this week in dance

OSCAR WATCH: BLACK SWAN

Nina, Nina, ballerina discovers that the mirror has at least two faces in BLACK SWAN

BLACK SWAN (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
www.foxsearchlight.com/blackswan

A companion piece to 2008’s multilayered THE WRESTLER, in which a rejuvenated Mickey Rourke plays an aging athlete trying to regain control of his body and his life while attempting to reestablish a connection with his daughter, Darren Aronofsky’s BLACK SWAN is an even more complex psychological study of just how far the mind and body can go to get what it wants and needs. Natalie Portman stars as Nina Sayers, a member of a Manhattan-based ballet company who is vying for the lead role in a new production of Tchaikovsky’s classic 1877 ballet, SWAN LAKE, the tragic tale of a princess transformed into a white swan who must find true human love to be released, complicated by an evil magician, a black swan rival, and a handsome prince. Nina lives a sheltered existence dominated by her failed-ballerina mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey), squeezed into a cramped New York City apartment and not allowed to have a social life. Womanizing choreographer Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) is convinced that Nina can dance the white swan but has severe doubts that she has it within her to dance the black swan, even after selecting her to replace former prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder). Desperate to bring out Nina’s dark side, Leroy creates a competition between her and free-spirited dancer Lily (Mila Kunis), a sexy, tattooed young dancer who lives life on the edge. As opening night approaches, Nina must reach deep inside herself if she is to attain her dream, leaving all her fears and insecurities behind.

Lily (Mila Kunis) helps Nina (Natalie Portman) explore her darker side in BLACK SWAN

A gripping thriller that works on multiple levels, BLACK SWAN is a superbly crafted examination of innocence and experience, good and evil, loyalty and betrayal that goes far beyond the basic black and white. Aronofsky and co-screenwriters Mark Heyman and Andrés Heinz delve into the nature of duality and the very creation of art itself, as the story of BLACK SWAN mimics that of SWAN LAKE, and Nina continually sees doppelgangers of herself in mirrors and other people, especially Lily and Beth. As Nina struggles to bring out the black swan within her, her body literally bleeds, evoking both birth and death, her hallucinations and fantasies walking the fine line between dream and nightmare. As serious and frightening as BLACK SWAN can be, however, Aronofsky has also infused it with cheesy horror-movie scares, referencing such diverse films as CARRIE and THE TURNING POINT, ALL ABOUT EVE and SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, REPULSION and THE RED SHOES, THE FLY and ROSEMARY’S BABY, a potent mix of Polanski and Cronenberg filtered through Balanchine and Baryshnikov. (The cheesiness factor also extends to character names; it takes both gumption and supreme confidence to name your star ballerina Nina.) Even the casting touches on the idea of the double; Nina is replacing Beth much the way Portman is now getting the kind of roles Ryder used to get. Once again Aronofsky (PI, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) has proved himself to be one of cinema’s most inventive directors, a master visual storyteller not afraid to take chances both with himself and with the audience.

KWANZAA 2010: THE LEGACY CONTINUES…

The American Museum of Natural History will celebrate Kwanzaa on December 26

American Museum of Natural History
79th St. & Central Park West
Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, first floor
Sunday, December 26, free with museum admission, 12 noon – 5:00
212-769-5100
www.amnh.org

The American Museum of Natural History’s annual celebration of Nguzo Saba, also known as Kwanzaa, takes place on December 26 with a full slate of special activities. The afternoon begins at twelve o’clock with a Kwanzaa arts & crafts and food marketplace and continues with such live performances as “Unity NOW!” with Griot Linda Humes, “The Rhythm of the Soul!” with the Kotchegna and Gestures Dance Ensemble Dance Company, “The Music of the Soul!” with McCollough Invaders of the United House of Prayer for All People, “The Birthplace of the Soul — Mother Africa!” with the Restoration Dance Theatre Company, and “The Power of the Soul!” with the Allen Liturgical Dance Ministry of the Greater Allen Cathedral, paying tribute to the seven Kwanzaa principles: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (Faith). Among the current exhibits at the museum, some of which require individual timed ticketing, are “Brain: The Inside Story,” “Race to the End of the Earth,” “On Feathered Wings: Birds in Flight,” the Butterfly Conservatory, and the Space Show films HUBBLE, JOURNEY TO THE STARS, and a double feature of PASSPORT TO THE UNIVERSE and THE SEARCH FOR LIFE: ARE WE ALONE?

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: ALL NEW WORKS 2010

Christopher L. Huggins’s “Anointed” is one of the highlights of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater season at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through January 2
Tickets: $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

As always, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual year-end season at City Center includes world premieres, brand-new productions of earlier works, performances with live music, revivals of classics, and plenty of “Revelations,” which is in the midst of its fiftieth anniversary. The first program of all-new works took place on December 21, beginning with the world premiere of former Ailey member Christopher L. Huggins’s celebratory “Anointed.” In the first section, “Passing,” set to Moby’s “Grace,” Olivia Bowman Jackson, representing Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison, who is stepping down from her position in January, and Glenn Allen Sims, playing the part of Alvin Ailey, perform a gentle pas de deux, both dressed in black, before Sims follows a glowing light and exits the stage. In the second section, “Sally Forth,” set to Sean Clements’s percussion-based “Blessed Love,” Jackson emerges wearing Jamison’s trademark purple, continuing Ailey’s legacy with Megan Jakel, Rachael McLaren, Akua Noni Parker, and Khilea Douglass. The piece concludes with “52 and Counting,” featuring Moby’s “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” as Sims reemerges in white, now the heavenly spirit of Ailey watching the full company perform before teaming up with Jackson again and handing over the reins to new artistic director Robert Battle (Abdur-Rahim Jackson). “Anointed” is a wonderful tribute to the past, present, and future of the company.

AAADT’s Briana Reed and Samuel Lee Roberts in Geoffrey Holder’s “The Prodigal Prince” (photo by Paul Kolnik)

In honor of his retiring mentor, associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya has restaged Jamison’s 1989 work, “Forgotten Time,” a seven-part ballet that begins in silence as six male dancers and six female dancers look up at an unseen image, then, dressed in skin-tight, flesh-colored costumes re-created by Jamison, break off into pairs and perform thrilling lifts, carries, and pulls, exhibiting marvelous body control in Timothy Hunter’s soft lighting as a score by Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares plays. Sims and Jermaine Terry join together for a particularly awe-inspiring duet. A new production of Geoffrey Holder’s 1968 dazzler, “The Prodigal Prince,” was a terrific choice to follow the much quieter “Anointed” and “Forgotten Time.” Based on the life of Haitian painter Hector Hyppolite, “The Prodigal Prince” comes alive with colorful costumes, loud tribal music, and flashy choreography, all by Holder, with lighting and special stage effects by Clifton Taylor. The brash, bold, exciting piece is divided into five sections (“Conversations with the Gods,” “The Feather Brush,” “The Dream of Africa — A Divine Sleep,” “Homecoming and Inheritance,” and “The Beginning”) as Hyppolite (Samuel Lee Roberts) meets Voudoun goddess Erzulie Freda Dahomey (Parker) and John the Baptist (Jamar Roberts) in a vision and is joined by the Mambo/Le Serviteur (Hope Boykin), a pret-savanne spirit (Michael Francis McBride), and the rest of the company, their faces hidden behind masks, with religious rituals taking place and a general love of life bursting forth. “The Prodigal Prince” will be performed again December 23, December 26, and January 2, with “Forgotten Time” scheduled for December 26, December 28, and January 1 and “Anointed” December 29 and January 2.

LEONARDO DA VINCI’S THE LAST SUPPER: A VISION BY PETER GREENAWAY

Peter Greenaway investigates da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and Veronese’s “Wedding at Cana” at Park Avenue Armory

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 6, timed tickets $15 (children ten and under free), 12 noon – 8:00 pm
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

On December 4 at the Park Avenue Armory, iconoclastic British director Peter Greenaway boldly declared that cinema is dead, that all art is elitist, and that we have become a visually illiterate society. The man behind such unique and unusual films as THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER (1989) and THE PILLOW BOOK (1996) was in New York discussing his dazzling multimedia installation “Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway,” which continues through January 6 at the armory. Greenaway is in the midst of his Ten Classical Paintings Revisited series, in which he delves deep into the stories behind some of the greatest works of art in the history of the world. He began by turning Rembrandt’s “Nightwatch” into a thrilling murder mystery and has now turned his attention to Leonardo da Vinci and Paolo Veronese. Upon first entering the fifty-five-thousand square foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall, visitors are greeted by more than a dozen screens of varying sizes, dangling from the ceiling, hiding in the background, and even forming a red carpet of sorts on the floor. Different videos place the viewer in the midst of a Milan piazza as images of tourists whirl past. “I love Italian fascist architecture,” Greenaway noted during his December 4 talk.

The Park Avenue Armory is transformed into a multimedia Italian piazza and refectory for dazzling Greenaway installation (photo by James Ewing)

Following shots of Italian ballet dancer Roberto Bolle’s graceful movement, visitors are taken into a second room, a re-creation of the Refectory of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, featuring a long white table with white place settings leading to an exact copy of da Vinci’s masterful depiction of “The Last Supper.” Greenaway brings the magnificent painting to life using light, shadow, and projection as the work suddenly becomes three-dimensional, glows when hit by apparent sunlight, and is broken down into individual figures and specific elements. The standing audience is then brought back into the first room, where Greenaway investigates Veronese’s “Wedding at Cana,” a work that places Jesus at the center of a Jewish wedding, the married couple way off to one side, as Jesus turns water into wine. Greenaway discusses various characters Veronese included in the painting, his controversial depiction of blood, and the hierarchy of the carefully arranged 126 figures at the banquet, all of whom are given bits of dialogue, some taken from the Gospel of St. John. With voices coming from all directions and classical music by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and Antonio Vivaldi echoing through the hall, visitors become guests at the wedding, as if in the middle of it all, as Greenaway offers a new way to look at a painting and cinema, just as he did with “The Last Supper.” The forty-five-minute presentation gets into cosmography, Christian iconography, and apocrypha with a sly sense of humor, integrating living images with a text-based cinema, incorporating art and architecture, film and dance, religion and history into a spectacular experience that should not be missed.

FLUX FACTORY AUCTION AND GALA

Center 548
548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday, December 15, $15-$1,000, 7:00
718-707-3362
www.fluxfactory.org

Long Island City’s Flux Factory, “a not for profit arts organization supporting innovation in things,” will be holding its annual auction Wednesday night in Chelsea, with live performances, light food and drink, and an impressive list of artists selling works to benefit the art collective. Among the participating artists are Andrea Dezsö, Dan Colen, Kathryne Hall, Marie Losier, Molly Surno, Peter Doig, Ryan McNamara, Stefany Anne Golberg, Swoon, and Ward Shelley, with Angela Washko, Daupo, Douglas Paulson, Elizabeth Larison, Gabriela Vainsencher, Sarah Glidden, and Will Harris serving as “knock-off” live artists, creating customized copies on demand. Guests of honor Elizabeth Dee and city councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer will also be feted by a performance by Alison Ward, video art by Jaime Iglehart, Matthew-Robin Nye’s creative seating, silkscreening by Bread and Butter Collective, and DJ Sondies leading a dance party. You don’t have to attend the festivities in order to bid on the works, which are all detailed online.

PAUL WINTER PRESENTS: WINTER SOLSTICE

The Paul Winter Consort and friends will once again celebrate the solstice at St. John the Divine

Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Ave. at 112th St.
December 16-18, $35-$80
www.stjohndivine.org
www.solsticeconcert.com

Billed as “New York’s Holiday Celebration of Music, Dance, and the Return of the Sun,” the Paul Winter Consort will once again pay tribute to the shortest day of the year at the thirty-first annual Winter Solstice concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for four shows December 16-18. A few days before the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere, the six-time Grammy-winning soprano saxophonist and his group — Paul McCandless on double reed, Paul Sullivan on keyboards, Eugene Friesen on cello, Jamey Haddad and Bill Cahn on percussion, and Tim Brumfield on St. John’s pipe organ — will be joined by special guests Armenian vocalist Arto Tunçboyaciyan, gospel singer Theresa Thomason, and the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. “For me,” Winter explains on his website, “this solstice celebration is an ever-renewing thrill — whether watching the sun gong ascend twelve stories with its player to the vault of the cathedral or hearing the ‘tree of sounds’ as it slowly turns, reflecting a myriad of lights from its hundreds of bells, gongs, and chimes.” Longtime Winter fans are in for an additional treat, as the consort will be holding the New York premiere of songs from its brand-new album, MIHO: JOURNEY TO THE MOUNTAIN (Living Music, September 2010), which features such tracks as “Words of Wish Fulfillment,” “Dawn Raga,” “Elephant Dance,” “Koto Spring,” “Singing to the Mountain,” and “Morning Sun.”

THE RED & WHITE PARTY 2010

Hank & Cupcakes headline the sizzling hot Red & White Party at (le) poisson rouge on Tuesday night (photo by Alan Lugo)

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Tuesday, December 14, $15, 8:00
212-228-4854
www.lepoissonrouge.com
www.ps122.org

The sixth annual Red & White Party is ready to blow your mind on December 14, with the festivities spreading across two spaces at (le) poisson rouge on Bleecker St. In the lounge beginning at 8:00, Jomai Etu of the Tribe of Magic will be manning the turntables, joined by various special surprise guests, with Maga Bo taking over at midnight at Joro Boro at 1:00. On the main stage, Caveman gets things going at 9:00, followed by Hank & Cupcakes at 10:00, DJ Roxy Cottontail at 11:00, DJ Michael Magnan at 12:30, and Die J! Mars at 2:00. Promising a cross-section of “subversive and seductive underground sounds,” the party also suggests wearing dancing shoes and drinking helmets.