this week in music

SNOW (A STUDY) and WHY I LOVE COUNTRY MUSIC

SNOW and COUNTRY MUSIC come together at the Tank

The Tank
354 West 45th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
November 9-10, $10, 9:30
www.thetanknyc.org/dance
www.brownpapertickets.com
A crowded house at the Tank was on hand for the premieres of two short pieces on November 9 that deal with memory and loneliness. (The performances continue November 10.) In the work-in-progress WHY I LOVE COUNTRY MUSIC, D. J. Mendel reads a love letter about his relationship with his father and tries to explain his love for country music as he stands in front of a screen showing old family photos. (Mendel has called it “a love poem to my father accidentally sent to a woman I used to love.”) He also shares shots with a mysterious woman in a sexy red dress (Chelsea Crowe) and goes through white envelopes, dropping pictures, nails, and other small objects onto the floor, as if discarding parts of his past. Written by Mendel and directed by Salvatore Interlandi, the well-performed WHY I LOVE COUNTRY MUSIC also features snippets of country songs, although the ending does border on treacle.

Tymberly Canale, a longtime member of Big Dance Theater who was a stand-out in the company’s recent production of COMME TOUJOURS HERE I STAND, has written SNOW, a powerful and evocative seventeen-minute study. Canale, wearing a simple trench coat over a white day dress with bright red pumps, goes for a late-night walk, where she encounters a solitary, unidentified male stranger in a long coat (Neil Harris). Canale narrates the piece with poetic text, stopping at points to move across the stage in carefully choreographed movements both solo and with Harris that are strong and heavy, wrought with emotion, the opposite of lightly falling snow. The costuming has excellent little touches, such as Harris’s bright red socks, revealed only in one sequence of movements, while a pair of videos by David Tinapple appear in unexpected places, adding to the drama. We’re looking forward to seeing more from the very talented Canale.

CAPATHIA JENKINS & LOUIS ROSEN

Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen will ache with possibility at four Joe's Pub shows

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St.
November 8, 14, 21, 22, $20, 7:00
212-967-7555
www.myspace.com/jenkinsrosen
www.joespub.com
The dynamic duo of guitarist Louis Rosen and vocalist Capathia Jenkins return to Joe’s Pub for a four-night engagement beginning November 8 and continuing on November 14, 21, and 22 in celebration of their smashing new CD, THE ACHE OF POSSIBILITY (Di-Tone, November 10). Previously, the pair collaborated on albums with lyrics based on poems by Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and Nikki Giovanni; the new record includes four songs with words by Giovanni in addition to nine originals by Rosen. Jenkins, a Brooklyn girl who sang in her family’s church choir and has gone on to perform on Broadway and toured in DREAMGIRLS, and Rosen, a Jewish guitarist and composer from the South Side of Chicago who wrote the book THE SOUTH SIDE: THE RACIAL TRANSFORMATION OF AN AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD, make an unusual but thrilling pair, combining for an infectious sound that grabs you and never lets go, mixing jazz, R&B, blues, cabaret, Americana, and soul in sweet ways. The expert band adds tasty flourishes, particularly Andrew Sterman on flute, saxophone, and clarinet, Richie Vitale on trumpet and fluegelhorn, and Mark Sherman on vibraphone and percussion.

New album features four songs with lyrics from Nikki Giovanni poems

Jenkins, who has quite a set of pipes, sums up the album on the finale, “Love of Song,” in which she sings, “There are songs that will move you / And songs that you move to / And prayer songs / And moon songs / Love songs / Birth songs / We fill the earth with songs,” which gets right to the point – THE ACHE OF POSSIBILITY is filled with the love of song. On an earlier tune, “I Need You,” Jenkins and Rose share the vocals, with Jenkins proclaiming, “I need you / Like pleasure needs pain,” and Rose responding, “I need you / Like confession needs sin.” Rosen himself takes over lead vocals for the shuffling “The Middle-Class (Used to Be) Blues,” in which he declares, “My shoes need soles / And my soul needs love / But my love needs money like a cold hand needs a glove / So it’s shoes or love, I guess I gotta choose.” The album gets political several times, including in the superb title track, in which Jenkins explains in a sometimes whispery voice, “Phones are tapped to ease our mind / Suddenly torture’s redefined / Terror threats to scare us blind / And still another child gets left behind.” Jenkins and Rosen make quite a pair; these Joe’s Pub shows are indeed filled with limitless possibility.

THE NEW COLLISIONS

Boston band will be embracing fans at a trio of area appearances (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Boston band will be embracing fans at pair of area shows (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Sunday, November 8, Trash Bar, 256 Grand St., 8:00
Monday, November 9, Angels and Kings, 500 East Eleventh St., $5, 8:00
www.myspace.com/thenewcollisions
www.thetrashbar.com
www.angelsandkings.com
A few weeks back, we picked the New Collisions as one of the ten bands to watch at the CMJ Music Marathon. We hope you took our advice, because the group — our favorite of the festival, along with Philly’s outrageous Drink Up Buttercup — lived up to its New England hype, putting on a great show at the Bowery Poetry Club. Barely together a year, TNC has quickly established a reputation in Boston clubs and on the road with the B-52s and Blondie. Led by its own platinum blonde, singer Sarah Guild, TNC let loose a groovin’ set of New Wave dance pop on the Bowery, with Scott Guild on guitar, Alex Stern on bass, Casey Gruttadauria on synth and keyboards, and Zak Kahn on drums. TNC was discovered by Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes, who helped out on their thrilling debut disc, INVISIBLE EMBRACES (out November 17), and has joined them onstage for such numbers as the Cars classic “You Might Think.”

The New Collisions will host a record-release listening party on November 17 at Angels & Kings

The New Collisions' debut disc is due out November 17

The band kicked off the Bowery Poetry Club show with the impossibly infectious “Parachutes on the Dance Floor,” which deserves to become a dance-hall standard, along with other tunes from the seven-song EP, including the beautiful “Beautiful and Numb,” the languid and bittersweet “Afterglow,” and the propulsive “No Free Ride,” in addition to, appropriately enough, a B-52s cover. The New Collisions will be at the Trash Bar in Williamsburg on November 8, playing with the Daily Pravda, Teen Fiction, and the Pretty Faces, then will perform a special acoustic set on November 9 at Angels and Kings.

CONVERSATIONS WITH PENN & TELLER: 35 YEARS OF MAGIC AND BS

No bull: Teller will talk at Bill Graham Foundation benefit on November 12

Gramercy Theatre
127 East 23rd St. at Lexington Ave.
Thursday, November 12, $99, 7:00
877-598-8694
www.billgrahammemorialfoundation.com
www.pennandteller.com
The magical duo of Penn Jillette and the single-named Teller have been together now for thirty-five years, unleashing their unique brand of comedy and prestidigitation on audiences around the world through live appearances, books, television, film, and the web. For the last seven years, Penn & Teller have been taking on controversial topics on their very funny Showtime series, BULLSHIT, examining such subjects as orgasms, the apocalypse, alien abduction, alternative medicine, anger management, circumcision, creationism, world peace, and even suburban lawns. In addition, Penn rants every Monday on crackle.com, where he recently discussed gay porn grammar and people who have the nerve to tell others to get a life.

It’s been quite a life for Penn & Teller, who will be celebrating their thirty-five years together on November 12 at the Gramercy Theatre in a benefit for the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation, in a special evening moderated by Coney Island fixture Todd Robbins that will feature an intimate discussion, an audience Q&A, a free commemorative poster, some classic P&T bits, and a silent auction. The foundation awards grants in the arts and education to lesser-known community-oriented institutions in conjunction with the VH1 Save the Music Foundation; this year’s honoree isPS/MS 161, the Don Pedro Albizu Campos School on West 133rd St. Graham, the innovative, legendary music promoter and proud immigrant who worked with such seminal figures as Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Jimi Hendrix, died in a helicopter crashin 1991 at the age of sixty. The benefit will be Penn & Teller’s first ticketed performance in New York City in nine years – and yes, Teller will actually speak. The dynamic duo – the hulking, verbose Penn and the small, silent Teller – recently looked back at their career, Bill Graham, and more in an exclusive e-mail twi-ny talk.

twi-ny:

Music impresario Bill Graham will be honored by Penn & Teller at benefit

What do you remember most about Bill Graham? What do you think his legacy is?

Penn & Teller: Mr. Graham presented our show at the Warfield in San Francisco in the late 1980s. We only worked with him once, but we were thrilled. We played that stage that I had seen so many wonderful Bill Graham shows on when Teller and I lived in San Francisco doing our own show in another theater from 1979 to 1981, when we were just starting out. One night during the Warfield run Bill brought Neil Young to see us. We sat backstage, in the dressing room, and Bill told me about arguing with Hendrix about lighting the guitar on fire. Bill thought he should do more real music and Jimi thought the burning guitar was a crowd pleaser.

He was a producer who was very concerned about the art. Yeah, he wanted to make money, but he also wanted to do beautiful, important shows, and he did. He helped invent the big full rock show. He made things smarter while still being fun. I was honored to be in his theater that night (and it was amazing to meet Neil, and I credit Mr. Graham with that too).

Penn & Teller have been examining bullshit for seven years on Showtime series

twi-ny: PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT has been a huge success on Showtime. Have there been any topics that the network has rejected, or do you have complete freedom?

P&T: Showtime has been great on what they’ve allowed us to cover – I mean, I am pretty sure they are the first network to green light a show whose title is an obscenity. There is not much they back away from.

twi-ny: After all this time, why has Teller chosen this event to finally speak in public?

P&T: Teller actually speaks in public all the time, but you’re just not at the grocery store when he is ordering bologna at the deli counter. He does these other lectures on the science and wonder of magic where he speaks the entire hour and a half, but those are generally for private groups or out of the country. We did this thirty-fifth anniversary Q&A for the first time in L.A. last summer and it seemed to go well, so we thought we’d take it to N.Y. as a way of celebrating twenty-five years since we opened Off-Broadway. This is the first time he’s speaking onstage in New York .

weekly listings nov. 4-11

Taiwanese company will present feast at the Joyce

THE HAN TANG YUEFU MUSIC AND DANCE ENSEMBLE
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
Tickets: $10-$49
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org

Tuesday, November 3
through
Sunday, November 8 Taiwan-based company brings the ancient painting “The Feast of Han Xizai” to life in an evening-length program featuring costumes and set design by Oscar winner Tim Yip

Disco beats should dominate as Hercules and Love Affair spin at the W

SYMMETRY: A DJ SERIES
Oasis Living Room, W New York
541 Lexington Ave. at 49th St.
Admission: free
www.starwoodhotels.com/whotel
www.myspace.com/herculesandloveaffair

Wednesday, November 4 Disco throwbacks Hercules and Love Affair will be sharing their lush, longing sounds spinning tunes at the W’s new DJ series, with such special cocktails as the Backspin Manhattan, Dub a Pear, Pomegranate Wow, and Move It to Mojito, 8:00 – 11:00 pm

THE RED BOOK DIALOGUES
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Tickets: $15-$25
212-620-5000 ext 344
www.rmanyc.org
Analysts delve into Carl Jung’s RED BOOK in a series of fascinating discussions featuring Charlie Kaufman, Alice Walker, David Byrne, Kathleen Chalfant, Marina Abramovicz, Cornel West, Billy Corgan, and many more.

Thursday, November 5 Documentarian Albert Maysles and Jungian analystl Laurie Layton Schapira, $25, 7:00

Award-winning Thai film tells story of an unexpected love

TROPICAL MALADY (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
92Y Tribeca
200 Hudson St. at Canal St.
Thursday, November 5, $12, 7:30
212-415-5500
www.92ytribeca.org/film
www.kickthemachine.com/works/tropical_malady.html
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Jury Prize at Cannes for this beautiful, mystical work that will thoroughly engage you — if you allow it to. Part tender love story between a country boy (Banlop Lomnoi) and a soldier (Dakda Kaewbuadee), part folktale set in the deep forests of Thailand, TROPICAL MALADY is a like a visual poem in which details are not as important as the overall effect, which is intoxicating. The unorthodox film features ghosts, a shape-shifter, unusual characters, and a playful sense of humor that come together to form a subtle meditation on life and love.

MOVING IMAGE MASTERPIECES: TOKYO STORY (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Queens Theatre in the Park
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York State Pavilion
Tickets: $10
718-760-0064
www.queenstheatre.org

Thursday, November 5 Special screening of Yasujiro Ozu classic, 7:30

Pink Eye lets it all hang out at Fucked Up show in Brooklyn this past summer (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FUCKED UP
Thursday, November 5, Brooklyn Masonic Temple, 317 Clermont Ave. at Lafayette Ave., $18, 7:00
Friday, November 6, Market Hotel, 1142 Myrtle Ave. at Broadway, $18, 7:00
www.myspace.com/epicsinminutes
www.myspace.com/markethotelnyc
www.masonicboom.com
On November 5, Fucked Up will be performing THE CHEMISTRY OF COMMON LIFE, with Andrew W.K. on keyboards and the Vivian Girls on backup vocals; also on the bill are Titus Andronicus, the Girls at Dawn, and Katie Stelmanis. The next night members of Fucked Up will appear at Market Hotel as Bitters on a bill with the Vivian Girls, Grass Widow, and Stupid Party.

THE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR FOR PRINTS & EDITIONS
The Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Admission: $20
212-674-6095
www.printfair.com

Thursday, November 5
through
Sunday, November 8 Annual print fair features etchings, woodcuts, lithographs, innovative contemporary projects, curator-led tours, a panel discussion on collecting, a treasure hunt, and more

EDITIONS | ARTISTS’ BOOKS
X Initiative
548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Admission: free
www.eabfair.com

Thursday, November 5 VIP preview benefiting the Annual Exhibition Fund of P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, with a special DJ set by Sahra Motalebi and live music by AJ Slim, $50, 6:00 – 9:00

Friday, November 6
through
Sunday, November 8 Fair open to the general public, with special events featuring Mike Bidlo, Alison Knowles & Alan Bowman, Geoffrey Hendricks, Nancy Hwang & Elaine Tin Nyo, Sal Randolph, Tom Otterness, Larry Miller, and others, site-specific installations by Yoko Onno and Robert Wyatt, and Occurrences curated by Robin Kahn and Kirby Gookin

NICER NEWS PRESENTS: GOOD STUFF FUNDRAISER
Sin Sin Leopard Lounge
248 East Fifth St. at Second Ave.
Suggested donation: $5
212-253-2222
www.nicernews.com

Friday, November 6 Nicer News, which delivers “uplifting news and events from all over the world,” what they refer to as “just the good stuff,” is holding a fundraiser for their all-volunteer venture with cheap drinks and live music by the John Powers Band and other guests, 6:00 – 10:00 pm

The Big Man will be discussing his life and career at the Hard Rock

CLARENCE CLEMONS
Hard Rock Cafe
1501 Broadway at 43rd St.
Admission: free
www.hardrock.com/newyork
www.bigmanthebook.com

Friday, November 6 Saxophonist Clarence “Big Man” Clemons celebrates the release of his memoir, BIG MAN: REAL LIFE & TALL TALES (Grand Central, October 2009, $26.99), with a reading, signing, and audience Q&A, with special celebrity guests, 8:00
CAGE A SWALLOW CAN’T YOU BUT YOU CAN’T SWALLOW A CAGE: A SONNET SEQUENCE FOR RONI HORN
Whitney Museum of America Art
745 Madison Ave. at 74th St.
Free with museum admission (pay-what-you-wish)
www.whitney.org

Friday, November 6 Whitney Live special presentation in honor of Roni Horn exhibition, composed by Anne Carson and featuring Carson, Olof Arnalds and Kjartan Sveinsson of Sigur Ros, and poets R. Currie and Penelope Thomas, 8:00

Women have something to say in angry punk show

MONGREL BITCH
Otto’s Shrunken Head
538 East 14th St.
212-228-2240
www.ottosshrunkenhead.com

Friday, November 6 Futurex, 9:00; Ff, 10:00; a Bunch of Girls, 11:00; and Mongrel Bitch, 12 midnight

COOK. EAT. DRINK. LIVE. 24.7.365
The Tunnel and La.Venue
608 West 28th St.
Tickets: $65-$99
www.cookeatdrinklive.com

Friday, November 6
through
Sunday, November 8 Three days of gourmet food and wine and spirits, with tastings, lectures, demonstrations, classes, book signings, and more, featuring such guests as

LUC TUYMANS
The Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway at 12th St.
Admission: free
www.strandbooks.com

Saturday, November 7 Artist Luc Tuymans will be signing copies of his new eponymously titled book (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/ Wexner Center for the Arts/D.A.P., 10/31/09, $60), 2:00

THE ALL CITY BLACK BOOK SHOW
NYC Arts Cypher
12 Broad St., Staten Island
Admission: $10
www.nycartscypher.com

Saturday, November 7 Special event celebrating the release of GRAFFITI NEW YORK, featuring subway and street legends from all five boroughs, including COPE 2, SPAR ONE, MENIC, BRAZE, STRIDER, SNOOZE, and many more, with two floors of music and graff hosted by ON 2, DJ Fresh Style Rockers, and a live performance by the Bandulos, 6:00

Soup will be celebrating its tenth anniversary at Piano's

TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF A TOUR OF TWO CITIES
Piano’s
158 Ludlow St.
Tickets: $12-$15
212-505-3733
www.pianosnyc.com
www.facebook.com/soup.atl

Saturday, November 7 Soup celebrates the tenth anniversary of the release of its live album with special reunion shows in Atlanta and New York City, on a bill with Leisure McCorkle, Emily Long, and the Swimmers, 8:00

City Winery hosts unique kind of tasting this week

SPIT & TWIT: TASTING THE FUTURE
City Winery
155 Varick St. at Vandam St.
Tickets: $35
212-608-0555
http://www.citywinery.com/events/38944

Sunday, November 8 Ticket holders will participate in tasting of some one hundred wines from thirty-five wineries from around the world, then immediately tweet their opinions in what is being billed as the “first ever online fully interactive wine tasting,” with plasma screens at City Winery picking up all the twittering, 2:00 – 6:00

EDOKKO: GROWING UP A FOREIGNER IN WARTIME JAPAN
Noguchi Museum
9-01 33rd Rd. at Vernon Blvd.
Second Sunday of every month
Free with museum admission of $10
Weekend shuttle service: $10 round trip
718-204-7088
www.noguchi.org

Sunday, November 8 Longtime Isamu Noguchi friend Isaac Shaprio, who was born in Japan and raised there and in China, reads from his forthcoming memoirs in the monthly Noguchi Museum Second Sundays series, 3:00

Special event will help children in trouble

A WAY FROM NO WAY: ISRAELI ARTISTS AND COLLECTORS FOR ELEM
Opera Gallery
115 Spring St.
Sunday, November 8, $35-$120 (tax-deductible), 6:30-10:00
www.elem.org
A group of Israeli artists and collectors will come together to help support the King’s Road mentoring program of ELEM, an organization that helps Israeli youth in distress in Israel. The evening begins at 6:30 for VIPs with an art tour, wine, and hors d’oeuvres, followed by a silent and public auction at 7:30 for all ticket holders. Among the participating artists are Ron Agam, Aliza Olmert, Moshe Kupferman, Dror Daum, Karen Gillerman, and Michal Cole, among many others. In addition, works by children helped by ELEM – including a special guest, sixteen-year-old Ilan, who has turned his life around with the help of the organization – will also be up for bidding. The auction will be run by Sotheby’s president Jennifer Roth.

EYE TO EYE: ARTIST-LED TOURS OF KANDINSKY
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Tickets: $25
212-423-3500
www.guggenheim.org

Monday, November 9 Multidisciplinary artist R. Luke DuBois leads a tour of the Kandinsky exhibit, focusing on the correspondence between Vasily Kandinsky and composers Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander Scriabin, followed by a reception, 6:30

DIRTY: ONE WORD CAN CHANGE THE WORLD (Raison Allah, 2009)
National Black Theatre
2031 Fifth Ave. between 125th & 126th Sts.
Tickets: $15-$20
212-722-3800
www.imagenation.us
www.nationalblacktheatre.org

Tuesday, November 10 Special premiere of new documentary about Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan, preceded by a live performance by Brooklyn Zu and followed by a panel discussion with director Raison Allah, Terrie Williams, Dr. Jeffrey Gardere, Brooklyn Zu, and members of the Wu Tang Clan, 7:00

WALTER DEAN MYERS
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West at 77th St.
Free with museum admission of $7-$12
212-873-3400
www.nyhistory.org

Wednesday, November 11 Award-winning author reads from, discusses, and signs copies of RIOT, which examines the 1863 New York Civil War draft riots, held in conjunction with the museum’s “Lincoln and New York” exhibition, 10:30 am

Justin Townes Earle will be singing about movies and more at Webster Hall (photo by Joshua Black Wilkins)

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE
Webster Hall
125 East Eleventh St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tickets: $25
www.websterhall.com
www.myspace.com/justintownesearle

Wednesday, November 11 Justin Townes Earle plays on a bill with Dan Auerbach and Jessica Lea Mayfield, 7:00

RED ROOSTER: WALK

New York band recently celebrated CD release at DROM

RED ROOSTER
www.redroostermusic.com
Formed in 1998 by lead vocalist Jay Erickson and lead guitarist Nat Zilkha, Red Rooster enters its second decade with its third release, the impressive WALK (Wondermore, September 2009), which follows 2002’s PORCH SONGS and 2005’s DOSE. The longtime friends expand their brand of alt-country folk Americana roots rock with a wide array of instruments on the new disc, featuring Susannah Hornsby (Bruce Hornsby’s niece) on accordion and vocals, Andrew Green on banjo, Dave Gould on saxophone, Brandon Doyle on French horn, Jamie Forrest on mandolin, Dick Neal on dobro, Jon Howe on harmonica, Simon Wettenhall on trumpet, Jeremy Randol and Lucas Ives on drums, Daniel Engelman on bass, and Peter Nilsson on keyboards. “Lord, these songs won’t get me far / I’m gonna write them as far as they’ll go,” Erickson sings on the opening track, “Bluebird,” and the band does indeed take them as far as they will go. Lush harmonies and bluesy interludes drive “Satisfied Mind,” while funky horns and guitars propel “The Places in Between.” The centerpiece of the album is the noirish story-song “Let It All Go,” with a panoply of sweet guitars and horn solos and an infectious chorus.

New album was recorded in Brooklyn and upstate New York

WALK was recorded in Brooklyn and upstate New York, and that dichotomy is evident in both the music and the lyrics as the city and the country continually do battle. “The city flows down in the street / Subway tracks lay down the beat / I miss the sound of the shuffling creek beside me,” Erickson sings on “Black Point Road.” The yearning “Washington Square” is a kind of companion piece to “Raining in Los Angeles,” spanning three thousand miles of heartbreak. The New York-based band held a CD release party on October 30 at DROM and is continuing the celebration with stops in Chapel Hill, Charlottesville, and Washington, DC, before heading out to the West Coast, where you can catch them in Oregon and California. (They’ll be in New Haven, Albany, and Wellsville in December.) Meanwhile, WALK is available as a “pay what you want” download at the band’s Web site and comes with three bonus tracks, including a cover of the Police hit “Every Breath You Take.”

PERFORMA 09

Fischerspooner will kick off Performa 09 at MoMA on Nov. 1

Multiple venues
November 1-22
Admission: free – $30
www.performa-arts.org
The third biennial Performa festival gets under way on November 1, kicking off three weeks of eclectic performance and installation art sponsored by Performa, a nonprofit interdisciplinary arts organization founded by RoseLee Goldberg that celebrates cutting-edge visual art and education. Although we’re suckers for multimedia performance art and site-specific sound and video installations, it can also be hit or miss, with concept often winning out over execution. But we’re here to narrow down the myriad choices for you; below are ten of our recommendations, in chronological order, to help you sift through the more than 150 artists participating in some 110 events at 80-plus institutions.

Lilibeth Cuence Rasmussen will look at the present and future at the Performance Project

Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen will look at the present and future at the Performance Project

Other highlights include Arto Lindsay’s “Somewhere I Read” at Duffy Square on November 1, Tracey Emin reading from “Those Who Suffer Love” and “Strangeland” at the Performance Project at University Settlement on November 7, Kalup Linzy at Taxter & Spengemann on November 8, Omer Fast’s reinvention of the game Broken Telephone at Abrons Art Center November 11-13, Mai Ueda’s “Family Dinner in a Parallel Universe” neo-fluxus event at the Emily Harvey Foundation on November 14, Yeondoo Jung’s “Cinemagician” theater piece at the Asia Society November 19-21, Marina Rosenfeld’s “P.A.” audio installation at the Park Avenue Armory on November 22, and Guy Ben-Ner’s live untitled film being screened nightly at 7:00 at Performa Hub at 41 Cooper Square throughout the festival.

Many of the events are free, with other ticket prices ranging from $10 to $30. There’s a whole bunch of awesome events, so do your best to try to check out at least one of these ultracool happenings.

Sunday, November 1 Fischerspooner, “Inbetween Worlds,” the Museum of Modern Art, $20, 6:00

Tacita Dean collaborates with Merce Cunningham shortly before the great choreographer's death

Thursday, November 5
through
Saturday, November 7 Tacita Dean, Craneway Event, feature-length film documenting Merce Cunningham dance rehearsals in an abandoned automobile factory, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, $10

Friday, November 6 Jonas Mekas and Now We Are Here, live musical performance with lead singer Jonas Mekas and special guests, Emily Harvey Foundation, free, 9:00

Friday, November 6
and
Saturday, November 7 Auf den Tisch! (At the Table!), curated by Meg Stuart, featuring a revolving cast of artists and thinkers improvising at a large conference room table, including Trajal Harrell, Keith Hennessy, Yvonne Meier, Vania Rovisco, Meg Stuart, and others, Baryshnikov Arts Center, $20, 7:30

Saturday, November 7 First Saturdays: Rock Out, with “Twirl” by Jen DeNike, 6:00, and “Saaqiou” by Terence Koh, 9:30, Brooklyn Museum, free

Brilliant South African multimedia artist William Kentridge will discuss his latest work-in-progress at festival

Monday, November 9
and
Tuesday, November 10 William Kentridge, “I Am Not Me, the Horse Is Not Mine,” multimedia presentation about Kentridge’s work-in-progress, inspired by Shostakovich’s THE NOSE, Cedar Lake, $30, 8:00

Maria Hassabi follows up last month's "Solo" show with "SoloShow"

Thursday, November 12
and
Friday, November 13 Maria Hassabi, “SoloShow,” P.S. 122, $20

Friday, November 13 Guido Van Der Werve, “Nummer Elf: The King’s Gambit Accepted, the Number of Stars in the Sky & Waiting for an Earthquake,” Marshall Chess Club, $10, 7:00 & 9:00

Friday, November 13
through
Sunday, November 15 Wangechi Mutu, “Stone Ihiga,” multimedia performance and site-specific installation with music by Imani Uzuri, Saatchi & Saatchi, $15, 9:00

Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer collaborate for Performa 09

Tuesday, November 17
through
Thursday, November 19 Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer, “If I Sing to You / Spiraling Down,” Baryshnikov Arts Center, $25, 7:30