this week in dance

QUEER NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

Silvia Costa’s LA QUIESCENZA DEL SEME will examine birth and consciousness at the Queer New York International Arts Festival

Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement (and other locations)
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
June 7-15, $20
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.queerny.org

In March 2011, Zvonimir Dobrović, the curator and producer of the Eastern European Perforacije Festival, put together the inaugural American Perforations Festival at Club La MaMa, a collection of eclectic theatrical productions from Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Macedonia. Dobrović, who is also the artistic director of Queer Zagreb, has now teamed up with art historian and independent curator André von Ah to present the first Queer New York International Arts Festival. Taking place June 7-15 primarily at the Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side, QNYI features multidisciplinary projects that recontextualize and reconsider what constitutes queer art. The opening-night party, held June 7 at the Delancey, includes performances by Carol Pope, Carmelita Tropicana, Eyes Wild Drag, Sarah-Louise Young, Raul de Nieves, Justin Sayre, Kayvon Zand, and others, with DJ sets by JD Samson, DJ R!C, and DJ Malakai. The shows begin with Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte’s Macadamia Nut Brittle, which is inspired by writings by Dennis Cooper and focuses on four characters in search of their identity. In Tadaku Takamine’s Kimura-San installation, the artist documents how he cared for a paraplegic, including sexually. In Auto + Batterie, David Wampach uses dissonant music, live drumming, extreme choreography, and whipped cream to bring together sound and movement. In Guintche, a drawing by Marlene Monteiro Freitas explodes into life and becomes unstoppable. Silvia Costa of Plumes dans la tête examines birth and not-birth in La Quiescenza del seme. Igor Josifov’s 2-Dimensional reconfigures performer and audience, as people walk over the Macedonian artist, who is trapped under a plexiglass structure. Body parts figure significantly throughout the festival; François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea look deep into “a reflection of the denial of the anus in dance” in Paquerette at the Invisible Dog in Brooklyn, while Biljana Kosmogina’s ‘P’ Campaign follows the exploits of the presidential candidate Vagina. And East Village Boys are hosting the art exhibit “For personal use” June 7-16 at the Impossible Project, with specially commissioned works by Mx Justin Vivian Bond, Jeff Hahn, Jayson Keeling, Josh McNey, and others.

CELEBRATE ISRAEL PARADE: ISRAEL BRANCHES OUT

Israel will celebrate its sixty-fourth birthday on Fifth Ave. on June 3 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

57th to 74th St. up Fifth Ave.
Sunday, June 3, free, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
www.salutetoisrael.com

Sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, the annual Celebrate Israel Parade, previously known as the Salute to Israel Parade, takes place on Sunday, June 3, on Fifth Ave. from Fifty-seventh to Seventy-fourth Sts. This year’s theme is “Israel Branches Out,” focusing on the sixty-four-year-old Mideast country “being fruitful, growing flowers and other crops, and finding its roots, seeds, etc.” The parade, which features more than thirty thousand marchers and hundreds of thousands of viewers, will be led by Grand Marshal Harvey Kaylie, a CCNY graduate, philanthropist, and founder of the Brooklyn-based design, manufacture, and distribution company Mini-Circuits. The 2012 parade lineup includes the NYC Transit Pipes & Drums, the Shabazz High School Marching Band, the Amir and Ron Orchestra, the Brooklyn Jumbies, the Youth Arts Marching Cobras, the Israeli Dance Institute, Sisters in Motion, the Approaching Storm Marching Band, Areyvut Mitzvah Clowns, the DSNY Pipes and Drums of the Emerald Society, and the Frederick Douglass Academy Harlem Samba. Among the special guests are Dr. Ruth Westheimer, anchorman Harry Martin, reporter Robert Moses, sports commentator Becky Griffith, and such bands as SOULFARM, Blue Fringe, Musical Minds, J Viewz, the Moshe Hecht Band, and 613.

BUSHWICK OPEN STUDIOS 2012

Bushwick Open Studios will include such interactive installations as Michelle Jaffe’s “Wappen Field”

Throughout Bushwick
June 2-3, free
artsinbushwick.org

The sixth annual Bushwick Open Studios is under way throughout the Brooklyn neighborhood, with hundreds of local artists opening their doors to visitors and participating in special projects all weekend. This year’s multimedia indoor/outdoor festival will include a Street Art Pop-Up Store hosted by Robin Grearson, record release parties, live art battles, concerts at Lone Wolf, XPO, and Pine Box Rock Shop, site-specific installation performances by jill sigman/thinkdance, Valentina Loseva, and Sophia Cleary, bike tours and safety programming, the “Spread Art Outdoors” Parade of Art, such group shows as “Surreal Estate,” “Figure Fragments,” “Usual Suspects,” “Conceptual Death,” and “True Nature,” panel discussions, interactive participatory exhibits by MG Stillwaggon, Running Rebel Studios, Bushwick Dimensions, Michelle Jaffe, Salon des Fous, Will Bates, the Desert Forest, Jack Aldrich, Roarke Menzies, and Pass Kontrol, and plenty of live music, dance, performance art, and general weirdness.

HOWL! FESTIVAL 2012

Street artists will surround Tompkins Square Park with colorful murals during the Howl! Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Tompkins Square Park
Ave. A to Ave. B between Seventh & Tenth Sts.
June 2-3, free
www.howlfestival.com

The Howl! Festival returned last night to Tompkins Square Park, where it continues this weekend with a flurry of music, poetry, dance, theater, art, and “madness.” Today, as 140 artists create murals on canvases that surround the park, such groups as the Disco Monkeys and the Bowery Tones will play on the south stag. On the north stage, Honeybee House, the TriBattery Pops, Tap City, and Lydon will perform for children. Also for little ones, the Great Howl! Out Loud Kids’ Carnival will feature carnival games, arts and crafts, storytelling, and other activities. At the basketball court area, Bandera Fever! celebrates Puerto Rican heritage with Dao Y El Grupo Cemi, BombaYo, Elani Rodriguez, John Acevedo AKA Chance, J. F. Seary, Dinamicas, Senior Bomba & Plena Dancers from Grand Street Settlement, and a domino tournament. Super DJ Johnny Dynell will lead the Hot Howl! Disco Tea Dance near the General Slocum Memorial from 2:00 to 5:00, the Vangeline Theatre will perform The Raft of the Medusa, and Derrick Pendavis Xtravaganza will lead the unpredictable “Men in Skirts” dance presentation at 5:30. On Sunday, Hip Hop Howl, the Deans of Discipline, the Sic Fucks, and Bear 54, will be on the main stage, Rosie’s Theater Kids, Danny Hartig, Honeybee House, and Jack Skuller will be on the kids’ north stage, Bandera Fever! will continue with a Cultural Rumba Jam, and the festival will conclude with “Low Life 6: East Village Others,” paying tribute to the Fugs song “Nova Slum Goddess (from the Lower East Side),” Jack Smith, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the Fillmore East, Allen Ginsberg, and other old standards from the East Village circa 1966-72.

GOTHAM DANCE FESTIVAL

Gallim Dance will present the world premiere of SIT, KNEEL, STAND at the Joyce’s annual Gotham Dance Festival (photo by Franziska Strauss)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
May 30 – June 10, $10-$39, 2:00
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org

Organized by the Gotham Arts Exchange, whose motto is “Think • Innovate • Promote • Develop • Produce • Dance,” this year’s Gotham Dance Festival features five programs by emerging, cutting-edge, and established choreographers at the Joyce. The Brian Brooks Moving Company, which made its Joyce debut at the festival last year, returns with the New York premiere of Big City, about destruction and reconstruction, set within a dynamic aluminum installation. On June 2-3, Canadian choreographer Peter Quanz’s Q Dance makes its Joyce debut with the Hong Kong Ballet commission Luminous and the Guggenheim commission In Tandem, set to music by Steve Reich, on a shared bill with two works by Jodie Gates, Embellish performed by Colorado Ballet and Delicate Balance danced by BalletX. On June 5, the Gotham Arts Exchange benefit “Working Women” will celebrate American choreographers Pam Tanowitz, Camille A. Brown, Carolyn Dorfman, Loni Landon, Jane Comfort, Monica Bill Barnes, and Gates with an evening of solos, duets, excerpts, and world premieres. L.A’s BODYTRAFFIC will take over June 6-7 with new works by Barak Marshall and Richard Siegal as well as Stijn Celis’s Fragile Dwellings. The festival concludes June 8-10 with Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance performing the world premiere of the evening-length Sit, Kneel, Stand, which explores artistic barriers and borders, set to original music by Jerome Begin and Christopher Lancaster.

DANCEAFRICA: ONE AFRICA/MANY RHYTHMS

The inimitable Baba Chuck Davis will once again lead the BAM DanceAfrica celebration on Memorial Day Weekend (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
May 25-28, free – $50
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

For some people, it isn’t summer in New York City until the beaches and pools open, or half-day Fridays begin, or the free outdoor music series kick off all over town. For us, summer doesn’t get under way until BAM’s annual DanceAfrica returns, four days of dance, film, music, fashion, food, and one of the best street fairs of the year. The thirty-fifth annual cultural celebration starts in the Howard Gilman Opera House on May 25 with performances by the Adanfo Ensemble, Farafina Kan: The Sound of Africa, United African Dance Troupe, and the BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble. On Saturday, Adanfo and Restoration will be joined by the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre and the Oyu Oro Afro-Cuban Dance Company, on Sunday by Illstyle Peace Productions and Creative Outlet, and on Monday by Hamalali Wayunagu Garifuna and Asase Yaa. The inimitable Baba Chuck Davis will participate in an Iconic Artist Talk on May 27 at 6:00 with Kariamu Welsh in the Hillman Attic Studio. The Mason-Jam-Ja Band will play BAMcafé Live on Friday night at 10:00, while the Black Rock Coalition Orchestra Salute to Don Cornelius & Soul Train takes place on Saturday night, followed by a late-night dance party with DJ Idlemind. BAMcinématek will be screening such films as Fabio Caramaschi’s One Way, a Tuareg Journey, Zelalem Woldemariam Ezare’s Lezare (For Today), Abdelkrim Bahloul’s A Trip to Algiers, Akin Omotoso’s Man on Ground, Lionel Rogosin’s Come Back, Africa, Andy Amadi Okoroafor’s Relentless, Daniel Daniel Cattier’s 50 Years of Independence of Congo, Claus Wischmann & Martin Baer’s Kinshasa Symphony, and Michel Ocelot’s Tales of the Night, with Omotoso, Cattier, and Okoroafor on hand for Q&As. Through June 3, BAM will be hosting the exhibition “Waiting for the Queen,” highlighting works on paper by U.S.-based Nigerian artists Njideka Akunyili and Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, curated by Dexter Wimberly. And on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the DanceAfrica 2012 Bazaar will transform Ashland Pl. into a global marketplace rich with African and Caribbean cultural heritage, including great food, clothes, art, jewelry, books, music, and so much more. “Ago!” “Amée!!”

ADRIENNE WESTWOOD: RECORD

Adrienne Westwood’s RECORD uses the LP to explore time, space, and memory (photo by Seth Easter)

One Arm Red
10 Jay St., ninth floor
May 24-27, $15
718-222-1601
www.onearmred.com
www.adriennewestwood.com

Adrienne Westwood’s evening-length multimedia dance piece Record explores memory, much as the joy of listening to vinyl LPs is a memory to many (and a mystery to others). Collaborating with sound artist Jim Briggs III and designer Seth Easter, Westwood, the Brooklyn-based cofounder of VIA Dance Collaboration (Lullaby in Surrealism, Beside: Ourselves), says of Record, “When you enter the room with the record player, it is playing a song you have never heard. Yet, it sounds familiar. The tone of it tells you it is old. The scratchiness tells you of its history. And since none of us know the song, we know the record wasn’t ours. It never belonged to us. It has brought with it the traces of those we don’t know.” Conceived and choreographed by Westwood, the work, running May 24-27 at Brooklyn’s One Arm Red, incorporates live video, projected images, directional audio, childhood toys, and, yes, a record player; the show is performed by Jung-eun Kim, Lauren Bakst, Julia Kelly, Kathryn Logan, Helen Simoneau, Jacob Slominski, and Katie Swords. On Friday and Saturday, One Arm Red will also present 3 Sticks Theatre Company’s Paper Plane,, along with special performances by AH! HA! Physical Theater and the Iris Ensemble; admission is pay-what-you-can.