this week in dance

PARSONS DANCE

David Parsons’s stroboscopic classic, “Caught,” will be part of all three programs at the Joyce

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
January 25 – February 6, $10-$59
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.parsonsdance.org

Born in Chicago and raised in Kansas City, David Parsons cut his teeth dancing for the Paul Taylor Company and the New York City Ballet before forming the New York City-based Parsons Dance in 1985. Since then he has choreographed more than seventy works for the ten-member troupe, in addition to many other commissions and commercial endeavors. Parsons Dance will be at the Joyce January 25 – February 6 presenting three different programs as well as a VIP preview. Program A includes “The Envelope,” “Sleep Study,” “Mood Swing,” the world premiere of “Portinari,” inspired by the life of Brazilian artist-activist Candido Portinari, the stroboscopic classic “Caught,” and the world premiere of “Run to You,” set to the music of Steely Dan; Program B consists of “Bachiana,” “Portinari,” “Slow Dance,” the world premiere of Monica Bill Barnes’s “Love, oh Love,” “Caught,” and “Nascimento”; and Program C, arranged for four family-friendly weekend matinees, contains “The Envelope,” “Sleep Study,” “Hand Dance,” “Love, oh Love, ” “Walk, ” and “Caught.” The January 25 opening night VIP preview highlights “Bachiana,” “Portinari,” “Love, oh Love,” “Caught,” and “Run to You” and will be staged without intermission; the ten-member troupe currently features Eric Bourne, Sarah Braverman, Elena D’Amario, Abby Silva Gavezzoli, Christina Ilisije, Jason MacDonald, Miguel Quinones, Ian Spring, Melissa Ullom, and Steven Vaughn.

LIVING IN AMERICA: BRAIN AND THE TIBETAN CREATIVE MIND

Creation of sand mandala is part of Global Weekend program at AMNH (photo copyright Kitt Teed)

GLOBAL WEEKENDS
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th St.
January 25-30, free with suggested museum admission of $9-$16
212-769-5200
www.amnh.org

To inaugurate the exhibition “Body and Spirit: Tibetan Medical Paintings,” Kehn Rinpoche Geshe Kachen Lobzang Tsetan of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery and monks from Drepang Loseling Monastery will lead a procession and prayer ritual through the American Museum of Natural History on January 25 beginning at 10:30 am. The celebration also kicks off the institution’s latest Global Weekends program, which will extend over six days and feature monastic cham dances, art exchanges, the creation of a Medicine Buddha sand mandala, and public meditation that is being held in conjunction with the interactive exhibit “Brain: The Inside Story” as well. On January 29 at 1:30, Richard J. Davidson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds will present “Change Your Brain by Transforming Your Mind,” followed by a Q&A. Other speakers include Barnard term assistant professor Annabella Pitkin and Joseph Loizzo of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. The meditation sessions, which require advance RSVP, are being held January 25 at 8:00 am in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, January 26 at 7:30 pm in the Hayden Planetarium Space Theatre, January 28 at 7:00 pm in the Audubon Gallery, and January 29 at 3:00 pm in the Linder Theater.

ON STAGE IN FASHION: MARK MORRIS AND ISAAC MIZRAHI

Mark Morris and Isaac Mizrahi collaborated on the Met’s production of Gluck’s ORFEO ED EURIDICE (photo by Marty Sohl)

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
Thursday, January 20, free, 6:00
917-275-6975
www.nypl.org

In June 1992, Mark Morris presented the world premiere of THREE PRELUDES, a dance piece set to short works by George Gershwin and featuring costumes by Brooklyn-born designer Isaac Mizrahi. In May 2007, Morris and Mizrahi teamed up again, this time for a production of Gluck’s ORFEO ED EURIDICE at the Met that marked Morris’s debut at the venerable institution. That opera will be back at the Met this spring, playing April 29 – May 14, so in celebration of that and in conjunction with the exhibition “On Stage in Fashion” at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Morris and Mizrahi will take part in a free conversation at the library on Thursday night, moderated by writer and editor Sharon DeLano. The exhibition comprises more than one hundred garments from the Museum of the City of New York and photographs and memorabilia from the NYPL focusing on the collaboration between fashion designers and performers.

SIDRA BELL DANCE NEW YORK / GALLIM DANCE

Sidra Bell Dance New York will make its DTW debut with the world premiere of POOL (photo by Jubal Battisti)

Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
January 18-21, $20, 7:30
212-691-6500
www.dancetheaterworkshop.org

Dance Theater Workshop is hosting an intriguing double bill this week, featuring two world premieres by New York City-based companies. Sidra Bell, who recently said that her work should appeal to fans of Miles Davis, William Carlos Williams, and René Magritte, choreographs dances that combine the deeply personal with the intensely physical. Bell makes her DTW debut with POOL, which deals with the memory of a near drowning. Utah-born Juilliard graduate Andrea Miller, who established Gallim Dance in 2008, is presenting the DTW commission FOR GLENN GOULD, inspired by the composer’s two very different versions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations from 1964 and 1981. The January 18 performance will be followed by Coffee and Conversation with DTW artistic director Carla Peterson, while a talk with Dance magazine editor in chief Wendy Perron will take place after the January 21 show.

MLK DAY 2011

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have turned eighty-one this month

In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Arizona congresswoman Gabrilelle Giffords, today’s many tributes to the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., should take on added meaning. At BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, the twenty-fifth annual free event, beginning at 10:30 am, features a keynote address by writer Walter Mosley, live performances by the Persuasions and the Reverend Timothy Wright Memorial Choir of the Grace Tabernacle Christian Center, and a screening of NESHOBA: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM (Micki Dickoff & Tony Pagano, 2010). The Children’s Museum of Manhattan continues its Martin Luther King. Jr., Festival with “Raising Citizens: Make a Difference Medal” at 12 noon. At the newly reopened Museum of the Moving Image, associate producer Richard Kaplan will introduce a free screening of KING: A FILMED RECORD . . . MONTGOMERY TO MEMPHIS at 3:00. At Symphony Space, the fourth annual JCC in Manhattan program, “Artists Celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” includes a keynote address by the Rev. Dr. Suzan D. Johnson Cook, live jazz from Craig Harris, Juel Lane performing choreographer Bridget Moore’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, and singers Neshama Carlebach and Reverend Hambrick with members of the Green Pastures Baptist Church Choir, emceed by Ruth Messinger (free, 6:30). Tonight Jazz at Lincoln Center will present a Jazz Celebration featuring the Juilliard Jazz Ensemble, Cyrus Chestnut, and special guests ($20, 7:30 & 9:30).

PERFORMANCE 11: ON LINE/TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY

Trisha Brown Dance Company, STICKS, 1973 (photograph by Alfredo Anceschi)

Museum of Modern Art
The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, second floor
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, January 15, and Sunday, January 16, 2:00 & 4:00
Free with museum admission of $20 (includes same-day film screening)
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.trishabrowncompany.org

Last fall the Trisha Brown Dance Company continued its fortieth anniversary celebration with a number of site-specific performances at the Whitney. Now it leaps into its fifth decade with a group of shows in MoMA’s atrium as part of the museum’s Performance Exhibition Series, being staged in conjunction with “On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century,” which examines how drawing has changed in the last hundred years, featuring works by such artists as Aleksandr Rodchenko, Alexander Calder, Eva Hesse, Richard Tuttle, Mona Hatoum, and many others. On January 15 and 16 at 2:00 and 4:00, Brown will be presenting STICKS (1973), SCALLOPS (1973), and LOCUS SOLO (1975) as well as the premiere of ROOF PIECE RE-LAYED (2011), adapted from her original 1971 ROOF PIECE. MoMA will continue to explore the intimate connection between dance and drawings with Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci January 17-20, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker January 22-23, Ralph Lemon January 26-30, and Xavier Le Roy February 2-6.

WALLY CARDONA: INTERVENTION #4: ROBERT SEMBER

Wally Cardona will team up with Robert Sember for INTERVENTION #4 at BAC on January 8

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th St.
Saturday, January 8, $15, 8:30
www.bacnyc.org
www.wcvismorphing.org

In such widely praised works as REALLY REAL, A LIGHT CONVERSATION, SITE, and EVERYWHERE, Brooklyn-based dancer and choreographer Wally Cardona has continued to investigate the architecture of space as well as human emotion and interaction. In 2005’s EVERYWHERE, commissioned for BAM’s Next Wave Festival, he placed barriers across the floor as dancers made their way through an ever-changing maze that led to a thrilling and surprising conclusion. In 2007’s site-specific SITE at DTW, Cardona again used objects to deconstruct and reconstruct the stage set in another of his “landscape” works. In addition to often incorporating physical objects into his pieces, Cardona also regularly collaborates with a diverse array of individuals, including sound artist Phil Kline, teacher and dancer Rahel Vonmoos, the music groups ETHEL and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, video artist Maya Ciarrocchi, and interior designer Douglas Fanning. For his current project, INTERVENTION, Cardona is holding residencies in several cities, where the host institution selects a local expert not from the field of dance for him to work with for five days, creating a single, unique performance. This past week Cardona has teamed up with Robert Sember, part of the Ultra-red activist art collective, a former researcher for Columbia’s Department of Sociomedical Sciences, and a Vera List Center Fellow at the New School, for INTERVENTION #4, which will take place tonight at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on West 37th St. Cardona will be back at BAC on February 12 for INTERVENTION #5 and March 26 for INTERVENTION #6 before heading to Washington, DC, with the fascinating project. Meanwhile, Paris-based choreographer Jennifer Lacey is participating in similar residencies, called MY FIRST TIME WITH A DRAMATURGE, which will eventually come together with Cardona’s INTERVENTION and music by Berlin-based composer Jonathan Bepler for the more expansive TOOL IS LOOT. Tickets are only $15 to see one of Brooklyn’s most innovative and creative choreographers in a one-time only performance tonight, so don’t miss it.