this week in (live)streaming

COCKTAILS WITH A CURATOR (FROM THE FRICK)

Frick chief curator Xavier F. Salomon enjoys cocktails while discussing masterpieces in weekly Friday happy hour (courtesy the Frick Collection)

Who: Xavier F. Salomon
What: Happy-hour discussion of great works of art in the Frick Collection
Where: Frick YouTube channel
When: Fridays at 5:00, free
Why: One of my very favorite places in New York City is the Frick Collection, a kind of home away from home for me, where I go when I need to take a break from the rest of the world and relax among spectacular works of art — many of which I consider close friends — and sit peacefully in the enchanting garden with its lush fountain. But I’m now able to get a much-needed taste of the Frick — which opened in 1935, sixteen years after the death of Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Clay Frick — with the fab program “Cocktails with a Curator.” Every Friday at 5:00, Frick chief curator Xavier F. Salomon enjoys a specifically chosen drink (recipe included for cocktail and mocktail) with viewers as he describes one of the museum’s treasures. On April 10, Salomon discussed Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert while sipping a Manhattan, followed on April 17 with a look at Rembrandt’s Polish Rider while enjoying a Szarlotka. On April 24, Salomon will delve into Anthony van Dyck’s Sir John Suckling with Pink Gin in hand. Speaking live from his New York City apartment, Salomon is seen in the lower right hand corner of the screen as the camera roams around the artwork, offering stunning detail; Salomon is wonderfully calm and straightforward as he explores the piece and relates its story to what is happening today during the pandemic.

ZOOM OPERA: all decisions will be made by consensus

here arts center

Who: Paul An, Hai-Ting Chinn, Zachary James, Joan LaBarbara, Adrian Rosas, Kamala Sankaram, Joel Marsh Garland
What: Livestreamed opera from Here Arts Center
Where: Here Arts Center Facebook page and Zoom link (limited capacity beginning fifteen minutes before showtime)
When: Friday, April 24, 1:00, Saturday, April 25, 7:00, Sunday, April 26, 3:00
Why: Here Arts Center will be presenting what it is calling the “first ever Zoom opera” this weekend, a fifteen-minute production created specifically for the streaming platform. The team behind the 2019 multimedia Here show Looking at You have joined forces again for all decisions will be made by consensus, featuring music by Kamala Sankaram, libretto by Rob Handel, and direction by founding artistic director Kristin Marting. The opera, which deals with a Zoom meeting of activists, will be performed by Paul An, Hai-Ting Chinn, Zachary James, Joan LaBarbara, Adrian Rosas, and Sankaram, with special guest Joel Marsh Garland. “With the current health crisis and its related cancellations, artists have found themselves trying to find new ways to connect with their audiences,” Sankaram said in a statement. “As always with new technologies, adapting traditional models can be an uneasy fit. So, I began this project with a question: What would happen if you created a piece specifically intended to be performed live over a conferencing platform like Zoom? The result is an experiment, an absurdist comedy, and a first answer to that question, hopefully leading to new ways to connect in this new world we’ve found ourselves in.” There will be three free performances, April 24 at 1:00, April 25 at 7:00, and April 26 at 3:00; I got a sneak peek at a tech rehearsal, so I can say I’m indeed looking forward to the final version, especially since I’ve also had my fair share of Zoom meetings and am well aware at how strange they can get.

MADE IN HARLEM — REMEMBERING THE RENAISSANCE: LOOKING FOR LANGSTON (with live Q&A)

Free livestream screening of Looking for Langston will be followed by panel discussion

Who: Zohra Saed, LaTasha Diggs, Paolo Javier
What: Live online film screening and panel discussion
Where: Poets House Twitter feed
When: Friday, April 24, free with RSVP, 4:00
Why: As part of its series “Made in Harlem: Remembering the Renaissance,” Maysles Documentary Center is teaming up with Poets House to present a live online screening of Looking for Langston, Isaac Julien’s forty-five-minute 1989 docudrama about Hughes, the twentieth-century poet, playwright, and novelist who chronicled black and gay life and culture in America in such books as The Weary Blues and Not without Laughter. The London-born Julien is a multimedia installation artist who has made such other films as Western Union: Small Boats and Ten Thousand Waves. The 4:00 screening, free with RSVP, will be followed by a panel discussion on Hughes’s literary legacy, Julien’s cinematic style, and the hundredth anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance with Brooklyn-based Afghan American poet Zohra Saed and Harlem-based writer, vocalist, and sound artist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, moderated by Poets House program director and former Queens poet laureate Paolo Javier.

DUET: LONNEKE GORDIJN IN CONVERSATION WITH LEE RANALDO

Lonneke Gordijn (photo by J. W. Kaldenbach) and Lee Ranaldo (photo by Cara Stricker © Lee Ranaldo) will discuss art and collaboration in the age of coronavirus on April 23 over Instagram

Who: Lonneke Gordijn, Lee Ranaldo
What: Online conversation hosted by Pace Gallery
Where: Pace Gallery Instagram Live
When: Thursday, April 23, free, 5:00
Why: If you haven’t been to Pace’s huge new home in Chelsea yet, it will be a little while longer before you get to check it out. But during the lockdown, Pace is hosting a series of livestreamed performances and conversations. On March 12, musician, composer, visual artist, writer, producer, and Sonic Youth cofounder Lee Ranaldo was scheduled to play a duet with EGO, a shapeshifting sculptural installation by DRIFT, a Dutch studio that was established in 2006 by Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn to bring people together with nature and technology. That event was cancelled because of the coronavirus, but on April 23 at 5:00, Ranaldo and Gordijn will take part in “Duet: Lonneke Gordijn in Conversation with Lee Ranaldo.” The free talk, focusing on creative collaboration in today’s complex world, will be streamed live on Instagram.

WATCH WITH ME — FAYE DRISCOLL’S THANK YOUR FOR COMING: ATTENDANCE

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.

LA CONVIVIALITÉ: LA FAUTE DE L’ORTHOGRAPHE (with live Q&A)

Arnaud Hoedt and Jérôme Piro will take a unique look at French spelling at FIAF online performance

Who: Arnaud Hoedt and Jérôme Piro
What: Live performance and Q&A from Belgium (in French)
Where: French Institute Alliance Française
When: Wednesday, April 22, free with advance RSVP, 5:00
Why: In 1771, Voltaire wrote, “The spelling in French books is ridiculous for the most part. Convention alone allows this incongruity to persist.” Two former Belgian teachers, Arnaud Hoedt — a self-described “linguist dilettante, philographer, pedagogue, true-false comedian, and academician eater” — and Jérôme Piro have taken that quote as inspiration for their two-person presentation La Convivialité: La Faute de l’Orthographe (roughly, Friendliness: The Spelling Error), an abridged version of which they will perform on April 22 at 5:00 via FIAF’s Facebook page and Zoom, followed by a Q&A. You need to register in advance here to receive the Zoom password and be able to ask questions. You can get a preview of their dissection of the French language by watching their May 2019 TEDx Talk and this preview, both of which are in French without English translation, as will be the FIAF program. And you thought American English spelling had problems.

YOM HA-SHOAH: THE SOAP MYTH PLAY AND LIVE WEBINAR

Tovah Feldshuh and Ed Asner will talk about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as part of Yom HaShoah commemoration

Who: Ed Asner, Tovah Feldshuh, Jeff Cohen, Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, Arnold Mittelman, Michael Berenbaum, Ira Forman, Richard Salomon
What: Panel discussion about The Soap Myth in honor of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)
Where: Temple Emanuel Streicker Center website
When: Monday, April 20, free with advance registration, 6:30
Why: In commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, the National Jewish Theater Foundation, and the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center have teamed up to present a live online panel discussion exploring anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the historical record as brought up in Jeff Cohen’s poignant play The Soap Myth, which looks at the claim that the Nazis made soap from the bodies of dead Jews. I saw a full staging of the work in 2012, calling it “an emotionally moving production [that] offers an intriguing look into the speculative nature of history and one man’s furious dedication to setting the record straight.” Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh have been touring with the play for several years, performing staged readings directed by Pamela Berlin, one of which was taped for PBS, where it can be seen for free as part of WNET’s All Arts.

You’ll want to watch it before tuning in to the live event on April 20 at 6:30, when Asner, Feldshuh, and Cohen will be joined by Holocaust scholar Dr. Michael Berenbaum, former special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism Ira N. Forman, and moderator Rick Salomon of the Illinois Holocaust Museum. The program will be introduced by Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson of Temple Emanu-El and Arnold Mittelman of the National Jewish Theater, who directed the production I saw. Advance registration is required here.