this week in dance

SITE Fest and IonSound Music Festival

You never know what you’ll walk into at Bushwick’s Site Fest (photo: Sidewalk Dances)

Multiple venues in Bushwick
March 5-6, suggested donation $5 per event, $10 day pass, $15 weekend pass
www.artsinbushwick.org

Celebrating the burgeoning art, music, dance, and film scene in Bushwick, the third annual Site Fest will feature a bevy of performances Saturday and Sunday in conjunction with Armory Arts Week. Held at Chez Bushwick, Grace Exhibition Space, the Bushwick Starr, 3rd Ward, and numerous satellite venues, the festival will feature such participatory events at 3rd Ward as Gavin Campbell’s “Documentation of Flag,” which deals with his growing up on the Irish border; Hoyun Son’s “Social Shredding,” centered on a garment made of Korean funereal fiber; Stefan Adamski’s “Induction,” involving audience hypnosis; and Michael Freeman’s “Part 3: The Mnemonic Fool Series,” in which he interacts with the public while naked. The Bushwick Starr will host a series of text-based performances and installations (Jeremy Finch’s “Sketchbook,” Ari and Friends’ “Shake,” “vvitalny shares her thoughts w/ birds”), while Chez Bushwick will concentrate on experimental dance, including Laurel and Aya’s “Hand in Glove,” CJ Holm/Creature Theater’s “The Salad of the Bad Café,” and Michele Torino Hower’s “Merengue, as in Pie.” At Grace, Dr. Lisa will offer “Psychotherapy Live!,” Polaroica will be tattooing in “Tiempofaga,” and Meatspace will stage an interactive multimedia “Frankenstein Sweater Party,” where sewers can join in. Goodbye Blue Monday will be home to the IonSound Music Festival, with performances by Aimee Norwich, Bombs Making Bombs, Dear Comrade, Pezzettino, the Controversy, Rarefaction, Emilyis, and other music groups. The suggested donation for all hub space events and performances is a mere five bucks, with proceeds benefiting the nonprofit organization Arts in Bushwick. Our choice for best title: Kate Berlant’s “An Illustrative Colonoscopy into an Epistemological Kitty Cat.”

FIRST SATURDAYS — TIPI: HERITAGE OF THE GREAT PLAINS

Lyle Heavy Runner (Blackfeet), design owner and painter; Naomi Crawford (Blackfeet), tipi maker, “Blackfeet Tipi,” canvas, latex paint, wood, Great Falls, Montana, 2010 (photo: Jenny Steven)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, March 5, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The new Brooklyn Museum exhibit “Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains” is the focus of the institution’s March First Saturdays program, a free night of art, music, talk, film, literature, and dance. The party begins at 5:00 with singer/songwriter/activist Martha Redbone’s unique blend of soul, R&B, and traditional Native American music. At 5:30, the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers will perform. James McDaniel’s 2003 film, Edge of America, set at a high school reservation, will screen at 6:00, the same time Brooklyn artist Yatika Fields will discuss the “Tipi” exhibit. The Hands-On Art workshop (6:30-8:30) will teach children and adults how to make the Native American pouch called a parfleche. At 7:00, Nancy Rosoff will lead a tour of “Tipi,” followed at 8:00 by a Young Voices talk in which student guides will venture through the exhibit. DJ Frame of the Redhawk Arts Council will be behind the turntables for the always smokin’ Dance Party (8:00 – 10:00). At 9:00, visitors have the choice of continuing to dance up a storm, checking out Joseph Marshall III talking about his latest book, To You We Shall Return, or participating in an interactive dance performance with the Redhawk Arts Council. In addition, the galleries remain open until 11:00, giving everyone ample time to check out such exhibits as “reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio,” “Thinking Big: Recent Design Acquisitions,” “Lorna Simpson: Gathered,” “Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera,” “Sam Taylor-Wood: Ghosts,” and “Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets.”

WORKS & PROCESS: JOHN ZORN’S MUSIC INTERPRETED

NEW CHOREOGRAPHY BY DONALD BYRD AND PAM TANOWITZ
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
February 27-28, $30, 7:30
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

One of the legends of the experimental music scene, John Zorn will be featured in the latest Works & Process event at the Guggenheim, the series in which artists go behind the scenes to reveal their creative process. For this two-night program, Donald Byrd, who has been choreographing work for thirty-five years for such companies as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dallas Black Dance Theater, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Philadanco, will present the world premiere of a piece set to Zorn’s “4,” performed by Byrd’s Seattle-based Spectrum Dance Theater and accompanied by Stephen Drury on piano. New York City-based Pam Tanowitz, who has been staging pieces that comment on the complexities of dance itself since 2000, will take on Zorn’s “Femina,” a project dedicated to women artists and composed for an all-female ensemble. Zorn, Byrd, and Tanowitz will be on hand to talk about the works during interspersed discussions moderated by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Charles Wuorinen. The February 27 performance is sold out, although stand-by tickets might become available the day of the show, but there are still a few seats left for February 28.

ADG PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL 2011

Jane Dudley’s HARMONICA BREAKDOWN will be featured at ADG Festival (photo by Irven Lewis)

Manhattan Movement & Arts Center
248 West 60th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
February 24-27, $22 (Festival Pass $50, Thursday gala $30)
646-385-8493
www.americandanceguild.org
www.manhattanmovement.com

Founded in 1956 at the 92nd St. Y, the American Dance Guild, originally called the Dance Teachers Guild, has been supporting the art of dance for more than fifty years. This week the organization will be holding its annual ADG Performance Festival at the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, consisting of works by more than three dozen emerging and established choreographers. The festivities begin on Thursday night with the opening-night gala “Past to Present,” honoring dancer Jane Dudley, choreographer Paul Sanasardo, and writer and professor Linda Tarnay with an all-star presentation of Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham’s From the Horse’s Mouth, featuring such special guests as Mary Anthony, Janis Brenner, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Diana Byer, Christine Dakin, Carmen deLavallade, Douglas Dunn, Deborah Jowitt, Don Redlich, Gus Solomons jr, and Martine van Hamel. Friday night includes pieces by Michele Cuccaro, Mariah Maloney, Amy Cova, Judith Moss, Bill Evans, and others in addition to a tribute to Dudley with performances of her Time Is Money and Harmonica Breakdown solos and a new work by Sanasardo, who will participate in a postperformance discussion with writer Mark Franko. Saturday and Sunday’s programs include works by Andrew Jannetti, Sally Hess, Hyonok Kim Dance Art, Claire Porter, Linda Lehovec, Kathy Diehl, Einy Am, Rebecca McArthur, and others, with Betsy Fisher performing Mary Wigman’s Hexentanz, Verb Ballet taking on Sophie Maslow’s Dust Bowl Ballads, and encores of Time Is Money and Harmonica Breakdown.

PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS is part of annual Paul Taylor season at City Center (photo by Paul B. Goode)

City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
February 22 – March 6, $10-$150
www.ptdc.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Called the “naughty boy” of dance by Martha Graham more than fifty years ago, Paul Taylor has been pushing the envelope for some six decades. The Washington, DC, native has taken his company to more than five hundred cities in sixty-two countries, and today the Paul Taylor Dance Company kicks off its annual season at City Center with a gala performance and dinner at Cipriani 42nd St. with a bill that includes Esplanade, the New York premiere of Three Dubious Memories, and Oh, You Kid!, with live music by Rick Benjamin’s Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. The season continues through March 6 with another New York premiere, Phantasmagoria, in addition to such repertory pieces as The Word, Brief Encounters, Cloven Kingdom, Promethean Fire, Company B, Orbs, Also Playing, and Dust. On March 1, they will present a Great Depression Special, pairing Black Tuesday with Speaking in Tongues; tickets are still available in the $5 and $19.29 seats. While most of the post-1987 works feature costumes by longtime Woody Allen set designer Santo Loquasto, Alex Katz designed the set and costumes for 1966’s Orbs, while John Rawlings handled the costumes for 1975’s Esplanade, Rawlings and Scott Barrie were responsible for 1976’s Cloven Kingdom, and Gene Moore took care of Dust. The lighting is by the inimitable Jennifer Tipton, with the pieces set to a wide range of music, from Beethoven, Bach, and Donizetti to Poulenc, Debussy, and the Andrews Sisters.

SUPER SABADO: CARNAVAL

Luis Camnitzer, “Landscape as an Attitude (El paisaje como actitud),” black-and-white photograph, 1979 (photo by Peter Schälchli, © 2010 Luis Camnitzer)


FREE THIRD SATURDAYS

El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Saturday, February 19, free, 11:00 am – 8:30 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

One of our favorite ongoing parties takes place the third Saturday of every month, when El Museo del Barrio welcomes visitors for a free day of art, live performances, and other special events. On February 19, the museum will be celebrating Carnaval with ArtExplorers family tours of the “Voces y Visiones” exhibition of works from the permanent collection, gallery tours of that and the “Luis Camnitzer” retrospective, a Colorín Colorado storytelling presentation of Elisabeth Balaguer’s My Carnival / Mi Carnaval with the Bilingual Birdies, the Say Quesoooo! photo booth, a vejigante cape-making workshop, the live music and dance show “Afro-Caribbean Carnaval: The Legacy Circle, Alma Moyo & Kalunga,” followed by a Q&A with the artists, the Oh, Snap! Young Powerful Voices at Work spoken word workshop with Caridad de la Luz “La Bruja,” and more.

FASHION WEEK: THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR DANCIN’

Park Ave. Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Tuesday, February 15, free with RSVP, 8:00
www.bootsbykora.com

Less than a year after emigrating in the fall of 2001 from her hometown of Bucharest, Romania, where she worked as a painter on Costa-Gavras’s AMEN., artist and designer Coralia Nitu had her first solo show in New York, “ARTectonic,” held at the East-West Gallery of the Romanian Cultural Center in Murray Hill. Back then, Nitu, who was pursuing her MFA at Parsons, told us how she loved working with metal, embracing its coldness while twisting it into unique geometric patterns. She also raved about how she fed off the fast-paced energy of New York. In 2006 she returned to designing footwear; back in Romania, she had started redecorating shoes when she was twelve. All of those elements will come together on February 15 as Nitu, now known professionally as Kora Mancini, will present “These Boots Are Made for Dancin’,” a Fashion Week event being held at the Park Ave. Armory. Mancini will show off her Made in America collection of ten shiny metallic styles, crafted in Italian leather, reminiscent of her early painting and sculpture, with an assist from her friend Kate Jewett, dancer and rehearsal director for Shen Wei Dance Arts, who will perform in the footwear. (Jewett is rather familiar with the armory, as the Shen Wei company previously danced in and around Ernesto Neto’s “Anthropodino” installation in 2009 and will be back in the armory November 30 – December 4 for a world premiere and two repertory pieces.) According to the invitation, “The theme is glam, the season is all year round, and the target is young, athletic, and cosmopolitan women (or admirers of women) with a penchant for the flashy and outrageous.” There are very few remaining spots available, so if you wish to attend, you should RSVP immediately for what promises to be a very different kind of fashion show.