this week in dance

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.

AS THE EYES OF THE SEAHORSE

Live music and dance collide and intersect at HERE Arts Center

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
December 9-11, $15-$20
212-352-3101
www.here.org

Two Philadelphia groups will create a unique performance piece in the round December 9-11 at HERE Arts Center, combining indie folk rock with experimental dance in AS THE EYES OF THE SEAHORSE. Music group the Mural and the Mint, consisting of Corey Duncan, Eliza Jones, Michael Kiley, Jebney Lewis, and Joshua Ramey, and the Nichole Canuso Dance Company, featuring Nichole Canuso, Niki Cousineau, Meg Foley, John Luna, Shannon Murphy, and Christina Zani, will collaborate on a stage surrounded by candlelit Mason jars and various odds and ends. The Mural and the Mint released their debut album, PRIVATE POCKETS, in 2008, and have just made the first single from their upcoming disc (also called AS THE EYES OF THE SEAHORSE), a light-hearted song called “Ripe,” available for free online. Canuso’s previous productions include TAKES, WANDERING ALICE, and THE ROYAL WE. The collaboration is part of HERE’s hemispHEREs initiative, which brings together visiting artists and the institution’s resident artists in a series of workshops, open rehearsals, discussions, and performances.

PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE

La MaMa Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
Thursday – Sunday through December 19
Tickets: $25-$30
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org

In 1928, Austrian painter Egon Schiele died at the age of twenty-eight. Perhaps not coincidentally, visual artist John Kelly is retiring his masterwork, a dance-theater piece about Schiele’s life and career, in its twenty-eighth year. PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE was first performed in a very different, much shorter version back at the Pyramid Club in 1982. The constantly evolving piece earned Kelly an Obie for its 1986 run at Dance Theater Workshop, then was revived in an expanded version at La MaMa in 1995. As part of La MaMa’s fortieth anniversary season, founder and artistic director Ellen Stewart convinced Kelly to once again bring back BLUTWURST, which is now running at the Ellen Stewart Theatre through December 19. Kelly has vowed that this will be the last time he ever performs the show, which in its fourth version features several new dances and videos. It’s a thrilling production about art and love that pits the bohemian lifestyle against a repressive culture, told in brilliant and unique ways. The rubbery-limbed Kelly marvelously embodies the sharp, angular Schiele, accompanied by a pair of Alter Egons (Luke Murphy and Eric Jackson Bradley) as he first woos free-spirited Wally Neuzil (Tymberly Canale), whom he meets in a café chugging beer and eating sausage, as his muse and mistress, and later the more traditional Edith (MacKenzie Meehan), who soon becomes his wife. Kelly alternates between silent-movie-like vignettes, set dance pieces, and short Expressionistic film segments, including a marvelous one in which he incorporates glass, his own drawing, and one of Schiele’s most famous self-portraits. The scenes between Schiele and Wally are particularly effective, as Kelly and Canale nearly melt into each other despite Schiele’s social awkwardness. Kelly has kept the show decidedly low-tech, with lo-fi music played on an old record player, the videos choppy and old-fashioned, and Huck Snyder’s sets sparse and intimate. BLUTWURST, which also garnered Kelly an NEA American Masterpieces Award, is playing Thursdays through Sundays through December 19.

Although you don’t have to know anything about Schiele’s extraordinary work to fall in love with the show, we suggest you do just a bit of homework before you go; you can find numerous images and an excellent essay on Schiele online from his New York dealer, Galerie St. Etienne, and several of his works are usually on view at the Neue Galerie. In addition, “Schiele-Kelly,” a collection of new photographs of Kelly posing as Schiele as well as ephemera from the show’s history, continues December 9-12 at La MaMa La Galleria at 6 East First St.

LESLIE SATIN AND DANCERS: RIGHT THIS MINUTE

Leslie Satin, Andrew Gurian, and Connie Beckley collaborate on RIGHT THIS MINUTE at University Settlement

The Performance Project at University Settlement
184 Eldridge St.
Saturday, December 4, $5-$15, 8:00
212-453-4523
www.universitysettlement.org

Last night New York-based choreographer and NYU professor Leslie Satin, PhD, made her University Settlement debut with her latest evening-length piece, RIGHT THIS MINUTE. Satin, whose long career has included such work as UNDER COVER, WALKING THE PLANKTON, and CROSS SECTIONS, has once again collaborated with video artist Andrew Gurian as well as Connie Beckley, who has created a sound environment that incorporates both live and recorded voice. The dance, which investigates memory and imagination, is performed by Satin with David Botana, Janet Charleston, and Ted Johnson, with lighting design by Brian Aldous.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will honor Judith Jamison’s long service with special programs at annual City Center season (photo by Jack Mitchell)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 1 – January 2
Tickets: $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Philly-born dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison performed with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 1965 to 1980, returning in December 1989 to become the artistic director of the company. After twenty-one years in that role, Jamison is stepping down, and Ailey’s annual winter season at City Center will be honoring her throughout its run, beginning with an opening night gala December 1 featuring the company premiere of Robert Battle’s “The Hunt,” Ailey’s “Cry,” and Sweet Honey in the Rock singing live to “Revelations,” and culminating in a special farewell tribute on January 2 that will include excerpts from many of the works most closely associated with her, from “Cry” (performed by three different dancers) and “Pas de Duke” to “Reminiscin’” and “Firebird.” (Battle will take over as artistic director in July 2011.) The season will also feature specially priced family matinees that will include “Revelations” performed by a cast of fifty; All Ailey programs, with such pieces as “Night Creature,” “Memoria,” “Mary Lou’s Mass,” and “Revelations”; All New programs, introducing world or company premieres and/or new productions of Christopher Huggins’s “Anointed,” Geoffrey Holder’s “The Prodigal Prince,” Camille A. Brown’s “The Evolution of a Secured Feminine,” Jamison’s “Forgotten Time,” and other works; and performances accompanied by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (Ailey’s “Three Black Kings,” Hans Van Manen’s “Solo,” Ulysses Dove’s “Vespers” and “Episodes,” Battle’s “In/Side,” Billy Wilson’s “The Winter in Lisbon”) and other groups.