Fischerspooner will kick off Performa 09 at MoMA on Nov. 1
Multiple venues
November 1-22
Admission: free – $30
www.performa-arts.org
The third biennial Performa festival gets under way on November 1, kicking off three weeks of eclectic performance and installation art sponsored by Performa, a nonprofit interdisciplinary arts organization founded by RoseLee Goldberg that celebrates cutting-edge visual art and education. Although we’re suckers for multimedia performance art and site-specific sound and video installations, it can also be hit or miss, with concept often winning out over execution. But we’re here to narrow down the myriad choices for you; below are ten of our recommendations, in chronological order, to help you sift through the more than 150 artists participating in some 110 events at 80-plus institutions.
Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen will look at the present and future at the Performance Project
Other highlights include Arto Lindsay’s “Somewhere I Read” at Duffy Square on November 1, Tracey Emin reading from “Those Who Suffer Love” and “Strangeland” at the Performance Project at University Settlement on November 7, Kalup Linzy at Taxter & Spengemann on November 8, Omer Fast’s reinvention of the game Broken Telephone at Abrons Art Center November 11-13, Mai Ueda’s “Family Dinner in a Parallel Universe” neo-fluxus event at the Emily Harvey Foundation on November 14, Yeondoo Jung’s “Cinemagician” theater piece at the Asia Society November 19-21, Marina Rosenfeld’s “P.A.” audio installation at the Park Avenue Armory on November 22, and Guy Ben-Ner’s live untitled film being screened nightly at 7:00 at Performa Hub at 41 Cooper Square throughout the festival.
Many of the events are free, with other ticket prices ranging from $10 to $30. There’s a whole bunch of awesome events, so do your best to try to check out at least one of these ultracool happenings.
Sunday, November 1 Fischerspooner, “Inbetween Worlds,” the Museum of Modern Art, $20, 6:00
Tacita Dean collaborates with Merce Cunningham shortly before the great choreographer's death
Thursday, November 5
through
Saturday, November 7 Tacita Dean, Craneway Event, feature-length film documenting Merce Cunningham dance rehearsals in an abandoned automobile factory, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, $10
Friday, November 6 Jonas Mekas and Now We Are Here, live musical performance with lead singer Jonas Mekas and special guests, Emily Harvey Foundation, free, 9:00
Friday, November 6
and
Saturday, November 7 Auf den Tisch! (At the Table!), curated by Meg Stuart, featuring a revolving cast of artists and thinkers improvising at a large conference room table, including Trajal Harrell, Keith Hennessy, Yvonne Meier, Vania Rovisco, Meg Stuart, and others, Baryshnikov Arts Center, $20, 7:30
Saturday, November 7 First Saturdays: Rock Out, with “Twirl” by Jen DeNike, 6:00, and “Saaqiou” by Terence Koh, 9:30, Brooklyn Museum, free
Brilliant South African multimedia artist William Kentridge will discuss his latest work-in-progress at festival
Monday, November 9
and
Tuesday, November 10 William Kentridge, “I Am Not Me, the Horse Is Not Mine,” multimedia presentation about Kentridge’s work-in-progress, inspired by Shostakovich’s THE NOSE, Cedar Lake, $30, 8:00
Maria Hassabi follows up last month's "Solo" show with "SoloShow"
Thursday, November 12
and
Friday, November 13 Maria Hassabi, “SoloShow,” P.S. 122, $20
Friday, November 13 Guido Van Der Werve, “Nummer Elf: The King’s Gambit Accepted, the Number of Stars in the Sky & Waiting for an Earthquake,” Marshall Chess Club, $10, 7:00 & 9:00
Friday, November 13
through
Sunday, November 15 Wangechi Mutu, “Stone Ihiga,” multimedia performance and site-specific installation with music by Imani Uzuri, Saatchi & Saatchi, $15, 9:00
Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer collaborate for Performa 09
Tuesday, November 17
through
Thursday, November 19 Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer, “If I Sing to You / Spiraling Down,” Baryshnikov Arts Center, $25, 7:30
In 1996, neuroanatomist 
After getting a biopsy taken and drawing the death card while consulting a fortune-teller, popular French singer Cléo (Corinne Marchand) begins looking back at her life — and wondering just what’s left of it — while awaiting the dreaded results. The blonde beauty talks with old friends, asks her piano player (Michel Legrand, who composed the score) to write her a song, and meets a dapper gentleman in the park, becoming both participant and viewer in her own existence. As Cléo makes her way around town, director (and former photographer) Agnès Varda shows off early 1960s Paris, expertly winding her camera through the Rive Gauche. Just as Cléo seeks to find out what’s real (her actual name is Florence and that gorgeous hair is a wig), Varda shoots the film in a cinema verité style, almost as if it’s a documentary. She even sets the film in real time (adding chapter titles with a clock update), enhancing the audience’s connection with Cléo as she awaits her fate, but the movie runs only ninety minutes, adding mystery to what is to become of Cléo, as if she exists both on-screen and off, alongside the viewer. A central film in the French Nouvelle Vague and one of the first to be made by a woman, CLÉO DE 5 À 7 is an influential classic even as it has lost a step or two over the years. Varda, now in her eighties, has also made such well-regarded films as LE BONHEUR (1965), VAGABOND (1985), THE GLEANERS AND I (2000), and THE BEACHES OF AGNÉS (2008), among others. Big Dance Theater has reimagined the film in a multimedia production, COMME TOUJOURS HERE I STAND, that runs at the Kitchen through October 11.