The Teabaggers will present “The TNC Tea Party” at this year’s Lower East Side Festival of the Arts (photo by Alex Smith)
Theater for the New City
155 First Ave. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Saturday, May 29, and Sunday, May 30
Admission: free www.theaterforthenewcity.net
The fifteenth annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts continues on Saturday on Sunday with two days of free live performances both inside the Theater for the New City and outside, where a cultural fair will be held. On Saturday from 2:00 to 5:00, magicians, musicians, dancers, and more will entertain children in the Johnson Theater, anchored by Supercute playing at 4:30. Adult entertainment takes over after that, with the Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, Bleecker Street Opera, David Amram, Joe Franklin, and others. Meanwhile, Yana Schnitzler’s Human Kinetics Movement Arts will perform a site-specific installation in the lobby beginning at 7:00. Films will run from noon to midnight in the Cabaret Theater, including Rome Neal’s BANANA PUDDIN JAZZ, Buck Heller’s THROUGH THEIR EYES, and Roger Corman’s BUCKET OF BLOOD. And the outdoor street festival will feature live music, poetry readings, performance art, dance, and comedy by Jessica Delfino, the Drama Bums, Domingo’s Dominion, the Vox Pop Players, Jessica Friedlander, and others. On Sunday night, KT Sullivan, Tammy Grimes, the Silvercloud Singers & Drummers, Phoebe Legere, Penny Arcade, and Tokyo Penguin are among those scheduled in the Johnson Theater, with theatrical performances taking place in the Cabaret Theater. In addition, the Community Space Theater will host a poetry program at 4:00 with special guest Joan Durant and nearly fifty participants. And all weekend long, the lobby will be home to visual art curated by Carolyn Ratcliffe. It’s a great festival that has something for everyone, and, yes, it’s all free.
Dennis Larkin and Peter Barsotti, “Radio City Music Hall poster Oct. 22-31, 1980” (courtesy Grateful Dead Archive)
THE BERNARD AND IRENE SCHWARTZ DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS SERIES
Thursday, May 27, New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th St., $20, 6:30
“Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New-York Historical Society” exhibition continues through July 4, 2 West 77th St., $12
212-873-3400 www.nyhistory.org
Although they are most closely aligned with their hometown of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, the Grateful Dead had a special relationship with New York City. Every year, usually in the fall in the 1980s and ’90s, the psychedelic, free-flowing rock band would come to Radio City, Madison Square Garden, and other local venues for extended stays as Dead Heads came out of the woodwork to join in the annual celebration of life and music. So it is not nearly as strange as it might first appear for “The Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New-York Historical Society” to be held at the venerable Upper West Side institution. The small but concentrated exhibit focuses on the group’s interaction with their dedicated fans through film, video, photographs, ticket stubs, concert posters, backstage guest lists and passes, and other cool paraphernalia. The display includes the group’s first record contract, a tour rider, designs for their 1974 Wall of Sound speaker system, the life-size marionettes used in their breakthrough “Touch of Grey” video, Dick Latvala’s notebooks evaluating specific shows (some of which would later be released as a Dick’s Pick), and dozens of envelopes people decorated when sending in ticket requests. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and other Dead members were way ahead of the curve when it came to dealing with their fans, creating a human social network well before Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, although they were always on the cutting edge of technology as well. Music continually flows through the exhibit, and you can take a break by grabbing a seat and watching clips from 1977’s THE GRATEFUL DEAD MOVIE.
On May 27 at 6:30, longtime progressive rock deejay Pete Fornatale and “Tales from the Golden Road” radio host Gary Lambert, along with surprise guests, will participate in “Tales of the Grateful Dead and New York,” an intimate look at the band’s unique ties to the city, which include appearances at such legendary venues as the Fillmore East in addition to Tompkins Square Park, Central Park, and other locations. The event will take place at the New York Society for Ethical Culture; tickets are $20.
Bill Shannon is in the midst of a three-month residency at Dance New Amsterdam
DOUZ AND MILLE @ DNA PRESENTS BILL SHANNON
Dance New Amsterdam
280 Broadway, second floor
Exhibition runs through June 18, free
Lecture/performance: May 25, $17, 8:00
Traffic: June 2-4, $20-$25, 4:30
212-625-8369 www.dnadance.org www.douzandmille.com www.whatiswhat.com
When Bill Shannon was five years old, he was diagnosed with Legg-Calvé Perthes disease, a degenerative, bilateral hip deformity that has required him to use crutches and braces for most of his life. The onetime Easter Seals poster child, who turns forty this year, used breakdancing and skateboarding as a way to project his burgeoning creativity, eventually developing the Shannon Technique, which combines his remarkable dexterity on crutches with the sociological phenomena of interacting with a public that has has preconceived notions and differing levels of comfort in the presence of so-called disabled people. On the stage and in the streets, Shannon, who is in the midst of a three-month residency at Dance New Amsterdam (DNA), has created a fascinating visual vocabulary that involves such moves as the sweeper, frontside airs, toeflips, splitmids, the elbow stall, and nohanders and nofooters, using what he refers to as “disability based utilitarianism” in his dance and choreography, incorporating playful tricks as well as emotionally wrought movement that uses natural sound and light in addition to hip-hop music.
His crutches become an extension of his body instead of a prop or a handicap as he elicits fascinating reactions from the public, experiences that he has documented in a series of videos that are collected on the second floor of DNA, twenty monitors that depict “The Evolution of William Foster Shannon.” The videos include Shannon going up and down the steps of an art museum receiving “help” from strangers, riding through the streets on crutches and a skateboard with multiple cameras attached to give amazing views of his travels, his stunning duet with a woman in a wheelchair, and side-by-side depictions of his attempts to pull off certain specific moves, one video featuring his failures, the other his successes. In another outdoor performance in a small downtown New York City park, he hides himself in a white outfit and becomes “invisible,” slowly making his way through the area as people mostly ignore him. On May 25, Shannon will be giving a lecture/performance at DNA that should be both entertaining and intriguing, as he is an engaging character with endless insights into such interactivity as the “face of distraction,” “questioning the stare,” and the “weight of empathy,” terms he uses in describing his unique art form.
Bill Shannon’s “Spatiotemporality” video exhibit continues at DNA through June 18 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
“Many people from all walks of life experience stereotypes projected upon them in a public context,” Shannon explains on his website. “The difference in my opinion between reactions to my ambiguous and wide ranging representation of disability and the stereotypes other people endure related to their ability, age, race, class, culture, gender, and sexual orientation is the ease at which people will communicate with me directly and indirectly about the details of my life and identity and the cumulative volume of communication about these details over my lifetime.” Audiences will get the extreme pleasure of watching Shannon in action in his live street piece “Traffic”: From June 2 to 4, Shannon will present a Transient Specific Street Performance, starting at DNA and gliding down the streets of Lower Manhattan on his crutches and skateboard, turning the urban landscape into his stage while the audience follows him in a bus. Don’t miss any of these rare chances to see Shannon in action.
Shepard Fairey show will close Deitch Projects in SoHo (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Deitch Projects, 18 Wooster St., through May 29
Mural wall, Broadway & Houston St., through December
Ace Hotel, Broadway & Houston St.
Cooper Square Hotel, East Fifth St. at Third Ave.
Admission: free www.deitch.com www.obeygiant.com shepard fairey slideshow
L.A.-based street artist is all over New York this month. He’s featured prominently in the Banksy movie EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, has designed several murals throughout the city, and is currently staging the final show at Deitch Projects in SoHo. Fairey, who is proud of “manufacturing quality dissent since 1989,” is celebrating May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, with these series of works, commenting on labor rights, social unrest, government interference, corporate domination, and the continuing struggle for artistic, political, and personal freedom. At Deitch, he has hung dozens of portraits of such icons as Neil Young, Keith Haring, Bob Dylan, jimi Hendrix, Cornel West, Woody Guthrie, John & Yoko, Joe Strummer, and the Dalai Lama as well as political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burmese monk, Arab women, and other revolutionary figures.
Shepard Fairey gets political in series of works all over city (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
His black-and-red color scheme relates to Soviet propaganda posters, evoking a powerful mix of capitalism and totalitarianism, while also sometimes adding Arabic designs that have a strong potency post-9/11. The Obey Giant creator has also included a stunning painting of a deserted gas station, a beautiful blue wave, and a large mural that calls for people to raise their voices and fight the system. The mural is similar to outdoor projects that he has installed at Broadway and Houston and on a temporary wooden wall along the Ace Hotel at 29th and Broadway; in addition, he has another piece on the side of the Cooper Square Hotel on Third Ave. On the murals, a newspaper article proclaims, “Right wing denies science of climate change,” artist Jasper Johns sits with a target on his chest, Arab women hide parts of their faces, roses emerge from rifles, and a police officer says, “I’m gonna kick your ass . . . and get away with it!” The show at Deitch runs through May 29, while the Broadway & Houston mural continues through the end of the year.
Philippe Halsman, “Jean Seberg with Cat,” vintage silver print, 1959
Laurence Miller Gallery
20 West 57th St. between Fifth & Madison Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through May 28
Admission: free
212-397-3930 www.laurencemillergallery.com
The Laurence Miller Gallery has followed up Denis Darzacq’s “Hyper,” recent colorful photographs of street dancers leaving their feet in French megamarts, with quite a blast from the past, Philippe Halsman’s ecstatic 1950s shots of international celebrities jumping for joy. His Jumpology series features black-and-white photographs of such iconic figures as Benny Goodman, Audrey Hepburn, Aldous Huxley, Brigitte Bardot, Dick Clark, Grace Kelly, Jackie Gleason, Marilyn Monroe (three times, including one in color and another with Halsman himself), and the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor jumping for his camera. He captures such dance figures as Merce Cunningham and Marth Graham, Edward Villella, and Gisele MacKenzie alongside such newsmen as Mike Wallace and Murray Kempton, fellow photojournalists Weegee and Edward Steichen, and even Richard Nixon. Leave it to Salvador Dalí to come up with the most creative and bizarre jumps, one involving popcorn, loaves of bread, and a nude woman, another making use of cats and water. It’s an engaging exhibition that brings out the child in the subjects as well as the viewer.
THE WICKER MAN is one of fourteen films that deal with death in new Rubin Museum film series
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday nights, May 21 – August 27, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000 www.rmanyc.org/cabaretcinema
Death is the name of the game at the Rubin Museum, which is currently featuring such intriguing exhibits as “Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures” and “Bardo: Tibetan Art of the Afterlife.” In conjunction with that theme, the institution dedicated to Himalayan art will begin a terrific new film series on May 21, Memento Mori, consisting of fourteen works that examine death in different and unusual ways. Things get under way May 21 with the original LOGAN’S RUN, in which Michael York and Jenny Agutter try to escape Carousel as their thirtieth birthdays approach. The series continues with murder (M), suicide (HAROLD AND MAUDE), loss of a child (DON’T LOOK NOW), violence (BONNIE AND CLYDE), scary settings (THE WICKER MAN), and even bargaining with the Grim Reaper himself (THE SEVENTH SEAL). Memento Mori also includes Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life before concluding with Frank Capra’s LOST HORIZON. The museum is free Friday nights after 7:00, so you can check out the exhibits, grab a few drinks in the K2 Lounge, and then see the movie (with a $7 bar minimum).
Bryce_Wolkowitz_Gallery_
505 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through May 22
Admission: free
212-243-8830 www.brycewolkowitz.com www.jimcampbell.tv
Jim Campbell has been creating unique and innovative multimedia works for two decades, investigating vision and memory in light-based installations that have won him Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships, among other awards. His current show at Bryce_Wolkowitz_ features several fascinating LED pieces that play with movement and shadow in dreamlike ways. In “Tourists #2 (Statue of Liberty),” ghostly figures walk by in the foreground of the base of the iconic statue, almost as if in a death march. Cars and people stop and go in a gray, eerie landscape in “Montgomery Street Pause.” LEDs obscure an image of a smiling child in “Home Movies.” And 1142 LEDs seemingly dangle in space, depicting a dark figure running and falling, in “Exploded View”; be sure to walk all around the installation to get the full impact of Campbell’s fascinating method. Campbell, who was born in Chicago, earned an electrical engineering degree from MIT, and is based in San Francisco, will be back in New York in October 2011, when he will install a commissioned light sculpture in Madison Square Park.
