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

TARA DEAL READING AND BOOK SIGNING

tara-deal

Who: Tara Deal
What: Reading and book signing
Where: Sideshow Gallery, 319 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn
When: Tuesday, October 25, free with advance RSVP (info@causeycontemporary.com) by October 23, 6:30
Why: New York City-based writer Tara Deal will be at Williamsburg’s Sideshow Gallery on October 25 for a reading and signing of her latest book, That Night Alive. Winner of the 2016 Novella Prize from Miami University Press, the novella mixes fiction and memoir, poetry and prose as a crypto-reporter goes back in time, from her last day alive on earth. Deal, who was born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, has previously written the novella Palms Are Not Trees After All, and her short stories and poems can be found in numerous publications. In conjunction with Causey Contemporary, the gallery is currently showing “Persons of Interest,” featuring new portraits by painter, printmaker, costume designer, and voodoo doll maker Carri Skoczek, who explains in her artist statement, “My work has been an exploration in expressing female sexuality and allure as a vehicle of power.”

CHINATOWN IS NOT FOR SALE

Liz Moy’s 2016 “Chinatown Gallery Map” reveals a changing community

Who: Peter Kwong, Liz Moy, Margaret Lee, Juan Puntes, Betty Yu, Julien Terrell
What: Town hall discussion about gentrification and the arts in Chinatown
Where: Artists Space Books & Talks, 55 Walker St.
When: Saturday, October 22, free, 7:00
Why: A group of gallery owners and local activists will be gathering on October 22 at Artist Space on Walker St. for the special panel discussion “Chinatown Is Not for Sale,” in which they will delve into the following issue: “There are currently over one hundred galleries occupying Chinatown, Two Bridges, and the Lower East Side. Can a neighborhood be both a holdout to gentrification and the new art enclave??” Sponsored by Artists Space, Chinatown Art Brigade, and Decolonize This Place, the town hall discussion features Peter Kwong, Liz Moy, Margaret Lee, Juan Puntes, Betty Yu, and moderator Julien Terrell examining the changes downtown, most of which have taken place in the last three years as rents rise and art galleries, luxury housing, and hotels move in. The event is the second in Chinatown Art Brigade’s series of public conversations that began in July with “Chinatown: New York’s Newest Gallery Scene?”

TICKET ALERT — IN CONVERSATION: IGGY POP AND JEREMY DELLER

“Iggy Pop Life Class by Jeremy Deller,” organized by the Brooklyn Museum, February 21, 2016 (photo by Elena Olivo, © Brooklyn Museum)

Who: Iggy Pop, Jeremy Deller, Tom Healy
What: Thursday Nights Brooklyn Talks discussion
Where: Brooklyn Museum, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St., 212-864-5400
When: Thursday, November 3, $40-$85, 7:00
Why: On February 21, twenty-one artists gathered at the New York Academy of Art, participating in a special life-drawing class led by Michael Grimaldi. The model that Sunday afternoon was Muskegon native James Newell Osterberg Jr., better known as punk icon Iggy Pop. The artists, ranging in age from nineteen to eighty, were selected by Jeremy Deller and Brooklyn Museum vice director Sharon Matt Atkins. “For me it makes perfect sense for Iggy Pop to be the subject of a life class; his body is central to an understanding of rock music and its place within American culture,” Deller explains on his website. “His body has witnessed much and should be documented.” The resulting exhibition, “Iggy Pop Life Class by Jeremy Deller,” featuring nudes from the class as well as selections from the Brooklyn Museum collection, will open on the fifth floor of the museum on November 4 and run through March 26. On Thursday, November 3, Iggy and Deller will be at the museum for a discussion about art, music, and nudity, moderated by writer and educator Tom Healy. Tickets are $40 for general admission, $65 with a copy of the catalog, and $85 with a copy of the catalog signed by Pop and Deller. Pop was also recently at the New York Film Festival, chatting up the Jim Jarmusch documentary Gimme Danger; the film, which documents the history of Iggy and the Stooges, opens October 28 at IFC Center.

DICK GREGORY: WHAT’S GOING ON?

Dick Gregory will talk comedy and politics at the Black Spectrum Theatre on October 22

Who: Dick Gregory, Onaje Allan Gumbs
What: Comedy, music, political discussion
Where: Black Spectrum Theatre, Roy Wilkins Recreation Center, 177 St. & Baisley Blvd., Queens, 718-723-1800
When: Saturday, October 22, $35 in advance, $45 at the door, 8:00
Why: This past summer, Joe Morton played comedian and activist Dick Gregory in the excellent show Turn Me Loose. Now you can see the real thing, as Gregory, who just turned eighty-four on October 12, will be at the Black Spectrum Theatre in Queens on October 22, sharing his sociopolitical musings and conspiracy rants about the state of the world; he should be in extra-fine form with the election approaching. (You can get a taste of his thoughts on Donald Trump here.) The evening will also feature a performance by Harlem-born, Queens-raised pianist, composer, and bandleader Onaje Allan Gumbs, who has released such albums as That Special Part of Me, Remember Their Innocence, Sack Full of Dreams, and Just Like Yesterday.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: LETTER TO A MAN

Mikhail Baryshnikov plays Vaslav Nijinsky in Robert Wilsons LETTER TO A MAN at BAM (photo by Lucie Jansch)

Mikhail Baryshnikov brings Vaslav Nijinsky’s diaries to life in Robert Wilson’s LETTER TO A MAN at BAM (photo by Lucie Jansch)

BAM Harvey
651 Fulton St.
October 15-30, $35-$130
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In March, Mikhail Baryshnikov starred in the one-man show Brodsky/Baryshnikov at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, a stirring presentation based on the writings of his friend and fellow Riga native Joseph Brodsky. Now Misha is reteaming with stage impresario and BAM regular Robert Wilson on another one-person show, Letter to a Man, in which Baryshnikov portrays Vaslav Nijinsky, taking the audience on a surreal tour through the legendary Russian dancer’s diaries as he battled mental illness. Baryshnikov was last at BAM in 2014 in Wilson’s The Old Woman with Willem Dafoe, while the Waco-born Wilson, who specializes in wildly inventive audiovisual spectacles, has been putting on shows at BAM since The Life & Times of Sigmund Freud in 1969; he’s staged Einstein on the Beach, The Civil Wars, The Black Rider, Woyczeck, and others there since then. Part of BAM’s 2016 Next Wave Festival, Letter to a Man is directed and designed by Wilson, with text by Christian Dumais-Lvowski, dramaturgy by Darryl Pinckney, music by Hal Willner (with snippets from Tom Waits, Arvo Pärt, Henry Mancini, and Alexander Mosolov), movement collaboration by Lucinda Childs, costumes by Jacques Reynaud, lighting by A. J. Weissbard, sound design by Nick Sagar and Ella Wahlström, and video projections by Tomek Jeziorski. The show runs October 15-30; on October 24, the free program “Inside Nijinsky’s Diaries” will take place at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, featuring Paul Giamatti reading from the diaries, followed by a panel discussion with Pinckney, Joan Acocella, and Larry Wolff, moderated by Jennifer Homans.

BESSIE AWARDS 2016

Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson’s CHAMBRE is nominated for a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Tuesday, October 18, $20-$30, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bessies.org
www.bam.org

The thirty-second annual Bessie Awards are returning to their early home at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, where on October 18 they will celebrate the best in dance. Since 1984, the awards, named after dancer, choreographer, and teacher Bessie Schönberg, who passed away in 1997 at the age of ninety, have honored such performers, designers, composers, and choreographers as Pina Bausch, Bill T. Jones, Trisha Brown, Paul Taylor, Wendy Whelan, Martin Puryear, Annie-B Parson, Mark Morris, Faye Driscoll, Nari Ward, Ohad Naharin, Alexei Ratamansky, Movement Research, John Jasperse, and Linda Celeste Sims. Among this year’s nominees are Nicholas Bruder, Molly Lieber, Aaron Mattocks, Gillian Murphy, and Jamar Roberts for Outstanding Performer, Ralph Lemon, Eamonn Farrell, Holly Batt, and DD Dorvillier and Thomas Dunn for Outstanding Visual Design, and Admanda Kobilka and Ustatshakirt Plus for Outstanding Music Composition / Sound Design. The twelve nominees for Outstanding Production include Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson’s Chambre, Maria Hassabi’s PLASTIC, Heather Kravas’s dead, disappears, Lemon’s Scaffold Room, and Justin Peck’s Heatscape, in addition to works by luciana achugar, Souleymane Badolo, Camille A. Brown, Pat Graney, Dada Masilo, Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard, and Safi A. Thomas with H+ | the Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory.

Maraia Hassabi’s site-specific MoMA presentation PLASTIC is competing for Outstanding Production at the 2016 Bessie Awards (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company’s presentation of Donald McKayle’s Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder has already been named Outstanding Revived Work, with Joya Powell grabbing the coveted Outstanding Emerging Choreographer award; the October 18 show, hosted by Adrienne Truscott, will feature performances by those winners as well as an all-star tap tribute to Lifetime Achievement in Dance awardee Brenda Bufalino. In addition, Pam Tanowitz won the Juried Bessie Award, and Outstanding Service to the Field went to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center executive chairman Alex Smith; Eiko Otake will receive a Special Bessie Award from Meredith Monk. Other presenters include Ayodele Casel, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Judith Jamison, Alastair Macaulay, and Alice Sheppard. The show will be preceded by the Bessie Awards Angel Party at the Mark Morris Dance Center ($100-$6,000), honoring Marilynn Donini, Stephanie French, Karen Brosius, and Jennifer Goodale, and will be followed by a free dance party at BRIC with complimentary pizza from Two Boots.

STRANGER THAN FICTION — NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD

Jonathan Demme will present NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD at Stranger Than Fiction screening at IFC Center on October 18

NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD (Jonathan Demme, 2006)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Tuesday, October 18, $17, 7:00
Series runs Tuesday nights through November 1
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

For the last four decades, Baldwin-born writer-director Jonathan Demme has alternated between fiction films and documentaries, releasing such features as Something Wild, The Silence of the Lambs, and Philadelphia as well as such real-life tales as Haiti: Dreams of Democracy, Cousin Bobby, and Neil Young Trunk Show. IFC Center is dedicating its complete fall Stranger Than Fiction season to the latter, screening six Demme documentaries on successive Tuesday nights, each followed by a Q&A with the Oscar-winning director. The series began with Stop Making Sense, Swimming to Cambodia, and The Agronomist; on October 18, STF will present one of Demme’s very best, Neil Young: Heart of Gold. In March 2005, less than a week before a scheduled operation for a brain aneurysm, Canadian country-folk-rock legend Neil Young headed to Nashville, assembled friends and family, and in four days recorded one of the best — and most personal — albums of his storied career, Prairie Wind. On August 18, he had recovered enough to put on a poignant show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, captured on film by Jonathan Demme (whose previous music-related works included Talking Heads in Stop Making Sense, Robyn Hitchcock in Storefront Hitchcock, and videos by the Pretenders and Bruce Springsteen).

The concert film begins with brief interviews with band members as they prepare for the show; Demme does not harp on Young’s health but instead focuses on the music itself and the warming sense of a family coming together. And what music it is. Using an ever-changing roster of participants, including Emmylou Harris, then-wife Pegi Young, steel guitarist Ben Keith, keyboarist Spooner Oldham, bass player Rick Rosas, the Nashville String Machine, the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, the Memphis Horns, and others, Young goes song by song through Prairie Wind (skipping only the Elvis tribute “He Was the King,” which appears as a DVD extra), a moving album written by a man looking death squarely in the face. (Pegi Young points out that it was like Neil’s life flashing before his eyes.) Young introduces several songs with stories about his recently deceased father, growing up on a chicken farm, his daughter’s departure for college, and Hank Williams, whose guitar Young plays. (He also does a few songs on a Steinway.) Cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan) gets up close and personal with Young, zooming in for extended shots of his face, his eyes peeking out from under his cowboy hat. Eleven years later, Young is still at the top of his game, releasing great new music and playing incendiary live shows. The Stranger Than Fiction series continues October 25 with the New Orleans-set I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful before concluding November 1 with Jimmy Carter Man from Plains.