Who: Kiki Abba, Erin Bednarz, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Nick Spencer, Ayo Tushinde, Faye Driscoll
What: Live watch party with preshow chat and postshow wrap-up
Where: Instagram
When: Wednesday, April 22, free, 7:00
Why: When Seattle arts organization On the Boards kicked off its 2019-20 fortieth anniversary season last year with the theme “In the Future’s Wake: Rituals, Ceremonies, and Happenings,” it could never have conceived what the future did in fact hold for them and the rest of the country (and world). On April 22, the company will be hosting a highly relevant watch party on Instagram, streaming the first part of Faye Driscoll’s Thank You for Coming: Attendance, recorded with four cameras at Danspace Project in 2014. Driscoll followed Attendance with Play and Space, an endlessly creative trilogy that ingeniously shatters the boundaries between audience and performer. The work takes on a new meaning in the age of Covid-19, with the relationship between audience and performer changing again — and among the performers themselves, since they can’t be together in the same place, instead relegated to individual boxes on a screen — as we are all hunkered down at home, seeing one another only through our phones and computers and communicating via live chats. This online presentation of Attendance begins with an introduction and preshow chat at 7:00 with the Bounce House, a cohabitating collective that consists of Kiki Abba, Erin Bednarz, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Nick Spencer, and Ayo Tushinde, followed by the performance and a wrap-up at the end. The show will be streamed on DelPan-Monley’s Instagram.
this week in dance
COVID-19 & NEW YORK CITY ARTS AND CULTURE
Since May 2001, twi-ny has been recommending cool things to do throughout the five boroughs, popular and under-the-radar events that draw people out of their homes to experience film, theater, dance, art, literature, music, food, comedy, and more as part of a live audience in the most vibrant community on Earth.
With the spread of Covid-19 and the closing of all cultural institutions, sports venues, bars, and restaurants (for dining in), we feel it is our duty to prioritize the health and well-being of our loyal readers. So, for the next several weeks at least, we won’t be covering any public events in which men, women, and children must congregate in groups, a more unlikely scenario day by day anyway.
That said, as George Bernard Shaw once noted, “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”
Some parks are still open, great places to breathe in fresh air, feel the sunshine, and watch the changing of winter into spring. We will occasionally be pointing out various statues, sculptures, and installations, but check them out only if you are already going outside and will happen to be nearby.
You don’t have to shut yourself away completely for the next weeks and months — for now, you can still go grocery shopping and pick up takeout — but do think of others as you go about your daily life, which is going to be very different for a while. We want each and every one of you to take care of yourselves and your families, follow the guidelines for social distancing, and consider the health and well-being of those around you.
We look forward to seeing you indoors and at festivals and major outdoor events as soon as possible, once New York, America, and the rest of the planet are ready to get back to business. Until then, you can find us every so often under the sun, moon, clouds, and stars, finding respite in this amazing city now in crisis.
CARMEN & GEOFFREY: A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO CARMEN DE LAVALLADE
The life of Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder is examined in low-budget documentary screening at Film Forum
CARMEN & GEOFFREY (Linda Atkinson & Nick Doob, 2006)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Friday, March 6, 6:30
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
firstrunfeatures.com
Film Forum is celebrating the eighty-ninth birthday of the one and only Carmen de Lavallade with a special screening of Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob’s 2006 documentary, Carmen & Geoffrey, along with rare footage of de Lavallade and Alvin Ailey dancing the ballet from Porgy and Bess in Howard Beach for a 1960 television show. Carmen & Geoffrey is an endearing look at de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder’s lifelong love affair with dance — and each other. The New Orleans-born de Lavallade studied with Lester Horton and went to high school with Ailey, whom she brought to his first dance class. Trinidadian Holder was a larger-than-life gentle giant who was a dancer, choreographer, composer, costume designer, actor, director, writer, photographer, painter, and just about anything else he wanted to be.
The two met when they both were cast in Truman Capote and Harold Arlen’s Broadway show House of Flowers in 1954, with the six-foot-six Holder instantly falling in love with de Lavallade; they were together until 2014, when he passed away at the age of eighty-four. Atkinson and Doob combine amazing archival footage — of Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker, Ulysses Dove, de Lavallade dancing with Ailey, and other splendid moments — with contemporary rehearsal scenes, dance performances, and interviews with such stalwarts as dance critic Jennifer Dunning (author of Geoffrey Holder: A Life in Theater, Dance and Art), former Alvin Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison, dancer Dudley Williams, and choreographer Joe Layton (watch out for his eyebrows), along with family members and Gus Solomons jr, who still works with de Lavallade. The film was made on an extremely low budget and it shows, but it is filled with such glorious footage that you’ll get over that quickly.
BURNT-OUT WIFE
Sara Juli explores marriage in personal, funny ways in latest one-woman show (photo by Nick Pierce)
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St. between Rivington and Delancey Sts.
February 21-22, 27-28, $19-$23, 7:00
dixonplace.org
www.sarajuli.com
“The funny thing about marriage over time is I was very focused on locking it in, and now I just feel locked in,” Sara Juli says in her one-woman show Burnt-Out Wife, which makes its New York premiere February 21-22 and 27-28 at Dixon Place in conjunction with the American Dance Festival. The comedic dance-theater work takes place in a peppy pink bathroom designed by Pamela Moulton, with Juli wearing a range of household costumes (or not much of anything) created by Carol Farrell as she sings, dances, and riffs on relationships while sharing intimate moments and eliciting audience participation. Juli, a Skidmore graduate with degrees in dance and anthropology whose previous shows include The Money Conversation and Tense Vagina: an actual diagnosis, lived in New York for fifteen years before moving in 2014 with her husband and two children to Maine, where she produces the contemporary dance series Maine Moves and runs the fundraising consulting practice Surala Consulting, among other artistic ventures. In preparing for Burnt-Out Wife, Juli and her husband went to marriage counseling, covering as many bases as possible as she explores commitment in deeply personal yet funny ways from a distinctly feminist perspective. The seventy-minute presentation, which involves cake, an original song, and plungers, features dramaturgy by Michelle Mola, sound by Ryan MacDonald, and lighting by David Ferri; tickets are $19 in advance and $23 at the door.
ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAEKER: MITTEN WIR IM LEBEN SIND / BACH6CELLOSUITEN
The North American premiere of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Rosas’ Mitten Wir Im Leben Sind/Bach6Cellosuiten takes place at the Skirball Center this week (photo by Anne Van Aerschot)
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl.
February 13-15, $50-$60, 7:30
212-998-4941
nyuskirball.org
www.rosas.be/en
If you haven’t seen Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Rosas perform in New York City, you haven’t been paying attention. She and her company have presented A Love Supreme at New York Live Arts in 2017, Six Brandenburg Concertos at Park Avenue Armory in 2018, and Transfigured Night at Baryshnikov Arts Center in 2019. This week de Keersmaeker and Rosas are performing the North America premiere of Mitten Wir Im Leben Sind / Bach6Cellosuiten (In the Midst of Life / Bach’s Cello Suites) at NYU’s Skirball Center, a series of solos accompanied by master French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, who plays a 1696 cello by Gioffredo Cappa, with de Keersmaeker joining each dancer for a duet.
The two-hour piece, which debuted at the 2017 Ruhrtriennale in Germany in 2017, consists of six Bach sections written between 1717 and 1723 (BWV 1007-1012) — the allemande, courante, sarabande, two minuets, and gigue — created with and danced by Boštjan Antončič, Marie Goudot, Julien Monty, Michaël Pomero, and De Keersmaeker. The stark staging, in which the dancers move across a black space around a seated Queyras, with swirling white chalk marks and green and red tape placed on the light-colored floor, features costumes by An D’Huys, sound by Alban Moraud, and lighting by Luc Schaltin. The title comes from Martin Luther’s version of the Latin antiphon “Media vita in morte sumus”; the Lutheran hymn reads, in part: “In the midst of life / We are in death / Who shall help us in the strife / Lest the Foe confound us? / Thou only, Lord, Thou only!” In addition, Bach wrote a freestanding chorale (BWV 383) based on Luther’s three-stanza liturgy; de Keersmaeker has also discussed how she saw the Luther quote on the tombstone of legendary choreographer Pina Bausch. The February 14 show will be followed by a talk with de Keersmaeker and Queyras, moderated by Center for Ballet and the Arts founder and director Jennifer Homans.
POP PERFORMANCE — WOMEN IN MOTION: ASUBTOUT, REBECCA STENN, SAME AS SISTER
Women in Motion presents a trio of commissioned projects from female choreographers
The Theater at Gibney
280 Broadway
January 30 – February 1, $15-$20, 8:00
gibneydance.org
Women in Motion and the Bang Group will present their latest Pop Performance this week at Gibney, consisting of specially commissioned works by female or female-identifying choreographers. Founded in 2000, WIM “offers female artists the opportunity to show work-in-progress in a supportive, intimate setting, intended to create a dialogue between artists and audiences.” The Centaur Show, by the duo asubtout (Katy Pyle and Eleanor Hullihan), is described as a “nouveau New Age fantasy death metal poperetta.” Pyle and Hullihan return to their 2007 original to explore how the world has changed in the last thirteen years. Rebecca Stenn’s The Oak and the Willow is like a painting come to life onstage, a duet danced by Stenn and Quinn Dixon, with live music by Jay Weissman on electric bass. And Same as Sister’s Kallax features a Sámi protagonist at IKEA, with Kristina Hay, Leigh Atwell, Hilary Brown-Istrefi, Briana Brown-Tipley, and Jamie Robinson in a work that examines celebrity and consumer culture. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door.
LUNAR NEW YEAR 4718: YEAR OF THE RAT
Multiple venues
January 25 – February 20
www.betterchinatown.com
www.explorechinatown.com
Gōng xǐ fā cái! New York City is ready to celebrate the Year of the Rat with special events all over town. People born in the Year of the Rat, the first zodiac sign, are clever and resourceful and have the potential to be wealthy and prosperous. Below are some of the highlights happening here in the five boroughs during the next several weeks of Chinese New Year.
Saturday, January 25
New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Grand Street at Chrystie St., free, 11:00 am – 3:30 pm
Lunar New Year Celebration, with family-friendly arts and crafts, mask-making workshop, lantern making, zodiac animal origami, compost activities, face painting ($5), winter tree tour, plant sale, zodiac-themed storytelling, lion dance performance, and more, Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main St., free, 12 noon – 4:00
Sunday, January 26
Sunday, February 16 & 23
Shadow Theater Workshops: The Art of Chinese New Year, with artists from Chinese Theatre Works, China Institute, 40 Rector St., $20, 2:00 pm
Saturday, February 1
Lunar New Year Family Festival, with “Sounds of the New Year” featuring the pipa and the erhu, “Whirling, Twirling Ribbons” workshop, lion dance performance, food, storytelling, face painting, zodiac arts and crafts, a gallery hunt, more, Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St., $12, 10:00 – 1:00 and 2:00 – 5:00
Lunar New Year Chinese Temple Bazaar, with food, live performances, activities, and more, Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd., $5, 11:00 & 2:00
Lunar New Year Festival: Year of the Rat, Lunar New Year Parade, Sesame Street Puppeteers Featuring Alan Muraoka, Integrating Identity with Vincent Chong, Festive Feast with Emily Mock, Luminous Lanterns with China Institute, Wu-Wo Tea Ceremony & Bubble Tea Gatherings, Hand-Pulled Noodle Demonstration, Creative Calligraphy with Zhou Bin, Metal Mouse Masterpieces with the Rubin Museum of Art, Hero Rats with Lydia DesRoche, Fierce Dragon Creations, Luminous Lanterns with China Institute, more, Met Fifth Ave., free with museum admission (some events require advance tickets), 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Family Day: Moon over Manhattan, with Bo Law Kung Fu: Lion Dance and Kung Fu demonstration, Rabbit Days and Dumplings, arts & crafts, and more, Asia Society, 725 Park Ave., $5-$12, 1:00 – 5:00
Lunar New Year, with music and dance, martial arts, theater, a lion parade, and more, presented with the New York Chinese Cultural Center, Brookfield Place, 230 Vesey St., free, 2:00 – 3:15
Sunday, February 2
Chinese New Year Family Festival, with lion dances, dumpling and paper-lantern workshops, storytelling, a puppet show, live music, more, China Institute, 40 Rector St., general admission free, some programs $20 in advance, 12:00 – 4:00 pm
Wednesday, February 5
Classic Films for the New Year: Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994), China Institute, 40 Rector St., $5, 6:30 pm
Friday, February 7
Lunar New Year Night Market, with food and drinks, live performances, art and culture, lion dance, vendors, and more, Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St., $99 (includes one-year MoCA membership), 6:00 – 10:00
Saturday, February 8
Super Saturday Lion Dances, throughout Chinatown, free
Sunday, February 9
Twenty-first annual New York City Lunar New Year Parade & Festival, with cultural booths in the park and a parade with floats, antique cars, live performances, and much more from China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and other nations, Chinatown, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and Columbus Park, free, 11:00 am – 3:30 pm
Peking Opera in Lunar New Year Presented by Qi Shufang Peking Opera Company, Queens Public Library, 41-17 Main Street, Flushing, free, 2:00
Thursday, February 13 & 20
MOCAKIDS Storytime! New Year’s Traditions, Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St., $5, 4:00