The African Burial Ground is one of fifteen downtown institutions offering free programs during Night at the Museums, part of the River to River Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUMS
Multiple downtown locations
Tuesday, June 21, free, 4:00 – 8:00
lmcc.net
Last Tuesday, the Museum Mile Festival offered free admission to seven institutions along Fifth Ave. between 82nd and 105th Sts. On the following Tuesday, June 18, fifteen downtown organizations will open their doors for free. As part of the River to River Festival, which includes experimental dance, theater, music, and more through June 26, people are invited inside to see exhibitions and special programs as well as join walking tours. In addition, there will be live music along the way in conjunction with the tenth annual Make Music New York. The participating organizations (with current exhibitions) are the African Burial Ground, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, Federal Hall, Fraunces Tavern Museum (“Dunsmore: Illustrating the American Revolutionary War”), the Museum of American Finance (“Worth Its Weight: Gold from the Ground Up”), the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (“Stitching History from the Holocaust,” “Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited”), the National Archives at New York City, the National Museum of the American Indian (“Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains,” “Circle of Dance”), the National September 11 Memorial Museum, the NYC Municipal Archives, the 9/11 Tribute Center, Poets House (“The Poets’ Rebellion: Poetry, Memory, and the Easter Rising,” “Metamorphosis: The Collaboration of Poet Barbara Guest & Artist Fay Lansner”), the Skyscraper Museum (“Garden City | Mega City”), the South Street Seaport Museum, and Wall Street Walks.
Spanish writer-director Carlo Saura celebrates the history and tradition of Argentinian music and dance in the joyous documentary Argentina. The eighty-four-year-old Saura, whose previous films include Carmen, Tango, El amor brujo, and Flamenco, Flamenco, and production designer Pablo Maestre Galli built stages in a vast, empty barn in La Boca barrio of Buenos Aires City to honor such local and regional art forms as Zamba, Vidala, Chacarera, Malambo, Copla, and Chamamé. Using archival footage, silhouette-creating scrims, mirrors, and live projections, Saura and cinematographer Félix Chango Monti follow a series of set pieces with no narration or explanation, creating a simple and beautiful record of Argentinian music and dance. Among the lovely performances are pianist Horacio Lavandera playing Carlos Guastavino’s “Bailecito,” “Bagualas” featuring Mariana Carrizo, Melania Pérez, and Tomas Lipan, “La Felipe Varela” with Chaqueño Palavecino and Jimena Teruel, “Añoranzas” by Soledad Pastorutti, Metabombo’s “Ritmo de Malambo” with Carlos “Pajarín” Saavedra and Jorge “Koki” Saavedra, and “En el fondo del mal” by Gabo Ferro and Luciana Jury.
About midway through The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the renowned international group performs an exhilarating song in a studio that leaves them just as thrilled as the audience. Renowned cellist Ma might be the heart of the ensemble, but it’s the joy of creating and playing music no matter what that makes this documentary soar. And music is something that director Morgan Neville clearly understands, having previously made the Oscar-winning 20 Feet from Stardom as well as Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied, Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story, and Johnny Cash’s America. In The Music of Strangers, Neville traces the history of the Silk Road Ensemble, named for the thousands-of-years-old trading route across Asia, from China to the Mediterranean. Born as an improvised gathering of musicians at Tanglewood in 2000, it became a venture that tours the world, promoting collaboration and celebrating international interaction. “The idea of culture is not so much to preserve tradition but to keep things alive and to evolve things,” says Ma, who has had to deal with accusations of cultural appropriation and dilution. Neville focuses on five members of the ensemble: Ma, the Paris-born Chinese-American cellist who has been a star his whole life (archival footage shows him at age seven with Leonard Bernstein, performing for President Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline); Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man, the first Chinese artist to play at the White House; Kinan Azmeh, a Syrian clarinetist who is the artistic director of the Damascus Festival Chamber Music Ensemble; Cristina Pato, a rock star on the gaita, the Galician bagpipe; and Iranian Kayhan Kalhor, a three-time Grammy nominee who is an expert on the kamancheh, the Persian bowed lute. Each shares stories of their personal history, focusing on their relationship with their native countries, which have undergone major changes over the last fifteen years.