this week in art

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL 2021

Mariana Valencia’s Futurity is part of 2021 River to River Festival

Multiple locations
June 10-27, free (some events require advance RSVP)
RSVPs open June 1
lmcc.net

The twentieth annual River to River Festival, one of the most eagerly awaited events of each summer, runs June 10-27, with free live performances and screenings on Governors Island, in Battery Park City, the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, and other locations. Curated by Lili Chopra and Nanette Nelms, the 2021 edition features works that explore female identity, the African diaspora, colonialism, and other sociopolitical issues. Everything is free, but some events require advance RSVP, beginning June 1; from the way New Yorkers have responded to other live, free performances as the city opens up following the pandemic lockdown, you better be at your computer, ready to go, if you want to snag some tickets.

Among the highlights are processions through Battery Park City led by Miguel Gutierrez, Okwui Okpokwasili, and the Illustrious Blacks; a concert honoring Wayne Shorter, with esperanza spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Leo Genovese; the premiere of Arthur Jafa’s WS, a longer super nova, a tribute to Shorter; Maria Hassabi’s TOGETHER, which was booked immediately when it was part of the 2019 Performa Biennial; and nora chipaumire’s Nehanda, an opera based on the 1898 court case The Queen vs. Nehanda, involving a medium who was also a heroic revolutionary leader in Southern Rhodesia. Several films will be available to livestream following its public premiere.

Thursday, June 10
Opening Concert honoring Wayne Shorter, with esperanza spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Leo Genovese, La Plaza, the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., followed by premiere of Arthur Jafa’s WS, a longer super nova, Flamboyán Theater, 107 Suffolk St., free with RSVP, 7:30

Saturday, June 12
A Day at The Arts Center at Governors Island, with site-specific exhibitions by Meg Webster and Onyedika Chuke, a participatory sculpture by Muna Malik, Open Studios with LMCC 2021 Arts Center artists-in-residence, Damon Davis’s film The Stranger, and more, free with RSVP, noon – 5:00

June 12-22
esperanza spalding, Songwrights Apothecary Lab, live installation, the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, 107 Suffolk St., more info to come

June 12, 17, 24, 8:00, June 19, 26, 3:00
Livestreaming of Arthur Jafa’s WS, a longer super nova, followed by discussion with Wayne Shorter, esperanza spalding, Greg Tate, and Craig Street, free with RSVP

June 13-27
Damon Davis, The Stranger, allegorical film shot in Ghana about a Black American returning to his place of origin, starring Sel Kofiga, Damon Davis, Lola Ogbara, and Dalychia Saah, narrated by Ria Boss, with a score by Owen Ragland, digital streaming, free

Sunday, June 13
Processions, with Miguel Gutierrez, Teardrop Park, Battery Park City, free with RSVP

Sunday, June 20
Processions, with Okwui Okpokwasili, Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City, free with RSVP

Friday, June 25
Processions, with the Illustrious Blacks, South Cove, Battery Park City, free with RSVP

June 15-27
Womxn in Windows, multipart video installation in storefront windows exploring female identity, co-curated with Zehra Ahmed, Seaport District, free

June 16, 19, 22, 24
Black Gotham Experience, As Above So Below, interactive walking tours about the African diaspora in Lower Manhattan, featuring Kamau Ware and Rodney Leon, begins at 192 Front St., free with RSVP, 5:30 – 7:30

June 25-27
Mariana Valencia, Futurity, queerstories featuring Star Baby, Studio A3, the Arts Center at Governors Island, free with RSVP, 1:00 & 4:30

June 26-27
Maria Hassabi, TOGETHER, location TBA, free with RSVP, 6:00

Saturday, June 26
nora chipaumire, Nehanda, immersive, participatory, and durational filmed performance, La Plaza, the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., free with RSVP

DanceAfrica Festival 2021

BAM, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Mark Morris Dance Center, and online
May 29 – June 14, free – $44
www.bam.org

“Ago!”

For many people, Memorial Day Weekend means beach, barbecue, and a day off work. For me, and those in the know, it signals BAM’s DanceAfrica, an annual celebration of the arts across the African diaspora. The forty-fourth annual event takes us to Haiti with a series of virtual and in-person live programs honoring the spirit of the Caribbean island nation that has persevered through colonialism, revolution, occupation, violent dictatorships, coups, and a devastating earthquake. The festival is already under way with the public installation “A Return: Liberation as Power,” featuring works by Delphine Desane, M. Florine Démosthène, Mark Fleuridor, Adler Guerrier, Kathia St. Hilare, and Didier William projected on the BAM sign at the corner of Lafayette and Flatbush Aves. through May 31. Also available now is “DanceAfrica 2021: Choreographers’ Conversation,” a free online talk with DanceAfrica artistic director and DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers founder Abdel R. Salaam, Dieufel Lamisere of HaitiDansco, Portsha T. Jefferson of Rara Tou Limen, Fritzlyn “Fritz” Hector of the Fritzation Experience, and Adia Tamar Whitaker of Àṣẹ Dance Theatre Collective, moderated by Collegium for African Diaspora Dance founding director Thomas F. DeFrantz. The fantastic DanceAfrica Bazaar, always a highlight of the festival, has gone digital as well, with clothing, accessories, food and drink, and home goods available online.

On May 28 at 6:00, teens grades 9-12 can take part in the free multidisciplinary presentation “Haiti in Full Scope,” a virtual exploration of Haitian history and culture. From May 28 to June 3, FilmAfrica, in conjunction with the African Film Festival, will present screenings of such features, documentaries, and shorts as Raoul Peck’s Meurtre à Pacot, Eve Blouin and Raynald Leconte’s In the Eye of the Spiral and Leconte’s Real Maravilloso, Guetty Felin’s Ayiti Mon Amour, and Philippe Niang’s Toussaint Louverture. The centerpiece of the festival is BAM’s first evening-length dance film, Vwa Zanset Yo: Y’ap Pale, N’ap Danse! (“Ancestral Voices: They Speak . . . We Dance!”), debuting May 29 at 7:00, with commissioned pieces from HaitiDansco in Cap Haitien, Rara Tou Limen Haitian Dance Company in Oakland, Àṣẹ Dance Theatre Collective in Brooklyn, and the Fritzation Experience in Brooklyn in addition to a Libation ceremony and the Procession of the Council of Elders. “Out of the darkness of this pandemic we see a brilliant new digital platform that enables us to present our annual celebration through the magic of film! The future and spirit of DanceAfrica, in person or virtual, lives within audiences and communities of the world,” Baba Abdel R. Salaam said in a statement. That will be followed by a free live virtual dance party at 8:00 with DJ Hard Hittin Harry.

There will also be a free hands-on community workshop for caregivers and children of all ages on May 29 at 10:00 am at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 with Nadia Dieudonné; the inaugural Community Day Bantaba, consisting of virtual dance performances submitted by community members, along with a photo booth and introductions by DanceAfrica Senior Council of Elders Mamma Lynette White and Baba Bill Mathews; an adaptive workshop and a master class on May 31, held in person at the Mark Morris Dance Center and virtually, the former designed for persons with disabilities, led by Pat Hall, the latter for intermediate and advanced dancers, led by Dieudonné; and a DanceAfrica Timeline, taking us back through the archives of this unique and inclusive festival, founded in 1977 by the great Chuck Davis.

“Ame!”

TWI-NY AT TWENTY: ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Who: Works by and/or featuring Moko Fukuyama, Joshua William Gelb, Gabrielle Hamilton, Jace, Elmore James, Jamal Josef, Katie Rose McLaughlin, Sara Mearns, Zaire Michel, Zalman Mlotek, Alicia Hall Moran, Patrick Page, Barbara Pollack, Seth David Radwell, Jamar Roberts, Tracy Sallows, Xavier F. Salomon, Janae Snyder-Stewart, Mfoniso Udofia, Anne Verhallen
What: This Week in New York twentieth anniversary celebration
Where: This Week in New York YouTube
When: Saturday, May 22, free with RSVP, 7:00 (available on demand through June 12)
Why: In April 2001, I found myself suddenly jobless when a relatively new Silicon Alley company that had made big promises took an unexpected hit. I took my meager two weeks’ severance pay and spent fourteen days wandering through New York City, going to museums, film festivals, parks, and tourist attractions. I compiled my experiences into an email I sent to about fifty friends, rating each of the things I had done. My sister’s husband enthusiastically demanded that I keep doing this, and This Week in New York was born.

Affectionately known as twi-ny (twhy-nee), it became a website in 2005 and soon was being read by tens of thousands of people around the globe. I covered a vast array of events – some fifteen thousand over the years – that required people to leave their homes and apartments and take advantage of everything the greatest city in the world had to offer. From the very start, I ventured into nooks and crannies to find the real New York, not just frequenting well-known venues but seeking out the weird and wild, the unusual and the strange.

For my tenth anniversary, we packed Fontana’s, a now-defunct club on the Lower East Side, and had live music, book readings, and a comics presentation. I had been considering something bigger for twenty when the pandemic lockdown hit and lasted longer than we all thought possible.

At first, I didn’t know what twi-ny’s future would be, with nowhere for anyone to go. But the arts community reacted quickly, as incredible dance, music, art, theater, opera, film, and hybrid offerings began appearing on numerous platforms; the innovation and ingenuity blew me away. The winners of twi-ny’s Pandemic Awards give you a good idea of the wide range of things I covered; you can check out part one here and part two here.

I devoured everything I could, from experimental dance-theater in a closet and interactive shows over the phone and through the mail to all-star Zoom reunion readings and an immersive, multisensory play that arrived at my door in a box. Many of them dealt with the fear, isolation, and loneliness that have been so pervasive during the Covid-19 crisis while also celebrating hope, beauty, and resilience. I’ve watched, reviewed, and previewed more than a thousand events created since March 2020, viewing them from the same computer where I work at my full-time job in children’s publishing.

Just as companies are deciding the future hybrid nature of employment, the arts community is wrestling with in-person and online presentations. As the lockdown ends and performance venues open their doors, some online productions will go away, but others are likely to continue, benefiting from a reach that now goes beyond their local area and stretches across the continents.

On May 22 at 7:00, “twi-ny at twenty,” produced and edited by Michael D. Drucker of Delusions International and coproduced by Ellen Scordato, twi-ny’s business manager and muse, honors some of the best events of the past fourteen months, including dance, theater, opera, art, music, and literature, all of which can be enjoyed for free from the friendly confines of your couch. There is no registration fee, and the party will be available online for several weeks. You can find more information here.

Please let me know what you think in the live chat, which I will be hosting throughout the premiere, and be sure to say hello to other twi-ny fans and share your own favorite virtual shows.

Thanks for coming along on this unpredictable twenty-year adventure; I can’t wait to see you all online and, soon, in real life. Here’s to the next twenty!

AFROFEMONONOMY / WORK THE ROOTS

AFROFEMONONOMY / WORK THE ROOTS
Performance Space New York and other locations
150 First Ave.
May 15 – June 27, free with RSVP
performancespacenewyork.org
www.instagram.com/afrofemononomy

A multidisciplinary collaboration by some of today’s preeminent Black women creators, “Afrofemononomy / Work the Roots” features live theater, music, discussion, and installation, inspired by the career of activist, author, poet, playwright, editor, director, filmmaker, educator, and mother Kathleen Collins (Losing Ground, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?), who died of breast cancer in 1988 at the age of forty-six.

According to the collective, “‘Afrofemononomy / Work the Roots’ is an affirmation of how we, as Black women, expected to maintain the world’s health, can restore and not imperil our own. Black women absorb disproportionate stress and often develop a variety of risk factors, including higher early mortality rates with cancer and other diseases. Working inside the unsustainable economy and time structures of theater-making are often depleting for us. ‘Afrofemononomy / Work the Roots’ is a Black femme reclaiming of time and space, a model for restoration, a continuation of the lineage of our foremothers’ formative presence in the downtown avant-garde. We claim our health and sovereignty, prioritizing our human needs, and translate the ease, free expression, and non-compulsory ethos of our informal gatherings to our working conditions and aesthetic.”

The six-week celebration, produced by Performance Space New York with New Georges, kicks off this weekend with Collins’s 1984 Begin the Beguine: A Quartet of One-Acts, which is having its theatrical world premiere at Oakland Theater Project later this month. Part of the Downtown Live festival, Remembrance, a kind of personal séance starring Eisa Davis and Kaneza Schaal and with directorial consultation by Jackie Sibblies Drury, takes place at 85 Broad St. on May 16 at 6:30, May 22 at 1:30 and 4:00, and May 23 at 4:00, in an arcade next to the Stone Street Historic District. Those same days at 2:30 and 3:45, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Amelia Workman, Kara Young, Gabby Beans, and Jennifer Harrison Newman will present The Reading in the Courtyard at 122CC, Performance Space New York’s home, a tale set in a psychic’s waiting room with a white novelist and a Black fashion designer.

Begin the Beguine unfolds May 15 and 16 on a lawn in East Harlem, performed by April Matthis and Stacey Karen Robinson about an actress mother and her adult son and created with Charlotte Brathwaite, and The Healing is set in a Bed-Stuy park May 15-16 with Joie Lee, Schaal and Drury, as a white healer tries to help a Black woman with an unnamed illness.

In addition, Blain-Cruz’s installation “Last night, I dreamt I danced in the image of God” provides “a space for dance, rest and sustenance made for and in appreciation of Black women,” running May 15-16 and 22-23 from noon to 2:30 and 4:00 to 7:00 in the Courtyard at 122CC, and Davis’s audio-visual installation “The Essentialisn’t: Gold Taste” is open Thursdays to Sundays from May 29 to June 27 from noon to 6:00 at Performance Space New York’s Keith Haring Theatre and in the Courtyard, with occasional live sound interaction that asks the question “Can you be Black and not perform?” And finally, on May 15, “Afrofemononomy” will launch an online, international, interactive radio project. All events are free but require advance RSVP for timed tickets and because of limited space.

TWI-NY AT TWENTY: ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Who: Works by and/or featuring Moko Fukuyama, Joshua William Gelb, Gabrielle Hamilton, Jace, Elmore James, Jamal Josef, Katie Rose McLaughlin, Sara Mearns, Zaire Michel, Zalman Mlotek, Alicia Hall Moran, Patrick Page, Barbara Pollack, Seth David Radwell, Jamar Roberts, Tracy Sallows, Xavier F. Salomon, Janae Snyder-Stewart, Mfoniso Udofia, Anne Verhallen
What: This Week in New York twentieth anniversary celebration
Where: This Week in New York YouTube
When: Saturday, May 22, free with RSVP, 7:00 (available on demand through June 12)
Why: In April 2001, I found myself suddenly jobless when a relatively new Silicon Alley company that had made big promises took an unexpected hit. I took my meager two weeks’ severance pay and spent fourteen days wandering through New York City, going to museums, film festivals, parks, and tourist attractions. I compiled my experiences into an email I sent to about fifty friends, rating each of the things I had done. My sister’s husband enthusiastically demanded that I keep doing this, and This Week in New York was born.

Affectionately known as twi-ny (twhy-nee), it became a website in 2005 and soon was being read by tens of thousands of people around the globe. I covered a vast array of events – some fifteen thousand over the years – that required people to leave their homes and apartments and take advantage of everything the greatest city in the world had to offer. From the very start, I ventured into nooks and crannies to find the real New York, not just frequenting well-known venues but seeking out the weird and wild, the unusual and the strange.

For my tenth anniversary, we packed Fontana’s, a now-defunct club on the Lower East Side, and had live music, book readings, and a comics presentation. I had been considering something bigger for twenty when the pandemic lockdown hit and lasted longer than we all thought possible.

At first, I didn’t know what twi-ny’s future would be, with nowhere for anyone to go. But the arts community reacted quickly, as incredible dance, music, art, theater, opera, film, and hybrid offerings began appearing on numerous platforms; the innovation and ingenuity blew me away. The winners of twi-ny’s Pandemic Awards give you a good idea of the wide range of things I covered; you can check out part one here and part two here.

I devoured everything I could, from experimental dance-theater in a closet and interactive shows over the phone and through the mail to all-star Zoom reunion readings and an immersive, multisensory play that arrived at my door in a box. Many of them dealt with the fear, isolation, and loneliness that have been so pervasive during the Covid-19 crisis while also celebrating hope, beauty, and resilience. I’ve watched, reviewed, and previewed more than a thousand events created since March 2020, viewing them from the same computer where I work at my full-time job in children’s publishing.

Just as companies are deciding the future hybrid nature of employment, the arts community is wrestling with in-person and online presentations. As the lockdown ends and performance venues open their doors, some online productions will go away, but others are likely to continue, benefiting from a reach that now goes beyond their local area and stretches across the continents.

On May 22 at 7:00, “twi-ny at twenty,” produced and edited by Michael D. Drucker of Delusions International and coproduced by Ellen Scordato, twi-ny’s business manager and muse, honors some of the best events of the past fourteen months, including dance, theater, opera, art, music, and literature, all of which can be enjoyed for free from the friendly confines of your couch. There is no registration fee, and the party will be available online for several weeks. You can find more information here.

Please let me know what you think in the live chat, which I will be hosting throughout the premiere, and be sure to say hello to other twi-ny fans and share your own favorite virtual shows.

Thanks for coming along on this unpredictable twenty-year adventure; I can’t wait to see you all online and, soon, in real life. Here’s to the next twenty!

THE IMAGINED WORLDS OF MARWENCOL WITH JON RONSON AND MARK HOGANCAMP

American Folk Art Museum will host live discussion featuring Jon Ronson and Mark Hogancamp (Ronson photo by Emli Bendixen / Hogancamp photo courtesy of the artist and One Mile Gallery)

Who: Jon Ronson, Valérie Rousseau, Mark Hogancamp
What: Livestreamed discussion
Where: American Folk Art Museum Zoom
When: Tuesday, May 11, free with RSVP, 1:00
Why: In 2010, Jeff Malmberg’s documentary Marwencol introduced us to Mark Hogancamp, a man who, after suffering a nearly fatal beating from five bigots that resulted in a coma and brain damage, re-created his personal journey in his backyard using toys and dolls, captured in photographs. In 2015, Welsh-American journalist and screenwriter Jon Ronson did a feature on Hogancamp for the Guardian in which Hogancamp told him, “Marwencol was solely made up so I could kill those five guys. I had no way to do it in real life. I played it over in my head. I’d get caught. I’d go to prison. I’d get the chair. The first time I killed all five of them, I felt a little bit better. That violent hatred and anger subsided a little.” In conjunction with the American Folk Art Museum exhibition “PHOTO | BRUT: Collection Bruno Decharme & Compagnie,” consisting of works by such self-taught artists as Henry Darger, Albert Moser, Norma Oliver, Elke Tangeten, and Hogancamp, the institution is hosting the live Zoom discussion “The Imagined Worlds of Marwencol with Jon Ronson and Mark Hogancamp” with Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats, Okja), curator Valérie Rousseau, and Hogancamp, taking place May 11 at 1:00. Admission is free with RSVP; the exhibit continues through June 6.

PUBLIC ART FUND VIRTUAL TALKS: AWOL ERIZKU

Who: Awol Erizku, Daniel S. Palmer
What: Public Art Fund talk
Where: The Cooper Union on Zoom
When: Monday, May 10, free with RSVP, 5:00
Why: For his first public solo exhibition, Bronx-raised Cooper Union alum Awol Erizku has created New Visions for Iris, consisting of thirteen photographs taken during the pandemic and installed at 350 JCDecaux bus shelters around New York City and Chicago. “Certain images just need to be made, for them to be out in the world,” Erizku says in a video about the Public Art Fund project. “It’s an offering, sort of a dismantling and reconstruction of certain visual language I have seen and want to see. I think of these as like intellectual snapshots, ideas that I’m processing at that particular moment, and these things manifest in the image.” The snapshots are meant to begin dialogues, initially between the artist and his daughter but now among everyone. The exhibit continues through June 10; on May 10 at 5:00, Erizku will take part in a live conversation with Public Art Fund curator Daniel S. Palmer, presented in partnership with the Cooper Union.