this week in art

DAVID ZWIRNER: PROGRAM

Kerry James Marshall, detail, Black and part Black Birds in America (Red wing Blackbirds, Yellow Bellied Sapsucker, Scarlet Tanager), 2021 (© Kerry James Marshall)

PROGRAM
David Zwirner Online
Thursday, June 10, free, 10:00 am – 7:00 pm
www.davidzwirner.com

One of the most popular and innovative galleries in New York City, David Zwirner, will be kicking off its new online Program with an all-day global livestream event on June 10, consisting of six talks with thirty-five artists in four cities. The festivities begin at ten o’clock in the morning with a video walkthrough of Zwirner’s global galleries, led by directors and partners. At eleven, award-winning director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, The Underground Railroad) will discuss Kerry James Marshall’s “Black and part Black Birds in America” series. At one, Pulitzer Prize winner Hilton Als delves into Alice Neel’s figuration. At two-thirty, designers Emily Bode of BODE and Aaron Aujla and Benjamin Bloomstein of Green River Project LLC will explore conceptual art and appropriation. At four, 2020 Hugo Boss Prize recipient Deana Lawson examines the legacy of Diane Arbus. And at six, New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl will talk about the state of the art world today. All interactive conversations will be moderated by writer and curator Helen Molesworth.

“Over the last year we realized the traction and engagement that we could create on our own website, without an art-fair moment attached to it,” Zwirner said in a statement. “Because of this, we are establishing Program, a new event series that culminates the art calendar and brings together the energy and excitement we have seen in June, but on a global scale. It will mimic the in-person dialogue and discovery you would experience at a physical opening or an art fair through global livestreaming sessions. For the inaugural presentation of Program, our artists have created significant new artworks that will be seen for the very first time.”

Program will take viewers inside Zwirner’s galleries in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong, highlighting historic and brand-new works by such artists as Josef Albers, Francis Alÿs, Carol Bove, Raoul De Keyser, Stan Douglas, Marlene Dumas, Isa Genzken, Barbara Kruger, Yayoi Kusama, Sherrie Levine, Nate Lowman, Kerry James Marshall, Juan Muñoz, Oscar Murillo, Alice Neel, Chris Ofili, Sigmar Polke, Neo Rauch, Thomas Ruff, Dana Schutz, Wolfgang Tillmans, Luc Tuymans, Franz West, and Lisa Yuskavage; Christopher Williams helped design the stream with Deliverable: Video Asset nos. 1–10. To see the works in person, you can make appointments here; currently on view in New York City are Rose Wylie’s “Which One” and Bove’s “Chimes at Midnight,” with Kusama’s “I Want Your Tears to Flow with the Words I Wrote” opening June 17, followed June 24 with “More Life,” solo exhibits from Mark Morrisroe, Silence=Death, Derek Jarman, and Marlon Riggs in conjunction with the fortieth anniversary of the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis.

PERFORMANCE MIX FESTIVAL 2021

Lisa Parra and Daniel Pinheiro’s LAND Project kicks off Performance Mix Festival

PERFORMANCE MIX FESTIVAL
122 Community Center courtyard and Movement Research
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
June 10-13, suggested donation $15 per event
newdancealliance.org

The thirty-fifth annual Performance Mix Festival, hosted by New Dance Alliance at Movement Research at 122 Community Center and the Courtyard at 122CC, will be a hybrid of live and filmed experimental dances with immersive installations and a ritualistic happening in Prospect Park. Running June 10-13, the festival features such creators as Lisa Parra and Daniel Pinheiro, Dana Michel and Tracy Maurice, Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC, Degenerate Art Ensemble, and Anh Vo; tickets are a suggested donation of $15. Sari Nordman’s Tower will be on view all four days, a multimedia installation that explores climate change and the tower of Babel. All COVID-19 safety protocols will be observed; below is the complete schedule.

Thursday, June 10
Lisa Parra and Daniel Pinheiro, LAND Project, live and virtual, with Parra in New York and Pinheiro in Portugal using video-conferencing, 7:00

Anh Vo, non-binary pussy, live, 8:30

Friday, June 11
Andrew Tay, livestreamed performance of queer moments of reflection, transformation, dream, and perversion, 3:00

Dana Michel and Tracy Maurice, Lay them all down (video installation), 7:00

Shared program: Videos and films by Camilo Godoy (lecture-demonstration from What did they actually see?), Jil Guyon (Widow’s End and Coda), Rosy Simas (yödoishëndahgwa’geh [a place for rest]), and Andrew Tay, 8:00

Saturday, June 12
Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC, Baptism (Part I), part of Process memoir 6: thenowlater (HEART), ritualistic happening, Prospect Park, noon

Looking Back: Highlights from the Performance Mix Festival 1986-2020, 7:00

Shared program: Degenerate Art Ensemble (new work performed by director/dancer Haruko Crow Nishimura, composer/musician Joshua Kohl, and video artist Leo Mayberry, with costumes by Wyly Astley) and Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC, Baptism (Part II), 7:30

Sunday, June 13
Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez,” A Garden in the Shape of Dreams, noon

Shared program: Co-creation Hadley Smith/Johanna S. Meyer, Rachel Thorne Germond Performance Collage (Enigma of an Afternoon), we are: anna, Kimiko, s., Symara, Tara, Taylor, Ogemdi and marion (to love the rise/pt 2), and Yvonne Meier (Phantasiewelt, with music by Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori), 2:00

Shared program: Alethea Pace (excerpts from Here goes the neighborhood), Leslie Cuyjet, MOLLY&NOLA, and Nami Yamamoto (powerless creature keeps going . . . [working title]), 4:00

VIRTUAL MUSEUM MILE FESTIVAL 2021

Who: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neue Galerie New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Jewish Museum, Museum of the City of New York, El Museo del Barrio, the Africa Center, and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
What: Virtual arts festival
Where: Online (a few in-person events)
When: Tuesday, June 8, free, 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Why: For more than forty years, on the second Tuesday of June, art lovers packed the cultural institutions on Fifth Ave., from the Met to El Museo del Barrio, filling the streets and lining up to experience special programs inside and outside for a few hours. With Covid-19 regulations still in place for theaters and museums, the 2021 Museum Mile Festival will be hybrid, with a few events happening in person but most accessible by streaming from home, over Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Everything is free, although some events require advance RSVP, but another bonus is that the festival lasts twelve hours, from nine in the morning to nine at night. Below are some of the highlights from each participating museum.

The Africa Center
“‘Home Is . . .” Series #2: Home Is Where Music Is,’” with Sampa the Great, Wunmi, Jupiter & Okwess, Daniel Dzidzonu, Georges Collinet, Eme Awa, noon
Discussion with Jessica B. Harris, curator of “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table,” and Pierre Thiam, executive chef and co-owner of Teranga, 5:00
Virtual contribution to the Legacy Quilt; child-friendly animation workshop led by artist Ezra Wube

Museum of the City of New York
“Photographing City Life: Live Session with Photographer Janette Beckman,” 4:40
“Curators from the Couch: Stettheimer Dollhouse Up Close,” with Sarah Henry and Simon Doonan, 5:30
“Your Hometown: A Virtual Conversation with Playwright Lynn Nottage,” 6:00
“When the Garden Was Eden: Remembering the 1970s New York Knicks,” with Bill Bradley, Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bill Murray, and Harvey Araton, 7:00

The Jewish Museum
Lawrence Weiner talks about his career and All the Stars in the Sky Have the Same Face, on the facade of the museum; Rachel Weisz recites Louise Bourgeois’s own words on audio guide for “Louise Bourgeois, Freud’s Daughter”; Edmund de Waal and Adam Gopnik discuss de Waal’s latest book, Letters to Camondo; videos of poet Douglas Ridloff responding to the Jewish Museum collection in ASL; panel discussion about public art and equity in museums; family-friendly performances by Aaron Nigel Smith and Joanie Leeds; an interview with Rachel Feinstein about the exhibition “Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother, Crone”; discussion with artists Rachel Feinstein and Lisa Yuskavage, filmmaker Tamara Jenkins, and curator Kelly Taxter about storytelling, gender, and identity-based art making; family-friendly performance by the Paper Bag Players at Home

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
“Design at Home: Design a Repeating Pattern”; “Rebellion in Design: Developing a Blueprint for the Future,” with Virgil Abloh, James Wines, and Oana Stănescu; virtual tour of “Contemporary Muslim Fashions”; “Studio Series: Quilting,” with William Daniels, 4:00 (RSVP required)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
“Summer Solstice” live virtual tour of works featuring the sun and light; an audio guide for “Off the Record” exhibition; “Spotlight” video series with Guggenheim Abu Dhabi collection artists; prerecorded conversation with curator Vivien Greene and scholar Maile Arvin as part of the Artwork Anthology series, about Gauguin’s In the Vanilla Grove, Man and Horse

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Drop-in Drawing — “How to Draw The Met Using Perspective Drawing”; Storytime with the Met — You Can’t Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum; Silent Gallery Tour — the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing; Silent Gallery Tour — the Roof Garden Commission: Alex Da Corte, As Long as the Sun Lasts; MetTeens — “Little-Known Met”; #MetKids — “How Do You Dance in Armor?”; #MetKids — “How Did They Get All This Art into the Museum?”; Artist Interview — The Facade Commission: Carol Bove, The séances aren’t helping; “Conserving Degas,” with conservator Glenn Peterson

El Museo del Barrio
Virtual tour of “Estamos Bien — La Trienial 20/21” led by the curators; recorded interviews with participating artist Candida Alvarez; in-person outdoor performance by NYC-based Afro-Caribbean group San Simón at Central Park’s Harlem Meer at 6:00

Neue Galerie New York
Prerecorded lectures, virtual tours, and concerts

MAYA LIN: GHOST FOREST

Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest will decompose in Madison Square Park through mid-November (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Madison Square Park Oval Lawn
Exhibition continues through November 14
madisonsquarepark.org
whatismissing.net

Postponed for a year because of the pandemic, Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest is up and dying a slow death in Madison Square Park. The exhibition shines a light on climate change, logging practices, environmental degradation, extreme deprivation, and other human interventions that are destroying the natural world. Ghost Forest consists of forty-nine forty-foot-tall Atlantic white cedars from the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. The bare trees, around eighty years old, are not technically dead yet, but they will wither away through November 14 as the grass and trees of the park turn green around them over the summer before fading as fall heads into winter. “Throughout the world, climate change is causing vast tracts of forested lands to die off,” Lin says in her artist’s statement. “They are being called ghost forests; they are being killed off by rising temperatures, extreme weather events that yield saltwater intrusion, forest fires, and insects whose populations are thriving in these warmer temperatures, and trees that are more susceptible to beetles due to being overstressed from these rising temperatures. In southwestern Colorado where my family and I live in the summer, these forests — killed off by beetles — are all around us. As I approached thinking about a sculptural installation for Madison Square Park, I knew I wanted to create something that would be intimately related to the park itself, the trees, and the state of the earth.”

The “gentle giants,” as Lin calls them, form a kind of twisting maze that visitors can walk through (except in the rain.) The bare trunks and branches evoke griefs large and small: It’s hard not to think of the isolation and loss of the past fourteen months of the Covid-19 crisis; in addition, Lin’s husband, photography collector and dealer Daniel Wolf, died of a heart attack in January at the age of sixty-five. The display was supposed to consist of fifty trees, but one didn’t survive the transport, another fatality. Lin is most well known for her Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC; other earthworks and environmental installations by Lin include The Secret Life of Grasses at Storm King, Map of Memory: Hudson River Timeline at the Hudson River Museum, Seven Earth Mountain at Pier 94, A History of Water at the Orlando Museum of Art, and the 2011 short film Unchopping a Tree, which asks, “If deforestation were happening in your city, how quickly would you work to stop it?”

Forty-nine bare trees rise like doomed skyscrapers in Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Ghost Forest is part of Lin’s “What Is Missing?” project, an online global memorial where people can share memories of something from the natural world that has disappeared or is diminishing or discuss specific examples of ecological conservation and restoration. Be sure to listen to Ghost Forest Soundscape, thirteen minutes of sounds made by the gray fox, cougar, barred owl, American black bear, elk, harbor seal, bat, beaver, bottle nose dolphin, and wild turkey, a powerful reminder of living beings that once could be heard and seen in and around New York; in conjunction with Ghost Forest, there will also be a series of in-person and online talks. “We will be coordinating public programs that focus on nature-based solutions to climate change as well as highlighting the ecological history of Manhattan through a soundscape of species that were once common in the city,” Lin explains. “We are faced with an enormous ecological crisis — but I also feel that we have a chance to showcase what can be done to help protect species and significantly reduce the climate change emissions by changing our relationship to the land itself.” To counteract the project’s carbon footprint, Lin, the Natural Areas Conservancy, and the Madison Square Park Conservancy will be planting more than one thousand trees and shrubs across all five boroughs.

From June 1 to 11, the public is invited to answer the question “How has climate change altered your daily life?”; the responses will be posted on a reflection board at the north corner of the Oval Lawn as well as on social media. On June 4 at 9:00 am (free with advance RSVP), the park will host, on Zoom, its sixth annual public art symposium, “Greening Public Art,” highlighted by a keynote conversation with Lin, Rodale Institute board member Maria Rodale, Nature Conservancy in New York executive director Bill Ulfelder, and Perfect Earth Project founder Edwina von Gal, moderated by Andrew Revkin of the Earth Institute at Columbia. Other speakers include Una Chaudhuri, Marina Zurkow, Anita Fields, Nicholas Galanin, Allison Janae Hamilton, Tavares Strachan, and Lucia Pietroiusti and moderator Sarah Douglas. On June 15 at 6:00, the park and Fotografiska New York team up for an art talk with Gabriella Demczuk, who documents ghost forests across the United States; advance registration is required. On September 21 at 6:00 Fotografiska will host an art talk with Lin and Elizabeth Kolbert as part of Climate Week NYC, followed October 19 at 6:00 with Lin and von Gal discussing climate change with moderator Sarah Charlop-Powers. And on November 9 at 6:00, Fotografiska will livestream David Scott Kessler’s experimental film The Pine Barrens, with a live score by the Ruins of Friendship Orchestra. If only the world would listen.

In addition, Music on the Green is a series of live concerts with Carnegie Hall held on Wednesday nights within Ghost Forest; below is the full lineup:

Wednesday, July 7, 6:00
Music by Barber, Bartók, Copland, Caroline Shaw, others
Cort Roberts, horn
Adelya Nartadjieva, violin
Gergana Haralampieva, violin
Halam Kim, viola
Madeline Fayette, cello

Wednesday, July 14, 6:00
Music by Messiaen, Copland, Kaija Saariaho, Reena Esmail, others
Leo Sussman, flute
Wilden Dannenberg, horn
Jennifer Liu, violin
Halam Kim, viola
Madeline Fayette, cello

Wednesday, July 21, 6:00
Bach’s Goldberg Variations, India Gailey’s Mountainweeps, John Luther Adams’s Three High Places, others
Halam Kim, viola
TBD, violin
Arlen Hlusko, cello

Wednesday, July 28, 6:00
Andrea Casarrubios’s Speechless, Leven Zuelke’s At a Cemetery, and works by Ravel, Fauré, Debussy, and Ellington
Sae Hashimoto, percussion
Suliman Tekalli, violin
Ari Evan, cello

Wednesday, August 4, 6:00
Satie’s Gnossiennes, John Psathas’s Fragment, and works by Duke Ellington and Chick Corea
Ian Sullivan, vibraphone
Sae Hashimoto, marimba

Wednesday, August 11, 6:00
Hans Abrahamsen’s wind quintet Walden, Hannah Lash’s Leander and Hero, and works by Beach, Piazzolla, Still, others
Amir Farsi, flute
Stuart Breczinski, oboe
Yasmina Spiegelberg, clarinet
Nik Hooks, bassoon
Cort Roberts, horn

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!