this week in dance

UNDER THE RADAR

Stephen Earnhart’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE should be one of the highlights of the Under the Radar festival

The Public Theater (and other venues)
425 Lafayette St. between East Fourth St. & Astor Pl.
January 6-17, $15-$30
212-967-7555
www.publictheater.org

Held in conjunction with the APAP Conference, the sixth annual Under the Radar festival comprises twenty theatrical productions from seven countries, with well-known companies as well as lesser-known entities bringing their work to the Public Theater and other venues. SITI Company’s Anne Bogart and Charles L. Mee Jr. have teamed up with the Martha Graham Company for AMERICAN DOCUMENT, which will be shown as a work-in-progress. Andrew Dawson gets up close and personal with the moon in SPACE PANORAMA. Sekou and Steve Connell examine morality in THE WORD BEGINS. Doris Mirescu and Dangerous Ground Productions turn John Cassavetes’s HUSBANDS into a three-hour presentation, while the Ohio Theatre transforms Haruki Murakami’s dense THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE into a 105-minute multimedia drama at their space on Wooster St. Pig Iron Theatre Company reprises its Obie-winning CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN at the CSV Cultural Center, while Phil Soltanoff and David Barlow go crazy in LA PARTY at HERE Arts Center. During the festival, the LuEsther Lounge at the Public Theater will be hosting live music and dance performances for free (January 7-17, 9:00 pm – 1:00 am), including Reggie Watts and DJ Reborn on January 7, ELEW on January 9, Rachelle Garniez on January 10, and the Middle Church Jerriese Johnson Gospel Choir on January 17.

APAP AT DTW

Pam Tanowitz’s BE IN THE GRAY WITH ME returns to DTW for APAP (photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th St.
January 7-11
212-691-6500
www.dancetheaterworkshop.org
www.apapconference.org

The Association of Performing Arts Presenters is in town for its annual conference (January 8-12), and although many of its programs, lectures, seminars, workshops, etc., are open to members and registrants only, there are numerous events that are available to the public. Dance Theater Workshop is hosting three APAP-affiliated programs, looking both ahead and back. If you missed Tere O’Connor Dance’s WROUGHT IRON FOG this past November, you can catch it again January 7-8 (6:00, $15). Faye Driscoll will offer a preview of THERE IS SO MUCH MAD IN ME (January 8, free, 3:00, reservations strongly suggested); we caught a sneak peek at one scene last month and it was pure exhilaration. And on January 10-11 ($15), Pam Tanowitz will be bringing back her highly praised BE IN THE GRAY WITH ME, which originally ran at DTW last June.

A LIGHT CONVERSATION

Rahel Vonmoos and Wally Cardona search for intimacy in A LIGHT CONVERSATION (photo © Christian Glaus)

WALLY CARDONA & RAHEL VONMOOS
Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer St.
January 7-12, $18
212-352-3101
www.joyce.org
www.wcvismorphing.org

One of Brooklyn’s most innovative choreographers, Wally Cardona has presented such shows as EVERYWHERE at BAM’s Next Wave Festival in 2005, SITE at Dance Theater Workshop in 2007, A LIGHT CONVERSATION at the Joyce SoHo in fall 2008, and REALLY REAL at BAM this past November. The Joyce SoHo is bringing back A LIGHT CONVERSATION, which is choreographed and performed by Cardona and Rahel Vonmoos, for an encore presentation January 7-12. The fifty-minute pieces, which is set in a twenty-by-thirty-two-foot space with the audience on three sides and a black curtain on the fourth, features lighting by Roderick Murray and a sound score by Cardona that integrates Melvyn Bragg, Café Tacuba, Shoji Hano, and Jefferson Airplane. The January 11 performance will be followed by a Q&A and refreshments.

NEW YEAR’S EVE 2009

The Detroit Cobras get ready to rock in the new year at the Mercury Lounge

You can say goodbye to the decade with a cornucopia of live concerts in New York City on December 31, starting with Chuck Berry’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve at B.B. King’s Blues Club and Grill ($98, 8:00 show; $120, 11:00 show). The very hot Detroit Cobras will be at the Mercury Lounge, welcoming in 2010 with the Underthings and the A-Bones ($25-$30). The intriguing trio of John Medeski, Robert Randolph, and the North Mississippi Allstars bring the Word to Terminal 5 ($40-$50). Revelers can get their freak on for free at Radegast Hall & Biergarten in Williamsburg, where the Coney Island Circus Sideshow will set up their portable tent, featuring Scott Baker, Serpentina, Kryssy Kocktail, Adam “the First Real Man” Rinn, the Executioner, Dick Zigun, Bad Buka, and more starting at 10:00. Los Lobos will threaten to tear down the house at City Winery with shows at 7:30 ($45-$150) and 11:00 ($75-$225). Roky Erickson won’t need any elevators at Maxwell’s, where he’s on a bill with Muck & the Mires ($35). Former Luna residents Dean & Britta will be playing an early show at Southpaw with Undersea Poem ($20-$25).

MSTRKRFT will mix things up at Webster Hall on December 31

The Living Room on Ludlow hosts a night of bluegrass, Auld Twang Syne, with Fresh Baked, Whistlin’ Wolves, Michael Daves, the Birdhive Boys, and others ($10-$15). Necromantic presents a Blue Moon New Year’s Eve party at the Bowery Poetry Club, featuring goth, synth, wave, dancing, revelry, and more ($10-$15). SOB’s, the Home of Universal Music, will get your booty shaking to a Taste of Latin Paradise with Kazua Band, La Excelencia, Stil, and DJ Spike ($25-$150). The Lovin’ Cup in Brooklyn will be throwing a ‘50s Beach Party, with Lemonade, Surfer Blood, Frankie and the Outs, Beach Fossils, We Are Country Mice, booze and food packages, and more ($15-$99). The Bell House will be providing a free can of Champagne along with Obits, the Subway Soul Club, and Eli Paperboy Reed & the True Loves at the Rock ‘N’ Soul 2010 New Year’s Eve Party ($30-$40). The Club Night New Year’s Eve Ball at Webster Hall is sure to be crazy, with MSTRKRFT, four floors, six adventure rooms, aerial performances, and what is billed as the Largest Balloon Drop in the World ($60-$150). And party planners extraordinaire Gemini & Scorpio promise that plenty of contraband will be on hand at the Bootleggers’ Ball in a vacant Carroll Gardens warehouse space, along with the Mad Jazz Hatters, the Stumblebum Brass Band, the Main Squeeze Orchestra, Alchemy Dance Theater, burlesque performers Mme Renee Rosebud and Jenny C’est Quoi, tarot reader and numerologist Marcy Currier, aerialist Nikki Borodi, mayhem master Dan Glass, host Bastard Keith, a live auction, games of chance, the Den of Sin, Dub Pies, and lots of surprises ($30-$40).

Audrey Hepburn brings class and style to Film Forum for NYE

For a milder New Year’s Eve, the Concert for Peace at St. John the Divine features Harry Smith, Judy Collins, Glen Cortese, Lauren Flanigan, and a thousand points of candlelight ($60), while Music at St. Bartholomew’s will include works by Bach, Böhm, and Langlais in addition to Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” at midnight (free). If music of any sort isn’t quite your beat on New Year’s Eve, you can head over to Central Park for the annual Midnight Run, with a fireworks and laser light show, costume contest, dancing, and a four-mile run. Prospect Park will also host free fireworks, right over Grand Army Plaza. Jivamukti Yoga School will be holding its twenty-first annual New Year’s Eve celebration with more than eight hours of special classes, a vegan dinner, a free kirtan dance party, and three hours of silence leading up to a midnight message (free – $75). Carolines on Broadway celebrates with Bobby Lee headlining at 8:00 ($38.25), while Greg Giraldo leads two shows at Comix (7:30 & 10:30, $45-$149). Sandra Bernhard continues her string of shows at Joes Pub (9:00, $100; 11:00, $150), followed by various members of the cast of HAIR letting the sun shine with DJ Theocracy in 2010: AN EQUALITY ODYSSEY! (1:00, $20). Film Forum is throwing in a free glass of Champagne after the 9:50 screening of THE APARTMENT (Billy Wilder, 1960), followed by BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (Blake Edwards, 1961). And for a little something very different, New Lost City begins at 195 Morgan Ave. at 9:00 pm and continues through 7:00 am with promised fire and ice, art and laughter, love and nudity, and prophetic visions and brief moments of the sublime as well as performances by the Hungry March Band, Baja + the Dry Eye Crew, the Lady Circus, and lots more ($29).

FIRST SATURDAYS: TRANSFORMATION

Cordero will get Saturday night party started at Brooklyn Museum on January 2 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Museum of Art
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, January 2, free after 5:00 (some events require advance free tickets available an hour or two before showtime)
718-638-5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum’s monthly First Saturdays program rings in the new year with its monthly array of free activities, beginning at 5:00 with Cordero, a rousing live band formed by Ani Cordero in Tucson in 1999 with members of Calexico and Giant Sand and based in New York City since 2000; Cordero plays smooth, surprisingly subtle Latin pop that is always on the verge of busting loose. At 6:00, Daphne Brooks will talk about funk rock and James Brown. At 6:30, the Midnight Checkout Queens will play live along with a screening of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001). At 7:00, Venus Ensembles will headline the annual Winter Masquerade Ball, so be sure to come in costume. At 9:00, John Sellers will talk about his book PERFECT FROM NOW ON: HOW INDIE ROCK SAVED MY LIFE. Also at 9:00, Expressway Music hosts a karaoke contest for free FELA! tickets, and Jonathan Toubin spins tunes during the always hot dance party. And as always, the evening includes a gallery talk, a hands-on art workshop, and admission to all of the current exhibitions: “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present,” “James Tissot: ‘The Life of Christ,’” “Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets,” “Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video,” “Patricia Cronin: ‘Harriet Hosmer, Lost and Found,’” and “From the Village to the Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith.”

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: ALL NEW

Matthew Rushing feels the spirit in new Ronald K. Brown commission (Photo by Paul Kolnick)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through January 3
Tickets: $25-$175
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

On December 22, Alvin Ailey presented a trio of world premieres, beginning with Ronald K. Brown’s tribute to artistic director Judith Jamison, titled “Dancing Spirit,” as is her autobiography. The troupe, costumed simply in variations of blue and white, move to instrumental music by Duke Ellington, Wynton Marsalis, Radiohead, and War, often with each dancer performing slightly different routines; what could have been chaotic, though, is, in the hands of Brown – who runs the Brooklyn-based Evidence, A Dance Company – simply gorgeous, particularly when Matthew Rushing serves as the slow-motion leader of four of the men. Incorporating Afro-Cuban and Brazilian styles, Brown pulls off another coup; as charged as the piece is, no two dancers ever touch one another, not even during Rushing’s pas de deux with Renee Robinson or when all the dancers are onstage together. (“Dancing Spirit” is also scheduled for December 27, 29, and 30 and January 3.)

Linda Celeste Sims gets artistic in new Judith Jamison piece (Photo by Paul Kolnick)

For her twentieth anniversary, Jamison has choreographed “Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places),” which she sets in an art museum that features paintings by Jamison herself. Clifton Brown serves as a Puck-like genie, encouraging visitors in everyday clothing (business suits, dresses, jeans) to suddenly start feeling the beat of ELEW’s (Eric Robert Lewis) original jazzy score. Hope Boykin and Kirven James Boyd hold a fun dance-off against Rosalyn Deshauteurs and Vernard J. Gilmore, the amazing Linda Celeste Sims (in a stunning pink dress) teams up in a beautiful duet with (real-life husband) Glen Allen Sims, and three construction workers (Brown, Rushing, and Gilmore) cause a little havoc on their lunch break. Although the piece can be maddeningly inconsistent, especially in its narrative, it also has some wonderful movement. (“Among Us”: December 29, January 1 and 3.)

The third world premiere comes from longtime Ailey dancer Rushing, an extraordinary performer whose “Uptown” is, unfortunately, rather ordinary at best and mostly unnecessary. Telling the story of the Harlem Renaissance in a series of set pieces introduced by Abdur-Rahim Jackson, the multimedia “Uptown” is clichéd, cramped, and obvious, playing out more like a student presentation than a professional work. However, several exciting moments include Glen Allen Sims’s dance to the words of W. E. B. DuBois and Anthony Burrell’s Langston Hughes. Most else is mundane, a pale echo of such Ailey classics as “Night Creature” and “Revelations.” (“Uptown”: December 26, 27, 29, 30, January 1.)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater honors Judith Jamison's twentieth anniversary as artistic director during annual season at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnick)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 2 – January 3
Tickets: $25-$175
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is celebrating Judith Jamison’s twentieth anniversary as artistic director in appropriate style and panache with a number of very special programs during its annual fall/winter season at City Center, including several world premieres: AAADT veteran Matthew Rushing’s “Uptown,” Ronald K. Brown’s specially commissioned “Dancing Spirit,” and Jamison’s own “Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places).” In addition, Anna Deavere Smith will appear onstage to present her libretto for a new production of Jamison’s Emmy-winning “Hymn,” and “Best of 20 Years” will feature a forty-five-minute compilation of excerpts of thirteen pieces from Jamison’s tenure, by such choreographers as Alonzo King, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Dwight Rhoden, Lar Lubovitch, Garth Fagan, and Donald Byrd. Also on the itinerary are George Faison’s “Suite Otis,” Alvin Ailey’s “Memoria” and “Blues Suite” (the latter with live music by the Brawner Brothers), Mauro Bigonzetti’s “Festa Barocca,” Elsa Monte’s “Treading,” Hans van Manen’s “Solo,” Ulysses Dove’s “Episodes,” Robert Battle’s “Unfold” and “In/Side” (a company premiere), the Ailey classic “Revelations” (with live music), and Jamison’s “Love Stories” (choreographed with Battle and Rennie Harris). Seeing Ailey at City Center has become quite a holiday tradition that no fan of contemporary dance should miss.