this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

JUST TAKING IT IN: GOING FULL MANTIS WITH MILFORD GRAVES AND ASHANTI ALSTON

Milford Graves enjoys a bite in his garden in new documentary about the unique percussionist and philosopher

Milford Graves enjoys a bite in his garden in documentary about the unique percussionist and philosopher

MILFORD GRAVES FULL MANTIS (Jake Meginsky, 2018)
Maysles Documentary Center
343 Lenox Ave./Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
Sunday, September 27, $7-$15, 2:00, free Q&A 4:30
maysles.org
fullmantis.com

Jake Meginsky’s unconventional documentary of unconventional musician Milford Graves begins with the following epigraph from Graves: “Look at the room downstairs / Look at the garden outside / Don’t try to analyze it / Just take it in.” That is not only Graves’s life philosophy but also the best way to experience Milford Graves Full Mantis, which is screening September 27 at 2:00 at the Maysles Documentary Center. Born in 1941 in South Jamaica, Queens, where he resided until his death in February 2021, Graves was an avant-garde free jazz percussionist who played and lived to his own beat. In 2004, Meginsky knocked on Graves’s door, asked to study with him, and soon became the Professor’s assistant and documentarian; the film, codirected by drummer Neil Young, who also edited and photographed it with Meginsky, features compelling live footage along with peaceful moments in Graves’s basement and expansive garden. Early on, Meginsky shows a wild excerpt from a 1973 concert at the Jazz Middelheim Festival in Antwerp in which Graves performs with Joe Rigby and Hugh Glover on reeds and Arthur Williams on trumpet; the fierce, dissonant music might not be to everyone’s taste, but it serves as a terrific counterpoint to Graves’s calmer side, pontificating on, well, sometimes it’s hard to tell what, but it’s always fascinating.

There are also clips of Graves playing solo at the Brandeis Improv Festival in 2015 and in one of Park Ave. Armory’s historic rooms in 2016; in 2011 in his basement, where he’s surrounded by African sculpture, books, and computers that record his heartbeat and nervous system, which he incorporates into his work; and in Japan in 1981 with dancer Min Tanaka at a school for autistic children, where his unique performance inspired the kids to get up and move to the groove. In his backyard dojo he explains Yara, the discipline he invented based on martial arts, African ritual dance, the Lindy Hop, and the praying mantis and which he refers to as “the black way of self protection.” There are no talking-head experts or Graves acolytes singing his praises; the only voice heard in the film is Graves’s own, and for the first half of its ninety minutes Meginsky doesn’t show the film’s subject as he talks. Instead, while Graves speaks about his past and shares his kaleidoscopic philosophies, the camera slowly focuses on his lush garden or shows some of Graves’s animations.

But eventually Graves is seen sitting in his basement, telling a long, remarkable story of a turning point in his life. He’s an engaging character, bursting with enthusiasm and a unique view of the human body, the five senses, tear ducts, and the parasympathetic nervous system. And throughout, he keeps playing those drums, holding the sticks in his trademark way on a nonstandard kit he put together himself.

The screening at MDC will be followed at 4:30 by “An Afternoon with Ashanti Omowali Alston,” a free Q&A with the revolutionary, orator, writer, organizer, motivator, anarchist, and former Black Panther Party member, in conversation with political philosopher, academic, and author Joy James, focusing on the new book Anarchist Panther: The Selected Writings of Ashanti O. Alston (AK Press, August 2026, $21.99).

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

DESIGNING CLOTHES IS NEVER A PROBLEM: ISAAC MIZRAHI CELEBRATES THIRTY YEARS OF UNZIPPED

Isaac Mizrahi and Naomi Campbell look to the future of fashion in Douglas Keeve’s Unzipped

UNZIPPED (Douglas Keeve, 1995)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
September 25 – October 1
filmforum.org

About halfway through Unzipped, Douglas Keeve’s thrilling 1995 documentary, which follows fashion designer extraordinaire Isaac Mizrahi as he puts together his fall 1994 collection following a critical disaster, Mizrahi says, “Everything’s frustrating; every single thing is frustrating. Except designing clothes. That’s not frustrating. That’s really liberating and beautiful. I don’t know, being overweight and not being able to lose weight, you know, that’s a problem. Anything you’re really working hard at and that’s not working, that’s a problem. But frankly, designing clothes is never a problem.”

Of course, the statement doesn’t exactly ring true as Mizrahi, usually with his trademark bandanna wound around his wild, curly hair, encounters his fair share of difficulties as he meets with Candy Pratts and André Leon Talley from Vogue and Polly Mellen from Allure, expresses his hopes and fears with Mark Morris, Sandra Bernhard, Eartha Kitt, and his mother, and works with such supermodels as Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Shalom Harlow, Linda Evangelista, Carla Bruni, Christy Turlington, and Amber Valletta. Along the way he makes endless pop-culture references, singing the theme song from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, citing scenes from The Red Shoes, Marnie, Valley of the Dolls, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and using Nanook of the North and The Call of the Wild as creative inspiration.

Mizrahi is a ball of neuroses throughout as he consults Ouija boards and Tarot cards to peek into his future and plays classical piano (Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”) to calm himself down. “I’m not that stressed out,” he says. “I hate when people tell me I’m stressed out.” In his first film, director Keeve (Seamless, Hotel Gramercy Park), who was dating Mizrahi at the time, and Oscar-winning cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Betrayal) switch from grainy black-and-white to color to sharp b&w as Mizrahi’s big show approaches, in which the major point of conflict is the designer’s desperate desire to use a scrim that will allow the high-powered audience to see the backlit silhouettes of the models as they change backstage, something not all the women, or his colleagues at Mizrahi & Co., are in favor of.

The film opens with Mizrahi devastated by the reviews of his previous show and closes with him quietly examining the reviews for his fall collection; in between is a delightful look inside the crazy world of fashion. And then Mizrahi will have to do it all over again for the next season. Winner of the Audience Award at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, Unzipped is screening September 25 to October 1 at Film Forum in a new thirtieth anniversary 4K restoration with Mizrahi present for Q&As on September 25 at 8:00 and September 27 at 2:00 with Keeve and executive producer Nina Santisi and on September 26 at 8:00.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

K-DRAMA MEETS SUCCESSION: SIMON STONE’S THE CHERRY ORCHARD AT PARK AVE. ARMORY

The Song family parties while their company struggles in The Cherry Orchard at Park Ave. Armory (photo by Stephanie Berger)

THE CHERRY ORCHARD
Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Monday – Saturday through September 26, $95-$295
www.armoryonpark.org

Since 2009, I have seen a handful of major productions of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, in English and Russian, adapted by award-winning directors (Sam Mendes, Simon Godwin, Igor Golyak, Lev Dodin) and playwrights (Stephen Karam, Tom Stoppard), featuring superstars on and off Broadway (Ethan Hawke, Diane Lane, Joel Grey, Mikhail Baryshnikov). But I’ve never truly understood what would be Chekhov’s final play until experiencing Swiss-born Australian Simon Stone’s brilliant reimagination, which is in Korean with often difficult-to-follow supertitles. Running at Park Ave. Armory through September 26, it is a wholly original and utterly dazzling work of art.

Stone, who has thrilled New York with such unique works as Yerma at the Armory in 2018, Medea at BAM in 2020, and Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence at the Metropolitan Opera this past spring, has transported the story to modern-day Seoul, where family matriarch Song Do-young (Jeon Do-yeon) has returned after having spent five years in New York City, a widow recuperating from the tragic loss of her son, Hae-jun, with the help of her younger daughter, Kang Hae-na (Lee Ji-hye), and personal secretary, Lee Joo-dong (Lee Ju-won). Waiting for her back at the compound are her older daughter, the adopted Kang Hyun-sook (Moon Choi); Do-young’s older brother, Song Jae-young (Son Sang-kyu), and cousin, Kim Young-ho (Yoo Byung-hoon); her chauffeur, Shin Ye-bin (Lee Se-jun); and the housemaid, Jung Doo-na (Park Hee-jung). Regular visitors include Byun Dong-lim (Nam Yun-ho), Hae-jun’s tutor, and Hwang Doo-sik (Park Hae-soo), an extremely successful businessman whose alcoholic father had been the family’s chauffeur many years before.

The narrative is an intoxicating mix of K-drama and Succession, as the characters squabble over love and sex, power and money, responsibility and culpability. The family business is a mega-tech conglomerate that has hit hard times, primarily because no one is paying attention, living off a legacy that is in serious danger of collapse. Jae-young spends most of his time with his old record player, trapped in the past, believing everything will end up fine. Young-ho is a broke wastrel who has never worked at a real job and is overly fond of drink. Hae-na is at graduate school at NYU, making experimental films that no one will ever see. And Hyun-sook has never gotten over her inferiority complex at how she was essentially forgotten once her sister was born.

Saul Kim’s set is a marvel in Korean adaptation of Chekhov classic (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Hyun-sook is dating Doo-sik, who keeps warning everyone, especially Do-young, that if they don’t act soon, their company will have to be sold off for for a tiny amount of won, but they refuse to listen to him. Instead, they drink, party, and complain, ignoring their dire circumstances. Meanwhile, Doo-na professes her love for Joo-dong, who prefers to be called Benjamin, after Benjamin Franklin, while stringing along Ye-bin, who loves her; Dong-lim blames himself for not saving Hae-jun and has some issues when Hae-na invites him up to her room; and Do-young is haunted by her actions during her husband’s illness and Hae-jun’s death but develops a fondness for the realist Doo-sik and the idealist Dong-lim, who have a bitter argument over capitalism.

As bankruptcy nears, the family can’t, or won’t, face facts, even as the possibility looms that they will lose everything.

The nearly three-hour play takes place in and around a spectacular glass-fronted two-story sparkling white house designed by architect Saul Kim that is like a character unto itself, beautifully lit by James Farncombe to show off its many assets; it is highlighted by white steps that start on the ground and make their way up one side of the structure, onto the roof, and over the other side, at times hinting at potential danger. In the background, behind and above the set, the armory’s old Tiffany clock, which has no second or minute hands, occasionally glows, reminding us that time is running out on the Songs.

The fabulous cast, dressed in Mel Page’s contemporary costumes, is led by Emmy nominee Park (Squid Game, Hero), who is bold and strong as the conflicted Doo-sik, who does not want the family and corporation to fall apart, and Jeon (The Housemaid, Secret Sunshine), who melds elegance with vulnerability in a part that brought her back to the stage for the first time in twenty-seven years when the play premiered in South Korea in 2024. Jang Young-gyu’s music and sound keep the audience immersed in the proceedings as characters roam in and out of the house, sing, and talk over one another.

The English supertitles can be problematic, as they don’t identify who is speaking, often flash by too quickly, and divert your attention from the wild things that are happening, but you’ll get used to them. A cool transformation occurs during intermission, as snow that looks more like ashes covers the stage, an apt harbinger.

Simon Stone’s reimagination of The Cherry Orchard sheds new light on the oft-performed play (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Chekhov purists should be more than satisfied in how Stone and dramaturg Yi Dan-bi reinterpret and update the tale, remaining true to Chekhov’s intent while making it relevant to today’s society; I’ve never before related to so many of the characters, feeling like I know them.

“This is how Chekhov wrote his plays. While one person is in pain and suffering, another character is feeling joy. This allows the audience to choose whether to follow the journey of the character who is suffering or the joyful journey of the other,” Stone says in an interview in the program. “But if you switch perspectives and watch it again, it will feel like seeing an entirely different performance. People will empathize with different characters depending on their age or personal situation. And when they gather in the lobby afterwards, they will have different opinions on who was right and wrong, and I think that’s where the fun is. I do not want the entire audience to think the same way. I want questions to be raised, and I want the first step towards finding the answers to those questions to start with the audience. However, there are no right answers about who is right and wrong, or who is good and evil.”

That’s about as potent a description of the audience’s relationship to characters as I’ve read, and it’s precisely how I followed Stone’s stirring production.

Stone also helmed a very different, minimalist English-language version of the play in 2013, using Australian idioms; there was a controversy because the play was billed “by Simon Stone after Anton Chekhov.” For this version at the armory, the credits list “Text and Direction” by Stone above “Original Playwrighting” by Chekhov; I, for one, do not have a problem with that.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

“TO BE PUERTO RICAN IS TO BE AMERICAN”: ROBERTO LUGO IN MADISON SQUARE PARK

Roberto Lugo poses under depictions of his parents on Capicú de Cariño (I Heard It Both Ways) in Madison Square Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

ROBERTO LUGO: ALFARERO DEL BARRIO
Madison Square Park
26th St. between Fifth & Madison Aves.
Through December 6, free
www.madisonsquarepark.org
www.robertolugostudio.com
flickr slideshow and videos

“I knew of the Madison Square Park art program from Martin Puryear’s work, from Maya Lin’s work, and thinking about this as a moment to see an artist’s vision in this context, a place where everybody goes,” Roberto Lugo told me at the May opening of “Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter).” He added, “I also think about this as an opportunity, that we have this crossing of so many cultures that are intersecting here, so I thought to myself, If I ever have the opportunity to do something like that, what would my focus be? How do I represent my culture and connect to places in New York? When I think about Puerto Rican culture, I think about the Bronx, Spanish Harlem, all these places where there’s this fusion in the contribution of Puerto Ricans, and I wanted to see them come here, but even Latino people in general, people of color, when they’re coming here, it feels really good to have something bright and colorful and celebratory.”

Roberto Lugo’s Para Los Días Caliente (This Is for the Hot Ones) is not for the dogs (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)” is a multipart installation that consists of a fifteen-foot-high graffiti-laden red fire hydrant, Para Los Días Caliente (This Is for the Hot Ones), a giant version of the first piece he made as a ceramicist and an homage to his father, who, on hot days in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia where they’re from, would cool off with his family by spraying water from a hydrant; four Domino Tables around the reflecting pool feature images of Lugo, his grandfather, baseball hero Roberto Clemente, and Cuban-American singer Celia Cruz (people are invited to bring their own dominoes and play on the tables); and Capicú de Cariño (I Heard It Both Ways) is a twenty-foot-high vase-urn made of foam, paint, and steel with portraits of Puerto Ricans around it: Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, singer Bad Bunny, Clemente, playwrights Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lemon Andersen, and Lugo’s parents, in addition to flowers, dominoes, chickens, and other lively elements. There is also a graffitied archway that allows you to walk through the vase, further immersing you in Puerto Rican culture and history.

“He remembers where he came from,” his father told me.

In his artist statement, Lugo declares, “Yo soy Boricua. / a proud domino-playing, / pasteles-making, / piragua-selling, / fire hydrant-spraying, / plantain-peeling, / salsa-dancing, / alcapurria-consuming, / limber-on the front porch-hustling Puerto Rican.” He also explains, “In recognition of the semiquincentennial of the United States of America, I wanted to recognize the diverse contributions of Puerto Ricans. ‘Alfarero del Barrio’ is a celebration of Puerto Rican culture and a visual representation of our resilience, creativity, and courage. Puerto Rican heritage has roots in African, Taíno, and Spanish culture — a sofrito that provides flavor to everything we do. The history of this intersection is filled with stories of strife, injustice, and horror, but through it all, Puerto Ricans have proven to be icons of resourcefulness and ingenuity that are celebrated through our food, music, and culture.”

On September 16 at 5:30 and October 14 at 5:00, there will be free twenty-minute evening art tours starting on the Redbud Lawn, led by the MSPC curatorial team. And on September 19, a tea ceremony will take place on the Cherry Lawn at 4:30, including a performance by Lugo, who is also a spoken-word poet, and special musical guests Lennie Simo and Marley Howard, with everyone enjoying Puerto Rican snacks and Lugo’s mother’s ginger tea in cups made by Lugo that you can keep.

The exhibition continues through December 6, so you have plenty of time to experience its meaningful beauty and, as Lugo suggests, take photos of yourself in the vase, play dominoes, have fun at the hydrant, and “see that to be Puerto Rican is to be American.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A SURGING LEGACY: PAYING TRIBUTE TO SINÉAD O’CONNOR AT THE JOYCE

The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor celebrates the life and legacy of controversial singer-songwriter (photo by Kate Garner)

THE SURGE: AN ODE TO SINÉAD O’CONNOR
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
September 16-27, $97-$112
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org

Tickets are going fast for the North American premiere of Tony-winning, Emmy-nominated Sonya Tayeh’s The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor, running at the Joyce from September 16 to 27. A coproduction with Factory International in Manchester, England, the show pays tribute to the Dublin-born singer-songwriter who rose to stardom in the last 1980s and early 1990s with such albums as The Lion and the Cobra and I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got before getting mired in a series of political and religious controversies, experiencing health problems, and disappearing from public view for extended periods of time before dying by suicide in July 2023 at the age of fifty-six.

The seventy-minute show features Betsy Cooper, Alison Clancy, Gabrielle Malone, Mor Mendel, Amy Miller, Jennifer Nugent, Karine Plantadit, Lisa Race, Monique Smith, and Jin Ju Song-Begin dancing to more than a dozen O’Connor songs, from “Troy” and “Mandinka” to “Never Get Old” and “Feels So Different,” as well as audio excerpts from her 2021 memoir, Rememberings.

“Her death was generating these feelings and I was dancing in my loft, surrounded by this grief and joy,” director and choreographer Tayeh says in a program note. “The Joyce and I had been thinking about what we could make together, and not finding the right thing yet, and two things began boiling in my mind. One was about how ahead of her time she was, the volume of her voice, not just as a singer but with a belief system about people, those denied, closed off and mocked. The other was about curiosity, about where all the dance artists were that were my age and older. Where are the women over forty, and why did they disappear?”

Ever since her death, O’Connor and her legacy have been going through a metamorphosis and reevaluation; The Surge should add to that grief and joy.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

JOSIAH McELHENY & FRIENDS: “INSTRUMENT OBJECTS” AT THE KITCHEN

Who: Josiah McElheny, Zeena Parkins, Wendy Eisenberg, David Grubbs, Raven Chacon, Jennie C. Jones, George Lewis, Fred Moten, Claire Chase, Mary Halvorson, Ikue Mori, Tomeka Reid, Jason Moran, Craig Taborn, John Corbett
What: Programs in conjunction with the exhibition “Josiah McElheny: Instrument Object”
Where: The Kitchen at Westbeth, 163B Bank St., fourth floor loft
When: September 10 – November 7, free
Why: Josiah McElheny, who specializes in working with glass and mirrors, will be opening his latest exhibition, “Instrument Object,” on September 10 at the Kitchen at Westbeth, in which the Boston-born, New York City–based artist pays tribute to ten musicians and composers by translating their work into visual form. The multimedia installation, on view through November 7, honors the legacies of Pauline Oliveros, Lucia Dlugoszewski, Julius Eastman, John Cage, Milford Graves, David Grubbs, Big Mama Thornton, Joe McPhee, Wes Montgomery, and Sun Ra in such pieces as Bench for Archival Listening, Ladder Harp, Cosmic Blue Trumpet, and Heartline.

The show will be accompanied by a series of free live performances and gatherings, beginning September 10 at 7:00 with Zeena Parkins and continuing September 11 with a sunset duet by Wendy Eisenberg and David Grubbs, October 1 with the experimental dialogue “Limb Independence” at Giorno Poetry Systems with McElheny, Raven Chacon, Jennie C. Jones, George Lewis, and Fred Moten, and concluding November 7 and 8 with the two-day “Improvisation, Archive, and Homage” symposium with Claire Chase, Mary Halvorson, Ikue Mori, Tomeka Reid, Jason Moran, and Craig Taborn, moderated by John Corbett. In addition, there will be family art-making workshops on September 19 and 26 and October 3 at 11:00 am and 12:30 pm. All programs are free with advance RSVP.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

FINDING FELINE SANCTUARY: COMMUNICATING WITH KITTIES AT CREATIVE TIME

Drawing by Olivia LaBarre, seen in Isle Wild, 2025, directed, produced, and edited by Anna Moot-Levin & Daniel Schloss (courtesy of the artists)

Who: Adrian Wong, Olivia LaBarre, Rossana Ceruzzi
What: Cat Sanctuary and Beyond: Structures of Our Shared Realms
Where: CTHQ, 59 East Fourth St., seventh floor
When: Wednesday, September 9, free with advance RSVP, 6:00
Why: “There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats,” Albert Schweitzer wrote. The German polymath would often have to do his writing while one of his cats, Sizi or Piccolo, spread out on his desk in front of him, not making it easy ― but Schweitzer worked around them, giving them preference.

For those of us who completely understand that thought process, Creative Time is offering “Cat Sanctuary and Beyond: Structures of Our Shared Realms,” a program at their East Village headquarters that brings together artist Adrian Wong, telepathic animal communicator Olivia LaBarre, and Wildlife Freedom Foundation founder Rossana Ceruzzi. The special evening is part of the “Toward Sanctuary” series curated by Celine Wong Katzman and Dr. Gervais Marsh with Buffy Sierra, inspired by the practice of transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer Guadalupe Maravilla, who is preparing a Creative Time public art commission. At CTHQ, they will discuss animal rescue, communication between animals and humans, and interspecies collaboration. Wong’s mixed-media cat condo, The House That Snoopy Built, dedicated to his late family kitty — who may have been reincarnated as his rabbit Omar — will be on view through September, along with related works and ephemera. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

Adrian Wong’s The House That Snoopy Built will be on view at CTHQ throughout September (photo courtesy of the artist)

“Toward Sanctuary” continues November 5 with “We Keep Us Safe: The Whores Feast and Feeding,” a film screening and live performance by Red Canary Song and collaborators in support of Asian and migrant sex workers and building sustainable communities.

As I write this, our fabulous feline Tuki is spread out on my desk, between my keyboard and monitor, a loving tribute to Schweitzer, Sizi, and Piccolo.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]