this week in dance

TICKET ALERT: FALL FOR DANCE FESTIVAL 2012

Shen Wei Dance Arts will perform RITE OF SPRING at Fall for Dance Festival at City Center (photo by Stephanie Berger)

City Center
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tickets go on sale September 9 at 11:00 am
Festival runs September 27 – October 13, $15
212-581-1212
www.nycitycenter.org

On your mark, get set . . . Tickets for the ninth annual Fall for Dance Festival at City Center, which runs September 27 through October 13, go on sale September 9 at 11:00 am, but you better not delay if you want to go, because this hotly anticipated event sells out quickly. All seats are only fifteen dollars, with each program featuring multiple works in various disciplines from established and up-and-coming international companies. For example, the first two nights bring together Jared Grimes’s Dancing the Tap (choreographed by Grimes), Fang-Yi Sheu & Artists’ Five Movements, Three Repeats (Christopher Wheeldon), Nederlands Dans Theater’s Shutters Shut (Sol León and Paul Lightfoot), and BalletBoyz’ Void (Jack Cemerek), while September 29-30 consists of Juilliard Dance’s Fortune (Pam Tanowitz), American Ballet Theatre’s Sinatra Suite (Twyla Tharp), the Hong Kong Ballet’s Luminous (Peter Quanz), and Martha Graham Dance Company’s Chronicle (Graham). Among the other groups participating in the festival are the Moiseyev Dance Company, Shantala Shivalingappa, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Jodi Melnick, Shen Wei Dance Arts (Rite of Spring, which they performed last fall at the Park Avenue Armory), and Ballet West. Before and after each show, audience members can relax in Lounge FFD, where they can grab a drink and meet some of the dancers and choreographers. And there will be three special free DanceTalk panel discussions at the City Center Studios during the festival: “Dance and Live Music: How Do Choreographers Work with Composers?” on September 30 at 5:30 with Jodi Melnick, Steven Reker, Pam Tanowitz, and Charles Wuorinen, moderated by Maura Keefe; “For Public Consumption: Shaping Social and Cultural Dance for the Stage” on October 3 at 6:30 with Kumu Kaleo, Eri Mefri, Carlota Santana, and Elena Shcherbakova, moderated by Wendy Perron; and a lecture/demonstration on October 5 with Ka Leo O Laka I Ka Hikina O Ka La.

AMERICAN DANCE GUILD: ANNUAL PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL 2012

John Pennington will perform Harald Kreuzberg’s Dances Before God at ADG Performance Festival (photo by Tammy Abbott)

The Ailey Citigroup Theater
The Joan Weill Center for Dance
405 West 55th St. at Ninth Ave.
September 6-9, $22 (festival pass $50)
www.americandanceguild.org

The annual American Dance Guild Performance Festival returns to the Ailey Citigroup Theater this week with four nights of dance featuring thirty-three international artists. This year’s honorees are award-winning dancers, teachers, and choreographers Dianne McIntyre and Elaine Summers, who will be presenting works of their own at the festival. Thursday night’s gala features pieces by Kyla Barkin, Rebecca Netl-Fiol, John Pennington (reimaging Harald Kreutzberg’s “Dances Before God”), Shani Collins-Achille (“Swing Us Sky Rain[bow]”), and Hee Ra Yoo in addition to McIntyre’s “Life’s Force,” celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Sounds in Motion, with trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah, McIntyre, and a cast of twenty people who have performed with McIntyre during her career (Saturday also), and Summers’s 1976 “Windows in the Kitchen,” a multimedia work with Douglas Dunn, Jon Gibson, and Matt Turney (Friday also). Friday’s lineup includes Dawn Robinson, Sue Bernhard, Sarah Stackhouse, Joe Cele, Maxine Steinman, Tina Croll, Jenny Showalter, Sarah Mettin, and Laurie Taylor, while Saturday features Rebecca McArthur, Peggy Choy, Allison Jones, Claudia Gitelmann, Mary Seidman, Kaoru Ikeda, Sasha Spielvogel, and Andrew Janetti. The festival concludes Sunday with Marta Renzi, Betsy Fisher (taking on “Angst” from Dore Hoyer’s “Affectos Humanos”), Erin La Sala, Joan Gavaler, Kathy Wildberger, Gloria McLean (the Will Barnet tribute “Dancing Without Illusion”), Nancy Zendora, Joseph Mills (the solo “Circlewalker”), and Molissa Fenley (the new duet “100 Vessels”). Be sure to get there early to check out videos of works by McIntyre and Summers that span their long, influential careers.

DANCENOW JOE’S PUB FESTIVAL

Irish dancer and choreographer Luke Murphy is among the forty participants in this year’s DanceNow festival at Joe’s Pub (photo by John Altdorfer)

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
September 5-8, $15-$20, 7:00
212-539-8778
www.joespub.com

The tenth annual DanceNOW presentation at Joe’s Pub will take place at the tiny, intimate downtown theater September 5-8, with all tickets a mere $15 in advance and $20 at the door. One of the primary elements that makes this series different from other fall dance festivals is that this event is competitive; each night, a weeklong residency on a Pennsylvania farm will be awarded by the audience to one of the companies, and one company from the entire run will win a $1,000 creative development stipend, a weeklong residency, and a twenty-hour space grant at the Gibney Dance Center, selected by festival producers and advisers. Following the festival’s “less is more” credo, each performance is limited to no more than five minutes in which to make an artistic statement. The lineup is wide-ranging, offering dance fans a little bit of everything every night. Wednesday’s rosters features Adam Barruch Dance, binbinFactory/satoshi haga & rie fukuzawa, Maura Nguyen Donohue/inmixed company, Marjani Forté, Shannon Hummel/Cora Dance, Donnell Oakley, Rainwater Dances/Nellie Rainwater, Erika Randall, and RG Dance Projects – Rubén Graciani, while Thursday consists of alex|xan: the Median Movement, the Anata Project/Claudia Anata Hubiak, Janis Brenner & Dancers, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Luke Murphy, Portables/Claire Porter, Molly Shanahan, Bryan Strimpel, Makiko Tamura/Small Apple co., and Simone Sobers Dance. Friday night brings together Jane Comfort & Company, the DASH/Gregory Dolbashian, SARA du jour, Erica Essner Performance Co-Op, the Good to Go Girls, Jamal Jackson Dance Company, Sara Joel, Kawamura the 3rd, Amy Larimer, LOVE|FORTÉ A COLLECTIVE, and Amber Sloan, with Saturday night anchored by the Bang Group, Christal Brown/INSPIRIT, Loni Landan, Deborah Lohse, Khaleah Londons/LAYERS, MADboots dance co., Christopher K. Morgan & Artists, TAKE Dance, and Megan Williams. An encore performance on September 15 will feature the audience’s top ten favorites from all four programs.

BRAZILIAN DAY IN NEW YORK 2012

Brazilian Day is always one of the best — and most crowded — street festivals of the summer (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

46th St. between Sixth & Madison Aves.
Sunday, September 2, free, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
212-382-1631
www.brazilianday.com
brazilian day in new york 2011 slideshow

Now in its twenty-eighth year, Brazilian Day in New York is a colorful celebration of the culture of the South American nation and of the many Brazilian immigrants who now live in the tristate area, believed to number more than 300,000. Following Saturday’s ritual Cleansing of 46th St., Sunday’s festivities in Little Brazil will include two stages of live entertainment, with music from Latino, Jorge & Mateus, Armandinho Macedo, and others, hosted by Serginho Groisman, as well as traditional Brazilian cuisine (keep a look-out for whole hog, feijoada, fresh sugarcane juice, and caipirinha), arts and crafts, information about traveling to Brazil, capoeira demonstrations, and more, with some 1.5 million people expected to attend what is always a blast of a party, with little pockets of music and dance liable to break out anywhere at any moment.

CROSSING THE LINE 2012

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Le Skyroom and FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 14 – October 14, free- $45
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Tickets are now on sale for the sixth annual Crossing the Line festival, a month-long program of interdisciplinary performances and art sponsored by the French Institute Alliance Française at venues across the city. Running September 14 through October 14, the 2012 edition of CTL, curated by Gideon Lester, Lili Chopra, and Simon Dove, features a host of free events, with most ticketed shows twenty dollars and under. The festival opens on September 14 with the first of three concerts by innovative guitarist Bill Frisell, playing with two of his groups, the 858 Quartet and Beautiful Dreamers, in FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall; he’ll then be at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn the next morning at 8:00 for the world premiere of his solo piece “Early (Not Too Late),” followed that night by the world premiere of the multimedia “Close Your Eyes” at the Invisible Dog, a collaboration with musician Eyvind Kang and visual artist Jim Woodring. Brian Rogers, cofounder and artistic director of the Chocolate Factory, will present Hot Box at the Long Island City institution, a chaotic look at mayhem, stillness, and disorder using a live video feed. Festival vet Gérald Kurdian returns with The Magic of Spectacular Theater at Abrons Arts Center, combining music and magic. DD Dorvillier / Human Future Dance Corps brings Danza Permanente to the Kitchen, reimagining a Beethoven score for four dancers, with acoustic design by Zeena Parkins. Choreographer Sarah Michelson will deliver Not a Lecture / Performance, while Jack Ferver will blend psychoanalysis with dance in the very personal Mon Ma Mes, both one-time-only presentations at FIAF. Joris Lacoste’s 4 Prepared Dreams uses hypnosis on April March, Annie Dorsen, Tony Conrad, and Jonathan Caouette. Congolese dancer and choreographer Faustin Linyekula, who dazzled CTL audiences last year with more more more . . . future, will participate in a discussion on September 17 with director Peter Sellars, followed by his solo work Le Cargo on September 18. Pascal Rambert’s Love’s End examines the disintegration of a relationship, with Kate Moran and Jim Fletcher at Abrons, while Raimund Hoghe teams up with Takashi Ueno at the Baryshnikov Arts Center for Pas de Deux, a playful look at the history of the classical duet. For Diário (através de um Olho Baiano), one of numerous free events, Bel Borba, collaborating with Burt Sun and André Costantini, will create a new piece of art every day somewhere in the city throughout the festival, with all coming together for a grand finale. Also free is David Levine’s Habit, a live ninety-minute-drama that loops for eight hours in the Essex Street Market, and OMSK / Lotte van den Berg’s Pleinvrees / Agoraphobia, in which the audience (advance RSVP required) wanders around Times Square listening on their cell phones to a man making his way through the area as well. In addition, Steven and William Ladd’s Shaboygen installation will be up at the Invisible Dog, and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s audiovisual portraits will be on view at the FIAF Gallery. Once again, CTL has included a little something for everyone, from performance art and dance to video and photography, from theater and concerts to the unusual and the indefinable.

THALIA DOCS: NEVER STAND STILL

Documentary celebrates the long history of Jacob’s Pillow as a mecca for dance (photo by Christopher Duggan)

NEVER STAND STILL: DANCING AT JACOB’S PILLOW (Ron Honsa, 2011)
Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Sunday, August 19 & 26 and September 2, $14, 8:00
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
firstrunfeatures.com

In conjunction with the eightieth anniversary of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Ron Honsa has made Never Stand Still, a documentary that celebrates the long history of the national historic landmark dedicated to the art of movement. Narrated by Bill T. Jones, the seventy-five-minute documentary looks back at the founding of the Pillow, located in Becket, Massachusetts, through exciting archival footage of Ted Shawn and his wife, Ruth St. Denis, Shawn’s all-male troupe, and the construction of the first American theater dedicated specifically to dance. Honsa speaks with such legendary dancers and choreographers as Merce Cunningham, Suzanne Farrell, Mark Morris, Judith Jamison, Paul Taylor, and Marge Champion, who all discuss the importance of the Pillow as a nurturing creative mecca that continues to bring performers and audiences together from all over the world. “It was a place where people could, quietly or not, think differently and act differently,” Cunningham says in one of his last interviews. Gideon Obarzanek calls the Pillow “one of the few places you can come and really feel and understand the past in order to move into the future.” Honsa focuses on a series of companies and creators as they rehearse and perform at Jacob’s Pillow, including Obarzanek’s Chunky Move, Rasta Thomas and Bad Boy Dance, solo artist Shivantala Shivalingappa, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Jens Rosén and Stockholm 59° North, Nikolaj Hübbe and the Royal Danish Ballet, and Bill Irwin, who pays tribute to the movement skills of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Honsa (The Men Who Danced) gives equal time to the past, present, and future of dance, incorporating classical, modern, contemporary, hip-hop, experimental, ballet, and other styles and genres, playing no favorites. The film is screening for three consecutive Sundays as part of the ongoing Thalia Docs program at Symphony Space, with Honsa participating in a Q&A following the August 19 show.

TICKET ALERT: BAM FISHER NEXT WAVE

Tickets go on sale August 13 for inaugural Next Wave season in Fishman Space at new BAM Fisher center

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
All tickets $20; on sale Monday, August 13
Season runs September 5 – December 23
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Bigger isn’t necessarily better these days as BAM gets into the low-price, small-theater game for its thirtieth Next Wave festival. Earlier this year, the Signature Theatre opened its new Pershing Square Center on West 42nd St., comprising three venues that seat between 191 and 294 people and with all ticket prices for the initial run a mere $25. Then, in May, Lincoln Center raised the curtain on its new space, the Claire Tow Theater, which resides above the Mitzi E. Newhouse and has room for 112 customers, who pay only $20 per performance. And today, $20 tickets go on sale for BAM’s new venue, BAM Fisher on Ashland Pl., which features the 250-seat Fishman Space. Focusing on short-run experimental presentations, BAM Fisher will host dance, film, music, theater, talks, and more. The inaugural season opens with Jonah Bokaer and Anthony McCall’s site-specific Eclipse, an intimate four-character dance with the audience on all four sides, and continues with such works as The Shooting Gallery, a collaboration between video artist Bill Morrison and composer Richard Einhorn; Brooklyn Bred, consisting of performance art by Coco Fusco, Dread Scott, and Jennifer Miller, curated by Martha Wilson; Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Living Word Project’s sociopolitical red, black & GREEN: a blues, which promises something for all five senses; and dance pieces by Lucy Guerin (Untrained) and Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People (And lose the name of action). Expect the phone lines to be jammed, because tickets ($28-$144) also go on sale today for a new production of Robert Wilson, Philip Glass, and Lucinda Childs’s four-and-a-half-hour Einstein on the Beach at the Howard Gilman Opera House.