this week in dance

JACK FERVER: MON MA MES

Jack Ferver will examine his life and his work in special Crossing the Line Festival presentation at FIAF (photo by Yaniv Schulman)

CROSSING THE LINE
Le Skyroom, French Institute Alliance Française
22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Saturday, October 6, $20-$25, 8:00
Festival runs through October 14, free- $45
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Back in May, New York City-based dancer, choreographer, and writer Jack Ferver told us, “The ego begins with ‘Me, not me.’ As an artist I make my work so that people donʼt feel as lonely as I have felt. Therefore my work expands into something more akin to ‘I am you.’” The man behind such well-received shows as Rumble Ghost, A Movie Star Needs a Movie, Swann!!!, I Am Trying to Hear Myself, and Two Alike will once again be looking at his life in Mon Ma Mes, which is being presented October 6 at the French Institute Alliance Française as part of the 2012 multidisciplinary Crossing the Line Festival. Ferver, who regularly crosses the line between fantasy and reality, fiction and nonfiction, will analyze himself while also performing and deconstructing one of his pieces. Ferver’s work always cleverly balances chaos, humor, introspection, movement, intelligence, and playful stagecraft in entertaining ways, so this promises to be another unique and memorable night in his growing ouevre.

BODYART: LOFT

Erin Yokayama becomes a predatory bird in New York City premiere of BODYART’s LOFT (photo by David M. Burns)

Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Ave. at 25th St.
October 4-6, $20, 8:00
646-312-5073
www.baruch.cuny.edu
www.bodyartdance.com

Founded by artistic director Leslie Scott in 2006, Astoria-based BODYART specializes in multimedia performances that meld the physical with the imaginative. This week the nine-member company will present two New York City premieres and one world premiere at Baruch, centered around Loft. On a stage covered in a snowlike material and with a row of small bright lights behind them, nine dancers (Rachel Abrahams, Madeline Day, Michele Jongeneel, Alexandra Karigan, Megan Krauszer, Stephanie Mas, Allison Ploor, Kathy VanDereedt, and Erin Yokayama) in black tutus move about the space like a flock of predatory birds to a live, contemporary classical score by W4 New Music performed by PUBLIQuartet. In addition, the world premiere of I want . . . features Abrahams in a solo piece, interacting with animated video by Adam Scher and illustrator Ryan Taylor. The evening also includes 2010’s Script, a piece for seven dancers commissioned by Denton High School in Texas and set to a Philip Glass composition that has been rearranged by the students.

OPENHOUSENEWYORK WEEKEND

Green-Wood Cemetery is among the many historic locations opening its doors and gates to visitors for free during openhousenewyork Weekend (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
Saturday, October 6, and Sunday, October 7
Admission: free (advance reservations required for some sites)
OHNY Passport: $150
212-991-OHNY
www.ohny.org

The fabulous openhousenewyork Weekend celebrates its tenth anniversary by once again offering people the opportunity to experience the nooks and crannies of many of New York City’s most fascinating architectural constructions. Among this year’s special programs, some of which require advance reservations even though admission is free, are Designers’ Open House, with such interior designers as Thomas Jayne, Ali Tayar, Paul Ochs, Aizaki Allie, Christopher Coleman, and Lea Ciavarra inviting guests into their private homes; the Peace Bike Ride led by Nadette Stasa of Time’s Up!; a treasure hunt for kid explorers at the Park Avenue Armory; “Dance on the Greenway,” with Dance Theatre Etcetera performing site-specific pieces by four emerging choreographers in Erie Basin Park behind the Red Hook IKEA; “Paseo,” consisting of short works by choreographer Joanna Haigood and composer Bobby Sanabria that take place on fire escapes and stoops at Casita Maria in the Bronx; “Spirits Alive,” with actors in period costumes portraying famous people buried in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens; “Wilderness Plan,” in which costumed dancing creatures lead people through the Elevated Acre in the Financial District; and “Frost Court,” a performance installation featuring dancers Jon Kinzel, Silas Riener, Stuart Shugg, Saul Ulerio, Enrico Wey, and Aaron Mattocks. Although some of the special tours are already booked, plenty of others have vacancies or are first come, first served (unless you buy a $150 front-of-line Passport), so you can still check out the Fading Ads of New York City with Frank Jump, the Manhole Covers of Fourteenth St. with Michele Brody, the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Spaces, the Harlem Edge: 135th St. Marine Transfer Station, the Bronx River Right-of-Way, the Kings County Distillery Tour, Historic Richmond Town, the Noguchi Museum, the New York City Photo Safari for shutterbugs, the Lakeside at Prospect Park Construction Tour, the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, the Tenriko Mission New York Center, the Alice Austen House Museum, Fort Totten, the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, the Grand Lodge of Masons, the New York Marble Cemetery and the New York City Marble Cemetery, the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, Scandinavia House, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, Merchant’s House Museum, the Jefferson Market Library, the Little Red Lighthouse, the High Line, the African Burial Grounds, and so many, many more. The annual opendialogue series features talks and tours at such locations as the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at BLDG 92, Runner & Stone, UrbanGlass, the East Harlem School, the Horticultural Society of New York, the Museum of the Moving Image, New York City Center, and the TWA Flight Center at JFK. Keep watching the official website for late changes, additions, sell-outs, and other updated information.

DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL

“Codex Dynamic” is a highlight of the sixteenth annual DUMBO Arts Festival

Multiple venues in DUMBO
September 30, free
www.dumboartsfestival.com

The sixteenth annual DUMBO Arts Festival concludes on Sunday, with another diverse collection of live performances, multimedia exhibitions, interactive installations, and more, continuing into the night. Musicians such as the Well-Informed, Joseph Brent, the Soulfolk Experience, Church of Betty, and WYATT will perform in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The White Wave Dance Company will lead a grand finale at Fulton Ferry Landing. Iviva Olenick turns people’s tweets and Post-it confessions into embroidered musings. Martin Janicek will play his unique Metal Bow. Visitors can participate in Wildbytes’ “Superhero,” making it look like they can fly across buildings. Nathaniel Lieb’s “Tidal Voyage” floats on the East River. Shaun El C. Leonardo and Gabriele Tinti present The Way of the Cross, their book about boxer Arturo Gatti. Leo Kuelbs and John Esnor Parker have curated “Codex Dynamic,” mapped projections that will be beamed onto the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage and Archway. Will Scott will play the blues, while Howard Brofsky will host the jazz program Dr Bebop and Glocals. Jimmy O’Neal and Rebecca Parker will clog around the neighborhood in “Transporting Location.” Frank Viva will read from his children’s book A Trip to the Bottom of the World with Mouse. Entasis Dance will incorporate sculpture into performance. Amisha Gadani will make her way around the area in “Animal Inspired Defensive Dresses.” Josephine Decker will be at the forefront of a fish-headed “School Evacuation.” The Friendly Falcons will roam about with musical architectural interventions. A simple touch sets Michael Rosen and Eszter Osvald’s “Neurime” instrument into action. Alan Ruiz’s “Heist” uses a red laser and mirrors to alter perception. Stacy Scibelli’s “Sabotage I, II, & III” invites people to wear tickle machines. And that is only some of what is going on at such locations as Brooklyn Bridge Park, Empire Stores, the powerHouse Arena, 111 Front St., Tobacco Warehouse, East River Cove, 81 Washington St., and galleries along Jay, York, and Adams Sts.

JASON AKIRA SOMMA: PHOSPHENE VARIATIONS

“Phosphene Variations” performance series will bring together live dancers and performance artists with their holographic versions

Location One
26 Greene St. between Grand & Canal Sts.
Exhibition runs Tuesday – Saturday through October 3, free; weekly Wednesday or Thursday performances, $10
212-334-3347
www.location1.org

Premiered as an experimental work-in-progress in December 2010 at the Watermill Center and later presented at the National Theatre of Paris, Brooklyn-based Virginia native Jason Akira Somma’s “Phosphene Variations” is now on view at Location One in SoHo through November 17. [Ed. note: Due to technical difficulties, the exhibition was forced to close on October 3.] The interactive exhibition features free-floating holograms of such dancers and performance artists as Robert Wilson, Laurie Anderson, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Carmen DeLavallade, Bill Shannon, Frances Wessells, Jirí Kylián, and Joan Jonas, who seemingly react when “touched.” In addition, there will be weekly live performances ($10, 7:00) Wednesdays in September and October and Thursdays in November in which several of Somma’s subjects will be on hand to improvise live with their holographic image, with real-time video feedback provided by Somma and live music by electro-acoustic cellist Christopher Lancaster. Curated by dance artist Luke Miller, the schedule includes Flexors on September 26, Miss Dirty Martini, Julie Atlas Muz, and Monstah Black on October 10, Brian Brooks on October 17, Jeanine Durning and Manelich Minniefee on October 24, and Susan Marshall & Company, Bill Shannon, and Vanessa Walters on November 8, concluding on November 15 with Phosphene Redux, a closing party highlighted by the return of various of the artists who previously performed. [Ed. note: The October 10 performance will be the last one, with the others canceled as a result of the unfortunate shutdown of the exhibition.]

BEAT FESTIVAL

The crowd is part of the show in Noémie Lafrance’s CHOREOGRAPHY FOR AUDIENCES — TAKE ONE at the BEAT Festival

BROOKLYN EMERGING ARTISTS IN THEATER
Multiple venues in Brooklyn
September 12-23, $15-$35
www.beatbrooklyn.com

A celebration of community performance focusing on live music, dance, spoken word, and theater, the BEAT Festival gets under way September 12, kicking off twelve days of thirty-eight performances by thirteen acts in eight venues. Standing for Brooklyn Emerging Artists in Theater, BEAT will feature Lemon Andersen’s County of Kings, his one-man show about growing up in Brooklyn; American Opera Projects and Opera on Tap’s OPERAtion Brooklyn, featuring songs by One Ring Zero, Daniel Felsenfeld’s “A Genuine Willingness to Help (Book I),” and Sidney Marquez Boguiren and Daniel Neer’s “Stop and Frisk”; Kimberly Bartosik/daela’s You are my heart and glare, a trio of duets between dancers, designers, and vocalists; the Irondale Ensemble’s Color Between the Lines, which examines the Brooklyn abolitionist movement; Theatre Group Dzieci’s Fool’s Mass, Makbet, and Ragnarök; Noémie Lafrance’s Choreography for Audiences — Take One, in which audience members are active participants in the production; Marshall Davis Jr. & Friends, in an evening of tap; Ishmael “Ish” Islam’s BEAT Spoken Word, led by New York City’s nineteen-year-old poet laureate; a BEAT Sideshow hosted by Jessica Halem; Creative Outlet Dance Theatre’s Urban Roots and Courtney Giannone’s Protean Acts; Elevator Repair Service’s Shuffle, a mash-up of The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and The Sound and the Fury held in the stacks of the Brooklyn Public Library; and Radha Blank’s HappyFlowerNail, a one-woman show that takes place in a Bed-Stuy Korean nail salon. In addition, Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty’s video installation “Atmospheres & Accidental Ghosts” will be shown September 20-22 in the lobby of the Brooklyn Public Library, in conjunction with Shuffle. Tickets range from $15 to $35, with many of the performances taking place at multiple venues over the course of the festival, including the Irondale Center, the Flatbush Reformed Church, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and the Waterfront Museum in addition to the Coney Island Sideshow theater and MetroTech Commons, which will host two free shows. The closing party will be held September 23 at El Puente Earth Spirit Garden with BombaYo.

BAM FISHER NEXT WAVE: ECLIPSE

Jonah Bokaer and Anthony McCall present the first production in new BAM black-box space (photo by Stephanie Berger)

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
Through Sunday, September 9, $20
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

BAM has inaugurated its new black-box theater, the 250-seat Fishman Space in the Fisher Building, with the illuminating Eclipse. Part of BAM’s thirtieth Next Wave Festival, the seventy-minute piece is a collaboration between thirty-year-old Ithaca-born choreographer and Chez Bushwick founder Jonah Bokaer and sixty-six-year-old “solid-light” British installation artist Anthony McCall, commissioned by BAM specifically for the Fishman. Performed by Tal Adler-Arieli, Sara Procopio, CC Chang, and Julie Seitel, with Bokaer soloing at the beginning and the end, Eclipse takes place on a soft, dark floor, with the audience sitting two or three rows deep on all four sides, in addition to balcony seats. (All seating is general admission for this show.) Thirty-six lightbulbs hang from the ceiling in diagonal rows and at different heights, going on and off at timed intervals as the dancers move under and around them to the whirr of an old-fashioned movie projector, courtesy of sound designer David Grubbs. Wearing socks, button-down white shirts, and either white or gray cuffed pants — as well as, at times, a vest that is part school crossing guard, part airport ramp agent — the four main dancers walk to the four corners of the stage, stand face-to-face with the audience, and meet at the center, where they perform slow duets and trios. Shadows cast by the lightbulbs and spotlights cast geometric patterns on the floor, particularly triangles at the corners and a square at the center, where much of the more intricate, sculptural choreography occurs. The overall effect is supposed to evoke a live, three-dimensional, four-sided cinematic experience, with close-ups and long shots all in deep focus, but some of those aspects seem to get lost, at least for those audience members seated downstairs. Perhaps the people sitting in the balcony get a better angle of the pathways and changing geography created by the bulbs, supervised by lighting designer Aaron Copp. Still, Eclipse shines a fascinating light on BAM’s new venue, which will feature more experimental productions, with all tickets $20. Also playing the Fishman this month are Nora Chipaumire’s Miriam, Derrick Adams’s The Channel, and Ian and Chad’s Next Wave of Song.