this week in music

CROSSING THE LINE — RYOJI IKEDA: SUPERCODEX [LIVE SET]

Supercodex [live set], 2013, © Ryoji Ikeda photo by Ryo Mitamura

Ryoji Ikeda’s Supercodex [live set] makes its New York premiere at the Met as part of Crossing the Line Festival (photo by Ryo Mitamura / © Ryoji Ikeda)

MetLiveArts
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
September 6-7, $45-$60 (including same-day museum admission), 7:00
212-570-3949
crossingthelinefestival.org
www.metmuseum.org

At FIAF’s 2014 Crossing the Line Festival, Japanese multimedia artist Ryoji Ikeda dazzled audiences at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the sold-out U.S. premiere of superposition, an audiovisual marvel that explored technology, philosophy, probability, and the future of existence. He’s now back with the follow-up, supercodex [live set], which kicks off the 2017 festival, again at the Met. (Ikeda’s gallery show, “the transcendental,” was part of the 2010 festival, at FIAF.) The piece, which was conceived and composed by Ikeda and features computer graphics and programming by Tomonaga Tokuyama, is the culmination of Ikeda’s Raster-Norton trilogy of albums that began with Dataplex and continued with Test Pattern, as Ikeda investigates the limits of technological-human connection. Viewers will be enveloped in black-and-white digital imagery while experimental music blasts throughout the space. Ikeda, who lives and works in Japan and Paris and also blew people’s minds with the immersive, site-specific the transfinite at the Park Avenue Armory in 2011, mines the “data of sound” and the “sound of data” in his work, incorporating scientific and mathematical elements, and the New York premiere of supercodex [live set] should bring that to a whole new level. (Tickets include museum admission, so be sure to go early and check out such exhibits as “The Theater of Disappearance,” “Talking Pictures: Camera-Phone Conversations Between Artists,” “Sara Barman’s Closet,” and “Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection.”)

SUMMER DOUBLE FEATURES! LITTLE FUGITIVE / SPEEDY

Joey Norton goes on the adventure of a lifetime in Coney Island in underground indie classic Little Fugitive

LITTLE FUGITIVE (Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, and Ruth Orkin, 1953)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, September 4, 12:30 & 4:00
Series continues through September 5
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Labor Day is the traditional end of summer, and Film Forum gets in on the fun with an inspired double feature of two Coney Island specials. Screening at 12:30 and 4:00, Morris Engel’s charming Little Fugitive is one of the most influential and important — and vastly entertaining — works to ever come out of the city. The underground classic won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1953, was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar, and was entered into the National Film Registry in 1997. Written and directed with Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin, Engel’s future wife, Little Fugitive follows the gritty, adorable exploits of seven-year-old wannabe cowboy Joey Norton (Richie Andrusco, in his only film role), who runs away to Coney Island after his older brother, Lennie (Richard Brewster), and his brother’s friends, Harry (Charlie Moss) and Charley (Tommy DeCanio), play a trick on the young boy, using ketchup to convince Joey that he accidentally killed Lennie. With their single mother (Winifred Cushing) off visiting her ailing mother, Joey heads out on his own, determined to escape the cops who are surely after him. But once he gets to Coney Island, he decides to take advantage of all the crazy things to be found on the beach, along the boardwalk, and in the surrounding area, including, if he can get the money, riding a real pony.

A no-budget black-and-white neo-Realist masterpiece shot by Engel with a specially designed lightweight camera that was often hidden so people didn’t know they were being filmed, Little Fugitive explores the many pleasures and pains of childhood and the innate value of home and family. As Joey wanders around Coney Island, he meets all levels of humanity, preparing him for the world that awaits as he grows older. Meanwhile, Engel gets into the nooks and crannies of the popular beach area, from gorgeous sunrises to beguiling shadows under the boardwalk. In creating their beautifully told tale, Engel, Ashley, and Orkin use both trained and nonprofessional actors, including Jay Williams as Jay, the sensitive pony ride man, and Will Lee, who went on to play Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, as an understanding photographer, while Eddie Manson’s score continually references “Home on the Range.” Rough around the edges in all the right ways, Little Fugitive became a major influence on the French New Wave, with Truffaut himself singing its well-deserved praises. There’s really nothing quite like it, before or since. The 12:30 show will be introduced by Mary Engel, the daughter of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin.

Harold Lloyd has a crazy time in Coney Island in Speedy

SPEEDY (Ted Wilde, 1928)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, September 4, 2:00
Series continues through September 13
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

In between the two showings of Little Fugitive is another delightful treat, Ted Wilde’s Speedy, with live musical accompaniment by pianist Steve Sterner. Much like the end of the silent film era itself, the last horse-drawn trolley is doomed in Harold Lloyd’s final silent film. Big business is playing dirty trying to get rid of the trolley and classic old-timer Pop Dillon. Meanwhile, Harold “Speedy” Swift, a dreamer who wanders from menial job to menial job (he makes a great soda-jerk with a unique way of announcing the Yankees score), cares only about the joy and wonder life brings. But he’s in love with Pop’s granddaughter, Jane (Ann Christy), so he vows to save the day. Along the way, he gets to meet Babe Ruth. Wilde was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director, Comedy, for this thrilling nonstop ride through beautiful Coney Island and the pre-depression streets of New York City. Film Forum’s second annual Festival of Summer Double Features continues through September 5 with such other sweet pairings as Panique and Peeping Tom, Point Blank and The Killers, and The Big Lebowski and The Last Picture Show.

WEST INDIAN AMERICAN DAY CARNIVAL AND PARADE 2017

Spectacular costumes are all part of the fun of annual West Indian American Day Carnival on Labor Day in Brooklyn (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eastern Pkwy. from Schenectady Ave. to Grand Army Plaza
Monday, September 4, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-467-1797
www.wiadca.com

Every Labor Day, millions of people line Eastern Parkway, celebrating the city’s best annual parade, the West Indian American Day Carnival, waving flags from such nations as Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, the Cayman Islands, Antigua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Aruba, Curaçao, and many more. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the parade, with a tribute to reggae legend Bob Marley. The festivities actually begin on August 31, with special events (listed below) every day leading up to the parade. The Labor Day partying commences at 6:00 am with the traditional J’Ouvert Morning, a precarnival procession featuring steel drums and percussion and fabulous, inexpensive masquerade costumes, marching from Grand Army Plaza to Flatbush Ave. and on to Empire Blvd., then to Nostrand Ave. and Midwood St.; there will be more of a police presence to prevent the violence that has occurred the last several years. The Parade of Bands begins immediately after, around 11:00 am, as truckloads of blasting Caribbean music and groups of ornately dressed dancers, costume bands, masqueraders, moko jumbies, and thousands of others bump and grind their way down Eastern Parkway to Grand Army Plaza, participating in one last farewell to the flesh prior to Lent. Don’t eat before you go; the great homemade food includes ackee and saltfish, oxtail stew, breadfruit, macaroni pie, curried goat, jerk chicken, fishcakes, rice and peas, and red velvet cake. The farther east you venture, the more closed in it gets; by the time you get near Crown Heights, it could take you half an hour just to cross the street, so take it easy and settle in for a fun, colorful day where you need not hurry. In addition, be prepared to see a whole lotta twerkin’ going on.

Thursday, August 31
Reggae Unda Di Stars, with Wunmi, Stonebwoy Dajah, Cocoa Tea with Derrick Barnett & Statement Band, Stephen “Ragga” Marley, Road International, Cali B, Max Glazer and Kenny Meez, and more, hosted by DJ Roy, Brooklyn Museum grounds, $60, 7:00 pm – 1:00 am

Friday, September 1
Brassfest: Panorama Competition, with the Allstars, Blaxx, Ricardo Drue, Teddyson John, Tizzy, Lyrikal, Farmer Nappy, Problem Child, Lavaman, MX Prime, Motto, Sedale, Elizabeth Watley & the Outta Limitz Band, Rayzor & the Request Band, and King Bubba, hosted by MC Wassy and Vibezman Redman, Brooklyn Museum grounds, $65, 7:00 pm – 1:00 am

Saturday, September 2
Junior Carnival Parade, with music by DJ One Plus, hosted by Jemma Jordan, St. John’s Place between Kingston & Brooklyn Aves. to Brooklyn Museum at Washington Ave., $5, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Sunday, September 3
Dimanche Gras, with the Mighty Sparrow, Rose King, David Rudder, Lord Nelson, Swallow, Ras Iley, Natasha Wilson, Dane Gulston and the Sunshine Band, Ole Mas competition, Boodoosingh Tassa Drummers, and more, hosted by MC Wassy and Jemma Jordan, Brooklyn Museum grounds, $35, 7:00 pm – 1:00 am

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL 2017

Tanztheater Wuppertal/Pina Bausch’s Café Müller returns to BAM for Next Wave Festival (photo by Bo Lahola)

BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St.
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave.
BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Pl.
September 14 – December 16
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

As usual, we are considering moving in to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for three months after the announcement of the lineup for the thirty-fifth BAM Next Wave Festival, running September 14 through December 16 at the Harvey, the Howard Gilman Opera House, and the Fisher. “This year’s Next Wave showcases artists from Switzerland to Senegal in creative dialogue with historic events, personal histories, and the present moment,” longtime BAM executive producer Joe Melillo said in a statement. The roster includes old favorites and up-and-comers from around the world, with several surprises. Dance enthusiasts will be particularly impressed with the schedule, which begins September 14-24 with a superb double bill of Tanztheater Wuppertal/Pina Bausch’s Café Müller and The Rite of Spring, which were part of the first Bausch program at BAM back in June 1984. For The Principles of Uncertainty (September 27-30), Maira Kalman teams up with John Heginbotham, Dance Heginbotham, and the Knights to bring her online graphic diary to life. New York Live Arts artistic director and cofounder Bill T. Jones returns to BAM with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and composer Nick Hallett for A Letter to My Nephew (October 3-7), about his nephew, Lance T. Briggs, who battled illness and addiction. Senegalese artist Germaine Acogny takes center stage for the emotional solo piece Mon élue noire (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2 (October 4-7), choreographed specifically for her by Olivier Dubois of Ballet du Nord, set to music by Stravinsky. Also on the movement bill are Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY’s Saudade, Cynthia Oliver’s Virago-Man Dem, ODC/Dance, Brenda Way, and KT Nelson’s boulders and bones, David Dorfman Dance’s Aroundtown, Hofesh Shechter Company’s Grand Finale, Xavier Cha’s Buffer, Big Dance Theater’s 17c, and Tesseract, a multimedia collaboration between Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener.

Schaubühne Berlin presents the U.S. premiere of its unique take on Richard III at BAM Next Wave Festival (photo by Arno Declair)

The festival also boasts impressive theater productions, kicking off October 11-14 with Schaubühne Berlin’s tantalizing version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, translated and adapted by Marius von Mayenburg, directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and starring Lars Eidinger. Théâtre de la Ville, Paris is back November 2-4 with Albert Camus’s State of Siege, directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota. Tony-winning Belgian director Ivo van Hove takes on Ayn Rand in Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s four-hour The Fountainhead November 28 to December 2. Rachel Dickstein and Ripe Time bring Naomi Iizuka’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Sleep to the Fisher November 20 to December 2. Fresh off her Broadway stint in Marvin’s Room, Lili Taylor stars in Farmhouse/Whorehouse: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra, directed by Lee Sunday Evans (December 12-16). Geoff Sobelle, who went solo at BAM for The Object Lesson, is joined by an ensemble of designers and dancers for Home (December 6-10). And be on the lookout for Manfred Karge, Alexandra Wood, and Wales Millennium Centre’s Man to Man, Thaddeus Phillips and Steven Dufala’s A Billion Nights on Earth, the Cameri Theatre of Tel-Aviv’s adaptation of Etgar Keret’s Suddenly, directed by Zvi Sahar and PuppetCinema, Manual Cinema’s Mementos Mori, Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project’s /peh-LO-tah/, and James Thierrée and Compagnie du Hanneton’s La grenouille avait raison (The Toad Knew).

Music aficionados have plenty to choose from, with Olivier Py Sings Les Premiere Adieux de Miss Knife, Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, and Vân-Ánh Võ’s My Lai, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Counts’s Road Trip, Gabriel Kahane’s Book of Travelers, Rithy Panh, Him Sophy, Trent Walker, Jonathan Berger, and Harriet Scott’s Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, Wordless Music Orchestra and Chorus’s two-part John Cale: The Velvet Underground & Nico, and the New York premiere of American Repertory Theater’s Crossing, an opera inspired by Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” composed, written, and conducted by Matthew Aucoin and directed by Diane Paulus. The season is supplemented with several postperformance talks and master classes.

CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL 2017

Annie Dorsen turns FIAF auditorium into planetarium for Crossing the Line Festival

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 6 – October 15, free – $60
212-355-6160
crossingthelinefestival.org
www.fiaf.org

FIAF’s annual Crossing the Line Festival enters its second decade with the eleventh edition of its always exciting multidisciplinary lineup featuring unique and eclectic works from around the world. This year’s focus is on Congolese choreographer and CTL veteran Faustin Linyekula, who will be presenting the world premiere of the site-specific Banataba at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (9/9, 9/10, 9/12, $65), the U.S. premiere of In Search of Dinozord with Studios Kabako at the NYU Skirball Center (9/22, 9/23, $40), and the world premiere of Festival of Dreams at Roberto Clemente Plaza on 9/23 and Weeksville Heritage Center on 9/24 (free, 3:00). The festival begins September 6-7 with Ryoji Ikeda’s supercodex (live set) at the Met ($45-$60), a follow-up to his dazzling Superposition from 2014. In #PUNK, taking place 9/14-15 in FIAF’s Tinker Auditorium ($30), Zimbabwe-born, New York–based Nora Chipaumire channels the musical rage of Patti Smith; the 9/14 show will be followed by a Q&A with Chipaumire and Linyekula, moderated by Ralph Lemon. Performance festival regular Annie Dorsen (Magical, Yesterday Tomorrow) takes a new narrative approach to the internet in The Great Outdoors, 9/21-23 in FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall ($35). Alessandro Sciarroni continues his “Will you still love me tomorrow?” trilogy with the New York premiere of UNTITLED_I will be there when you die at La MaMa 9/28-30 ($25, 8:00).

Moroccan dancer-choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen’s Corbeaux (Crows) is a site-specific living sculpture that will move throughout the Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court 9/30 and 10/1 (free with museum admission). Drag fave Dickie Beau conjures Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland in Blackouts 10/5-8 at Abrons Arts Center ($30). Adelheid Roosen and Nazmiye Oral transform FIAF’s Le Skyroom into an intimate living room in No Longer without You 10/12-15 ($25), in which traditional Muslim immigrant Havva Oral and her Westernized daughter, Nazmiye, discuss faith, sexuality, identity, and more. In addition, Alain Willaume’s immersive exhibition, “VULNERABLE,” will be on view 9/15 to 10/28 in the FIAF Gallery (free), and Sophie Calle’s Voir la mer, set by the Black Sea in Istanbul, will be projected on Times Square billboards every night in October at 11:57 as part of the monthly Midnight Moment program.

COCKTAILS AT COOPER HEWITT — JONAH BOKAER: THE DISAPPEARANCE PORTRAITS

Jonah Bokaer concludes Cooper Hewitt series on August 24 with The Disappearance Portraits (photo by KSharkeyMiller)

Who: Jonah Bokaer
What: The Disappearance Portraits
Where: Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 90th St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
When: Thursday, August 24, $13-$15, 6:00
Why: The summer Thursdays Cocktails at Cooper Hewitt series concludes August 24 with American choreographer and visual artist Jonah Bokaer’s The Disappearance Portraits, taking place in the Smithsonian Design Museum’s Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden. Bokaer, whose previous works include Eclipse, Triple Echo, Rules of the Game and Neither, will be performing to original music by Soundwalk Collective. The site-specific live installation was inspired by research Bokaer conducted into his family history and the Mediterranean migration crisis.

CHARLIE PARKER JAZZ FESTIVAL 25th ANNIVERSARY

Multiple locations
August 23-27, free (some events require advance RSVP)
cityparksfoundation.org/charlieparker

City Parks Foundation’s annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival turns twenty-five this year with a series of special events paying tribute to Bird, who lived in New York City from 1939 until his death in 1955 at the age of thirty-four. “In honor of this milestone we have expanded the program to five days, partnered with local institutions on family jazz events and open jam sessions, and are presenting a full evening of dance in the lineup for the first time. We hope all New Yorkers, young and old, jazz aficionados and new fans alike, will join us in honoring the legacy of Charlie Parker and jazz in New York City,” City Parks Foundation executive director Heather Lubov said in a statement. On August 23 at 7:00, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem will host “Harlem Speaks,” a conversation with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. At 7:30, the New School will present “Bird with Strings,” an ensemble of students and veteran players performing the 1950 album Charlie Parker with Strings, featuring such classics as “April in Paris” and “Summertime.” At 10:00 pm, the Shed Open Jam takes place at Silvana. On August 24 at 5:30, Jazz in the Garden features Art Baron playing at the 6BC Botanical Garden. At 6:00, the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music will screen Kasper Collin’s 2017 documentary I Called Him Morgan. At 7:00 in Marcus Garvey Park, Jason Samuels Smith’s “Chasin’ the Bird Remixed” brings together tap dancer and choreographer Smith, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and Derick K. Grant dancing to Parker’s “Donna Lee,” “Salt Peanuts,” and others, preceded by a Walk to SummerStage with the New York Road Runners Club. And at 9:00, the “In Bird We Trust” jam session takes place at Ginny’s Supper Club. On August 25 at 5:30, Jazz in the Garden features Bill Saxton in the Harlem Rose Garden, while at 7:00 the Anat Cohen Tentet plays in Marcus Garvey Park. On August 26 at 3:00, Marcus Garvey Park will be home to a fab concert with the Lee Konitz Quartet, Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science, Louis Hayes, and Charenée Wade. And on Sunday, the grand finale moves to Tompkins Square Park at 3:00 with the Joshua Redman Quartet, Lou Donaldson, Tia Fuller, and Alicia Olatuja. All events are free; some require advance RSVP.