this week in music

APOLOGIES FROM MEN: THE CONCERT

apologies from men

Who: Lauren Maul
What: Apologies from Men multimedia performance
Where: The People’s Improv Theater, PIT Striker Mainstage, 123 East 24th St. between Park & Lexington Aves., 212-563-7488
When: Friday, March 9, $10, 9:30
Why: In 2016, creator and composer Lauren Maul and director and choreographer Wendy Seyb made the web series Amazon Reviews: The Musical!, which took reviews written on Amazon for books, movies, toys, and other items and turned them into music videos. The Nebraska-raised, Chicago-trained, Brooklyn-based Maul is now getting a whole lot more serious — and perhaps even funnier — with Apologies from Men: The Concert, in which she takes the verbatim apologies offered by prominent male sexual harassers and predators and puts them to music, accompanied by fabulously silly, low-budget, right-on-target animated videos. Among her subjects are Louis CK, Matt Lauer, Mario Batali, Russell Simmons, Dustin Hoffman, Charlie Rose, and, of course, Harvey Weinstein. The Kevin Spacey remix video is particularly creepy, and just wait till you see who’s included in “The Men Who Have Not Apologized.” Maul will be at the PIT on March 9 for a one-time-only live performance with guitar and piano of Apologies from Men, which will also be released as an album the same day.

JOHN KELLY: TIME NO LINE

Performance artist John Kelly uses dance, music, drawing, film, photography, and more in Time No Line (photo by Theo Cote)

Ellen Stewart Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
66 East Fourth St.
Thursday – Sunday through March 11, $21-$26
212-475-7710
lamama.org
johnkellyperformance.org

John Kelly’s latest performance piece, the autobiographical, multimedia, multidisciplinary Time No Line, not only looks back at his long, varied, and highly influential career but also honors those he’s lost along the way; his breakout era of work coincided with the AIDS epidemic, and any artistic biography today must reckon with that immense tragedy. “There are so few of my generation left to tell their stories,” Kelly reads from his journals, which he’s been keeping since 1976. So Kelly shares his own story, citing his heroes, including Egon Schiele, Maria Callas, and Gustav Mahler, while referencing such other downtown fixtures as Karen Finley, David Wojnarowicz, Nan Goldin, Charles Atlas, Ethyl Eichelberger, Tere O’Connor, the Cockettes, John Fleck, Joey Arias, and others. The New Jersey native relates episodes of his life through interpretive dance, video projections, visual text, drawing, photographs, songs, and reading from his journal at a small desk. Pages from his journal in neatly arranged rows cover a screen in back. The narrative goes back and forth through the years; “the past is not linear,” he reads. “In retrospect, it’s a patchwork of emotional triggers — how hard has it been to go back into these journals. I see my missteps — and I see my experience, whether I like it or not.” Fortunately, we get to see his experience as well, and there is a lot to like. Kelly traces his career from the ballet and the opera to creating the drag character Dagmar Onassis, the fictional daughter of Callas and Aristotle Onassis, transforming himself into Joni Mitchell, and dealing with the AIDS crisis as it swept through New York City. Third-person text projected on the screen explains, “He sees the possibility of performing ‘in drag’ as a way to be socially annoying (this is 1979) and to process a lot of youthful rage.”

John Kelly looks back at his life and art in autobiographical one-man show (photo by Theo Cote)

Bullied as a child, Kelly found solace onstage, but he ultimately opted for alternative venues, such as the Pyramid Club, the Kitchen, DTW, and La MaMa. Cultural touchstones play a central part in his work; his previous shows include Diary of a Somnambulist, about Lady Macbeth and Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the Obie-winning Love of a Poet, an adaptation of Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe song cycle, The Escape Artist, based on the life of Caravaggio, and Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, in which he portrays Schiele. He steps to the side when changing costumes as more text, family photos, and archival footage is shown on the screen; there are also two higher screens where ghostly images occasionally appear. He steps to a center microphone and sings relevant songs by Mitchell, Henry Purcell, and Charles Aznavour. He snakes along the floor and makes chalk drawings that recall Keith Haring’s style and Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. The pacing can be uneven, Kelly is sometimes a little too casual, and he occasionally teeters on the edge of self-indulgence, but when he gets back in the groove, he displays why he has been such a beloved figure for decades. He often talks about mirrors and self-portraits; he calls the former “the stand-in for eventual public scrutiny” and “a tool for establishing a sense of self.” Of course, Time No Line is really a complex, nonlinear self-portrait, a visual diary of the making of a man in which Kelly holds up a mirror and allows us to see the tragedy and comedy that has resulted in his unique brand of art.

In conjunction with Time No Line, which continues at La MaMa through March 11, Kelly’s Sideways into the Shadows exhibition is being held at Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project at 6 East First St. through March 25, featuring hand-rendered transcriptions of journal entries and a memorial wall of portraits. “From this vantage point, it was a challenging time,” Kelly says as a survivor of the AIDS generation. “It’s still hard to get my head around it. This exhibition and Time No Line are my way to process the entire range of how my personal experiences and the arc of my artistic career intertwined into a coherent whole during a time that was both exhilarating and tragic.”

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

“Judy Chicago Designing the Entry Banner for ‘The Dinner Party,’” 1978 (courtesy of Through the Flower Archive)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, March 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum honors Women’s History Month with its free March First Saturday program, featuring live performances by Leikeli47, DJ Sabine Blaizin (Oyasound) with live percussion by Courtnee Roze, MICHIYAYA Dance (with Anya Clarke and Mitsuko Verdery leading a jam session), and Brown Girls Burlesque, presenting “Act Like a Lady! Strippin’ Fo’ the Culture,” with Hoodoo Hussy, Elektra Taste, Dakota Mayhem, Skye Siren, and Dirty Honey Shake dancers, hosted by Ravenessa; a book launch of Beverly Bond’s Black Girls Rock! Owning Our Magic. Rocking Our Truth. with Bond, Michaela Angela Davis, and Eunique Jones Gibson; pop-up gallery talks by teen apprentices in the “American Art” galleries; a community talk with representatives from THINK!Chinatown; Cave Canem Foundation poetry with zakia henderson-brown, Marwa Helal, and Aracelis Girmay; a hands-on art workshop inspired by Judy Chicago’s banners; a curator tour of “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making” led by Carmen Hermo; and a Feminist Book Club discussion of Janet Mock’s Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me, with Glory Edim of Well-Read Black Girl. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “One Basquiat,” “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making,” “Arts of Korea,” “Infinite Blue,” “Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys,” “Rodin at the Brooklyn Museum: The Body in Bronze,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” and more.

CONCERT FOR GEORGE

Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Dhani Harrison, and others come together for George Harrison tribute at Royal Albert Hall

CONCERT FOR GEORGE (David Leland, 2002)
Beekman Theatre, 1271 Second Ave., 212-249-0807, Tuesday, February 27
Village East Cinema, 181-189 Second Ave., 212-529-6998, Tuesday, February 27
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St., 212-924-7771, Monday, March 5
www.concertforgeorge.com

On November 29, 2002, on the first anniversary of the death of George Harrison from lung cancer at the age of fifty-eight, friends and relatives of the Quiet Beatle gathered at London’s Royal Albert Hall for a tribute concert and fundraiser. Concert for George was captured on film by director David Leland and hit movie theaters in October 2003; it has now been remastered in 2K and 5.1 Stereo Surround Sound and is being rereleased on February 27 in honor of what would have been Harrison’s seventy-fifth birthday (on February 25). The stellar event was organized by Harrison’s longtime close friend Eric Clapton, with the support of Harrison’s widow, Olivia, and son, Dhani, who was onstage playing the guitar through the whole show. Among other musicians participating were Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, and Joe Brown, performing songs from Harrison’s career as a Beatle and a solo artist. It’s a real treat because many of these songs had never been played live by Harrison; the Beatles stopped touring in 1966, and Harrison avoided the road except for a problematic tour in 1974 and a brief visit to Japan in 1991. And through it all, large-scale photos of Harrison look down from above, taking in the festivities.

Beautifully photographed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Chris Menges and edited by Claire Ferguson, Concert for George opens with Hindu music, a favorite of Harrison’s, including the traditional prayer “Sarveshaam” and Ravi Shankar’s “Your Eyes” and “Arpan,” the latter composed specifically for the evening. Following a comic interlude featuring Month Python members Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Neil Innes, and bonus guest Tom Hanks — Harrison was a big Python fan and good friends with the troupe — the all-star band turns to Harrison’s music, which is performed with love and admiration and reveals his genius at melody and incorporating nontraditional choruses and guitar lines. Unfortunately, during too many of the songs, Leland (Wish You Were Here, Checking Out) cuts away from what’s happening onstage to show rehearsals and behind-the-scenes footage. While it’s fascinating to hear Petty talk about how Harrison helped write the Traveling Wilburys hit “Handle with Care” and see Ravi and Anoushka Shankar preparing for a special musical presentation, it would have been better to see such things in between songs. And indeed, the songs are revelatory, certifying Harrison’s genius as a songwriter as well as a guitarist. Starr excels on “Photograph,” which he wrote with Harrison and, as Ringo notes, takes on different meaning given the circumstances; McCartney is brilliant performing “For You Blue” on acoustic guitar and “Something” on ukulele, breathing new life into two old chestnuts; Clapton wails away on “Beware of Darkness” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”; and Preston, one of several men referred to as the Fifth Beatle, turns “Isn’t It a Pity?” into a powerful epic. The crack backup band boasts such great musicians as guitarists Andy Fairweather-Low and Marc Mann (who both play some sweet slide), pianists Gary Brooker and Jools Holland, bassists Dave Bronze and Klaus Voormann, percussionists Jim Keltner, Jim Capaldi, and Ray Cooper, and vocalists Katie Kissoon, Tessa Niles, and Sam Brown. It was filmed only a year after Harrison’s passing, but all the men and women onstage are enjoying themselves immensely, their joy extending into the audience as they celebrate an extraordinary man of peace and love. Concert for George is screening February 27 at the Beekman and Village East and March 5 at IFC Center; proceeds from the rerelease and DVD package will benefit the Material World Foundation, which Harrison founded in 1973 “to encourage the exploration of alternate and diverse forms of artistic expression, life views, and philosophies as well as a way to support established charities and people with special needs.”

VICTOR SJÖSTRÖM — THE SCREEN’S FIRST MASTER: HE WHO GETS SLAPPED

Lon Chaney stars as a scientist-turned-clown in Victor Sjöström’s He Who Gets Slapped

HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (Victor Sjöström, 1924)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, February 26, 6:20
Series continues through March 5
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

In conjunction with its Ingmar Bergman Centennial Retrospective, Film Forum is presenting “Victor Sjöström: The Screen’s First Master,” five films by the Swedish master who was Bergman’s mentor and appeared in two of his films, To Joy and Wild Strawberries. The mini-festival continues February 26 with Sjöström’s second English-language film and MGM’s first-ever picture, He Who Gets Slapped, which Sjöström wrote and directed under the Americanized last name Seastrom. Lon Chaney stars as scientist Paul Beaumont, who is excited when he makes a major discovery about the origins of humankind, but his wealthy benefactor, Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott), steals his work and presents it to the Academy, slapping Beaumont’s face to great hilarity and applause when the scientist claims it is actually his theory. After Regnard also steals Beaumont’s wife, Maria (Ruth King), the sad-sack scientist runs off and joins the circus, rising in stature as He, a clown who gets slapped over and over and over as a kind of self-flagellation, much to the delight of audiences everywhere. “Over a hundred slaps last night, He,” fellow clown Tricaud (Ford Sterling) tells him. “You lucky fellow! Soon you’ll be getting famous! But you know what they like — there’s nothing makes people laugh so hard as seeing someone else get slapped!” The distraught clown perks up when Consuelo (Norma Shearer) joins the circus as a bareback rider who will team up with Bezano (John Gilbert), but He — Beaumont doesn’t even exist anymore — gets mad when he finds out that Consuelo’s father, Count Mancini (Tully Marshall), has sold her to the circus because he is nearly broke — and shortly after that the Count is pimping his daughter off to none other than the Baron, something that neither Bezano nor He is about to let happen.

he who gets slapped poster

Based on Leonid Andreyev’s 1914 Russian play, He Who Gets Slapped is a taut psychological drama in which Sjöström and cowriter Carey Wilson explore the mind of a smart, talented man who loses his sanity, choosing to let himself be continually humiliated instead of fighting for what’s right. Sjöström (The Wind, The Phantom Carriage) and cinematographer Milton Moore add several cinematic tricks to reveal He’s mental state, including a circle of miniature clowns surrounding a globe as well as an early morphing effect that would be later developed to change Lon Chaney Jr. into a killer beast in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces, would also play a clown opposite Loretta Young in the 1928 silent film Laugh, Clown, Laugh. It is thrilling to see Gilbert and Shearer together, shortly before their stardom took off; they would also both appear in Edmund Mortimer’s The Wolf Man and Monta Bell’s The Snob that same year. Coincidentally, He Who Gets Slapped is the first film introduced by Leo the Lion, and a circus lion plays a key role in the story. Chaney will break your heart, especially when he has to deal with his own fake heart that is part of his act; even if you hate clowns, you won’t hate this one. The film, which asks the question “What is it in human nature that makes people quick to laugh when someone else gets slapped — whether the slap be spiritual, mental, or physical?” is screening February 26 at 6:20 and will be accompanied by live music by pianist Steve Sterner. The series continues with Lillian Gish in The Scarlet Letter on March 4 and The Outlaw and His Wife on March 5, both also with Sterner.

LUNAR NEW YEAR 4716: THE YEAR OF THE DOG

china institute new year family festival

Sara D. Roosevelt Park and other locations
East Houston St. between Forsythe & Chrystie Sts.
February 16-25
www.betterchinatown.com
www.explorechinatown.com

Gōng xǐ fā cái! New York City is ready to celebrate the Year of the Dog, or, more specifically, the Earth Dog, this month with special events all over town. People born in the Year of the Dog are honest, loyal, reliable, and responsible. Below are some of the highlights happening here in the five boroughs during the next several weeks of Chinese New Year.

Friday, February 16
Lunar New Year for Kids, with storytelling, crafts, snacks, games, and a Chinese acrobat, China Institute, 40 Rector St., 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Grand Street at Chrystie St., free, 11:00 am – 3:30 pm

Saturday, February 17
Lunar New Year Family Festival, with “The Mane Event: A Lion Dance Performance” by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, “Sounds of the New Year” featuring the pipa and the gong, “Whirling, Twirling Ribbons: A Ribbon Dance Workshop” with Mei-Yin Ng, folk arts, food sampling, storytelling, a gallery hunt, lion mask and paper dog workshops, and more, Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St., $12, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm

Lunar New Year Celebration, with family-friendly arts and crafts, a lion dance, a paper-cutting workshop, zodiac face painting (for an additional fee), a taekwondo demonstration, a plant sale, and live performances, Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main St., free, 12 noon – 4:00

Lunar New Year, with a lion dance, Shaolin Kung Fu demonstrations, Chinese drumming, Chinese acrobatics, traditional Chinese music and dance, and master of ceremonies Cary Chow, New York Chinese Cultural Center at Arts Brookfield, 230 Vesey St., free, 2:00 – 3:15

Tuesday, February 20
Lunar New Year Concert, with the New York Philharmonic performing works by Li Huanzhi, Andy Akiho, Beethoven, and more, with Ping-Pong players Ariel Hsing and Michael Landers, Elizabeth Zeltser on violin, David Cossin on percussion, Serena Wang on piano, Alex Rosen on bass, sopranos Heather Phillips and Vanessa Vasquez, mezzo-soprano Sarah Mesko, tenors Marco Cammarota and Chad Johnson, and the Farmers’ Chorus of the Yunnan Province, conducted by Long Yu, David Geffen Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, $35-$110, 7:30

Saturday, February 24
Lunar New Year Celebration 4716: Year of the Dog, with costume contest, riddles, martial arts, live music and dance, arts and crafts, games, and more, P.S.310, 942 62nd St., free, 11:00 am – 2:30

Lunar New Year Festival: Year of the Dog, featuring a Japanese shakuhachi soloist, Balinese music by Gamelan Dharma Swara, the Met Quartet in Residence: Aizuri Quartet playing “Japan Across the World,” fan painting, “Put Your Stamp on It” with Kam Mak, “Double Dog Dare You!,” a fire-breathing dragon mask, good luck puzzles, Wayang: Indonesian shadow puppet making, zodiac puppets, a hand drum and fan dance workshop, Wu-Wo tea ceremony and bubble tea gatherings, a hand-pulled noodle demonstration, a “What Your Nose Knows” scent tour, “My Chinatown” with Kam Mak, and more, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., free with suggested museum admission, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

Sunday, February 25
Chinese New Year Family Festival, with workshops, dumpling making, storytelling, lion dance, live music, a puppet show, and more, workshops $5-$20, party and performance $10-$20, China Institute, 40 Rector St., 11:00 am – 3:00 pm

Nineteenth annual New York City Lunar New Year Parade & Festival, with cultural booths in the park and a parade with floats, antique cars, live performances, and much more from China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and other nations, Chinatown, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and Columbus Park, free, 1:00

Lunar New Year Celebration, with live performance and paper-cutting workshop sponsored by the New York Chinese Cultural Center, Staten Island Children’s Museum, 1000 Richmond Terr., $8, 2:00 – 4:00

PERFORMANCE SPACE NEW YORK EAST VILLAGE SERIES: AVANT-GARDE-ARAMA

Performance Space New York is reborn in the East Village

Performance Space New York
150 First Ave. at East Ninth St.
Sunday, February 18, free, 6:00 pm – 1:00 am
212-352-3101
performancespacenewyork.org

After a major renovation, one of downtown’s best and most diverse venues is back, as Performance Space New York, formerly known as PS122, celebrates its return with a free event on Sunday night, “Avant-Garde-Arama.” Kicking off the East Village Series, the festivities will feature live performances from six to nine on several stages by a vast array of creators, including Adrienne Truscott, Erin Markey, Hamm, Holly Hughes, John Kelly, John Zorn, La Bruja of Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Penny Arcade, Pharmakon, Reggie Watts, and Sister Jean Ra Horror, among many others. At nine, a dance party takes over, with JD Samson, Justin Strauss, and more. The evening’s hosts are the Factress (Lucy Sexton), Carmelita Tropicana, and Ikechukwu Ufomadu. On its website, the venue declares, “Performance Space New York was born in the East Village in 1980 as Performance Space 122 when a group of local artists occupied the empty building that had been home to Public School 122 and started making performance work as a passionate rejection of corporate mainstream culture. Today, almost forty years later, Performance Space New York is faced with a radically transformed neighborhood unaffordable for young artists and a national political climate that feeds off social inequity more than ever. Moving back into our newly renovated spaces, the inaugural East Village Series asks what kind of art organization we need to become in light of this ever-more-exclusionary social and political context.” The East Village Series continues through June with such presentations as “Focus on Kathy Acker,” “Women’s History Museum,” Diamanda Galás and Davide Pepe’s Schrei 27, a world premiere by Sarah Michelson, Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s CLUB, Penny Arcade’s Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!, and Chris Cochrane, Dennis Cooper, and Ishmael Houston-Jones’s Them.