this week in music

COUNTRY BRUNCHIN’: SERENITY

Joss Whedon continues FIREFLY series with feature film that reunites cast for one last adventure

SCI-FIGHTERS: SERENITY (Joss Whedon, 2005)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Saturday, November 7, 11:15 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
www.serenitymovie.com

We were huge fans of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, so it was with much disappointment that we watched his 2002 TV show, Firefly, come and go so quickly. But the diehard fans, known as Browncoats, wanted more than the Fox network gave them, so Whedon delivered this exciting feature-length film for Universal, reuniting the cast, including Nathan Fillion as Mal, Gina Torres as Zoe, Alan Tudyk as Wash, Morena Baccarin as Inara, Adam Baldwin as Jayne, Jewel Staite as Kaylee, Sean Maher as Simon, Summer Glau as River, and Ron Glass (yes, the guy from Barney Miller) as Shepherd. The bad guy this time around is known simply as the Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a cold-blooded killing machine out to destroy River, who has very dangerous special powers that the Alliance wants silenced. Also getting in the crew’s way are the Reavers, vile creatures who prefer to eat their prey alive. While the Browncoats should be thrilled with the film, so should newbies to this world, as Whedon has managed to make Serenity an involving stand-alone space Western that sci-fi fans can enjoy without knowing anything about Firefly. But after you see this thoroughly enjoyable flick, you’re likely to rush to catch up on everything you missed. Serenity is screening November 7 at as part of the Nitehawk Cinema series “Country Brunchin’” and “Sci-Fighters” and will be preceded by a live performance by the Brooklyn country band Tatters & Rags. “Sci-Fighters” continues Fridays and Saturdays in November around midnight with such other fab flicks as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Alien, Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days, and Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man.

JOANNA GRUESOME

Joanna Gruesome come to town for a pair of Halloween weekend shows in Brooklyn (photo by Rachel Hodgson)

Who: Joanna Gruesome
What: Pair of Halloween weekend shows
Where: Rough Trade, 64 North Ninth St. between Wythe & Kent Aves., Williamsburg; Shea Stadium, 20 Meadow St. between Bogart & Waterbury Sts., Bushwick
When: Friday, October 30 (Rough Trade), $12, 8:30; Saturday, October 31 (Shea Stadium), $12, 8:30
Why: If Cardiff noise punks Joanna Gruesome look and sound slightly different at two Halloween weekend shows than they do on their sophomore album, the fab ten-track Peanut Butter (Slumberland, May 2015), it isn’t necessarily because they are wearing costumes. This past spring, vocalist Alanna McArdle announced she was leaving the group, which first got together at an anger-management class, for personal reasons. She explained on the band’s Facebook page, “Lately, my mental health problems have become a lot worse and I’ve gone through a pretty shitty time. I’ve realised I need to actually take some time out to focus on some kind of ‘recovery,’ so I won’t be singing in Joanna Gruesome anymore. I hate to sound cheesy but the time I had in jgro was life-changing.” Joining guitarist Owen Williams, bassist Max Warren, guitarist and keyboardist George Nicholls, and drummer David Sandford are vocalists Kate Stonestreet of Pennycress and Roxy Brennan of Two White Cranes. Peanut Butter is slathered in postpunk-pop glory, as screams and shouts, furious guitars and drums give way to sweetly melodic moments at the turn of a dime, as on the propulsive “Last Year,” “Psykick Espionage,” and the aptly titled “I Don’t Wanna Relax.” Joanna Gruesome — yes, their name is a riff on American musician and actress Joanna Newsom — will be playing Rough Trade in Brooklyn on October 30 with Aye Nako and King of Cats, followed on Halloween night with a show at Shea Stadium with Aye Nako and King of Cats again as well as PWR BTTM.

KEEN ON KATE!

Kate Baldwin will perform benefit concert for Keen Company on November 2

Who: Kate Baldwin, with special guests Katie Thompson and Graham Rowat, accompanied by Georgia Stitt, Michael Croiter, and Brian Hamm
What: Benefit performance for Keen Company
Where: The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
When: Monday, November 2, $60-$150, 7:00
Why: Tony- and Drama Desk-nominated actress Kate Baldwin, who has starred in such shows as Big Fish and Finian’s Rainbow on Broadway and Giant and John & Jen off Broadway, will be giving a special concert on November 2 benefiting Keen Company, which is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary. The show is taking place at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, where Keen is performing Giles Havergal’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s Travels with My Aunt. Baldwin, who has recorded such albums as Let’s See What Happens: Songs of Lane & Harburg and She Loves Him: Kate Baldwin Live at Feinstein’s, is currently starring in Songbird, a Tennessee Fiction, at 59E59. General admission is $60, while $150 tickets come with with premium seating and a Champagne toast with the performers.

STEPHEN PETRONIO: LUMINOUS MISCHIEF

Spoken-word performances will take place under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana” installation in Madison Square Park on September 17 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Stephen Petronio will be staging free-form, improvised, and participatory music and dance event under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana” installation in Madison Square Park on October 30 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Stephen Petronio Company
What: “Luminous Mischief” under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana”
Where: Madison Square Park, 23rd to 26th Sts. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
When: Friday, October 30, free, 6:00
Why: “Let’s cause some mischief,” New York City–based dancer and choreographer Stephen Petronio declares about his one-time-only site-specific piece “Luminous Mischief,” taking place under Teresita Fernández’s “Fata Morgana” installation in Madison Square Park on October 30. The participatory dance and music event will feature nine members of Petronio’s company, along with a brass band led by clarinetist Mike McGinnis, who is inviting horn players to sign up in advance and join in the fun. The dancers and musicians will be interacting with the five-hundred-foot-long sculpture — a series of canopies of mirror-polished discs with small sections cut out of them resembling clouds or leaves — as well as passersby, so anything can happen, as this is a free-form, improvised party. Of course, that is always the case with Petronio, who staged his own New Orleans–style funeral at the Joyce in 2013 and walked down the old Whitney Museum building in homage to Trisha Brown in 2010.

REFUSE THE HOUR

William Kentridge leads a troupe of dancers, vocalists, and musicians through a multimedia journey into the concept of time and space in REFUSE THE HOUR (photo by John Hodgkiss)

NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
October 22-25, $52-$110
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

At one point in William Kentridge’s multimedia, multidisciplinary chamber opera, Refiuse the Hour, projections of three large metronomes all move at different speeds, an apt metaphor for the eighty-minute piece as a whole, a wildly inventive and unpredictable presentation of sounds and images built around such concepts as time, anti-entropy, science, and art in addition to coincidence and fate. “I walk around the studio, waiting for these fragments that have come in to appear, and make sense, repeating the elements again and again,” Kentridge says, standing onstage in his trademark white button-down shirt and black pants and shoes in front of a projection of himself walking through his studio. The dialogue, with dramaturgy by Harvard history of science and physics professor Peter Galison, collides with the imagery in abstract ways, as beautiful and mesmerizing as it is confusing and chaotic. Kentridge serves as storyteller, discussing the Perseus myth and black holes, as well as a kind of conductor — the hand of the artist is often visible in his drawings and films — interacting with kinetic sculptures and the other members of the cast, which include dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo, vocalists Ann Masina and Joanna Dudley, actor Thato Motlhaolwa, and musicians Adam Howard, Tlale Makhene, Waldo Alexander, Dan Selsick, Vicenzo Pasquariello, and Thobeka Thukane, performing a score by Kentridge’s longtime collaborator, composer Philip Miller. Meanwhile, a percussion kit hangs from above, mysteriously chiming in. Sabine Theunissen’s ragtag set feels right at home at the BAM Harvey, wonderfully integrating Catherine Meyburgh’s video design, Greta Goiris’s costumes, and Luc de Wit’s choreographed movement of humans and machines. A companion piece to his immersive, deeply intellectual yet playful exhibition “The Refusal of Time,” Refuse the Hour refuses categorization, instead leading the audience down a dramatic rabbit hole where science and art intersect in a complex yet delightful symphony of words, images, movement, and music. “Can we hold our breath against time?” Kentridge asks. Refuse the Hour is nothing if not breathtaking itself, challenging the notion of performance as only Kentridge can. (For more on Kentridge’s current invasion of New York City, go here.)

PHOTOGRAPH: RINGO STARR AT THE STRAND

Who: Ringo Starr and Steven Van Zandt
What: Illustrated discussion celebrating recent release of Ringo Starr’s memoirs, Photograph (Genesis, September 21, $50)
Where: The Strand, 828 Broadway at Twelfth St., 212-473-1452
When: Monday, October 26, free with advance purchase of Photograph, 2:00
Why: On his 1973 solo album, Down and Out, former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr sang, “Every time I see your face / It reminds me of the places we used to go / But all I’ve got is a photograph / And I realize you’re not coming back anymore.” Forty-two years later, he has published his memoirs in a book filled with stories and photographs from throughout his childhood and music career. On October 26, he will be at the Strand to talk about the book and his life, in conversation with Steven Van Zandt. The event is limited to the first two hundred people who have purchased the book from the Strand in advance; although Ringo will not be signing the books, each one comes with a limited edition bookplate with a reproduction of his signature. “These are shots that no one else could have. I just had the camera with me a lot of the time,” Ringo says about the photos in the book. “There’s a lot of shots of ‘the boys’ that only I could have taken. Together they chart the story of four lads from Liverpool trying to live normal lives amidst the frenzy that surrounded them.” Ringo will be back in town on October 31 with his All Starr Band for a Halloween show at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn that concludes their month-long North American Tour in conjunction with Ringo’s latest album, Postcards from Paradise.

PERFORMA 15

(photo by Alan Prada / courtesy of LUomo Vogue)

Francesco Vezzoli and David Hallberg’s FORTUNA DESPERATA kicks off tenth anniversary of biannual Performa arts festival (photo by Alan Prada / courtesy of L’Uomo Vogue)

Multiple venues
November 1-22, free – $500
15.performa-arts.org

Performa is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its biennial with another diverse lineup of live, cutting-edge performances, taking place at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The festivities begin November 1 with a special opening-night benefit gala presentation ($250-$500) of Francesco Vezzoli and David Hallberg’s Renaissance-inspired Performa commission, Fortuna Desperata, at St. Bart’s and conclude November 22 with a Grand Finale party ($45) at Hôtel Americano, with the awarding of the Malcolm McLaren prize, which has previously gone to Ragnar Kjartansson and Ryan McNamara. One of the key participants this year is dancer and choreographer Jérôme Bel, whose Ballet (New York) ($15-$25) will be at the Marian Goodman Gallery November 6-7, the Martha Graham Studio Theater November 14-15, and El Museo del Barrio November 19; Bel will also teach a free Artist Class on November 5 at the Performa Hub at 47 Walker St. and will sit down for the free conversation “Don’t Just Sit There; Talking About Dance” with Performa head RoseLee Goldberg and the great Yvonne Rainer at Albertine on November 8. Meanwhile, from November 1 to November 18, Ryan Gander’s Ernest Hawker will feature an actor portraying the British artist’s future self at various Performa events; he will also give a free Artist Talk at the Performa Hub on November 2 at 3:00 with curator Mark Beasley. Below are ten other highlights of this always fascinating festival.

Friday, November 6
and
Saturday, November 7
Volmir Cordeiro: Inês, Danspace Project, $15-$20, 9:00

Saturday, November 7
Simon Fujiwara and Christodoulos Panayiotou: Lafayette Anticipation Session, featuring welcome speeches, screening of Fujiwara’s New Pompidou followed by a discussion with Fujiwara and Stuart Comer, and Panayiotou’s lecture-performance Dying on Stage with Jean Capeille, Performa Hub, free, 3:00 – 7:00

Opening of My Silent One (In the Sweetness of Time), live exhibition environment by Doveman and Tom Kalin, Participant Inc., free, 6:00 pm – 12 midnight

Saturday, November 7
and
Sunday, November 8
Arnold Schönberg’s Erwartung — A Performance by Robin Rhode, Times Square between Forty-Second & Forty-Third Sts., free, 4:30

Thursday, November 12
and
Friday, November 13
Erika Vogt: Artist Theater Program, live exhibition with collaborators Math Bass, Shannon Ebner, and Adam Putnam, Roulette, $20-$25, 9:00

Claudia de Serpa Soares, Jim White, and Eve Sussman join together for MORE UP A TREE at BAM (photo by Eve Sussman)

Friday, November 13
through
Sunday, November 15
Jesper Just: Untitled multimedia performance installation in collaboration with FOS, venue and price to be announced, 5:30

Monday, November 16
through
Sunday, November 22
Oscar Murillo: Lucky dip, live work about production, protest, and displacement, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, free, 12 noon – 5:00 pm

Thursday, November 19
“Unorthodox: On Art II,” with Austė, Brian Belott, Meriem Bennani, Brian DeGraw, Tommy Hartung, Nick Payne, Jeni Spota, Jamian Juliano Villani, and others, the Jewish Museum, free with pay-what-you-wish admission, 6:00

Thursday, November 19
through
Saturday, November 21
More up a Tree, by Claudia de Serpa Soares, Eve Sussman, and Jim White, BAM Next Wave Festival, BAM Fisher Fishman Space, $25, 7:30

Saturday, November 21
Ilija Šoškić: Maximum Energy — Minimum Time, re-creation of past works in commemoration of the suicide of Russian Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, WhiteBox, free, 6:00