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

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: AMONG FRIENDS

“Mud Muse” is one of many collaborations in MoMA exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Mud Muse” is one of many collaborations in MoMA exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through September 17
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

“Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” is almost too much of a good thing, a massive MoMA retrospective of the interdisciplinary artist who died in 2008 at the age of eighty-two. The exhausting exhibition consists of more than 250 works, highlighting his collaborations while celebrating the vast nature of his practice. “Oh, I love collaborating, because art can be a really lonely business, if you’re really just working from your ego,” he says in an old interview on the audio guide. The show follows the Texas native from his Black Mountain College years through his time in Italy and North Africa, from his early combines and classical-influenced pieces to performances, silkscreens, objects, “Experiments in Art and Technology” (E.A.T.), and more. Many of his greatest hits are here, including “Bed,” “Monogram,” “Canyon,” “Gift for Apollo,” and his illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, alongside collaborations with Jasper Johns, John Cage, Jean Tinguely, Willem de Kooning, Susan Weil, Brice Marden, Sturtevant, Alex Hay, and more. Among the most unusual works is the bubbling “Mud Muse” created with Carl Adams, George Carr, Lewis Ellmore, Frank Lahaye, and Jim Wilkinson. And most entertaining is Rauschenberg’s involvement in the dance world, making sets for and even performing in pieces by Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown and Laurie Anderson, Harry Shunk and Janos Kender, and others, some filmed by Charles Atlas. The exhibition is supplemented with works by such Rauschenberg contemporaries as Aaron Siskind, Cy Twombly, Lucinda Childs, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Robert Whitman. Meanwhile, the audio guide includes contributions from Yvonne Rainer, Calvin Tompkins, Weil, Marden, Brown, Virginia Dwan, Atlas, Julie Martin, and Rauschenberg’s son, Christopher. So how does one make sense of it all? MoMA is hosting a series of talks and performances to help sort everything out. The exhibition continues through September 17; the below “gallery experiences” are free with museum admission, with no advance RSVP required. (Only the September 12 “Dante Among Friends” performance requires paid ticketing.)

Peter Moore. Performance view of Robert Rauschenberg’s Pelican (1963), 1965. © Barbara Moore/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Peter Moore, “Performance view of Robert Rauschenberg’s Pelican (1963),” 1965 (© Barbara Moore/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York)

Wednesday, September 6, 11:30 & 3:30
“Dance among Friends: Robert Rauschenberg’s Collaborations with Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor,” featuring Changeling, Three Epitaphs, Tracer, You Can See Us, and excerpts from other works, Sculpture Garden

“Robert Rauschenberg’s Process,” with Lauren Kaplan

Wednesday, September 6, 11:30
Thursday, September 7, 1:30
Wednesday, September 13, 1:30
Thursday, September 14, 11:30 & 1:30
“No One Is an Island,” with Kerry Downey

Thursday, September 7, 1:30
“Rauschenberg Among Friends,” with Elisabeth Bardt-Pellerin

Saturday, September 9, 11:30
Sunday, September 17, 1:30
“100 Ways to Make a Picture,” with Petra Pankow

Sunday, September 10, 11:30
Monday, September 11, 11:30
“A Bit of This and That: Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines,” with Jane Royal

Tuesday, September 12
“Collaborators, Friends, Lovers,” with Tamara Kostianovsky, 11:30

“Dante among Friends,” with Robin Coste Lewis and Kevin Young responding in music and poetry to Rauschenberg’s Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, curated and hosted by Terrance McKnight, $5-$15, 7:00

SUMMER DOUBLE FEATURES! LITTLE FUGITIVE / SPEEDY

LITTLE FUGITIVE

Joey Norton goes on the adventure of a lifetime in Coney Island in underground indie classic Little Fugitive

LITTLE FUGITIVE (Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, and Ruth Orkin, 1953)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, September 4, 12:30 & 4:00
Series continues through September 5
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Labor Day is the traditional end of summer, and Film Forum gets in on the fun with an inspired double feature of two Coney Island specials. Screening at 12:30 and 4:00, Morris Engel’s charming Little Fugitive is one of the most influential and important — and vastly entertaining — works to ever come out of the city. The underground classic won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1953, was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar, and was entered into the National Film Registry in 1997. Written and directed with Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin, Engel’s future wife, Little Fugitive follows the gritty, adorable exploits of seven-year-old wannabe cowboy Joey Norton (Richie Andrusco, in his only film role), who runs away to Coney Island after his older brother, Lennie (Richard Brewster), and his brother’s friends, Harry (Charlie Moss) and Charley (Tommy DeCanio), play a trick on the young boy, using ketchup to convince Joey that he accidentally killed Lennie. With their single mother (Winifred Cushing) off visiting her ailing mother, Joey heads out on his own, determined to escape the cops who are surely after him. But once he gets to Coney Island, he decides to take advantage of all the crazy things to be found on the beach, along the boardwalk, and in the surrounding area, including, if he can get the money, riding a real pony.

A no-budget black-and-white neo-Realist masterpiece shot by Engel with a specially designed lightweight camera that was often hidden so people didn’t know they were being filmed, Little Fugitive explores the many pleasures and pains of childhood and the innate value of home and family. As Joey wanders around Coney Island, he meets all levels of humanity, preparing him for the world that awaits as he grows older. Meanwhile, Engel gets into the nooks and crannies of the popular beach area, from gorgeous sunrises to beguiling shadows under the boardwalk. In creating their beautifully told tale, Engel, Ashley, and Orkin use both trained and nonprofessional actors, including Jay Williams as Jay, the sensitive pony ride man, and Will Lee, who went on to play Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, as an understanding photographer, while Eddie Manson’s score continually references “Home on the Range.” Rough around the edges in all the right ways, Little Fugitive became a major influence on the French New Wave, with Truffaut himself singing its well-deserved praises. There’s really nothing quite like it, before or since. The 12:30 show will be introduced by Mary Engel, the daughter of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin.

Harold Lloyd has a crazy time in Coney Island in Speedy

SPEEDY (Ted Wilde, 1928)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, September 4, 2:00
Series continues through September 13
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

In between the two showings of Little Fugitive is another delightful treat, Ted Wilde’s Speedy, with live musical accompaniment by pianist Steve Sterner. Much like the end of the silent film era itself, the last horse-drawn trolley is doomed in Harold Lloyd’s final silent film. Big business is playing dirty trying to get rid of the trolley and classic old-timer Pop Dillon. Meanwhile, Harold “Speedy” Swift, a dreamer who wanders from menial job to menial job (he makes a great soda-jerk with a unique way of announcing the Yankees score), cares only about the joy and wonder life brings. But he’s in love with Pop’s granddaughter, Jane (Ann Christy), so he vows to save the day. Along the way, he gets to meet Babe Ruth. Wilde was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director, Comedy, for this thrilling nonstop ride through beautiful Coney Island and the pre-depression streets of New York City. Film Forum’s second annual Festival of Summer Double Features continues through September 5 with such other sweet pairings as Panique and Peeping Tom, Point Blank and The Killers, and The Big Lebowski and The Last Picture Show.

YANIRA CASTRO | A CANARY TORSI: CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR

Yanira Castro presents new trilogy, CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR in three boroughs this month

Yanira Castro presents new trilogy, CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR in three boroughs this month

Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen St.
The Chocolate Factory Theater, 5-49 49th Ave.
Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St.
September 7-23, free – $30
acanarytorsi.org/cast-stage-author

This past January, Yanira Castro | a canary torsi presented Performance | Portrait at the Invisible Dog Art Center, a multimedia interactive work that continues Castro’s exploration of the intimate relationship between audience and performer. The company is now back at the Invisible Dog with AUTHOR, the third part of a trilogy that also includes CAST at the Chocolate Factory Theater and STAGE at Abrons Arts Center. AUTHOR is on view Wednesday to Saturday from 1:00 to 7:00 and Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 from September 9 to 17 (free), with an opening reception September 9 at 6:00. The participatory piece involves a computer game in which visitors will share their memories of being a spectator, interacting onscreen with contributing artists Kyle Bukhari, Simon Courchel, Leslie Cuyjet, devynn emory, John Hoobyar, Iréne Hultman, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Luke Miller, Heather Olson, Sai Somboon, David Thomson, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Pamela Vail, Tara Aisha Willis, and Darrin Wright. And you get to go home with a printed memento of your experience. Admission is free but advance registration is strongly suggested here. In the forty-five-minute CAST, running Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:00 from September 13 to 23 at the Chocolate Factory ($20), a rotating quartet of performers will work with a new script every night, computer-generated from more than one hundred hours of recorded conversations. Finally, STAGE, “a visual and aural fantasia,” takes place at Abrons Arts Center on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from September 14 to 23 at 9:00 ($20), a collaboratively choreographed work with a live improvised sound score by Stephan Moore and lighting by Kathy Couch. (The times are arranged so you can see all three parts of the trilogy on certain days, although each is a standalone piece.) You can get a $30 pass for all three events here, but act quickly, because Castro, whose previous works include Paradis, Court/Garden, and Wilderness, always presents intriguing, popular events that sell out in advance.

REI KAWAKUBO / COMMES DES GARÇONS: ART OF THE IN-BETWEEN

(photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Red rayon coats from “Flowering Dresses” collection are among highlights of “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between” at the Met (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Met Fifth Avenue
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Through September 4, $12-$25
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org

Many art lovers have accidentally wandered into the Comme des Garçons flagship store in Chelsea, thinking it was a gallery. So in turn, the Met Costume Institute exhibition “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between” comes complete with a fashion counter with items available for purchase. The show itself, celebrating the unique and innovative design sense of Tokyo-born designer and Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo, is utterly delightful, fancifully arranged in geometric white “closets” that offer colorful treats throughout its winding path, evoking her concepts of emptiness (mu) and space (ma). Many of the pieces are more objet d’art than wearable outfit, and that dichotomy is reflected in the organization of the exhibit, which is divided into “Absence/Presence,” “Design/Not Design,” “Fashion/Antifashion,” “Model/Multiple,” “High/Low,” “Then/Now,” “Self/Other,” “Object/Subject,” and “Clothes/Not Clothes.” Kawakubo, who recently turned seventy-five, notes, “My clothes and the spaces they inhabit are inseparable — they are one and the same. They convey the same message, and the same sense of values.” Pieces from the 1997 ready-to-wear collection “Body Meets Dress — Dress Meets Body” stand out in a dazzling red. One dress from “The Future of Silhouette” is made of brown paper, two others of white synthetic wadding in an unusual shape, with the mannequins sporting Brillo-y silver hairstyles. (The faceless heads and wild wigs are by Julien d’Ys.) A black polyester lace and net dress from “Ceremony of Separation” seems to have escaped from a horror movie. And a group of “Ballerina Motorbike” jackets and skirts are, per Kawakubo, “Harley-Davidson loves Margot Fonteyn.” The show also features clothes from such other collections as “Bad Taste,” “Clustering Beauty,” “Adult Punk,” “Round Rubbber,” “Abstract Excellence,” and “Not Making Clothing.” In 2012, Kawakubo said, “Personally, I don’t care about function at all. . . . When I hear ‘where could you wear that?’ or ‘it’s not very wearable’ or ‘who would wear that?’ to me it’s just a sign that someone missed the point.” Don’t miss the point at this rad show, which continues at the Met through September 4. In addition, on September 1 from 5:00 to 9:00, “MetFridays: In-Between Fashion” features a fashion design contest involving undergrad and graduate students, a panel discussion with Greg Foley, Phil Oh, and Shelley Fox, a photo booth, drop-in art workshops, and a party with music by DJ Reborn.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL 2017

(photo by Bo Lahola)

Tanztheater Wuppertal/Pina Bausch’s Café Müller returns to BAM for Next Wave Festival (photo by Bo Lahola)

BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St.
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave.
BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Pl.
September 14 – December 16
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

As usual, we are considering moving in to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for three months after the announcement of the lineup for the thirty-fifth BAM Next Wave Festival, running September 14 through December 16 at the Harvey, the Howard Gilman Opera House, and the Fisher. “This year’s Next Wave showcases artists from Switzerland to Senegal in creative dialogue with historic events, personal histories, and the present moment,” longtime BAM executive producer Joe Melillo said in a statement. The roster includes old favorites and up-and-comers from around the world, with several surprises. Dance enthusiasts will be particularly impressed with the schedule, which begins September 14-24 with a superb double bill of Tanztheater Wuppertal/Pina Bausch’s Café Müller and The Rite of Spring, which were part of the first Bausch program at BAM back in June 1984. For The Principles of Uncertainty (September 27-30), Maira Kalman teams up with John Heginbotham, Dance Heginbotham, and the Knights to bring her online graphic diary to life. New York Live Arts artistic director and cofounder Bill T. Jones returns to BAM with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and composer Nick Hallett for A Letter to My Nephew (October 3-7), about his nephew, Lance T. Briggs, who battled illness and addiction. Senegalese artist Germaine Acogny takes center stage for the emotional solo piece Mon élue noire (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2 (October 4-7), choreographed specifically for her by Olivier Dubois of Ballet du Nord, set to music by Stravinsky. Also on the movement bill are Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY’s Saudade, Cynthia Oliver’s Virago-Man Dem, ODC/Dance, Brenda Way, and KT Nelson’s boulders and bones, David Dorfman Dance’s Aroundtown, Hofesh Shechter Company’s Grand Finale, Xavier Cha’s Buffer, Big Dance Theater’s 17c, and Tesseract, a multimedia collaboration between Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener.

(photo by Arno Declair)

Schaubühne Berlin presents the U.S. premiere of its unique take on Richard III at BAM Next Wave Festival (photo by Arno Declair)

The festival also boasts impressive theater productions, kicking off October 11-14 with Schaubühne Berlin’s tantalizing version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, translated and adapted by Marius von Mayenburg, directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and starring Lars Eidinger. Théâtre de la Ville, Paris is back November 2-4 with Albert Camus’s State of Siege, directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota. Tony-winning Belgian director Ivo van Hove takes on Ayn Rand in Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s four-hour The Fountainhead November 28 to December 2. Rachel Dickstein and Ripe Time bring Naomi Iizuka’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Sleep to the Fisher November 20 to December 2. Fresh off her Broadway stint in Marvin’s Room, Lili Taylor stars in Farmhouse/Whorehouse: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra, directed by Lee Sunday Evans (December 12-16). Geoff Sobelle, who went solo at BAM for The Object Lesson, is joined by an ensemble of designers and dancers for Home (December 6-10). And be on the lookout for Manfred Karge, Alexandra Wood, and Wales Millennium Centre’s Man to Man, Thaddeus Phillips and Steven Dufala’s A Billion Nights on Earth, the Cameri Theatre of Tel-Aviv’s adaptation of Etgar Keret’s Suddenly, directed by Zvi Sahar and PuppetCinema, Manual Cinema’s Mementos Mori, Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project’s /peh-LO-tah/, and James Thierrée and Compagnie du Hanneton’s La grenouille avait raison (The Toad Knew).

Music aficionados have plenty to choose from, with Olivier Py Sings Les Premiere Adieux de Miss Knife, Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, and Vân-Ánh Võ’s My Lai, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Counts’s Road Trip, Gabriel Kahane’s Book of Travelers, Rithy Panh, Him Sophy, Trent Walker, Jonathan Berger, and Harriet Scott’s Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, Wordless Music Orchestra and Chorus’s two-part John Cale: The Velvet Underground & Nico, and the New York premiere of American Repertory Theater’s Crossing, an opera inspired by Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” composed, written, and conducted by Matthew Aucoin and directed by Diane Paulus. The season is supplemented with several postperformance talks and master classes.

CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL 2017

Annie Dorsen Crossing the Line

Annie Dorsen turns FIAF auditorium into planetarium for Crossing the Line Festival

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 6 – October 15, free – $60
212-355-6160
crossingthelinefestival.org
www.fiaf.org

FIAF’s annual Crossing the Line Festival enters its second decade with the eleventh edition of its always exciting multidisciplinary lineup featuring unique and eclectic works from around the world. This year’s focus is on Congolese choreographer and CTL veteran Faustin Linyekula, who will be presenting the world premiere of the site-specific Banataba at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (9/9, 9/10, 9/12, $65), the U.S. premiere of In Search of Dinozord with Studios Kabako at the NYU Skirball Center (9/22, 9/23, $40), and the world premiere of Festival of Dreams at Roberto Clemente Plaza on 9/23 and Weeksville Heritage Center on 9/24 (free, 3:00). The festival begins September 6-7 with Ryoji Ikeda’s supercodex (live set) at the Met ($45-$60), a follow-up to his dazzling Superposition from 2014. In #PUNK, taking place 9/14-15 in FIAF’s Tinker Auditorium ($30), Zimbabwe-born, New York–based Nora Chipaumire channels the musical rage of Patti Smith; the 9/14 show will be followed by a Q&A with Chipaumire and Linyekula, moderated by Ralph Lemon. Performance festival regular Annie Dorsen (Magical, Yesterday Tomorrow) takes a new narrative approach to the internet in The Great Outdoors, 9/21-23 in FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall ($35). Alessandro Sciarroni continues his “Will you still love me tomorrow?” trilogy with the New York premiere of UNTITLED_I will be there when you die at La MaMa 9/28-30 ($25, 8:00).

Moroccan dancer-choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen’s Corbeaux (Crows) is a site-specific living sculpture that will move throughout the Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court 9/30 and 10/1 (free with museum admission). Drag fave Dickie Beau conjures Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland in Blackouts 10/5-8 at Abrons Arts Center ($30). Adelheid Roosen and Nazmiye Oral transform FIAF’s Le Skyroom into an intimate living room in No Longer without You 10/12-15 ($25), in which traditional Muslim immigrant Havva Oral and her Westernized daughter, Nazmiye, discuss faith, sexuality, identity, and more. In addition, Alain Willaume’s immersive exhibition, “VULNERABLE,” will be on view 9/15 to 10/28 in the FIAF Gallery (free), and Sophie Calle’s Voir la mer, set by the Black Sea in Istanbul, will be projected on Times Square billboards every night in October at 11:57 as part of the monthly Midnight Moment program.