this week in dance

AILEY AT LINCOLN CENTER 2015

AAADT’s Antonio Douthit-Boyd and Linda Celeste Sims perform in Wayne McGregor’s CHROMA (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be performing Wayne McGregor’s CHROMA for the last time at Lincoln Center, while also saying farewell to longtime dancer Antonio Douthit-Boyd (and his husband, fellow dancer Kirven Douthit-Boyd) (photo by Paul Kolnik)

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
June 10-21, $25 – $135
212-496-0600
www.alvinailey.org
www.davidhkochtheater.com

In June 2013, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performed at Lincoln Center for the first time in thirteen years. The late-spring season is now becoming an annual event, as the troupe, which takes over City Center every December, will be back at the David Koch Theater for the third straight year. From June 10 to 21, AAADT will present eighteen works across fourteen programs, in addition to an opening-night gala. New pieces include the world premiere of Rennie Harris’s Exodus, the company premiere of artistic director Robert Battle’s No Longer Silent, and new productions of Talley Beatty’s Toccata and Judith Jamison’s “A Case of You” duet from Reminiscin’. Also on the schedule are Battle’s Strange Humors and whirlwind Takademe, Ronald K. Brown’s elegant Grace, Jacqulyn Buglisi’s female celebration Suspended Women, Ulysses Dove’s Bad Blood, Matthew Rushing’s overly earnest ODETTA, Hofesh Shechter’s exhilarating Uprising, and Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain Pas de Deux, along with the Ailey classics Night Creature and Revelations. The Saturday afternoon family matinees will be followed by Q&As with the dancers, and Ailey Extension instructor Eddie Stockton will lead a free house dance class on June 11 at 6:00 on Josie Robertson Plaza, with music by DJ C Boogie. The company will also be presenting Wayne McGregor’s physically exertive Chroma for the final time while also saying goodbye to two longtime members, married couple Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd, who will stay with Ailey through a Paris engagement at the Théâtre du Châtelet in July, then become the artistic directors of the Center of Creative Arts in St. Louis.

FAREWELL, CEDAR LAKE

Matthew Rich leads the final Cedar Lake revolution at BAM in MY GENERATION (photo by Juliet Cervantes)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
June 3-6, $20-$55
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
cedarlakedance.com

It was hard not to be stirred when, during Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s final week ever, in the world premiere of My Generation, longtime company member Matthew Rich grooved to the front of BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House stage and lip synced to Atom™’s loud, industrial remix of the Who’s 1965 revolutionary classic, defiantly mouthing, “People try to put us d-down / Just because we g-g-get around / Things they do look awful c-c-cold / I hope I die before I get old,” followed by a false ending, as the curtain came down and then rose up again and the piece continued. This past March, it was announced that the Chelsea-based company, which began in 2003 financed solely by Walmart heiress Nancy Laurie — earning it both envy and jealousy from other dance organizations that have to struggle for money — would be shutting its doors because Laurie was removing her funding. Cedar Lake is at BAM June 3–6 for its farewell performances, and on Friday night they dazzled the loyal, dedicated crowd, which hooted and hollered regularly during My Generation, a dynamic, energetic work, choreographed by Richard Siegal, that shows off the dancers’ sheer athleticism (with nods to Alvin Ailey, Karole Armitage, Ronald K. Brown, and others). Bernhard Willhelm’s colorful costumes might be silly and frilly, but that didn’t detract from some jaw-dropping movement, especially by Ebony Williams, who towered over everyone while en pointe, then lifted her muscular legs impossibly toward the sky, and Rich, who gyrated with exhilarating abandon.

Crystal Pite’s TEN DUETS ON A THEME OF RESCUE is centerpiece of Cedar Lake farewell at BAM (photo by Juliet Cervantes)

Things calmed down considerably with the evening’s middle section, one of the company’s signature works, Crystal Pite’s lovely, meditative Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, a series of pas de deux performed within a semicircle of fifteen Klieg lights on movable poles and three spots above. Joaquim de Santana, Vânia Doutel Vaz, Joseph Kudra, Navarra Novy-Williams, and Rich take turns on the otherwise black and smoky stage, coming together to instrumental music from Cliff Martinez’s soundtrack for Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Solaris. If anything, Ten Duets is too short at less than twenty minutes, which perhaps only adds to its poignant intimacy — as does its title, which takes on new meaning since the company itself could not be rescued. The evening concluded with the New York premiere of Johan Inger’s Rain Dogs, a Pina Bausch–inspired piece of dance theater in which Bond, Concepcion, Santana, Doutel Vaz, Novy-Williams, Guillaume Quéau, Rich, Ida Saki, and Jin Young Won, wearing subtle, everyday clothing (that changes fabulously midway through), glide, slide, writhe, and line up to such Tom Waits songs as “Make It Rain,” “Dirt in the Ground,” “Hoist That Rag,” and “The Piano Has Been Drinking.” The work, which contains playful humor, whispering to the audience, and clever, inventive set pieces built around old radios, tape recorders, and speakers, was particularly bittersweet given that the Howard Gilman Opera House has been the New York home of Tanztheater Wuppertal for more than thirty years, and now not only is Bausch herself gone, having passed away in 2009, but this week we have to say goodbye to the immensely talented Cedar Lake, who on Saturday night will take its final bow and just f-f-fade away after presenting Jiří Kylián’s Indigo Rose, Ten Duets, and Jo Strømgren’s Necessity, Again.

EGG ROLLS, EGG CREAMS, AND EMPANADAS FESTIVAL 2015

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, June 7, free, 12 noon – 4:00 pm
212-219-0302
www.eldridgestreet.org

The fifteenth annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams block party is adding quite a twist this year, bringing together not only the Jewish and Chinese communities of the Lower East Side but also the Puerto Rican community. Taking place June 7, the festival will include food and drink, live music (klezmer, salsa, bomba, and plena) and dance, history, culture, and lots more. Among the highlights of the festival are the kosher egg creams and egg rolls — and new this year, empanadas — as well as yarmulke and challah workshops, tea ceremonies, Yiddish, Mandarin, and Spanish lessons, Hebrew and Chinese calligraphy classes, mah jongg, cantorial songs, Peking Opera, Chinese and Puerto Rican mask making, face painting, and free tours of the wonderfully renovated Eldridge St. Synagogue, which boasts the East Window designed by Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans. In past years, the festival has included performances by the Chinatown Senior Center Folk Orchestra, Qi Shu Fang’s Peking Opera, the Shashmaqam Bukharan Jewish Cultural Group, Ray Muziker Klezmer Ensemble, and Cantor Eric Freeman, some of whom will be back again for this year’s multicultural celebration.

CEDAR LAKE CONTEMPORARY BALLET FAREWELL PERFORMANCES

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
June 3-6, $20-$55
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
cedarlakedance.com

For a dozen years, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet has been one of the most innovative and entertaining American dance companies, an immensely talented troupe collaborating with an impressive collection of international choreographers. So it will be more than a little bittersweet when Cedar Lake comes to BAM this week for its final farewell performances, as it was announced earlier this year that the Chelsea-based group was closing its doors for good when its primary donor, Walmart heiress Nancy Laurie, decided to pull the plug on her contributions. Under the leadership of artistic director Alexandra Damiani, Cedar Lake will be at the Howard Gilman Opera House June 3-6, presenting two programs of company favorites and new works. Program A (June 3 & 5) consists of 2008’s Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, choreographed by Crystal Pite, with costumes by Junghyun Georgia Lee and music from Cliff Martinez’s soundtrack for Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Solaris; the New York premiere of Rain Dogs, with choreography, sets, and costumes by Johan Inger and music by Tom Waits; and the world premiere of My Generation, choreographed by Richard Siegal, with costumes by Bernhard Willhelm and music by Atom™. Program B (June 4 & 6) includes Ten Duets as well, in addition to 2013’s Indigo Rose, with choreography and décor by Jiří Kylián, costumes by Joke Vissar, and music by Robert Ashley, François Couperin, John Cage, and J. S. Bach, and 2012’s Necessity, Again, choreographed by Jo Strømgren, with costumes by Lee, music by Charles Aznavour, text by Jacques Derrida, and additional music by Bergmund Skaslien. It’s worth mentioning each member of this versatile, virtuosic company, several of whom have been with Cedar Lake for quite some time: Jon Bond, Nickemil Concepcion, Navarra Novy-Williams, Matthew Rich, Joaquim de Santana, Vânia Doutel Vaz, Ebony Williams, Rachelle Scott, Ida Saki, Jin Young Won, Joseph Kudra, Guillaume Quéau, Madeline Wong, Raymond Pinto, and apprentices Daphne Fernberger and Patrick Coker.

BROOKLYN SPACES BOOK LAUNCH

Who: Oriana Leckert, Hungry March Band, Morgan O’Kane, Batala NYC, Stefan Zeniuk, DJ Dirtyfinger, the Artist Formerly Known as Anya Sapozhnikova and others from House of YES, Dani Leigh & Demi Fyrce of Big Sky Works
What: Book party celebrating the launch of Brooklyn Spaces: 50 Hubs of Culture and Creativity (Monacelli Press, May 19, $29.95)
Where: Gowanus Ballroom, 55 Ninth St.
When: Saturday, May 30, free (suggested donation $10), 7:00 – late
Why: In her new book expanded from her popular website, Brooklyn Spaces, Oriana Leckert selects fifty of the most unusual and fascinating places in Brooklyn, documenting, as she writes in the introduction, “the Brooklyn I know, the Brooklyn that is mine, the Brooklyn that endlessly inspires me with its passion, innovation, and experimentation.” On May 30, Leckert will host a crazy-mad book party at the Gowanus Ballroom, one of the locations detailed in the book. “One of the most perfect representations of a Brooklyn underground arts space, the Gowanus Ballroom succeeds beautifully at artistic exhibition, cultural advancement, and creative commerce, all within a gorgeously strange historic building,” Leckert writes. (Other spots included in the book are Brooklyn Brainery, Flux Factory, the Invisible Dog, the Morbid Anatomy Museum, the Schoolhouse, Superhero Supply Co., and the Swamp.) The all-night book launch will feature art, music, dance, photography, and lots of unpredictable goings-on, selected from other cultural institutions and artist houses singled out in the book.

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

The Queen of the Night (Katherine Crockett) greets her loyal subjects in immersive theatrical event (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Diamond Horseshoe, Paramount Hotel
235 West 46th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 28, $195-$475
212-706-7448
queenofthenightnyc.com
www.diamondhorseshoe.com

“This is the best dinner theater ever,” my companion said to me about halfway through Queen of the Night, the immersive, all-inclusive presentation running at the resurrected Diamond Horseshoe at the Paramount Hotel. The six-thousand-square-foot nightclub, which was opened by impresario Billy Rose in 1938 and hosted many a celebrity and performer until its closing in 1951, is now home to the decadently delightful Queen of the Night, a three-hour affair inspired by Mozart’s The Magic Flute and the real-life adventures of the Marchesa Luisa Casati, the Italian heiress, patron, muse, and original female dandy who once declared, “I want to be a living work of art.” And that’s exactly what she is in the show, as portrayed by Martha Graham veteran Katherine Crockett in a tantalizing mask and an elegant, dramatic flowing white gown accessorized by two life-size sculptures of caressing gold hands. The abstract narrative ostensibly follows young initiate Pamina (Valerie Benoit-Charbonneau), the Marchesa’s daughter, who is caught between the sorcerer Sarastro (Will Underwood) and her true love, Tamino (Tristan Nielsen). But Queen of the Night is really about lavish spectacle, as minor characters perform dazzling acrobatics, diving through hoops, climbing poles, juggling unusual objects, riding a Cyr wheel, and dangling from the ceiling from aerial silk. (The circus elements come courtesy of Shana Carroll and her Montreal troupe Les 7 Doigts de la Main, including Olaf Triebel, Emilie Desvergne, and Zia Zhengqi; members of the company also appear in Diane Paulus’s current revival of Pippin.)

The audience sits around the central stage at the renovated and restored Diamond Horseshoe (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Ultimately, how much you enjoy Queen of the Night is up to you; the more adventurous and open you are to just about anything, the more unpredictable and exciting the experience will be. Upon entering the transformed, glittering nightclub, you are encouraged to explore, and explore you should, checking out every nook and cranny that security allows; you’ll find strange artifacts of a time gone by, perhaps get picked to pay tribute to the queen, and maybe even help shave Pamina’s legs in a bathtub while a man reads from a book about the G-spot. During the show, you are likely to get stroked by various servant-slave butlers or the queen herself and might also be chosen to take part in some of the wild activities going on around the stage. And if you want to taste all of the food — the kitchen serves salmon Wellington, chicken, and lamb you slice yourself, with various accompaniments — you’ll have to get up from your table and trade portions with strangers.

Performers get up close and personal in immersive QUEEN OF THE NIGHT (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Conceived by Randy Weiner, the producer of the Macbeth-inspired Sleep No More and cocreator (with Paulus, his wife) of the Midsummer Night’s Dream-based The Donkey Show, Queen of the Night is directed by Tony-nominated scenic designer Christine Jones (Spring Awakening, American Idiot), who is also currently helming the very different Theatre for One piece I’m Not the Stranger You Think I Am, a show of minimalist five-minute one-actor plays by famous playwrights for one audience member at a time. QOTN requires somewhat more intensive staging than that: Also deserving praise are lighting designer Austin R. Smith, fashion designer Thom Browne, set (and scent?!) designer Douglas Little, choreographer Lorin Latarro, interior designer Meg Sharpe, creative director Giovanna Battaglia, and executive chef Jason Kallert. As immersive theater goes, Queen of the Night has it all, mixing contemporary dance, acrobatics, fab costumes, magic, audience participation, and good food. There are three ticket levels, Gala ($195), Premium ($275), and Ultimate ($475), each of which comes with dinner but otherwise includes different amenities, seating, and access. If you allow yourself to get swept up in all the titillating pageantry, well, Queen of the Night just might be the best dinner theater ever.

TRAVELOGUES: KIMBERLY BARTOSIK AND DYLAN CROSSMAN

Dylan Crossman and Kimberly Bartosik will present world premieres in Travelogues series at Abrons Arts Center

Who: Kimberly Bartosik and Dylan Crossman
What: Travelogues
Where: Abrons Arts Center Experimental Theater, 466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
When: May 20-23, $20, 8:00
Why: Abrons Arts Center’s new Travelogues series, which debuted earlier this year with a presentation by Daniel Léveillé Danse, continues May 20-23 with a shared program featuring the world premieres of Kimberly Bartosik’s Ecsteriority4 (Part 2) and Dylan Crossman’s Bound. Both works, by former Merce Cunningham dancers, are constructed around borders and boundaries; the former is a trio for Marc Mann, Melissa Toogood, and Crossman in which a wall plays a key component, while the latter is a solo by Crossman, performed while tied to rope, limiting his movement. (The two parts of Ecsteriority4 will come together at the Chocolate Factory in September 2016.) The Travelogues series, which is curated by Laurie Uprichard, continues in the fall with ponydance’s Anybody Waitin’? and Lionel Popkin’s Ruth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.