this week in music

COIL 2011

Amanda Loulaki and Short Mean Lady’s I AM SAYING GOODNIGHT bows down to morning coffee at 2011 COIL festival

Performance Space 122 (and other venues)
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
January 5-15, $20 per performance, $55 passport for any five shows, $100 for any ten shows
www.ps122.org

The sixth annual COIL festival of contemporary experimental dance and theater runs January 5-15, consisting of ten shows at PS122 and seven at offsite venues, several of which are return hits or will continue past COIL. Audience members can become part of Kim Noble’s will and go home with a container of his sperm in KIM NOBLE WILL DIE. Annie Dorsen’s HELLO HI THERE filters the 1971 Michel Foucault / Noam Chomsky debate through a chatbot to create new, improvised dialogues every night. The BodyCartography Project, which re-created a nuclear holocaust at PS122 in February 2010, turns its attention on the human body for SYMPTOM. In STORIES LEFT TO TELL, Ain Gordon, Kathleen Chalfant, Hazelle Goodman, and Bob Holman perform excerpts from classic and unpublished texts by Spalding Gray. Jack Ferver brings back his recent success RUMBLE GHOST, which combines the horror film POLTERGEIST with a group therapy session. Travis Chamberlain’s site-adaptive GREEN EYES takes Tennessee Williams to the Hudson Hotel, while Radiohole melds Douglas Sirk with John Milton at the Collapsible Hole. THEM, the intense collaboration between director Ishmael Houston-Jones, guitarist Chris Cochrane, and writer Dennis Cooper, returns for three performances at the Abrons Arts Center, while Palissimo kicks off its PAINTED BIRD trilogy with BASTARD at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Tickets for most shows are $20, with a $55 passport for any five productions and $100 for ten.

TIM MONAGHAN BENEFIT CONCERT

Tonight’s benefit concert at Zebulon raises funds for Tim Monaghan, who has been in intensive care for two weeks after terrible accident

Zebulon
258 Wythe Ave. between Metropolitan Ave. & North Third St.
Monday, December 27, 8:30
718-218-6934
www.zebuloncafeconcert.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Tims-Fund-Page

Tonight fellow Golem members Annette Ezekiel Kogan, Curtis Hasselbring, and Taylor Bergren-Chrisman will team up with Russian-born, Amsterdam-based master accordionist Alec Kopyt, Yuval Lion of Pink Noise, Sway Machinery leader Jeremiah Lockwood, DJ Spacedog, and others to raise funds for Golem drummer Tim Monaghan, who suffered a terrible accident on December 13 and is still in intensive care, battling trauma to his brain and skull but has just started talking, which is a great sign. Monaghan, who also has played with Girls in Trouble, has no insurance, so his friends and family have set up the Tim Monaghan Fund and have put together tonight’s klezmer concert, which will go on despite the weather.
free,

UNDER THE RADAR 2011

GOB SQUAD’S KITCHEN (YOU’VE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD) will be at La Mama January 6-8 during the seventh annual Under the Radar festival (photo by David Baltzer)

The Public Theater (and other venues)
425 Lafayette St. between East Fourth St. & Astor Pl.
January 5-16, $15-$30
212-967-7555
www.undertheradarfestival.com

The seventh annual Under the Radar: A Festival Tracking New Theater from Around the World features nineteen international productions, from the United States’ AMERIVILLE and LIVING IN EXILE to Belgium’s BONANZA, from Italy’s TOO LATE! ANTIGONE (CONTEST #2) to France’s VICE VERSA, from the UK’s THE INTERMINABLE SUICIDE OF GREGORY CHURCH to Slovenia/Latvia’s SHOW YOUR FACE! Several works investigate the nature of theater itself, including Vladimir Shcherban’s BEING HAROLD PINTER and Barry McGovern’s WATT BY SAMUEL BECKETT, while others feature such behind-the-scenes theater favorites as director JoAnne Akalaitis helming Nora York’s JUMP, about Sarah Bernhardt in Sardou’s TOSCA; Suzan-Lori Parks’s free WATCH ME WORK, in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright will literally work on her next project in the lobby of the Public Theater; and writer Taylor Mac’s THE WALK ACROSS AMERICA FOR MOTHER EARTH, a collaboration with the Talking Band that documents a cross-country antinuclear protest march. Other highlights include Reggie Watts’s multimedia collaboration with playwright Tommy Smith and journalist Brendan Kiley, DUTCH A/V; 2boys.tv’s PHOBOPHILIA, in which audiences will witness an interrogation in a secret location; and CORRESPONDENCES, a dance-theater piece in which Haitian/Malian Kettly Noël and South African Nelisiwe Xaba meet in person after having written to each other for a long time. While the Public Theater is home base for Under the Radar, there are also productions scheduled for HERE Arts Center, La MaMa, Dixon Place, the Abrons Arts Center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and the Robert Moss Theater, in addition to several postshow discussions, a two-day symposium, festival lounges at the Chinatown Brasserie, and other special events.

G&S FEST: THE MIKADO

The annual G&S Fest at Symphony Space features THE MIKADO to welcome in the new year

Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 97th St.
December 29 – January 2, $32-$92
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.nygasp.org

Since the 1970s, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players have been honoring the legacy of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan by staging productions of such familiar works as H.M.S. PINAFORE, THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, and THE GONDOLIERS as well as such lesser-known musicals as THE GRAND DUKE, RUDDIGORE, and THE ROSE OF PERSIA, at such locations as the B’nai Jeshurun Community Center and the Staten Island Ferry before settling in at Symphony Space on Upper Broadway. Their New York season began with UTOPIA, LIMITED in November and THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD earlier this month and continues this week with special performances of THE MIKADO, Gilbert & Sullivan’s 1885 opera set in Japan featuring such tunes as “A Wand’ring Minstrel I,” “Three Little Maids from School Are We,” and “On a Tree by a River.” December 29 is Bring Your Grandparents Day, with postshow backstage tours; a Savoy Dialogue with cast and crew takes place before the December 30 show; a New Year’s Gala is scheduled for December 31, with Champagne at intermission and a cast party afterward; and the Family Overture on New Year’s Day will include a free musical introduction to THE MIKADO. NYGASP will be back at Symphony Space on March 20 for TRIAL BY JURY / G&S à la Carte and May 22 for a G&S Sing-Along.

JEWISH MUSIC ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT

J.Viewz will play its hypnotic jazzy electronica at the Jolly Bowl in Brooklyn on Christmas night

Hanukkah might be over, but there are still several seasonal Jewish music celebrations scheduled on, of all days, Christmas night, after the completion of the traditional double feature of Chinese food and a movie. The annual holiday music fest Jolly Bowl returns to Brooklyn Bowl, featuring performances by Days Like Months, Pey Dalid and the I-Jo/Gospel Choir, and J.Viewz, New York–based indie bands with direct ties to Israel ($10). In addition, the Tzadik / East Village Radical Jewish Music Festival is back tonight at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue, with Ayn Sof Arkestra & Bigger Band, Hasidic New Wave, Midnight Minyan, Pitom, Rashanim, and poet Jake Marmer ($20-$25). And Jewltide 8 will take place at Southpaw with live band karaoke ($10).

KWANZAA 2010: THE LEGACY CONTINUES…

The American Museum of Natural History will celebrate Kwanzaa on December 26

American Museum of Natural History
79th St. & Central Park West
Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, first floor
Sunday, December 26, free with museum admission, 12 noon – 5:00
212-769-5100
www.amnh.org

The American Museum of Natural History’s annual celebration of Nguzo Saba, also known as Kwanzaa, takes place on December 26 with a full slate of special activities. The afternoon begins at twelve o’clock with a Kwanzaa arts & crafts and food marketplace and continues with such live performances as “Unity NOW!” with Griot Linda Humes, “The Rhythm of the Soul!” with the Kotchegna and Gestures Dance Ensemble Dance Company, “The Music of the Soul!” with McCollough Invaders of the United House of Prayer for All People, “The Birthplace of the Soul — Mother Africa!” with the Restoration Dance Theatre Company, and “The Power of the Soul!” with the Allen Liturgical Dance Ministry of the Greater Allen Cathedral, paying tribute to the seven Kwanzaa principles: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (Faith). Among the current exhibits at the museum, some of which require individual timed ticketing, are “Brain: The Inside Story,” “Race to the End of the Earth,” “On Feathered Wings: Birds in Flight,” the Butterfly Conservatory, and the Space Show films HUBBLE, JOURNEY TO THE STARS, and a double feature of PASSPORT TO THE UNIVERSE and THE SEARCH FOR LIFE: ARE WE ALONE?

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: ALL NEW WORKS 2010

Christopher L. Huggins’s “Anointed” is one of the highlights of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater season at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through January 2
Tickets: $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

As always, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual year-end season at City Center includes world premieres, brand-new productions of earlier works, performances with live music, revivals of classics, and plenty of “Revelations,” which is in the midst of its fiftieth anniversary. The first program of all-new works took place on December 21, beginning with the world premiere of former Ailey member Christopher L. Huggins’s celebratory “Anointed.” In the first section, “Passing,” set to Moby’s “Grace,” Olivia Bowman Jackson, representing Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison, who is stepping down from her position in January, and Glenn Allen Sims, playing the part of Alvin Ailey, perform a gentle pas de deux, both dressed in black, before Sims follows a glowing light and exits the stage. In the second section, “Sally Forth,” set to Sean Clements’s percussion-based “Blessed Love,” Jackson emerges wearing Jamison’s trademark purple, continuing Ailey’s legacy with Megan Jakel, Rachael McLaren, Akua Noni Parker, and Khilea Douglass. The piece concludes with “52 and Counting,” featuring Moby’s “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” as Sims reemerges in white, now the heavenly spirit of Ailey watching the full company perform before teaming up with Jackson again and handing over the reins to new artistic director Robert Battle (Abdur-Rahim Jackson). “Anointed” is a wonderful tribute to the past, present, and future of the company.

AAADT’s Briana Reed and Samuel Lee Roberts in Geoffrey Holder’s “The Prodigal Prince” (photo by Paul Kolnik)

In honor of his retiring mentor, associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya has restaged Jamison’s 1989 work, “Forgotten Time,” a seven-part ballet that begins in silence as six male dancers and six female dancers look up at an unseen image, then, dressed in skin-tight, flesh-colored costumes re-created by Jamison, break off into pairs and perform thrilling lifts, carries, and pulls, exhibiting marvelous body control in Timothy Hunter’s soft lighting as a score by Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares plays. Sims and Jermaine Terry join together for a particularly awe-inspiring duet. A new production of Geoffrey Holder’s 1968 dazzler, “The Prodigal Prince,” was a terrific choice to follow the much quieter “Anointed” and “Forgotten Time.” Based on the life of Haitian painter Hector Hyppolite, “The Prodigal Prince” comes alive with colorful costumes, loud tribal music, and flashy choreography, all by Holder, with lighting and special stage effects by Clifton Taylor. The brash, bold, exciting piece is divided into five sections (“Conversations with the Gods,” “The Feather Brush,” “The Dream of Africa — A Divine Sleep,” “Homecoming and Inheritance,” and “The Beginning”) as Hyppolite (Samuel Lee Roberts) meets Voudoun goddess Erzulie Freda Dahomey (Parker) and John the Baptist (Jamar Roberts) in a vision and is joined by the Mambo/Le Serviteur (Hope Boykin), a pret-savanne spirit (Michael Francis McBride), and the rest of the company, their faces hidden behind masks, with religious rituals taking place and a general love of life bursting forth. “The Prodigal Prince” will be performed again December 23, December 26, and January 2, with “Forgotten Time” scheduled for December 26, December 28, and January 1 and “Anointed” December 29 and January 2.