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

HARLEM WEEK 2018: SUMMER IN THE CITY / HARLEM DAY

Ashleigh Smith will perform at this year’s annual “Harlem Day” festivities

West 135th St. between Malcolm X Blvd. & Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Saturday, August 18, and Sunday, August 19, free, 12 noon – 10:00 pm
Festival continues through August 25
harlemweek.com

The theme of the 2018 Harlem Week festival is “Women Transforming Our World: Past, Present & Future,” along with the subtheme “The Community within the Community,” saluting LGBTQ rights. The festivities continue August 18 with “Summer in the City” and August 19 with “Harlem Day,” two afternoons of a wide range of free special events along West 135th St. Saturday’s programs include Harlem Senior Citizens Synchronized Swimming, the NYC Children’s Festival in Howard Bennett Playground (with a parade, exhibits, games, arts & crafts, live music and dance, health testing, and sports clinics), the Harlem Week Higher Education Fair (with more than fifty colleges and universities), “Dancing in the Streets” with live performances and WBLS DJs, the International Vendors Village, the Fabulous Fashion Flava Show, the “Uptown Saturday Concert” (with Sarah Vaughan National Competition winner Ashleigh Smith, Bishop Marvin Sapp, Raheem Devaughn, and the Jeff Foxx Band), and the Imagenation Outdoor Film Festival in St. Nicholas Park. Sunday’s “Harlem Day” celebration features live performances on three stages, the International Vendors Village, the Upper Manhattan Auto Show, Our Health Village, the Upper Manhattan Small Business Expo & Fair, USTA Children’s Tennis Clinics, and the second day of the NYC Children’s Festival (with a Back to School theme).

BATTERY DANCE FESTIVAL 2018

battery dance schedule

Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, Battery Park City
20 Battery Pl.
August 11-18, free
batterydance.org

The thirty-seventh annual Battery Dance Festival takes place August 11 to 18, featuring more than two dozen companies from around the world. Formerly known as the Downtown Dance Festival, the event is hosted by the New York City-based Battery Dance, which was founded by artistic director Jonathan Hollander in 1976. The free festival will begin August 11 in Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park with a screening of Rob Fruchtman’s new documentary, Moving Stories, about Battery Dance Company’s trip to India, Romania, Korea, and Iraq to work with at-risk youth. For the following six days at 7:00 in Wagner Park, there will be free dance performances, with Battery Dance, Ariel Rivka Dance Company, Hivewild, Martha Graham School, Caterina Rago Dance Company, and Anno Kachina, Christopher Nunez, and Hussein Smko on Sunday, Iker Karrera Dance Company, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, JOIN Ensemble, Jamal Jackson Dance Company, and AThomas Project on Monday, Battery Dance, Asya Zlatina and Dancers, Iker Karrera Dance Company, DANAKA | Dana Katz, and Citadel + Compagnie on Tuesday, Parul Shah Dance Company, Sandip Mallick and Musicians, Anuj Mishra with Kantika Mishra and Neha Singh, and Piyush Chauhan and Preeti Sharma on Wednesday (for the annual Indian celebration, this year titled, Kathak!), Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Citadel + Compagnie, Paranoyak Crew, and Skopje Dance Theater on Thursday, Damir Tasmagambetov, Ballet Nepantla, Paranoyak Crew, and Mophato Dance Theatre on Friday, and Battery Dance, Skopje Dance Theater, and Mophato Dance Theatre on Saturday (at the Schimmel Center at Pace; advance RSVP is required).

“Having the opportunity to perform and teach around the world, it is only natural that we would bring back to our home in Lower Manhattan the amazing treasures we discover overseas,” Hollander said in a statement. “With countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America this summer, we will celebrate and explore vibrant forms of dance in a setting that represents New York’s history as a destination for immigrants.” In addition to the film and dances, there will be free workshops at 1:30 on August 12 with Battery Dance, 10:30 on August 13 with Iker Karrera Dance Company, at 10:30 on August 14 with Paranoyak Crew, at 12:30 on August 14 with Sandip Mallick, at 10:30 on August 15 with Citadel + Compagnie, at 10:30 on August 16 with Mophato Dance Theatre, and at 10:30 on August 17 with Skopje Dance Theater. Advance registration is required here.

FREE SUMMER EVENTS: AUGUST 5-12

Black Panther is screening for free in Cunningham Park on August 6

The free summer arts & culture season is under way, with dance, theater, music, art, film, and other special outdoor programs all across the city. Every week we will be recommending a handful of events. Keep watching twi-ny for more detailed highlights as well.

Sunday, August 5
Movies Under the Stars: Escape to Witch Mountain (John Hough, 1975), Beach 94th St. off Shorefront Parkway in Rockaway Beach, 8:00

Monday, August 6
Movies Under the Stars: Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018), Cunningham Park, Queens, 8:00

Tuesday, August 7
signs & symbols: artists & allies, group exhibition opening featuring work and discourse, with live performances and discussions continuing every Thursday night through September 7, signs & symbols, 102 Forsyth St., 6:00

Wednesday, August 8
Hip to Hip Free Shakespeare in the Park: All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by Owen Thompson, Flushing Meadows Corona Park at the Unisphere, continues in repertory with King Lear at various parks through August 25, Kids & the Classics workshop at 7:00, show at 7:30

Wild Style will celebrate its thirty-fifth anniversary with special guests on August 9 in East River Park

Thursday, August 9
SummerStage: Wild Style 35th Anniversary Reunion at the Amphitheater with special guest DJ Funk Flex, with Almighty Kay Gee, Busy Bee, Charlie Ahearn, DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore, DJ Tony Crush, Eclipse, EZ AD, Grand Master Caz, Patti Astor, and Rodney C and preshow hip-hop dance workshop with Fabel, East River Park Amphitheater in John V. Lindsay East River Park, 6:00

Friday, August 10
Lincoln Center Out of Doors: West Side Story Reimagined, with Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band and poetry by La Bruja and Rich Villar, Damrosch Park Bandshell, 7:30

Saturday, August 11, 18, 25
Norte Maar’s Dance at Socrates, with Kristina Hay and Hilary Brown | HB² PROJECTS and Gleich Dances with Sarah Louise Kristiansen on August 11, Movement Migration | Blakeley White-McGuire and Project 44 | Gierre Godley with Janice Rosario & Company on August 18, and Kyle Marshall Choreography and Kathryn Alter and Dancers with Thomas/Ortiz Dance and konverjdans on August 25, Socrates Sculpture Park, 4:00

Sunday, August 12
Blues Brunch with Bill Sims Jr., Bryant Park Southwest Porch, 12 noon

INSITU 2018 SITE-SPECIFIC DANCE FESTIVAL

insitu

Hunters Point South Park, Gantry Plaza State Park, Queensbridge Park, Socrates Sculpture Park
August 4-5, free, 1:00 – 8:00
www.insitudancefestival.com

Need an excuse to stroll through some beautiful, less-frequented parks this weekend? Then check out the second annual INSITU. INSITU takes the concept of site-specific dance to a new level, involving nearly two dozen companies and individuals performing or leading workshops over the course of seven hours in four parks along the Queens waterfront. The schedule allows for fans to be able to see every piece once as they make their way through Long Island City. Produced in partnership with Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement, INSITU features a wide-ranging lineup (with the name of the piece they will be performing in parentheses): César Brodermann & Sebastian Abarbanell (As We Get Weaker Together), Alice Gosti (Bodies of Water), Quilan ‘Cue’ Arnold (The Third Rail), N E 1 4 Dance (Constricted Not Constructed), and workshop with Melissa Riker Kinesis Project (Breathing with Strangers) in Hunter’s Point South Park; House of Ninja (Peer/Pier), Renegade Performance Group (Landing), Donofrio Dance Company (Other), Sarah Chien (Pathway), Sarah Elgart | Arrogant Elbow (Shape of Memory), and workshop with Cecilia Fontanesi of Parcon NYC (Space Pillars) in Gantry Plaza State Park; Kate Harpootlian and artists (Play), A Lady in the House Co. (R a l l y), Douglas Dunn + Dancers (Portal), AnA Collaborations (Seeking Love), and workshop with Christopher Núñez (Move Your Number) in Queensbridge Park; and Sophie Maguire & Emma Wiseman (Mimosa Pudica), Javier Padilla & the Movement Playground (Full, Flock, Folk, Together), Babacar Top/TopdanceCompany (Anger of Bulimia), Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival (Gentrification of My Beat), Fleuve | Espace danse (The Breath of Dawn), and workshop with JoAnna Mendl Shaw of the Equus Projects (Hands on, Eyes on, Bodies Moving) in Socrates Sculpture Park.

Maps show exactly when and where performances take place for INSITU dance festival

Each piece runs less than fifteen minutes during four sequences that begin at 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00. There will also be a community dance segment at the end of the first three sequences. As Brodermann and Abarbanell explain about their piece, “It was my own body that needed to survive / It was my own body that needed to be caught / It was my own body that learned how to fly / It was my own body that decided to try”; on Saturday and Sunday, you can see bodies doing all kinds of things during this ultracool festival celebrating movement and nature.

SUMMER STREETS 2018

summer streets

Park Ave. & 72nd St. to Foley Square
Saturday, August 4, 11, 18, free, 7:00 am – 1:00 pm
www.nyc.gov

Now in its ninth year, Summer Streets takes place the first three Saturday mornings in August, as Park Ave. will be closed to vehicular traffic from 72nd St. to Foley Square and the Brooklyn Bridge from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm, encouraging people to walk, run, jog, blade, skate, slide, and bike down the famous thoroughfare, getting exercise and enjoying the great outdoors without car exhaust, speeding taxis, and slow-moving buses. There are five rest stops along the route (Uptown at 52nd St., Midtown at 25th, Astor Pl. at Lafayette St., SoHo at Spring & Lafayette, and Foley Square at Duane & Centre), where people can relax and enjoy food and drink, live performances, fitness classes, site-specific art installations, dog walks, bicycle workshops, and other activities, all of which are free. Below are some of the highlights.

Foley Square Rest Stop
Zipline, Mobile Tea Garden, juggling and hula lessons, streets games, DOT Hand-Cycle Activation, adaptive basketball, group runs, bike programs, DEP Water on the Go, and pop-up performances by the Bryant Park Jugglers, the Hoop Movement, HONK NYC, Fogo Azul, and Batingua

SoHo Rest Stop
Paws and Play Dog Park, dog park and agility course, fitness stage, pop-up yoga, Zumba with Wilson Gutierrez (August 4), Sherrod Wiliamson (August 11) and Chris. Y (August 18), and WRKNYC FitFam BootCamp with Coach Will (Will Jackson), Coach Cook (Sarah Diiorio), and Coach Bakes (Amanda Baker), and Cardio Kick with Delida Torres on August 11, Hip Hop with Corinne Tate on August 11, and Dance HIIT with Bryan Davis on August 18

Astor Place Rest Stop
Clif Kids Park custom pump track, BBF Bouldering Wall & Obstacle Course, I LOVE NY Mobile Visitor’s Center, Gazillion Bubble Show’s Bubble Garden, DEP Water on the Go

Midtown Rest Stop
Food & Beverage Sampling Zone (with free samples from Obrigado, Hippeas, Lifeway, Nuun, Kevita, Krave Jerky, SkinnyPop, Simply Beverages, and Purity Organics), bike programming, Go! Sports Inline Skate Rentals and Clinics, the Five Borough Bicycle Club Bike Repair, DEP Water on the Go, NYC Department of Sanitation (with reusable bag giveaway), Health and Fitness Zone, cooking demonstrations, interactive “Smell Synth” exhibit with Museum of Food and Drink, NYCDOT Mobility Management Program, and live performances by Eliano Braz, Ensemble Connect: Lizzie Burns and Julia Yang, Hye-Jeung Kang, Ashley Wasser, YAZBAND, the Good Morning Nags, Inti and the Moon, and the Blue Dahlia on August 4, Gabriel Aldort, Jade Choi, TM Street Band, Sulene, Moondrunk, Baby Soda Jazz Band, Backtrack Vocals, and Drumadics Beat-N-Brass Band on August 11, and marie-claire and the boys, Ensemble Connect: Rosie Gallagher and Andre Gonzalez, Joanna Teters, Skye Steele, JHEVERE, Karikatura Street Band, Coexist Music Group, and John James Band on August 18

Uptown Rest Stop
Kid Fitness Zone, DOT Safety Zone, bike programming, DEP Water on the Go, arts & cultural workshops (Urban Studio Unbound, HYPOTHEkids, Manhattan Borough Historian, Noguchi Museum, Society of Illustrators, Museum of Chinese in America, Art Students League, Publicolor, New York Botanical Garden, CultureNow, DCLA Materials for the Arts, El Museo del Barrio, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and Museum of Arts & Design), Taoist Tai Chi Society, Municipal Art Society historical walking tours (Jean Arrington: “City Beautiful and Benevolent,” August 4; Deborah Zelcer, Decked Out on Park Avenue: “Art Déco Buildings and New York Glamour,” August 11; Alan M. Engler, MD, Mansions, Money & Scandal: “Gilded Age Splendor on the Upper East Side,” August 18), and performances by Gibney Dance, Dana & the Petite Punks, Ben Rosenblum Trio, Dream Street Theatre Company, Music with a Message, Izaak Mills’ Contemporary Adults, and Department of Youth and Community Development on August 4, Rite of Spring Duo, Bumblebee Jamboree, NYC Kids Project, the Poor Cousins, Niall O’Leary School of Irish Dance, Dayboat Brass Quartet, and Ori Manea Tahitian Dance School on August 11, and New York Violinist, Triad Brass, Robert Anderson Band, the Afro-Latineers, Stiletta, Dance Entropy, and Dancing Classrooms on August 18

THE ATOMIC CAFE

America prepares for the bomb in The Atomic Cafe, the restored documentary that is returning to Film Forum

THE ATOMIC CAFE (Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader & Pierce Rafferty, 1982)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Opens Wednesday, August 1
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

The time is ripe for a 4K restoration of the absurdist 1982 documentary The Atomic Cafe as President Trump deals with the nuclear capabilities and arsenals of Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty were searching archives for propaganda films when they discovered a treasure trove of military and government shorts about the atomic and hydrogen bombs and how the American people should face any oncoming threats. The filmmakers weaved sensational footage together into an hour and a half of clips that range from the hysterically funny to the dangerously outrageous. Young students are taught to “duck and cover.” Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets Jr. describes how easy it was to fly over Hiroshima and drop the bomb but then admits his shock over the eventual destruction it wrought. Presidents Harry S Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower discuss the impact of the bombs. A radio duo makes jokes about the decimation. Scenes of the horrific damage to Japanese victims are shown in silence. Vice Admiral W. H. P. Blandy defends the Bikini Atoll test, where island residents are assured everything will be fine — as are soldiers who will be in the vicinity of various tests.

While Russia escalates the Cold War — yes, they were our avowed enemy for quite some time, although the film includes President Richard Nixon joking around with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev — and a battle between North and South Korea looms, Americans drink “Atomic” cocktails and dance to “Atomic” songs. The execution of Ethel Rosenberg is explained in disturbing detail. A military officer tells the troops, “Watched from a safe distance, this explosion is one of the most beautiful sights ever seen by man,” and in a training film a military chaplain says to a few soldiers, “You look up and you see the fireball as it ascends up into the heavens; it’s a wonderful sight to behold.” Loader and the Raffertys fill the film with a vast array of black-and-white and color footage of nuclear bombs exploding into immense mushroom clouds, accompanied by a wide range of mood-enhancing music. It would be easy to dismiss most of the archival material in the film as ridiculous, outdated propaganda from a bygone era, but in this age of fake news, social media, lies from the White House, a war on journalism, and a president cozying up to enemies and taking issue with longtime allies, it’s more than a little bit frightening too. The Atomic Cafe opens August 1 at Film Forum — where it debuted in 1982 — with Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty participating in Q&As following the screenings on August 2 and 3 at 7:10 and August 4 at 5:10.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: caribBEING in Brooklyn

Brooklyn’s Alex Mali will perform as part of Brooklyn Museum’s August First Saturday free programming

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, August 4, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum starts preparing for the annual West Indian Day Parade with the August edition of its free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Alex Mali, the Pan Evolution Steel Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Dance Festival, with Dance Caribbean Collective, the Sabrosura Effect, Project of ContempoCaribe, KaNu Dance Theater, and Bloodline Dance Theatre, followed by a Q&A; a Fiyah Fit movement workshop with choreographer Jessica Phoenix; a caribBEING House mobile art center; a hands-on workshop in which participants can create noisemakers for the West Indian Day Parade, inspired by instruments in “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas”; Drink and Draw sketching of live models from mas camps, with sounds by Rodney Hazard; pop-up gallery talks by teen apprentices on Caribbean art and stylistic influences in the museum collection; pop-up poetry with Rico Frederick, Erica Mapp, and Camille Rankine of Cave Canem; and the community talk “Organizing Caribbean Communities in Brooklyn” with Ernest Skinner, Dr. Waldaba Stewart of the Medgar Evers Caribbean Research Center, Ninaj Raoul of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, and Albert Saint Jean of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “William Trost Richards: Experiments in Watercolor,” “Infinite Blue,” “Cecilia Vicuña: Disappeared Quipu,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” and more.