this week in dance

DANCE NOW FESTIVAL 2016

LMNO3 is among the participants in annual competitive DANCE NOW Festival at Joes Pub (photo by Justin Skrakowski)

LMnO3 (Deborah Lohse, Cori Marquis, and Donnell Oakley) is among the participants in annual competitive DANCE NOW Festival at Joe’s Pub (photo by Justin Skrakowski)

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
September 7-10, 29, $20-$30, 7:00
212-967-7555
www.dancenownyc.org
publictheater.org

For its twenty-first annual season, the DANCE NOW Festival will consist of forty choreographers presenting short works of no more than five minutes on the small stage at Joe’s Pub. The competitive festival, which encourages experimentation and innovation, takes place September 7-10, hosted by TruDee (aka Deborah Lohse). September 7 will feature B.S. Movement / Bryan Strimpel and Shaina Branfman, binbinFactory / Satoshi Haga & Rie Fukuzawa, Katherine Helen Fisher, Mark Gindick, Jordan Isadore, Heidi Latsky Dance, PearsonWidrigDanceTheater, Amber Sloan, and Jaclyn Walsh. The September 8 lineup boasts the Bang Group, Adam Barruch / Anatomiae Occultii, Lawrence Goldhuber / BIGMANARTS, Jane Comfort and Company, Malcolm Low / Formal Structure, Kyle Marshall, Kate Watson Wallace | anonymous bodies, Jessy Smith, Nicole Wolcott, and Wallie Wolfgruber. September 9 brings together BOOMERANG, C.K.M. & Artists, Norbert de la Cruz III, the Dance Cartel, Raja Feather Kelly / the feath3r theory, Gina Gibney Dance, Paula Josa-Jones, Khaleah London / LAYERS, Gabrielle Revlock, and the one and only Gus Solomons jr. And September 10 is highlighted by LMnO3, Cori Marquis + the Nines [IX], Li-Chiao Ping, PORTABLES / Claire Porter, Take Dance, Makiko Tamura / small apple co., Megan Williams, the Wondertwins, Yin Yue Dance, and ZviDance. On September 24, ten of the choreographers will be invited back for an encore evening, with the overall challenge winner receiving a $1,500 development stipend and a one-week residency at DANCE NOW Silo on Kirkland Farm in Bucks County.

BEACH SESSIONS DANCE SERIES

beach sessions

Who: Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Netta Yerushalmy
What: Beach Sessions Dance Series
Where: On the sand at Beach 86, Rockaway Beach
When: Saturday, August 27, free, 6:30
Why: Now in its second year, Beach Sessions Dance Series, begun in 2015 by Sasha Okshteyn via a Kickstarter campaign, got under way last weekend with performances by Laurie Berg and BOOMERANG and concludes August 27 at 6:30 with a shared bill featuring Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener and Netta Yerushalmy. Former Cunningham dancers Mitchell and Riener will present the premiere of a new piece, while the Israel-trained, New York City-based Yerushalmy has scheduled “traces, residues, new old horizons; a byproduct of my current project Paramodernities.” Beach Sessions is a labor of love for Okshteyn, who is the digital marketing manager and tour coordinator for Stephen Petronio Company and a curator for Black & White Gallery/Project Space in Brooklyn. The performances, held on an outdoor stage on the sand with the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop, will be followed by a beach cleanup hosted by the Surfrider Foundation. If you participate in the cleanup, you’ll get a free drink ticket for the after-party at event sponsor Rockaway Brewery + Co. at 415 Beach 72nd St. and Amstel Blvd.

HARLEM WEEK 2016: SUMMER IN THE CITY / HARLEM DAY

Free outdoor screening of WHEN WE WERE KINGS is part of Harlem Week festival

West 135th St. between Malcolm X Blvd. & Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Saturday, August 20, and Sunday, August 21, free, 12 noon – 10:00 pm
Festival continues through August 27
harlemweek.com

The annual Harlem Week festival continues August 20 with “Summer in the City” and August 21 with “Harlem Day,” two afternoons of a wide range of free special events along West 135th St. Saturday’s festivities include the Higher Education Fair & Expo, New Yorkers Are “Dancing in the Street” (with Alvin Ailey instructor Robin Dunn teaching a hip-hop ballet and African dance class, with WBLS DJs), the Fabulous Fashion Flava Show, the first day of the NYC Children’s Festival (with a parade, sports clinics, health testing, arts & crafts, and more), Harlem Honeys & Bears swimming activities for seniors in the Hansborough Recreation Center, an International Vendors Village, the Uptown Saturday Concert paying tribute to Nina Simone, and the Imagenation Outdoor Film Festival screening in St. Nicholas Park of Leon Gast’s Oscar-winning 1996 documentary When We Were Kings, about Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s Rumble in the Jungle. Sunday’s Harlem Day celebration features the “Harlem and Havana Classics” Upper Manhattan Auto Show, tennis clinics, the “Village within Our Village” health village, the second day of the NYC Children’s Festival (with a Back to School theme), an “International Roots of Jazz” program, the Upper Manhattan Small Business Expo & Fair, live music, dance, and spoken-word performances, a kids fashion show, and musical tributes to Prince and Earth, Wind & Fire leader Maurice White.

LIC BLOCK PARTY

lic block party

SculptureCenter
Purves St. at Jackson & 43rd Aves.
Saturday, August 20, free, 12 noon – 5:00 pm
www.sculpture-center.org

SculptureCenter, one of the coolest places to see art in the five boroughs, is hosting the annual LIC Block Party on August 20 in Queens. The free afternoon, taking place inside and outside the gallery, will include live performances by Erin Markey, Daisy Press, OTIUM, Jessica Lang Dance, and Bianca Benson, DJ sets by Tygapaw, activity booths by Schuyler Tsuda, Jeannine Han & Eliza Fisher, Sam Stewart, Lauren Halsey, Jan Mun & Gil Lopez, Sydney Shen, Emma Banay & David Scanlon’s Quilt Music, Other Means, and Diamond Stingily, and an artists market with booths by American Chordata, Desert Island, Fastnet, Mixed Media, Packet Biweekly, the Perfect Nothing Catalog, Peradam, Sanguis Ornatus, and Workaday Handmade. There will also be food and drink available from such local restaurants as Bartleby & Sage, Doughnut Plant, Hibino LIC, Rockaway Brewing Co., and Stolle USA. Among the partners in the block party are the American Folk Art Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Noguchi Museum, Sculpture Space NYC, and Socrates Sculpture Park.

TICKET ALERT — CHITA: NOWADAYS

The legendary Chita Rivera will make her Carnegie Hall headlining debut on November 8 with special guests (photo by Laura Marie Duncan)

Who: Chita Rivera, Alan Cumming, Andy Karl, more
What: “Chita: Nowadays”
Where: Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, 881 Seventh Ave. at 57th St.
When: Monday, November 7, $40-$135, 8:00
Why: Tickets are on sale now to see Broadway legend Chita Rivera in her first-ever headlining show at Carnegie Hall. On November 7, Rivera, who has won two Tonys in addition to earning another eight nominations, will be joined by several leading men, including Tony winner Alan Cumming (Cabaret, Macbeth), two-time Tony nominee Andy Karl (Rocky, On the Twentieth Century), and others to be announced. The eighty-three-year-old Rivera will be celebrating a film, television, and stage career that began in the early 1950s and features such stage productions as West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Sweet Charity, Chicago, and Kiss of the Spider Woman as well as the film versions of Sweet Charity and Chicago. “Chita: Nowadays” will consists of old favorites, new songs, and special collaborations, directed by Graciela Daniele, with musical director Michael Croiter leading a fifteen-piece band. “I’m absolutely thrilled to play one of the most prestigious venues in the world, Carnegie Hall,” actress-singer-dancer Rivera, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, said in a statement. “We’re going to have a ball!”

BATTERY DANCE FESTIVAL 2016

Salzburg’s SEAD Company Bodhi Project will be making its U.S. debut at thirty-fifth annual free Battery Dance Festival (photo by Bernhard Müller)

Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, Battery Park City
20 Battery Pl.
August 14-20, free
batterydance.org

The thirty-fifth annual Battery Dance Festival takes place August 14 to 20, featuring more than thirty companies from around the world. Formerly known as the Downtown Dance Festival, the event is hosted by the New York City-based Battery Dance, which was founded by artistic director Jonathan Hollander in 1976. The festival will begin with a tribute to Iraqi dancer Adel Euro, who had been training with Battery Dance online before being killed in the July 3 suicide bombing in Karrada that took more than three hundred innocent lives; three of his Iraqi colleagues, refugees in America, will perform in his honor. Sunday’s lineup also includes Florida Dance Theatre, Joshua Beamish/Move: The Company, Razvan Stoian, XAOC Contemporary Ballet, and the U.S. debut of Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project from Istanbul. On Monday, the “Erasing Borders Festival of Indian Dance” consists of Avijit Das, Battery Dance, Carolina Prada, Pt. Krishan Mohan Mishra, Surabhi Bharadwaj, Sooraj Subramaniam, and Sumeet Nagdev Dance Arts. Tuesday brings together De Funes Dance, Jennifer Muller / The Works, Kilowatt Dance Theater, Shawnbibledanceco, and Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project. Wednesday features FJK Dance, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Obika Dance Projects, Steps Repertory Ensemble, and Te Ao Mana. On August 18, taking the stage will be DoubleTake Dance, the Martha Graham School, Maxine Steinman & Dancers, Robin Aren/TRAC, SEAD Company Bodhi Project from Salzburg making its U.S. debut, and Y + Y Dance. Friday comprises Amy Marshall Dance Company, Ballet Inc., Battery Dance, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Lori Belilove & the Isadora Duncan Dance Company, Thomas/Ortiz Dance, and Trainor Dance. The festival concludes indoors on August 20 at the Schimmel Center at Pace University with performances by Battery Dance, SEAD Comapany Bodhi Project, and Unnath H.R., along with a reception. In addition, there will be free workshops at 10:30 am on August 15 with Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project, August 16 with Razvan Stoian, August 18 with Battery Dance, and August 19 with SEAD Company Bodhi Project; advance RSVP is needed here.

CaribBEING IN BROOKLYN

Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturday program includes screening of Todd Kessler’s new film, BAZODEE, followed by a Q&A

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, August 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum is getting ready for Labor Day weekend’s West Indian American Day Carnival with an August First Saturday presentation filled with Caribbean energy and culture. The free events, some of which require advance tickets that night, will feature the live performance “Ganggang: Creative Misunderstanding Series” by disguise artist Alejandro Guzman, with Abigail Deville, Christopher Manzione, Clifford Owens, Elan Jurado, Geraldo Mercado, Jessica Gallucci, Marcus Willis, Sam Vernon, Tré Chandler, and William Villalongo; children’s storytelling with Linda Humes; a performance and reading by ethnomusicologist Danielle Brown from her memoir, East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home; screenings of Bazodee (Todd Kessler, 2016), followed by a Q&A with actor and soca star Machel Montano, writer Claire Ince, and producers Susanne Bohnet and Ancil McKain, as well as the classic reggae flick Rockers (Theodoros Bafaloukos, 1978); Rusty Zimmerman discussing his “Free Portrait Project: Crown Heights”; a hands-on workshop in which participants can make their own Caribbean-inspired instruments; pop-up gallery talks in the excellent “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art” exhibition; a Backyard Bashment dancehall workshop and party with choreographer Blacka Di Danca, actor-comedian Majah Hype, and DJ MeLo-X; and the interactive mobile art center caribBEING House, featuring Ruddy Rove’s “Fine Art of Daggering” photos, a participatory wall map, and the opportunity to share your own Caribbean tale. In addition, you can check out such exhibitions as “Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present,” “Tom Sachs: Boombox Retrospective, 1999–2016,” “Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (to a Seagull),” and “Agitprop!”