this week in dance

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL 2019

Ernesto Pujol’s The Listeners invites attendees to speak for as long as they want to an artist at Federal Hall (photo by Nisa Ojalvo)

R2R
Multiple downtown locations
June 18-29, free
lmcc.net

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s eighteenth annual River to River Festival comprises a host of exciting downtown events, from dance and immersive art to film and interactive performance. Running June 18-29, the festival is free, but many events require advance RSVP. “Our contemporary reality is rushed, and nowhere is this more apparent than in New York—the city that keeps moving,” curator and LMCC executive director of artistic programs Lili Chopra said in a statement. “There is always somewhere to go, something to see and more to achieve, creating a frenetic energy that makes this city fabulous and exhausting in equal parts. Increasingly, external stimulation seems to be stifling internal introspection as we anxiously charge forward blinkered to our surroundings and, in this digital age, hardened towards the very people that make up our physical community. In response to this, the River to River Festival addresses the experience of the individual within the urban setting by making space for balance.”

Among the artists participating in this year’s iteration are Yoko Ono, Sarah Michelson, Ernesto Pujol, Pam Tanowitz, Kamau Ware, Jennifer Monson, Carol Becker & Mark Epstein, and NIC Kay, at such locations as the Oculus, Federal Hall, Rockefeller Park, the Seaport District, the African Burial Ground National Monument, and the East River Esplanade. You can take a walking tour through the black experience, reveal your innermost desires to a stranger, meet with emerging artists in a studio setting, and add your thoughts to a refugee boat.

Tuesday, June 18
through
Saturday, June 29
Yoko Ono: Add Color (Refugee Boat) (1960/2019), interactive installation, 203 Front St., Seaport District, noon –8:00

Yoko Ono: The Reflection Project, instructional text works by Yoko Ono at such locations as 28 Liberty, the Fulton Transit Center, the Oculus at the WTC Transportation Hub, and the Seaport District

Elia Alba: The Supper Club, NYC DOT Art Display Cases on Water St. and Maiden Ln. and Gouverneur Ln. between Water & Front Sts.

Ezra Wube: Fulton Flow, Fulton Transit Center

Tuesday, June 18
Pam Tanowitz: Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures, with live music by composer and vocalist Ted Hearne, guitarist Taylor Levine, and Rachel Drehmann, Daniel Salera, Kate Sheeran, and Colin Weyman on French horns, costumes by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung, and sound design by Garth MacAleavey, performed by Sara Mearns, Taylor Stanley, Reid Bartelme, Jason Collins, Zachary Gonder, Victor Lozano and Melissa Toogood, Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City, 7:45

Wednesday, June 19
Pam Tanowitz: Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures, with live music by composer and vocalist Ted Hearne, guitarist Taylor Levine, and Rachel Drehmann, Daniel Salera, Kate Sheeran, and Colin Weyman on French horns, costumes by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung, and sound design by Garth MacAleavey, performed by Sara Mearns, Taylor Stanley, Reid Bartelme, Jason Collins, Zachary Gonder, Victor Lozano and Melissa Toogood, Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City, 7:45

NIC Kay’s pushit!! is a site-responsive meditation walk through Lower Manhattan (photo by Sarah-ji Rhee)

Thursday, June 20
Tribeca Art + Culture Night, with AIM—Bronx Museum of the Arts, Anita Rogers Gallery, apexart, Barney Savage Gallery, BM Franklin, Cheryl Hazan, Church Street School for Music and Art, Double Knot, Leslie-Lohman Museum, New York Academy of Art, Pearl River Mart, Postmasters Gallery, R & Company, SAPAR Contemporary, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, Soho Photo Gallery, the Drawing Center, the Untitled Space, Twenty First Gallery / White Space, White Street Studio, and Y2K group, 6:00 – 9:00

NIC Kay: pushit!!, site-responsive moving performance from Albert Capsouto Park at Varick & Laight Sts. to the African Burial Ground National Monument, 7:00

Friday, June 21
Workspace Artists-in-Residence: Open Studios, with Golnar Adili, Jennifer Bartlett, Eliza Bent, Keisha Bush, André Daughtry, Jonathan González, Zac Hacmon, Terrance James Jr., NIC Kay, Ying Liu, Asif Mian, Kenneth Pietrobono, Orlando Tirado, and Zhiyuan Yang, LMCC’s Workspace Studios, 101 Greenwich St., fifteenth floor, 6:00 – 9:00

Saturday, June 22
Workspace Artists-in-Residence: Open Studios, with Golnar Adili, Jennifer Bartlett, Eliza Bent, Keisha Bush, André Daughtry, Jonathan González, Zac Hacmon, Terrance James Jr., NIC Kay, Ying Liu, Asif Mian, Kenneth Pietrobono, Orlando Tirado, and Zhiyuan Yang, LMCC’s Workspace Studios, 101 Greenwich St., fifteenth floor, 1:00 – 8:00

Sunday, June 23
Jennifer Monson: ditch, with music and sound by Jeff Kolar, costumes by Susan Becker, and dancers Evie Allison, Madeline Mellinger, and Kaitlin Fox, Pier 35, East River Esplanade by Rutgers Slip, sunrise

iLANDing: Researching Urban Ecologies with Movement Based Scores, workshop with Jennifer Monson, Pier 35, East River Esplanade by Rutgers Slip, 11:00

Monday, June 24
Ernesto Pujol: The Listening School, Anderson Contemporary in the Atrium at 180 Maiden Ln. and the Plaza at 88 Pine St., 11:30 am – 2:30 pm

Sarah Michelson: june2019:/\, location revealed with RSVP, 1:30, 4:00, 7:00

Tuesday, June 25
Ernesto Pujol: The Listening School, Liberty Park, 155 Cedar St., and South Oculus Plaza, Church & Greenwich Sts. at Dey St., 11:30 am – 2:30 pm

Night at the Museums, free admission to the African Burial Ground National Monument, China Institute, Federal Hall National Memorial, Fraunces Tavern Museum, Lower Manhattan Tours, Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, National Archives at New York City, National Museum of the American Indian—Smithsonian Institution, National September 11 Memorial Museum, NYC Municipal Archives Visitor Center, 9/11 Tribute Museum, Poets House, the Skyscraper Museum, and the South Street Seaport Museum, 4:00 – 8:00

Black Gotham Experience: Sarah’s Fire, walking tour and story about black rebellion of 1712, 192 Front St., 4:00, 5:00, 6:00

Black Gotham Experience: Talk with BGX Creator and Artist Kamau Ware, 192 Front St., 8:00

Yoko Ono, Add Color (Refugee Boat), 1960/2016, installation view: Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2016

Wednesday, June 26
Ernesto Pujol: The Listening School, 28 Liberty: Fosun Plaza, 11:30 am – 2:30 pm

Sarah Michelson: june2019:/\, location revealed with RSVP, 1:30, 4:00

Jennifer Monson: ditch, with music and sound by Jeff Kolar, costumes by Susan Becker, and dancers Evie Allison, Madeline Mellinger, and Kaitlin Fox, Melville Gallery, South Street Seaport Museum, 7:00

Thursday, June 27
The Agitated Now: A Lecture Performance by Mark Epstein + Carol Becker, Federal Hall, 26 Wall St., 7:00

Ernesto Pujol: The Listeners, Federal Hall, 26 Wall St., 9:00

Friday, June 28
Jennifer Monson: ditch, with music and sound by Jeff Kolar, costumes by Susan Becker, and dancers Evie Allison, Madeline Mellinger, and Kaitlin Fox, Melville Gallery, South Street Seaport Museum, 7:00

Rooftop Films: The Sound of Silence (Michael Tyburski, 2019), preceded by live music and followed by a Q&A, New Design High School, 350 Grand St., 8:00

Saturday, June 29
WorldPride NYC: Drag Queen Story Hour, for families and kids, Seward Park Library, 192 East Broadway, 11:00 am & 3:30 pm

WorldPride NYC: Workshop on the Street, with Amy, Jennifer, & Noah Khoshbin, for families and kids, Oculus Plaza, 1:30

ASSEMBLY

Kevin Beasley’s Assembly takes attendees across three floors of the Kitchen (image courtesy Kevin Beasley)

The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
June 15-16, 22-23, 29-30, $10 (advance reservations recommended)
Installation on view June 21 & 28, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-255-5793
thekitchen.org

Hot on the heels of his widely hailed audiovisual Whitney exhibition, “A View of a Landscape,” which included several live performances using manipulated sounds emanating from a cotton gin motor, Yale MFA candidate Kevin Beasley is stripping down the Kitchen for the installation / performance series Assembly, taking place in newly empty rooms on three floors of the Chelsea arts institution. Beasley, in conjunction with Lumi Tan, Tim Griffin, and Nicole Kaack from the Kitchen, has created custom sound and video systems that will be activated on Saturday, June 15, 22, and 29, at 6:30, and Sunday, June 16, 23, and 30, at 4:00, in dialogue with the building itself and its position in a changing art world, specifically involving access and collectivity. The mix of musicians, dancers, performance artists, and DJs features Suzi Analogue and Pamela Z on June 15, King Britt presents Moksha Black and Richard Kennedy on June 16, Mhysa, David Thomson, and whoisskitzo on June 22, HPrizm, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, and stud1nt on June 23, Lafawndah, NAR, and Angie Pittman on June 29, and Jason Moran, Logan Takahashi, and Wetware on June 30. In a statement, choreographer Thomson called his piece, Body of work, “a palimpsest. A meditation on memory, identities, and boundaries. A marking of time on the body of a transitional space.” Admission is $10, and attendees are encouraged to walk throughout the Kitchen; advance purchase is recommended. In addition, the installation will be open to the public for free on June 21 and 28 from 11:00 to 6:00.

AILEY AT LINCOLN CENTER

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Rennie Harris' Lazarus. Photo by Paul Kolnik

Rennie Harris’s Lazarus is part of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater season at Lincoln Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
June 12-16, $29-$159
212-496-0600
www.alvinailey.org
www.davidhkochtheater.com

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual Lincoln Center season might be short but it’s packed with highlights. From June 12 to 16, AAADT will feature three programs (that all conclude with Revelations), in addition to the gala, at the David H. Koch Theater, as part of the troupe’s sixtieth anniversary celebration. On June 12 at 7:30 and June 14 at 2:00, “Bold Visions” includes the world premiere of Darrell Grand Moultrie’s Ounce of Faith; Ronald K. Brown’s The Call, “a love letter to Mr. Ailey” set to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Mary Lou Williams, and Asase Yaa Entertainment Group; and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter, with music by Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn and Victor See Yuen and poetry by Hattie Gossett and Laurie Carlos. (The Saturday Family Matinee will be followed by a Q&A with some of the dancers.) On June 13 at 7:00, the Ailey Spirit Gala Performance features works by several choreographers in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Ailey School, in addition to a one-night-only presentation of a new ballet choreographed by Ailey II artistic director Troy Powell featuring former AileyCampers, current students from the Ailey School, and members of Ailey II and AAADT.

On June 14 and 15 at 8:00, “Trailblazers” is highlighted by Rennie Harris’s two-act, sixty-minute Lazarus (inspired by the life and career of Alvin Ailey), with music by Darrin Ross, Nina Simone, Terrence Trent D’Arby, Michael Kiwanuka, and Odetta and the voice of Ailey. On June 16 at 3:00, “Timeless Ailey” is a potpourri of excerpts from Blues Suite, Streams, Mary Lou’s Mass, The Lark Ascending, Hidden Rites, Night Creature, Cry, Phases, Opus McShann, Pas de Duke, For “Bird” – With Love,” Love Songs, and Memoria. The season comes to a big finish on June 16 at 7:30 with “An Evening Honoring Carmen de Lavallade,” a tribute to the exquisite dancer with excerpts from pieces she performed in (John Butler’s Portrait of Billie, Lester Horton’s Sarong Paramaribo, and her own Sweet Bitter Love), followed by The Call, Ounce of Faith, and Revelations. The engagement also welcomes five new dancers: Renaldo Maurice, Yazzmeen Laidler, Corrin Rachelle Mitchell, Jessica Amber Pinkett, and Patrick Coker.

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED AND WOULD HAPPEN

Heiner Goebbels explores the last hundred years of European history in Everything that happened and would happen (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
June 3-9, $40-$95
212-933-5812
armoryonpark.org

German composer and artist Heiner Goebbels constructs, deconstructs, and reconstructs the last hundred years of European history in Everything that happened and would happen, making its American premiere at Park Ave. Armory through June 9. Reconfigured for the armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall — it was originally staged in a former railway depot in Manchester — the multimedia, polyphonic spectacle starts as soon as the doors open, so be sure to get there early. The audience sits in rising rafters on the west side of the hall, watching a team of dancers in black (Juan Felipe Amaya Gonzalez, Sandhya Daemgen, Antoine Effroy, Ismeni Espejel, Montserrat Gardó Castillo, Freddy Houndekindo, Tuan Ly, Thanh Nguyễn Duy, John Rowley, Annegret Schalke, Ildikó Tóth, Tyra Wigg) carry seemingly random objects onstage — long tubes, metallic seashells, a gold sun, large cloths that they hang from above — position them carefully, then remove them.

Various people read passages from Patrik Ouředník’s 2001 Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century, a tragicomic, stream-of-consciousness look at the twentieth century, exploring war, racism, colonialism, collective memory, liberal democracy, the Holocaust, Barbie dolls, and more. Sentences are occasionally projected on hanging sheets designed with trees, maps, and architectural structures, in addition to unedited footage from Euronews’s No Comment, with no narration or context; the night we attended featured very recent live, often violent images from Syria, Colombia, and other nations. (The video design is by Rene Liebert.) In one corner smoke oozes out of a cave, creating a face. Rocks storm down in an avalanche. The dancers roll column-like plinths across the stage, pedestals without busts; later, one performer climbs on top of one and reads from Ouředník’s book.

Everything that happened and would happen has been reimagined for the Park Ave. Armory (photo by Stephanie Berger)

The dissonant score, from John Cage’s Europeras 1&2, is played by Camille Émaille on percussion, Gianni Gebbia on saxophone, Cécile Lartigau on ondes Martenot, Nicolas Perrin on guitar and electronics, and Léo Maurel on several specially built, unusual instruments. (The props are from Goebbels’s 2012 production of Europeras 1&2.) Willi Bopp’s stunning sound design has music and words emerging from numerous speakers throughout the hall, as if a choreographed sonic dance. Goebbels is a master of deception; while you’re watching one element, others will sneak up on you, offering surprises galore, evoking life itself — and war, specifically, but without the immediate threat. A long, narrow beam becomes a mobile trench. Black monoliths creep up out of the darkness. At one point I felt as if Birnam Wood was stealthily approaching; another reminded me of George Washington crossing the Delaware (even if it’s not from the last century). The dancers and musicians improvise, furthering the anything-can-happen atmosphere.

Perhaps what’s most invigorating about the 135-minute-plus intermissionless show — Goebbels’s third project at the armory, following Stifter’s Dinge in 2009 and De Materie in 2016 — is that despite the serious topics that are broached, abstract and not, Goebbels leaves it up to us to interpret what we are experiencing; he gives us the building blocks from which we can form our own narrative. “Everything that happened and would happen doesn’t participate in all the attempts to have yet another opinion as to the meaning of what has happened; quite the opposite. Guided by a deep mistrust in the transmission of a one-directional message, I don’t even try,” Goebbels explains in his director’s note. “Everything that happened and would happen seeks to open up a space of images, words, and sounds generous enough to avoid the impression that somebody on stage is trying to tell you what to think. It is a space for imagination and reflection, in which the construction of sense is left for everyone to assemble.”

Words, images, movement, and sound come together in unique, contemplative ways in Heiner Goebbels’s return to the armory (photo by Stephanie Berger)

It can be slow going, and several members of the audience did not make it to the end, which is too bad, because Everything that happened and would happen proves to be a provocative durational exploration of the past, present, and future fusing together, a multimedia barrage on the eyes and ears that demands our attention even as the mind wanders. Even when not much appears to be going on, something is, of course, mimicking life and the choices we make as we go about our day; Goebbels metaphorically hands us the controls and we watch and listen to what we want to, self-curating the presentation. Ouředník writes, “Historians said that historical memory was not part of history and memory was shifted from the historical to the psychological sphere, and this instituted a new mode of memory whereby it was no longer a question of memory of events but memory of memory.” On opening night, at the close of the show, Goebbels himself was helping the ushers steer the audience to the exits on the far side of the stage, forcing everyone to march along a battered landscape and take stock of where we are at this very moment in time, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. It’s a fitting finale to an adventurous evening of intoxicating, memorable theater.

HUDSON RIVER DANCE FESTIVAL 2019

Ballet Hispánico will perform Sombrerísimo at Hudson River Dance Festival June 6-7 (photo courtesy Susan Bestul)

Who: Dormeshia, Taylor 2, doug elkins choreography, etc., Ballet Hispánico, Camille A. Brown & Dancers
What: Hudson River Dance Festival
Where: Pier 63 Lawn Bowl at West Twenty-Third St., Hudson River Park
When: Thursday, June 6, and Friday, June 7, free, 7:00
Why: On June 6 and 7, the fifth annual Hudson River Dance Festival takes place at Pier 63 in Hudson River Park, two free evenings of performances while the sun sets over the water. This year’s lineup features another terrific cast, with Dormeshia’s improvisatory Rhythm Migration… from her larger work, And Still You Must Swing; Taylor 2’s Aureole, the 1962 favorite set to music by George Frideric Handel; doug elkins choreography, etc.’s O, round desire, inspired by Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera; Ballet Hispánico’s Sombrerísimo, informed by the bowlers associated with surrealist painter René Magritte; and Camille A. Brown & Dancers’ New Second Line, a celebration of the rebirth of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Note that blankets are allowed, but chairs are not. And make sure to bring sunglasses and a hat, because depending on how the stage is arranged, the sun might be right in your eyes as it sets beautifully over the Hudson.

DOUG VARONE AND DANCERS: in the shelter of the fold / epilogue

epilogue: Hollis Bartlett, Whitney Dufrene, Hsiao-Jou Tang, Courtney Barth | Photo: © Erin Baiano

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
June 5-8
www.bam.org
www.dougvaroneanddancers.org

Manhattan-based Doug Varone and Dancers will perform their seven-part look into intimacy and faith, the spiritual and the secular, in the shelter of the fold, at BAM Fisher June 5-8, featuring the New York City premiere of an epilogue. The hundred-minute piece is choreographed by Varone, with original music by Lesley Flanigan, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Raz Mesinai, and Kevin Keller, performed live by Flanigan, PUBLIQuartet, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. The lighting is by David Grill and David Ferri, with costumes by Liz Prince. The evening-length piece comprises the sextet horizon, the duet folded, the trio shelter, the duet field, mass for twelve dancers, the solo solo, and epilogue for eight dancers. The sections, five of which debuted in 2016 at Purchase, are interrelated but can stand alone; folded, with a score by Wolfe, was commissioned by BAM for the company’s thirtieth anniversary season in 2017. The troupe consists of Courtney Barth, Hollis Bartlett, Bradley Beakes, Jake Bone, Whitney Dufrene, Hsiao-Jou Tang, Doug Varone, Aya Wilson, and Ryan Yamauchi with Ross Honaker, DeQuan Lewis, Paulina Meneses, Amber Morgan, and Paul Singh. “Each creative process is a tremendously collaborative event with the dancers, embracing all of our imaginations, instincts, and artistry. My thanks and love to them for being such great, caring allies in the creation of the many dances that fall from my brain,” Varone says in the program.

THE WORLD’S FARE 2019

worlds fare

EAT. DRINK. UNITE.
Citi Field
123-01 Roosevelt Ave.
Saturday, May 18, and Sunday, May 19, noon – 7:00
General admission $23, with three-hour beer garden $49, VIP $199
theworldsfare.nyc
www.eventbrite.com

The second annual World’s Fare at Citi Field, near where the 1963-64 World’s Fair took place, features more than one hundred food vendors from all five boroughs, more than five dozen craft breweries, a World Market Bazaar, and more. The Culinary Committee co-chairs this year are Gael Greene, Alex Raij, Anita Lo, and Joshua Schneps, with the festival curated by food-arena movers and shakers Liza Mosquito deGuia, Niko Triantafillou, Jean Lee, Joe DiStefano, George Motz, Tia Keenan, Hannah Goldberg, Felipe Donnelly, Jenny Dorsey, Joseph Yoon, Karen Seiger, Kysha Harris, Tamy Rofe, and Cindy VandenBosch. There will be live music by Black Tie Brass Band, Strings N Skins, Funky Dawgz Brass Band, Mariachi Loco, Rho & the Nomads, Royal KhaoZ, Kaleta & Super Yamba, and Underground Horns and dance performances by Sachiyo Ito & Company, Leggz Ltd., American Bolero Dance Company, NY Chinese Cultural Center, Salit Bellydance, Nartan Rang Dance Academy, Country Dancing, KG Group Entertainment, Gemuetlichen Enzianer Dancers, and Schade Academy of Irish Dancing along with interactive murals, karate exhibitions, henna, African body painting, art by Taisan Tanaka, and other events. Among the participating eateries are Baba’s Pierogies, Balkan Bites, Barbecue on a Stick, Caribbean Street Eats, Chef Jimmy’s Vicious Creole Cycle, D’Abruzzo NYC, DiRiso Risotto Balls, Donovan’s Pub, Down East Lobstah, Duck Season, George Motz’s Oklahoma Fried Onion Cheeseburger, Keki Modern Cakes, Little Porky’s, Macaron Parlour, Melt Bakery, Memphis Seoul, Miss Holly’s Smokehouse, Nansense, Oaxaca Taqueria, Republic of Booza, Rooster Boy, Sam’s Fried Ice Cream, Stuffed Ice Cream, Tania’s Kitchen, Twisted Potato, Wafels & Dinges, and What’s the Dillaz. General admission is $23; you can add three hours of libations in the beer garden for another $26, while VIP access goes for $199.