this week in dance

BRIC CELEBRATE BROOKLYN! FESTIVAL — LES BALLETS JAZZ DE MONTRÉAL: LEONARD COHEN’S DANCE ME

Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal will present U.S. premiere of Dance Me in Prospect Park on July 6

Prospect Park Bandshell
Prospect Park
Ninth St. & Prospect Park West
Friday, July 6, free, 8:00
www.bricartsmedia.org
www.bjmdanse.ca

In November 2016, Canadian troubadour Leonard Cohen passed away at the age of eighty-two. The poet, singer-songwriter, novelist, and Zen monk left behind a six-decade legacy of investigating love and the human condition like no one else. In 1972, the year after Cohen released one of his masterpieces, Songs of Love and Hate, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal was founded, a company dedicated to merging classical dance with more contemporary styles. On July 6, the troupe will present the U.S. premiere of Dance Me at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of the free BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. The eighty-minute piece was commissioned, prior to Cohen’s death, for Montreal’s 375th anniversary and debuted in Canada last December. Set to songs from throughout Cohen’s long career and organized around the cycles of existence as experienced through the changing seasons, Dance Me was conceived by BJM artistic director Louis Robitaille and is choreographed by Andonis Foniadakis, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Ihsan Rustem for fourteen performers, with musical direction by Martin Léon, scenic design by Pierre-Étienne Locas, lighting by Cédric Delorme-Bouchard and Simon Beetschen, video by Hub Studio (Gonzalo Soldi, Thomas Payette, and Jeremy Fassio), sound by Guy Fortin, and costumes by Philippe Dubuc. On December 20, 2012, Cohen played the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, opening the show with “Dance Me to the End of Love,” from his 1984 album Various Positions, in which he croons, “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin / Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in / Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove / Dance me to the end of love.” BJM’s Dance Me should lift the Brooklyn audience in the beautiful confines of Prospect Park.

FREE SUMMER EVENTS JULY 1-8

Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo will defend their hot-dog-eating titles at Nathan’s on July 4

The free summer arts & culture season is under way, with dance, theater, music, art, film, and other special outdoor programs all across the city. Every week we will be recommending a handful of events. Keep watching twi-ny for more detailed highlights as well.

Sunday, July 1
SummerStage: Northern Beat: Broken Social Scene, Melissa Laveaux, and the East Pointers, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 3:00

Monday, July 2
Movies Under the Stars: Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017), Walt Whitman Park, Cadman Plaza East, blankets and chairs permitted, no alcohol, 8:30

Tuesday, July 3
Lincoln Sessions at Pier 17: Atlas Genius, free with advance RSVP, Seaport Square at Pier 17, South Street Seaport, 5:00

Wednesday, July 4
The Hot Dog Eating Contest, Nathan’s Famous, Surf Ave. at Stillwell Ave., Coney Island, women’s competition (four-time defending champion Miki Sudo) at 10:50 am, men’s (defending champion Joey Chestnut) at 12 noon

Peridance moves from Bryant Park [above] to Union Square Park for July 5 performance (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Thursday, July 5
Summer in the Square: including yoga at 7:00, cardio at 8:00, Art Farm in the City at 9:00, Hopalong Andrew at 11:00, the New School Jazz Trio at 12 noon, Dueling Performances with Peridance Contemporary Dance Company at 5:00, and Sunset Vinyasa Yoga at 7:30, Union Square Park, 7:00 am – 8:30 pm

Friday, July 6
Bryant Park Picnics: Contemporary Dance, with Steps on Broadway Summer Study NYC Theater/Jazz Intensive, Monteleone Dance, Tiffany Mills Company, and Jennifer Muller/The Works, Bryant Park Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Saturday, July 7
Rite of Summer Music Festival: Dither Quartet, Colonels Row, Governors Island, 1:00 & 3:00

Sunday, July 8
Laughter in the Parks, with Dean Edwards and others, Garibaldi Plaza, Washington Square Park, 2:00

BRIC CELEBRATE BROOKLYN! FESTIVAL: THE BLUES PROJECT FEATURING DORRANCE DANCE WITH TOSHI REAGON & BIGLovely

Dorrance Dance will be joined by Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely at Prospect Park Bandshell June 28 (photo by Christopher Duggan)

Prospect Park Bandshell
Prospect Park
Ninth St. & Prospect Park West
Thursday, June 28, free, 7:00
www.bricartsmedia.org

In 2011, North Carolina–raised tap-dancer, choreographer, director, and teacher Michelle Dorrance founded the New York City–based Dorrance Dance, focusing on the past, present, and future of tap dancing, pushing the limits of the discipline in such works as Myelination, ETM: Double Down, and SOUNDspace. For more than three decades, Atlanta-born, DC-raised, longtime Brooklynite Toshi Reagon has been performing her unique mix of folk, blues, gospel, rock, and funk, joined by her band, BIGLovely, since 1996. Dorrance, a MacArthur Genius, onetime STOMP cast member, and former bassist with Darwin Deez, and Reagon, an activist whose mother is Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon and father was Cordell Hull Reagon, both founders of the Freedom Singers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and whose godfather is Pete Seeger, joined forces in 2013 to create The Blues Project, a sixty-five-minute piece for nine dancers and five musicians, choreographed by Dorrance, Derick K. Grant, and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and featuring original music composed by Reagon, who has previously written music for the Jane Comfort Dance Company and Urban Bush Women.

The work is being presented for free June 28 at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, with Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely performing the score live. After the show, there will be a special reception with New York–based Peruvian artist Grimanesa Amorós, whose light sculpture, Hedera, was recently unveiled on the grass at the bandshell, commissioned by BRIC specifically for the fortieth anniversary of the Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. Amorós will talk about her work with BRIC contemporary art VP Elizabeth Ferrer, followed by an audience Q&A.

ALEXANDRA BACHZETSIS: WEAR A MASK WHEN YOU TALK TO ME / PRIVATE SONG

Alexandra Bachzetsis, PRIVATE: Wear a mask when you talk to me, 2016 (photo © Blommers & Schumm)

The High Line at Fourteenth St.
June 25-29, free with advance RSVP, 8:00
www.alexandrabachzetsis.com
art.thehighline.org

Swiss choreographer and visual artist Alexandra Bachzetsis, who explores the human body, gender identity, and the concept of beauty in her performance art works, will present two related pieces on the High Line next week. Inspired by Trisha Brown, the fifty-three-minute PRIVATE: Wear a mask when you talk to me, taking place June 25 and 27 at 8:00, involves a wide range of movement based on various cultural memes (yoga, drag queens, Michael Jackson). “PRIVATE does not mobilize techniques of parody that have been developed within feminist and queer cultures during the last years,” writer and curator Paul B. Preciado explains on Bachzetsis’s website. “It doesn’t aim to represent the process of embodiment of gender and sexual norms, but rather it explores the instances of performative failure and inner transition that allow for agency and resistance to emerge. How much history of discipline and dissidence can be encapsulated within a single gesture? Can movement activate the memory of the subaltern bodies that have been buried underneath hegemonic codes?” On June 26 and 28 at 8:00, Bachzetsis’s Private Song features Bachzetsis, Sotiris Vasiliou, and Thibault Lac and music by Giannis Papaioannou, Vassilis Tsitsanis, and Giorgos Mitsakis, investigating the rebetiko tradition. Again, Preciado points out, “With three performers, Private Song re-frames some of the elements that were part of the solo performance Private: Wear a mask when you talk to me. While the solo performance uses self-mutation as a technique to explore gender and cultural constructions through the ritualized repetition of embodied gesture, Private Song proposes framing as a perceptual strategy for questioning, underlining, or neutralizing the spectator’s relation to moving bodies on stage.” The performances are free, but advance RSVP is recommended.

NYC PRIDE 2018

Pride Island packs them in on the pier every year as part of Pride Month

Multiple locations
June 18-24, free – $300 and more
www.nycpride.org

This year’s pride festivities honor the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which set the Gay Pride movement in motion in full force. There are some new parties, while the March itself has changed its route, so pay close attention to the locations listed below. As always, the ticketed events and VIP treatment are selling out fast, so you better act quickly if you want to shake it up at some pretty crazy gatherings.

Monday, June 18
OutCinema, screening of Ideal Home (Andrew Fleming, 2018), followed by a Q&A and open-bar after-party, SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd St., $35, 7:30

LGBT Community Center Garden Party: A Taste of Pride, with seasonal bites from North Square, Underwest Donuts, Boqueria, the Standard Grill, Rice & Gold, Quality Eats, Ample Hills Creamery, Ice & Vice, Javelina TexMex, Dinosaur BBQ, Sweet Chili, Café Patoro, Eataly, Breads Bakery, Enlightened Ice Cream, the Wayfarer, Island Oyster, and Hill Country Barbecue Market, Hudson River Park, Pier 84, West Side Highway at Forty-Fourth St., $99-$300, 6:00 – 10:00

Tuesday, June 19
OutCinema, screening of Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco (James Crump, 2017), followed by a Q&A and open-bar reception, SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd St., $25, 7:30

Family Movie Night: screening of Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1991), preceded by family-friendly games and activities, hosted by Miss Richfield 1981, Pier 45, Christopher St. Pier, Hudson River Park at Christopher St., free (reserved seating and other amenities $50), film at 8:30

Participants make their voices heard at the Rally and other Gay Pride events

Tuesday, June 19
through
Saturday, June 23
Pride Week at the Joyce, with a mixed program by MADBOOTS DANCE and The Missing Generation by Sean Dorsey Dance, Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at Nineteenth St., $10-$46

Wednesday, June 20
OutCinema, screening of From Selma to Stonewall: Are We There Yet? (Marilyn Bennett, 2016), followed by a special panel conversation moderated by Tiq Milan, SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd St., $25, 8:00

Thursday, June 21
Savor Pride, immersive food-driven fundraiser, with barbecue dishes by Amanda Freitag, Michael Anthony, Zac Young, Lazarus Lynch, and Jake Cohen, God’s Love We Deliver, 166 Sixth Ave. at Spring St., $80-$100, 6:00

Friday, June 22
The Rally, with performances by the Resistance Revival Chorus, Taina Asili, Ms. White, and others and speakers Dr. Herukhuti, Jodie Patterson, and more, hosted by Danity Diamond, Stonewall National Monument, Sheridan Square, free, 5:00 – 7:00

CosPlay & Pride, sunset cruise with Phi Phi O’Hara & DJ Cameron Cole, Pier 40, Hudson River Park, West Houston & Clarkson Sts., $35-$50, 6:00

Fantasy, with DJ Eddie Elias, DJ Jared Conner, and special secret performances, Slate, 54 West Twenty-First St., $60-$230, 10:00 pm – 4:00 am

The March brings people together — and will do so on a new route in 2018

Saturday, June 23
Youth Pride, for LGBTQIA+ and ally teens, with DJs Amira & Kayla and a live performance by Bea Miller, 14th Street Park, Fourteenth St. between Tenth Ave. & West Side Highway, free, noon – 6:00 pm

VIP Rooftop Party, with DJs Boris, Dani Toro, J Warren and secret acts all day long, Hudson Terrace, 621 West 46th St., $75-$120, 2:00 – 10:00 pm

Teaze HER, with lap dance classes, a silent disco DJ battle, aphrodisiac oyster-tainment tastes, a spanking booth, electrified viola, curated tastings, specialty drink sipping, intimate burlesque, sexpert educational tips, and more, the DL, 95 Delancey St., $40-$80, 5:00 – midnight

Masterbeat Masterbuilt, construction-site party with casino, game show, university, and more, Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th St., $120-$140, 10:00 pm – 6:00 am

PrideFest street fair immediately follows the March

PrideFest street fair moves to University Pl. this year

Saturday, June 23
and
Sunday, June 24
Pride Island, with Tove Lo, Lizzo, DJ Simon Dunmore, Big Freedia, Sasha Velour, and DJ Dawson on Saturday, Kylie Minogue, DJ Grind, DJ Ralphi Rosario, and DJ Corey Craig on Sunday, Pier 97, Hudson River Park at Fifty-Seventh St. & West Side Highway, $60-$95

Sunday, June 24
PrideFest, twenty-fifth annual street fair with music, food, merchandise, and more, featuring live performances by Alex Newell, Parson James, and others, hosted by Ross Mathews, University Pl. between Thirteenth St. & Waverly Pl., free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

The March, with grand marshals Billie Jean King, Lambda Legal, Tyler Ford, and Kenita Placide, Lavender Line from 16th St. & Seventh Ave. to Eight St. & Fifth Ave. to Twenty-Ninth St. & Fifth Ave., free, 12 noon

Femme Fatale, women’s rooftop party with DJs RosyQ, Mary Mac, and Tatiana, hosted by Madison Paige, Hudson Terrace, 621 West 46th St., $30-$60, 4:00 – 10:00 pm

RUBIN MUSEUM BLOCK PARTY: WE MAKE THE FUTURE

Participants can build a future city at Rubin Museum block party

Rubin Museum of Art
West 17th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Sunday, June 17, free (including free museum admission all day), 1:00 – 4:00
rubinmuseum.org

We always look forward to the annual Rubin Museum block party, and this year the Rubin is looking forward as well, into the future. The festivities take place on Father’s Day, June 17, from 1:00 to 4:00, with the theme “We Make the Future,” inspired by the Rubin’s yearlong exploration of what lies ahead: “By examining various perspectives — from an eighth-century Buddhist master to Einstein to contemporary artists — we invite you to consider a future that isn’t fixed but fluid,” the institution explains. The party will feature live performances by Falu’s Bazaar and Ajna Dance, a Cham dance and sand mandala by Palyul Monks, and a circle dance by elders from India Home. Visitors can participate in such activities as the “Healing Garden” indoor plant trailer, “Build a Future City,” “Social Timeline,” and “Drone Demo.” Among the organizations with booths are Adhikaar Grassroots Movement in Nepal, India Home, and Yinda Yin Coaching, with food available from Café Serai Outpost, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Truck, Brooklyn Popcorn Truck, and Wafels & Dinges. In addition, the museum is open for free all day long, so you can check out “Masterworks of Himalayan Art,” the three-part “A Lost Future: Shezad Dawood/the Otolith Group/Matti Braun,” “A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful,” “The Second Buddha,” “Chitra Ganesh,” “Sacred Spaces: The Road to . . . and the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room,” and “Gateway to Himalayan Art.”

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL 2018

Catherine Galasso’s Of Granite and Glass at Winter Garden is part of LMCC River to River Festival (photo by Victoria Sendra)

Multiple downtown locations
June 15-24, free (some events require advance RSVP)
lmcc.net

The seventeenth annual River to River Festival gets under way today, kicking off ten days of free multidisciplinary programs in downtown Manhattan, sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. R2R specializes in presenting hard-to-categorize works in unusual locations, and this year is no different. “The River to River Festival transforms the landscape of Lower Manhattan and works with artists and communities to explore lesser known pasts, presents, and futures of our neighborhoods,” curator Danielle King said in a statement. Among the highlights are silent :: partner, a dance piece about memory and exclusion by enrico d. wey in Federal Hall; MasterVoices’ Naamah’s Ark, an oratorio in Rockefeller Park about Noah’s Ark, preceded by a family-friendly art workshop; Cori Olinghouse’s Grandma, about which Olinghouse says, “While looping through the practice of hoarding, discarding, coveting, and display, I excavate a particular formation of white southern middle classness that is built up in my memories”; and the LES Citizens Parade, consisting of a processional and performances by senior citizens in Seward Park. Below is the full schedule.

Friday, June 15
through
Sunday, June 17
Catherine Galasso: Of Granite and Glass, part of Of Iron and Diamonds, based on Boccaccio’s Decameron, with performers Doug LeCours, Jordan D. Lloyd, Ambika Raina, and Mei Yamanaka and music by Dave Cerf, Winter Garden, Brookfield Place, 230 Vesey St. 6/15-16 at 7:00, 6/17 at 6:00

enrico d. wey: silent :: partner, Federal Hall, advance RSVP required, 8:00

Friday, June 15
through
Sunday, June 24
Elia Alba: The Supper Club, art installation, NYC DOT Art Display Cases on Water St. between Wall St. & Maiden Ln. and Gouverneur Ln. between Water & Front Sts.

Friday, June 16
and
Saturday, June 17
Cori Olinghouse: Grandma, performance installation created and directed by Cori Olinghouse, performed by Martita Abril and Cori Olinghouse, with visual design by Dean Moss and Cori Olinghouse, LMCC Studios at 125 Maiden Ln., 6/16 at 1:00 & 5:00, 6/17 at 1:00

Sunday, June 17
MasterVoices: Naamah’s Ark, oratorio composed by Marisa Michelson, with libretto by Royce Vavrek, performed by MasterVoices with Victoria Clark as Naamah and Sachal Vasandani as Merman, conducted by Ted Sperling, Rockefeller Park, 7:00 (preceded by art workshop 1:00 – 5:00)

It’s Showtime NYC! will make a statement on the steps of Federal Hall for R2R Festival (photo by Chloé Mossessian for FIAF)

Monday, June 18
through
Friday, June 22
It’s Showtime NYC!, site-responsive intervention by street dance company, directed by choreographer Marguerite Hemmings, steps of Federal Hall at Broad & Wall Sts. across from New York Stock Exchange, 4:00

Tuesday, June 19
Night at the Museums, free entry to African Burial Ground National Monument, China Institute, Federal Hall National Memorial, Fraunces Tavern Museum, 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, 9/11 Tribute Museum, NYC Municipal Archives, Poets House, the Skyscraper Museum, South Street Seaport Museum, and more, 4:00 – 8:00

Thursday, June 21
Tribeca Art + Culture Night, with fine art galleries, art nonprofits, artists studios & residencies, university galleries, design galleries, museums, creative & crafts spaces, and public parks open late, some with special performances and talks, 6:00 – 9:00

Performance parade will feature senior citizens along the waterfront (photo courtesy of Laura Nova)

Friday, June 22, 5:30
and
Sunday, June 24, 4:00
Naomi Goldberg Haas & Laura Nova: LES Citizens Parade, activist processional and performances by senior citizens cocreated by choreographer and Dances for a Variable Population artistic director Naomi Goldberg Haas and visual artist Laura Nova, Seward Park

Saturday, June 23
Engaging LES: Daytime Movement Workshops, movement-based activities including cardio, dance & sweat, Latin, jazz, hip-hop, lindy hop, jazz funk at 10:30 am, Tai Chi workshop at noon, boxing/self-defense at 1:30, and Movement for Life workshop at 3:00, East River Esplanade at Rutgers Slip under the FDR Dr.