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.
The Lincoln Center Festival ends today with the second and final performance of the Pichet Klunchun Dance Company’s gorgeous CHUI CHAI (“Transformation”). Nine dancers tell the Nang Loi story from the Ramayana, in which the demon king Thodsakarn attempts to stop the war with Rama by kidnapping his rival’s wife, Sita, and having demon maiden Benyakai turn into the famed beauty and fake her death. The first half of the show features masked dancers in glittering costumes with elaborate headdresses, moving slowly in the Khon style as an accompanying song relates the tale. At one point Thodsakarn is sitting atop his throne, the back of his outfit casting stars onto a screen behind him as if he is in control of the entire universe. (The screen is also used to project several photographs of old and new Thailand.) After a brief interlude in which, through street interviews, offstage voices discuss the legend of Sita and how it translates to modern society, a bare-chested Klunchun appears as Rama, dressed only in jeans, interacting with the costumed dancers, melding the past and the present, the traditional and the contemporary, centered by a breathtaking duet that brings everything together. At first Klunchun moves in the traditional style, eliciting a different emotion from the costumed dancers moving in the same way, but as he incorporates more contemporary movements, the transformation takes over. CHUI CHAI is a dazzling, evocative production that is representative of the breadth and scope of Lincoln Center’s outstanding summer festival.
