this week in dance

2010 DOWNTOWN DANCE FESTIVAL

The Yuko Takahashi Dance Company are one of more than a dozen ensembles participating in the annual Downtown Dance Festival

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL
Battery Park, State St. & Battery Pl.
One New York Plaza, Water & Whitehall Sts.
Daily through August 20
Admission: free
212-219-3910
www.batterydance.org

The twenty-ninth annual Downtown Dance Festival is under way, featuring performances in Battery Park and at One New York Plaza. The event, as always, is hosted by the Battery Dance Company, which is celebrating its thirty-fifth season. The schedule comprises a great mix of ensembles, with Sunday’s lineup consisting of Classical Contemporary Ballet Theatre, Yuko Takahashi Dance Company from Japan, Lori Belilove & the Isadora Duncan Dance Company, India’s Guru Radha Mohanan & Troupe, binbinFactory, Battery Dance Company, and C. Eule Dance performing on the Battery Park lawn from 1:00 to 4:00. The rest of the shows will be held at noon at One New York Plaza: On Monday, binbinFactory and Yuko Takahashi Dance Company team up; on Tuesday, Guru Radha Mohanan Kathakali Troupe of India will perform as part of the third annual Erasing Borders: IAAC Festival of Indian Dance; on Wednesday, Lane & Co., Blakeley White-McGuire, Classical Contemporary Ballet Theatre, Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre, and the Battery Dance Company hit the plaza; on Thursday, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Erica Essner Performance Co-Op, and Lori Belilove & the Isadora Duncan Dance Company will appear; and on Friday, the festival wraps up with the Amy Marshall Dance Company, Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre, and Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn. The Downtown Dance Festival is always a great way to take in emerging talent in contemporary dance, free and outdoors.

CAMILLE A. BROWN & ANDREA MILLER / KATE WEARE & MONICA BILL BARNES

Kate Weare will present the world premiere of BRIGHT LAND at the Joyce this week

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
April 9-14, $10-$39
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org

This week the Joyce will be hosting four excellent companies performing in repertory over six days, with pairs of exciting groups appearing on alternate nights Monday through Saturday. On August 9, 11, and 13, Camille A. Brown will present, with her new ensemble, the world premiere of CITY OF RAIN, with music by Jonathan Melville Pratt; GOOD AND GROWN, with music by Saycon Sengbloh and Wes Montgomery; the New York premiere of the duet BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, with Brown and Juel D. Lane; the Katrina-inspired NEW SECOND LINE, with visual art by Moses Ball; and GIRLZ VERSE 1, an all-female piece with music by Wunmi Olaiya and M.I.A. On those same nights, Miller’s Gallim Dance will perform WONDERLAND, a longer work that was inspired by Cai Guo-Qiang’s installation “Head On,” in which ninety-nine wolves crash into a glass wall, seen here at the Chinese artist’s 2008 Guggenheim retrospective. On August 10, 12, and 14, the Kate Weare Company makes its Joyce season debut with the world premiere of BRIGHT LAND, featuring live music by the string band the Crooked Jades, while Monica Bill Barnes will update its piece ANOTHER PARADE, about the relationship between performer and audience, using a vast array of music ranging from classical to classic R&B. In addition, on Saturday afternoon, all four companies will present excerpts from their works in a family-friendly production that should be a blast.

SUMMER STREETS 2010

The people will take over Park Ave. for three successive Saturdays during annual Summer Streets program (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Bridge to the top of Central Park
Saturday, August 7, 14, 21, 7:00 am – 1:00 pm
Admission: free
www.nyc.gov

Encouraging more New Yorkers to bike, jog, skate, and walk instead of using cars in the city, the third annual Summer Streets program returns for the next three Saturdays, closing several byways — primarily all of Park Ave. — to vehicular traffic between the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. The route features rest stops in Foley Square, SoHo, Midtown, and Uptown that will be hosting live entertainment and special activities, including dance classes, Dumpster pools, the New York Rangers Road Tour, the New York Knicks Groove Truck, tours of St. Bart’s, exercise classes, free bike rentals and repairs, Fringe Festival theater workshops, yoga, mini-concerts, and much more. It’s all part of the city’s continuing greening and health initiatives, but whatever the reason, it’s really cool to see Park Ave. cleared of cars, trucks, and buses on a summer Saturday morning.

HONG KONG DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL

Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival returns this weekend with lots of special events and activities

Meadow Lake, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
Saturday, August 7, and Sunday, August 8
Admission: free
718-767-1776
www.hkdbf-ny.org

According to legend, when poet Qu Yuan (340-278 BCE) drowned himself after learning about the destruction of his village, local fishermen first tried to save his life but failed, then tossed dumplings into the river to prevent his body from being fodder for the fish. This story is memorialized every August with plenty of dumplings and dragon boat races in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. This weekend, such teams as Dragonflies, Syngent Seadogs, the New York Wall Street Dragons, Women in Canoe, Let’s Sink Together, the Puff Puff Dragons, and Knit Illustrated will battle it out on the water. The weekend will also feature a host of special activities and live performances, including the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, Hsu-Nami, Malini Srinivasan and Her Dancers, Shaolin Kung Fu, Napua Davoy’s “Brave Cool World,” Carnegie Hall’s ACJW Ensemble, Morgan James and the Resistance, the Chinese Dance Company, Dana Leong and His Music, the American Bolero Dance Co., arts & crafts, face painting, and much more.

LATINO CULTURAL FESTIVAL

Contra-Tiempo Urban Latin Dance Theatre kicks off annual Latino Cultural Festival in Queens on July 29

Queens Theatre in the Park
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
July 29 – August 8, free (with RSVP) – $35
718-760-0064
www.queenstheatre.org

The fourteenth annual Latino Cultural Festival, celebrating the ever-growing Latino community in Queens, launches tonight at the Claire Shulman Playhouse with L.A.-based Contra-Tiempo Urban Latin Dance Theatre ($30-$35), kicking off eleven days of music, film, dance, and comedy. Tomorrow night, Yomo Toro ($20-$25), the Jimi Hendrix of Salsa, takes over the main stage, followed by Pistolera and its offshoot, the bilingual group Moona Luna, on Saturday (free). The festival also features “Tango y Vida” (August 1, $30-$35), the Alejandro Caceres Dance Companay’s “Dilei” (August 3, free), a screening of Natalia Almada’s Mexican drama AL OTRO LADO (August 4, free), an open mic night hosted by Bonafide Rojas (August 4, free), a tango dance party with Los Chantas Tango Quartet (August 4, free), an evening of Latin American music with Leon Gieco, Claudia Acuña, Aquiles Baez, and Lucia Pulido (August 5, $20-$25), Cuban singer-songwriter Carlos Varela (August 6, $25-$30), Colombian superstar Jorge Velosa (August 7, $25-$30), and Peruvian Grammy winner Susana Baca (August 8, $25-$30). If you buy tickets for multiple shows, you get a twenty percent discount, and most free events require advance RSVP.

HARLEM WEEK

Multiple locations in Harlem around 135th St.
Through August 29
Admission to most events: free
www.harlemweek.com

Harlem Week is under way, and it’s much more than just seven days of special events and cultural activities; it actually continues through the end of August, featuring health and job fairs, a college expo, swimming, tennis, basketball, charity runs, and farmers markets in addition to film screenings and live music and dance, most of which is free. Tonight, Jazzmobile presents Houston Person in U.S. Grant National Memorial Park, while tomorrow the Metropolitan Opera Summer Recital Series continues with a performance at the Jackie Robinson Park Bandshell. On August 3, National Night Out will feature outdoor concerts, followed the next night by Tia Fuller in the Jazzmobile. (Future Jazzmobile musicians include Wycliffe Gordon on August 10, Akiko Tsuruga on August 18, and Jimmy Heath on August 21.) On August 7-8, ArtCrawl Harlem ($40-$55) will take art lovers on a trolley tour of such galleries as Casa Frela, the Dwyer Cultural Center, the LeRoy Neiman Art Center, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, followed by a reception with food, wine, and music. August 14 (“Summer in the City”) and 15 (Harlem Day), the NYC Children’s Festival is chock-full of special events and activities, with “Dancing in the Street” paying tribute to Bob Marley, the annual “Uptown Saturday Nite” celebration, free outdoor film screenings in St. Nicholas Park, “A Salute to the Children of Haiti,” a business expo, crafts markets, fashion shows, and more.

WE GIVE OURSELVES AWAY AT EVERY MOMENT

The legacy of Merce Cunningham will be honored with one-of-a-kind tribute in Rockefeller Park



AN EVENT FOR MERCE
Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City
Esplanade Plaza, West St. at Liberty St.
Monday, July 26, free, 6:00
www.artsworldfinancialcenter.com

In honor of the first anniversary of legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham’s passing, Annie B Parson and William Knapp are curating a unique program tonight in Battery Park City, at the same location where Cunningham posthumously held his final Event, last August 1-2 in Rockefeller Park. Choreographers Lucinda Childs, Bill T. Jones, Susan Marshall, Jon Kinzell, and Faye Driscoll will present both new pieces and excerpts from their repertoire that have been adapted to meet Cunningham’s site-specific, event-driven criteria. In addition, cellist David Eggar, experimental guitarist Geoff Gersh, and laptop specialist Kotchy will perform live music based on the chance compositions of John Cage, Cunningham’s longtime collaborator and partner. The production will take place in the round, further testing both the choreographers and the audience in this don’t-miss tribute.