal reporting that the Brooklyn-born artist’s 1982 “Dustheads” will be auctioned at Christie’s next month for an expected $25-$35 million. The Gagosian show consists of nearly fifty paintings, hung conceptually, with each work getting plenty of breathing room, the better to be enjoyed both on its own merits and in context of the glam punk’s greater oeuvre. The museum-quality exhibition highlights Basquiat’s bold, brash sense of color and often violent brushstrokes along with his intriguing use of words and language, his love of jazz and boxing, and such repeated imagery as crowns, halos, and the copyright symbol.

There’s both an anger and a primitivism in his work that continues to draw a diverse, still-growing audience: We feel his pain; we understand his desperate need to express himself. Basquiat is that rare street artist whose work still manages to come alive in a gallery or museum setting, whether on canvas, a door, or a wooden fence. In pieces such as “La Hara” and “Untitled (Two Heads on Gold),” the abstract characters seem to jump off the canvas as if living, breathing figures. Words instantly imbued with meaning leap out at us in such canvases as “In Italian” (“sangre,” “liberty,” “blood,” “teeth,” “corpus”) and “Revised Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta” (“Mark Twain,” “Negroes,” “Udder,” “Cotton,” “The Deep South,” “El Raton”). Sneaker prints hover in the background of “Eyes and Eggs,” as if Basquiat stepped over his depiction of a short-order cook. All these years later, we still see Basquiat as one of us, speaking for the disenfranchised, the forgotten, the poor, the trod upon, someone who rose out of the streets, perhaps like any of us can, despite his tragic end. The Gagosian show presents Basquiat as a graffiti poet and a jazz musician, emitting dazzling sounds and rhythms that move the heart and soul.

LORCA IN NEW YORK: A CELEBRATION

Multiple locations
April 5 – July 21, free – $25
www.lorcanyc.com

In 1929-30, Spanish poet and playwright Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (1898-1936) lived in New York City, where he studied at Columbia, writing the surrealist play The Public (El público) and the seminal book Poet in New York, which includes “Nocturne of the Brooklyn Bridge”: “No one sleeps in the sky. No one. / No one sleeps. / The creatures of the moon sniff and circle their cabins. / Live iguanas will come to bite the men who don’t dream / and he who flees with broken heart will find on the corners / the still, incredible crocodile under the tender protest of the stars.” In the preface to Pablo Medina and Mark Statman’s translation of the book, Edward Hirsch concludes, “The testament he left behind is a fierce indictment of the modern world incarnated in city life, but it is also a wildly imaginative and joyously alienated declaration of residence.” The great writer’s time in Gotham is being honored with “Lorca in NY: A Celebration,” more than three months of some two dozen special literary events being held in the city that was, for a brief time, Lorca’s home. The festival kicks off April 5 with the opening of “Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York” in the New York Public Library’s Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery; running through July 20, the free exhibit features original manuscripts, letters, photos, drawings, and more. On April 7 at 7:00 ($10), La Bruja, Simply Rob, Los Gitanos Juveniles, Anthony Carrillo, Raphael Cuascut, Angel Rodriguez Sr., Julio Rodriguez, Mario Rodriguez, and Alex La Salle will gather together for “Lorca Extravaganza” at Bowery Poetry Club for an evening of musical and spoken-word interpretations of Lorca’s writings and his personal favorite songs. On April 8 at 6:00, Gonzalo Sobejano will deliver the free lecture “Memoria de Lorca, A través de mis años en la Universidad de Columbia (Memory of Lorca, Through My Years at Columbia University)” at Columbia, followed by a cocktail reception.

The legacy of Federico García Lorca and his book POET IN NEW YORK will be celebrated in wide-ranging multidisciplinary festival

On April 9 at 7:00 ($15), Instituto Cervantes will host “Lorca’s Universe,” a concert with guitarist José María Gallardo del Rey and violinist Anabel Garcia del Castillo. On April 16 (and continuing through May 30), “Lorca in Vermont” opens at the CUNY Graduate Center, examining Lorca’s time spent in Vermont with Philip Cummings; in conjunction with the opening, Joan Jonas, Caridad Svich, Christopher Maurer, Ben Sidran, Mónica de la Torre, and Eliot Weinberger will come together on April 16 at 6:00 (free) for the panel discussion “Interpreting Lorca” in CUNY’s Martin E. Segal Theatre. On April 19 at 7:00 (free), Jose García Velasco will deliver the lecture “Lorca, Dalí, Buñuel & Eternal Youth: Life in the Residencia de Estudiantes” at Instituto Cervantes. On May 1 from 2:00 to 9:00 (free), “After Lorca: A Day of Poetry and Performance” at CUNY features LaTasha Diggs, Rob Fitterman, Eileen Myles, Judah Rubin, Sara Jane Stoner, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, and the Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group offering their own responses to Lorca’s legacy. On June 4 at 7:00 ($25), Live from the NYPL director Paul Holdengräber hosts “Celebrating Federico García Lorca.” Overnight on June 4-5 (free), David Bestué will make his way through the streets of the city, creating “an echo to Lorca’s poems” in honor of the 115th anniversary of the poet’s birth. On June 5 ($25), “Words and Music: Patti Smith and Friends” will present “A Birthday Concert for Lorca” at Bowery Ballroom. On June 10 at 8:00 ($8), an all-star group of writers will gather at the Poetry Project for “Poet in New York: Reading Lorca”; among the participants reading from the book will be Paul Auster, Aracelis Girmay, John Giorno, Wayne Koestenbaum, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Mónica de la Torre, and Frederic Tuten. On July 9 at 1:15 at the NYPL (free), Sharonah Fredrick will discuss “Lorca, Jews, and African-American: From Romance to Racism or Simple Misunderstanding?” And if that weren’t enough, there are other events as well, including a walking tour, a film series, and more, all organized by the Fundación Federico García Lorca, which is run by Lorca’s family, and Acción Cultural Española.

THE WORKS — KAREN BLACK: EASY RIDER

Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson play a trio who get their motor running and head out on the highway in EASY RIDER

EASY RIDER (Dennis Hopper, 1968)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
April 5-6, 12:10 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

No mere relic of the late 1960s counterculture movement, Easy Rider still holds up as one of the truly great road movies, inviting audiences to climb on board as two peace-loving souls search for freedom on the highways and byways of the good ol’ U.S. of A. Named after a pair of famous western gunslingers, Wyatt (producer and cowriter Peter Fonda), as in Earp, and Billy (director and cowriter Dennis Hopper), as in “the Kid,” make some fast cash by selling coke to a fancy connection (Phil Spector!), then take off on their souped-up bikes, determined to make it to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras. Along the way, they break bread with a rancher (Warren Finnerty) and his family, hang out in a hippie commune, pick up small-town alcoholic lawyer George Hanson (an Oscar-nominated Jack Nicholson), don’t get served in a diner, and eventually hook up with friendly prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) in the Big Easy. “You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it,” George says to Billy as they start discussing the concept and reality of freedom. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.” The always calm Wyatt, who is also known as Captain America, and the nervous and jumpy Billy make one of cinema’s coolest duos ever as they personally experience the radical changes going on in the country, leading to a tragic conclusion. The Academy Award–nominated script, written with Terry Southern, remains fresh and relevant as it examines American capitalism and democracy in a way that is still debated today. And the soundtrack — well, it virtually defined the era, featuring such songs as Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” and “Born to Be Wild,” Jimi Hendrix’s “If 6 Was 9,” the Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” the Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today,” Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air,” and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider.”

Nitehawk Cinema kicks off Karen Black festival with EASY RIDER

Easy Rider, which also was named Best First Work at Cannes in 1969, is screening just past midnight on April 5 & 6 as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “The Works” series focusing on otherworldly actress and goddess Karen Black, the sexy, cross-eyed star of such films as Nashville, The Great Gatsby, Invaders from Mars, and the unforgettable Trilogy of Terror. Sean Young, who starred with Black in 1998’s Men, will introduce the Friday-night show, and both screenings will include a pretaped Q&A with Black about Easy Rider. The Nitehawk mini-retrospective continues with Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings (April 12-13; beware the chauffeur), Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (May 3-4), Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot (May 17-18), Jack Smight’s Airport 1975 (May 31 – June 1), and John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (June 14-15).

ANN

Holland Taylor stars as Ann Richards in one-woman show she also wrote

Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through June 9, $75-$125
212-362-7600
www.lct.org
www.theannrichardsplay.com

Fiery politician Ann Richards was a true star, giving a memorable keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention and later serving as governor of Texas. Emmy-winning actress Holland Taylor (The Practice, Two and a Half Men) embodies the dedicated reformer in the one-woman show Ann, which she also wrote. Based on six years of intensive research, Ann opens with Taylor, wearing an eye-catching white suit and Richards’s trademark white coiffure, as Ann delivering an address at a fictional college, the audience standing in for the student body. She depicts Richards as an engaging, entertaining, very smart, and open and honest woman not afraid to speak her mind about her professional and personal life, including discussing her severe alcoholism and painful divorce. The play, directed by Benjamin Endsley Klein (resident director of War Horse), slows down considerably when Richards is in her gubernatorial office, answering multiple phone calls, yelling for her assistant, and shuffling through papers. Although it’s meant to show her as a bold and brash administrator fighting for the little person, it’s repetitive and not nearly as interesting as when she’s reflecting on her life and career directly with the audience. The play comes alive again when she returns to the podium, discussing her battle with cancer and hope for the future of America. Taylor is dazzling as Richards, capturing the spirit and dedication of a sharp, brave woman who was determined to make a difference and did. In an author’s note, Taylor writes that Richards is “someone I do think of now as a friend I know pretty well, and love”; after two hours, the audience is bound to feel the same.

SCOTLAND WEEK 2013

David Eustace’s captivating “Highland Heart” exhibit will be on view at Hudson Studios April 5-7 (© David Eustace)

SCOTLAND WEEK / TARTAN WEEK
Multiple venues
Through April 21
www.scotland.org
www.scotlandshop.com

The sixth annual Scotland Week, also known as Tartan Week, kicks into high gear this weekend, celebrating Scottish art and culture with a diverse group of events taking place all over the city. On Friday, former minesweeper and prison guard David Eustace will unveil a new collection of photographs, “Highland Heart,” stunning black-and-white images of the Western Islands, at Hudson Studios in Chelsea. On Saturday morning at 8:00, some ten thousand people are expected to take part in the 10K Scotland Run in Central Park, followed by the Kirkin o’ the Tartan and Pre-Parade Brunch at the Church of Our Saviour and the Tartan Day Parade, which will make its way up Sixth Ave. from Forty-Fifth to Fifty-Fifth Sts. with bagpipers, Scottish clans, music groups, Scottish terriers, and more. On Saturday night, the Caledonia Collective at Webster Hall will consist of Stanley Odd, Rachel Sermanni with Louis Abbott of Admiral Fallow, and Breabach. Stanley Odd will also share a bill with the View Saturday night at the Knitting Factory and Sunday night at Bowery Ballroom. On April 7, Alan Cumming begins a three-month Broadway run starring as the title character in the one-man National Theatre of Scotland production of Macbeth, set in a mental ward. On April 8, Scottish fashion will be on display at “From Scotland with Love: The Scottish Lion Meets the Asian Dragon,” a cocktail party and fashion show at Stage 48. On April 9, Ian Gow, curator of the National Trust for Scotland, will receive the Great Scot Award at the black-tie “Celebration of Scotland’s Treasures” dinner at the Metropolitan Club. On April 12, Ken Loach’s Cannes Jury Prize winner The Angels’ Share opens at Lincoln Plaza and the Landmark Sunshine. And on April 14, the Scottish Ensemble, a string orchestra highlighted by trumpeter Alison Balsom, will perform at Town Hall with a program that includes the U.S. premiere of James MacMillan’s “Seraph.” A h-uile la sona dhuibh ’s gun la idir dona dhuibh!