this week in dance

HOT! FESTIVAL: KIDNAP ME

Tyler Ashley’s KIDNAP ME premieres July 21 at the HOT! Festival at Dixon Place (photo by Catherine Sun)

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street
Monday, July 21, $12-$15, 7:30
Festival continues through August 5
www.dixonplace.org
www.tylerashleyinfo.tumblr.com

Things are liable to get even hotter when Tyler Ashley premieres his latest work, Kidnap Me, at the twenty-third annual HOT! Festival: The NYC Celebration of Queer Culture. Last summer, the Brooklyn-based choreographer and dancer shed his clothes for Swadhisthana: The Event at NYPAC; the multidisciplinary genderqueer artist has also presented pieces on the High Line and Times Square while also dancing with STREB, Walter Dundervill, and others. His first evening-length work, the ninety-minute Kidnap Me, is a durational performance, inspired by Béla Tarr’s 2011 film The Turin Horse and the music of the late African American composer and performer Julius Eastman, that examines hunger, family, and stardom, focusing on the creative process. In his artist statement for New York Live Arts, Ashley explains, “I conduct experiments in desire, endurance, vulnerability, and determination by creating image-based dances inspired by sport, nightlife, physical labor, and excessiveness. . . . I work to push myself closer to the audience, challenging what they may expect and unsettling the performance space. I exploit the chaos present in the search for resolution.” Kidnap Me premieres July 21 at Dixon Place and will be performed by Ashley, Aranzazu Araujo, Sarah McSherry, Diego Montoya, Shane O’Neill, Rakia Seaborn, and Gillian Walsh. HOT! continues at Dixon Place through August 5 with such other programs as Lucas Brooks’s Cootie Catcher, Vincent Caruso’s Clueless, Joe Castle Baker’s Just Let Go, Anna/Kate’s Fear City / Fun City, Jack Feldstein’s Three Months with Pook, and J. Stephen Brantley’s Chicken-Fried Ciccone: A Twangy True Tale of Transformation.

CELEBRATE BROOKLYN! SHEN WEI DANCE ARTS

Shen Wei Dance Arts will perform MAP and more in free Celebrate Brooklyn show in Prospect Park on July 17

Prospect Park Bandshell
Prospect Park West & Ninth St.
Wednesday, July 17, free (suggested donation $3), 7:00
www.bricartsmedia.org
www.shenweidancearts.org

MacArthur Genius Shen Wei has led his New York City–based dance troupe into a wide range of locations since founding Shen Wei Dance Arts in 1995; the company has performed at the Park Avenue Armory, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Venice Biennale, and the Collezione Maramotti gallery in Italy, and the Chinese-born Shen was the lead choreographer for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. On July 17, SWDA will take the stage at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of the annual free Celebrate Brooklyn! festival. The company will perform the 2005 piece Map, a physically aggressive work about inner and outer movement, set to Steve Reich’s “The Desert Music” and featuring choreography, costumes, visual design, and set design by the multidisciplinary Shen. Also on the program is the “Zero-12” solo from last year’s Collective Measures, a physically aggressive work about isolation, set to music by Daniel Burke, with video projections by Shen, who designed the costumes with Austin Scarlett and the lighting with Matthew F. Lewandowski II. Shen’s works are always beautifully elegant, with stark, stunning costumes, intelligent music choices, and lovely movement vocabulary filled with unexpected treats, as evidenced by such presentations as Folding, Still Moving, Behind Resonance, and Rite of Spring.

WARM UP 2014 / HY-FI BY THE LIVING

Expect major crowds at weekly MoMA PS1 Warm Up dance party (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Warm Up: Saturdays through September 6, $18-$20, 3:00 – 9:00
“Hy-Fi”: Thursday – Monday through September 7, suggested admission $10 (free with paid MoMA ticket within fourteen days except during Warm Up), 12 noon – 6:00
718-784-2084
www.momaps1.org/warmup
www.momaps1.org/yap

The summer’s sweatiest dance party takes places every Saturday in Long Island City, as thousands of people gather in MoMA PS1’s courtyard for the weekly Warm Up celebration. Now in its seventeenth year, Warm Up features an international roster of prominent DJs and live performances on Saturdays from 3:00 to 9:00 on the dance floor located between the winning Young Architects Program urban design installation in the courtyard and the entrance to the old school building that became an arena for cutting-edge art back in 1971. During Warm Up, M. Wells Dinette serves alcoholic drinks indoors and hot food and cold drinks outdoors, including fried chicken, grilled mackerel yellow bean salad, a grilled veal heart hero, and maple water. On Saturdays, the exhibitions on the second and third floors close at 3:00, but the first-floor and basement shows (“Maria Lassnig,” “Korakrit Arunanondchai,” “Gavin Kenyon: Reliquary Void”) continue through 6:00. This week boasts one of the best lineups of the summer, with DJ sets by Mister Saturday Night (Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter) and Auntie Flo and live music by Cibo Matto, Archie Pelago, and Gabriel Garzón Montano; July 19 brings together Robert Hood, Objekt, Rrose, Vatican Shadow, Conatiner, and Young Male, while July 26 sees Cashmere Cat, Total Freedom, GoldLink, UNiiQU3, and Suicideyear take the stage at the top of the steps, joined by a rotating series of installations by CONFETTISYSTEM, Nightwood, the Principals, and others. Tickets are available for $18 in advance and $20 at the door; be prepared for some long lines the later you go. It’s incredibly easy to get to MoMA PS1, which is the third stop on the 7 from Grand Central. Once you get off the train, just follow the thumping music, which reverberates throughout the neighborhood.

Environmentally friendly organic towers rise in MoMA PS1 courtyard (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Next to the Warm Up area, in the center of the courtyard, stands “Hy-Fi,” the winner of MoMA PS1’s fifteenth annual Young Architects Program. Created by New York-based firm the Living headed by 2013 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow David Benjamin, the three conjoined towers were made using nearly 100% fully compostable and environmentally sustainable biological technologies in collaboration with Ecovative, 3M, Advanced Metal Coatings, Shabd Simon-Alexander and Audrey Louisere, Build It Green Compost, Brooklyn Digital Foundry, Columbia University (where Benjamin is an assistant professor in the Living Architecture Lab), and others. “Hy-Fi” contains approximately ten thousand remarkably light handmade bricks consisting of such organic waste materials as cornstalks and mushroom mycelium, held together by mortar. The shiny, glittering bricks at the top are actually the molds in which the rest of the bricks were grown. (There are also several vertical wooden beams that hold up the entryways, primarily as protection against strong winds and storms, which came in handy last week.) The small gaps between some of the bricks are strictly artistic, resulting in streams of sunlight and shadows. Construction required no energy (except for human) and almost zero carbon emissions; when the installation, which also provides much-needed cooling, is brought down after September 7, the entire structure will be recycled. Unfortunately, because of the size and unpredictability of the crowds during Warm Up, on Saturdays visitors are not allowed inside the twisting structure, which was influenced by the designs of Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudí, but you can take a break in the small pool and sit in other circular areas while drinking wine, beer, and other cocktails. The Living, which was founded in 2006 with “the mission of creating the architecture of the future,” won the YAP commission this year over Collective-LOK, LAMAS, Pita + Bloom, and Fake Industries Architectural Agonism; you can currently see an exhibition on all five submissions, as well as finalists from similar competitions in Italy, Chile, and South Korea, at MoMA’s midtown location.

LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2014

Houston Grand Opera sails into the Park Avenue Armory with THE PASSENGER as part of Lincoln Center Festival (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Lincoln Center and other locations
July 7 – August 16, $45-$175
212-721-6500
www.lincolncenterfestival.org

Although there are only five companies presenting at this year’s Lincoln Center Festival, there is plenty to see at this annual summer event that makes creative use of the otherwise vacated spaces usually inhabited by the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and previously, the New York City Opera, in addition to other locations. The festival kicks off with the welcome return of Japanese Kabuki theater company Heisei Nakamura-za for the first time since the 2012 death of star actor Nakamura Kanzaburō XVIII, but the centuries-old family legacy continues with his two sons, Nakamura Kankuro VI and Nakamura Shichinosuke II, leading a rare revival of the nineteenth-century samurai ghost story Kaidan Chibusa no Enoki (The Ghost Tale of the Wet Nurse Tree) at the Rose Theater July 7-12 ($45-$175). To heighten the atmosphere, Josie Robertson Plaza will be home to a Japanese Artisan Village through July 13, selling such items as nihon ningyo (hand-painted dolls), tenugui (cotton towels), and kanzashi (traditional hair ornaments). Award-winning Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker looks back at her past with four of her earliest pieces, 1982’s Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich, 1983’s Rosas danst Rosas, 1984’s Elena’s Aria, and 1987’s Bartók/Mikrokosmos, running July 8-16 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater ($35-$75). Now in her mid-fifties, De Keersmaeker will dance in two of the shows; she will also participate in a talk-back following the July 8 performance, a book presentation with Bojana Cvejić and moderator André Lepecki on July 12 (free and open to the public), and a discussion with Anna Kisselgoff on July 15 in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse (free with advance tickets).

Isabelle Huppert and Cate Blanchett team up in Lincoln Center Festival presentation of THE MAIDS (photo © Lisa Tomasetti)

The Houston Grand Opera sails into the Park Avenue Armory July 10-13 ($45-$250) with director David Pountney’s English-language adaptation of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger, the story of a former Nazi concentration camp overseer trying to escape her past; the impressive two-floor set consists of an ocean liner above and a prison camp below. Each performance will be preceded by a chamber concert by the ARC Ensemble playing works by Weinberg; in addition, there will be a special screening of Andrej Munk’s 1963 cinematic adaptation of Zofia Posmysz’s source novel on July 8 at 6:00 in the SHK Penthouse (free with advance tickets), followed by a discussion with Holocaust survivors and others. For the first time ever, the Bolshoi’s ballet, opera, orchestra, and chorus will appear together in New York City, beginning with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride July 12-13 at Avery Fisher Hall ($35-$100) and continuing with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake July 15-20 ($35-$125), Ludwig Minkus’s Don Quixote July 22-23 (with new choreography by Alexei Fadeyechev), and Aram Khachaturyan’s Spartacus July 25-27, all at the David H. Koch Theater. The festival concludes in a big way with the Sydney Theatre Company’s adaptation of Jean Genet’s The Maids, directed by Benedict Andrews and starring Cate Blanchett, Isabelle Huppert, and Elizabeth Debicki, playing August 6-16 at New York City Center ($35-$120, partial view seats still available).

NYC PRIDE 2014

The centerpiece of Pride Week is the annual March, bringing together a vast array of participants from across the spectrum (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations
June 24-29, free – $500
www.nycpride.org

The forty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots will be commemorated during NYC Pride Week, with events honoring the ongoing fight for LGBTQ rights scheduled from Tuesday through Sunday. The celebration begins with a free family screening of The Wizard of Oz on Tuesday night in Hudson River Park and continues with such annual traditions as the Rally, PrideFest, the March, and Dance on the Pier. The ticketed events are selling out fast, so you better act quickly if you want to shake your groove thang at some pretty crazy parties. The host organization is Heritage of Pride, which “works toward a future without discrimination where all people have equal rights under the law.”

Tuesday, June 24
Family Night: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming et al., 1939), with games and other entertainment, Pier 46, Hudson River Park at Charles St., free, 8:30 pm

Friday, June 27
The Rally, with live performances by Sharon Needles and Betty Who, emceed by Michelle Visage, Pier 26, Hudson River Park, free, 6:00 pm

Click Fridays, weekly dance party for men, with DJs Ivan Gomez, Tony Moran, and Wayne G, BPM New York, 516 West 42nd St., general admission $20, VIP $60, 11:00 pm

Saturday, June 28
VIP Rooftop Party, with DJs Dave Audé, Escape, and Nacho Chapado, Hudson Terrace, 621 West 46th St., $35-$500, 2:00 – 10:00 pm

Teaze, formerly known as Rapture on the River, exclusive party for women only, with DJs Dimples and Susan Levine, Pier 26, Hudson River Park at Laight St., general admission $25, VIP $75, 4:00 – 10:00 pm

WE Party, dance party and casino, with DJs Isaac Escalante and Micky Friedmann, Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th St., $85-$110, 10:00 pm – 7:00 am

Sunday, June 29
PrideFest, street fair with music, food, merchandise, and live performances by De’Borah, Kim Joyce, Garek, Detoxx Busti-ae, Safiel Vonay, Cherie Lily, Karine Hannah, Caracole A Richards, Samia, Mighty Real, Adam Joseph, Vanessa Valtre, Dimitri Minucci, Godfrey Arbulu, and Ray Isaac, emceed by Dina Delicious, Hudson St. between Abingdon Sq. & West 14th St., free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

The March, with grand marshals Laverne Cox, Rea Carey, and Jonathan Groff, Lavender Line from 36th St. & Fifth Ave. to Christopher & Greenwich Sts., free, 12 noon

Dance on the Pier, with live performance by Demi Lovato and DJs Pagano and Grind, Pier 26, Hudson River Park at Laight St., $50-$209, 4:00 – 10:00 pm

RIVER TO RIVER: DANCE

Eiko Otake and Tomoe Aihara will perform site-specific TWO WOMEN on Governors Island June 20 & 22 (photo by William Johnston)

Multiple locations
June 19-29, free
www.lmcc.net/program/river-to-river

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s annual summer arts festival, River to River, is shorter than ever this year, running only eleven days, but they are packing a whole lot into that time, especially when it comes to dance, which features several choreographers who have participated in twi-ny talks over the last few years; in fact, it feels like we could have curated this exciting lineup. On June 20 and 22 at 2:00, the New York–based Eiko Otake, half of the longtime dance duo Eiko & Koma, will perform the site-specific Two Women with Japan-based dancer Tomoe Aihara on Governors Island, exploring their differences in age and geography. On June 20 at 3:00 and June 21 at 1:00 and 3:00, dance fans who missed Vanessa Anspaugh’s We Were an Island earlier this year at Danspace will get another chance to see the work, inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s book The Faraway Nearby, about creating stories and making connections; Anspaugh will perform the piece with Addys Gonzalez and Bessie McDonough-Thayer at Building 10A in Nolan Park on Governors Island. On June 21 at 9:00, “R2R Living Room: Everyday I’m Hustlin’” brings together food and drink with a Hustle-inspired piece from Ephrat Asherie Dance and DJ Hector Arce-Espasas at Nelson Blue at the South Street Seaport. On June 22 at 4:30, “In Conversation: Susan Rosenberg on Trisha Brown” takes place at LMCC’s Arts Center on Governors Island, with art historian Rosenberg and Trisha Brown dancer Tamara Riewe sharing their thoughts on the legendary choreographer, in conjunction with the multimedia exhibition “Trisha Brown: Embodied Practice and Site-Specificity,” which continues through September 28. Tere O’Connor will present a new, site-specific duet for Michael Ingle and Silas Riender at the Elevated Acre June 23-25 at 1:00. Souleyman Badolo’s , of history (Virgule de l’histoire) examines transformation and acceptance, June 24 at 3:00 and June 25 at 3:00 & 5:00 in the John Street United Methodist Church courtyard.

Reggie Wilson’s . . . MOSES(ES) is part of exciting River to River dance lineup this month (photo courtesy of the artist)

On June 25 at 2:45 and June 26 at 1:45 and 3:45 at St. Cornelius Chapel on Governors Island, Reggie Wilson’s . . . Moses(es) explores the concept of leadership. On June 25 at 7:00 on Pier 15, the Trisha Brown Dance Company will hold a public dress rehearsal of the choreographer’s final piece, “I’m going to toss my arms — if you catch them they’re yours,” followed the next afternoon at 4:00 by the official performance. On June 26 at 5:00 and June 27-28 at 120 Wall St., Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey continue their eight-part collaboration with the fifth installment, The Set Up: I Nyoman Catra, creating a new work with Topeng master Nyoman Catra. And on June 27 at 3:00 and June 28 at 3:00 and 5:00 in Bowling Green, Maria Hassabi will restage her grippingly original Premiere, which takes another unusual look at the relationship between audience and performer; Hassabi will also participate in the panel discussion “In Conversation: Maria Hassabi, Paolo Javier, and Kaneza Schaal” June 27 at 7:00 at Poets House. River to River and LMCC have put together one helluva dance lineup that actually has us salivating; be sure to catch at least one of these fab events, which are all free.

CEDAR LAKE CONTEMPORARY BALLET: TENTH ANNIVERSARY SEASON

Cedar Lake will perform Jo Strømgren’s NECESSITY, AGAIN as part of tenth anniversary celebration at BAM (photo by Paula Lobo)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
June 11-14, $20-$55, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.cedarlakedance.com

Chelsea-based Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet is celebrating its tenth anniversary season by making its BAM debut this week. The company, which was founded by Wal-Mart heiress Nancy Laurie in 2003, is known for its intense physicality and often jaw-dropping athleticism, performing works by a wide range of international choreographers. Now under the leadership of longtime ballet master and rehearsal director Alexandria Damiani, who was recently named artistic director following Benoit-Swan Pouffer’s departure last year, the sixteen-member company will present five works over three programs June 11-14 at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House. The evening-length Orbo Novo (June 11 & 13), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s adaptation of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book about her recovery from a stroke, is a spectacular piece, with music by Szymon Brzóska (played live by the Mosaic String Quartet) and a mind-blowing set by Alexander Dodge. Composer and choreographer Hofesh Shechter’s Violet Kid (June 12) has a postapocalyptic feel, with the score performed live by a cello, viola, and double bass ensemble. Alexander Ekman’s Tuplet (June 12 & 14) features Amith A. Chandrashaker’s lighting design with rectangular boxes, along with video projections and Mikael Karlsson’s jazzy music. Jo Strømgren’s playful Necessity, Again (June 12 & 14) includes flying papers, songs by Charles Aznavour, and text by Jacques Derrida. “The necessity to formulate everything in words, even the theme of necessity itself, is possibly a disease of our time,” Strømgren explains. “This piece is an homage to the free space between the words — to the moments when we just want to be emotional and not rational.” And associate choreographer Crystal Pite’s Grace Engine (June 14) combines Jim French’s lighting and Owen Belton’s score to let the company really show off its many strengths. (Cedar Lake will also present a free showcase of works in progress at its Chelsea headquarters July 29-30 as part of its inaugural Cedar Lab initiative, in which Cedar Lake dancers Jon Bond, Navarra Novy-Williams, Matthew Rich, Joaquim de Santana, and Vânia Doutel Vaz will create new pieces for the company.)