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

CHANTAL AKERMAN: NEW YORK REMEMBERS

Chantal Akerman’s life and career will be celebrated at free event at Lincoln Center

Who: Jonas Mekas, Babette Mangolte, Andrew Bujalski, more to be announced
What: Tribute to Chantal Akerman
Where: Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
When: Saturday, March 19, free, 10:00 am
Why: The Film Society of Lincoln Center and City College of New York are teaming up for a memorial tribute on March 19 for Belgian-born, Paris-based pioneer, writer, director, teacher, and artist Chantal Akerman, who died on October 5 of last year at the age of sixty-five, apparently by suicide. For “Chantal Akerman: New York Remembers,” friends and colleagues will gather at the Walter Reade Theater for a free tribute to the longtime New Yorker; admission is first come, first served. The scheduled guests so far include Anthology Film Archives cofounder Jonas Mekas, longtime Akerman cinematographer Babette Mangolte, and mumblecore master Andrew Bujalski, with more to be announced. Whether making short films, a Hollywood movie, documentaries, or cutting-edge experimental works, Akerman always did things her way; among her major triumphs were I, You, He, She; News from Home; and the one and only Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. The presentation will feature film clips, personal memories, music, and more, followed by a reception in the Furman Gallery. In 2013, Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation), in an interview with Vulture’s Jennifer Vineyard, cited Akerman as one of his influences: “I studied film as an undergrad at Harvard, and she was my thesis adviser. She gave me two pieces of advice, which I haven’t taken yet. She told me girls wouldn’t like me until I stopped dressing like a fourteen-year-old, and that I should stop being pretentious and just make comedies. I think of Computer Chess as a comedy, but it probably behooves me to go out and make a real one sometime.” More guests are expected to be announced for this two-and-a-half-hour special event. (In addition, BAMcinématek will be hosting a career retrospective of Akerman’s work in the series “Chantal Akerman: Images between the Images,” running April 1 through May 1, while Film Forum will be presenting Marianne Lambert’s I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman for free March 30 through April 1, followed by Jeanne Dielman April 1-7 for $14.)

SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED: A GUIDED HANDS-ON WORKSHOP INSPIRED BY EBONY G. PATTERSON / DANCEHALL QUEEN / SHINE

Ebony G. Patterson’s “Dead Treez” examines dancehall and bling culture and the changing ideals of masculinity and gender in Jamaica (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Eighth Ave.
Socially Constructed: Thursday, March 17, free with pay-what-you-wish admission, 6:30
Dancehall Queen: Friday, March 18, $10, 7:00
Shine: Thursday, March 24, free with pay-what-you-wish admission, 7:00
Exhibit continues through April 3
212-299-7777
madmuseum.org
dead treez slideshow

Upon first seeing the Ebony G. Patterson’s “Dead Treez” at the Museum of Arts & Design, you get sucked in by the artist’s use of distinct colors, shiny accouterments, and sense of humor. But look deeper and you’ll find a lot more to consider in her first solo New York museum show. Patterson, who lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica, and Lexington, Kentucky, explores shifts in male gender identity and power that have become prevalent in dancehall culture, which has embraced a kind of metrosexuality that includes skin bleaching. Utilizing methods generally associated with women, Patterson has created five floor tapestries, wallpaper, and a tableau of male mannequins that could have been pulled from a window on Fifth Ave. Heavily adorned with floral patterns and bling, the tapestries actually depict murder victims, while the mannequins are surrounded by toys, bricks, liquor bottles, and other objects that send mixed messages. Meanwhile, in the Tiffany Jewelry Gallery, Patterson’s “. . . buried again to carry on growing . . .” comprises large glass cases filled with dazzling flowers that are all actually poisonous, while hidden in the vitrines are dead bodies and pieces of jewelry that evoke violence, combining beauty and turmoil in intriguing ways.

On March 17 at 6:30, MAD is hosting a special hands-on workshop concentrating on the social aspects of making tapestries and textile works, long considered women’s work, while also evolving into a way to share important stories; the event takes place in a sixth-floor classroom and is free with pay-what-you-wish admission. On March 18 at 7:00 ($10), MAD will screen Rick Elgood and Don Letts’s Jamaican classic Dancehall Queen in conjunction with the exhibit. And on March 24 at 7:00 (free with pay-what-you-wish admission), Northwestern University art history professor Krista Thompson will discuss her 2015 book, Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice, putting it in context with Patterson’s exhibition, which continues through April 3. “Krista Thompson’s work was very important to me; she was researching the use of light in diasporic cultures, and as I began to think about my work more critically, I started to see glitter for what it is: It is light, it is illumination,” Patterson explains.

DE MATERIE

Heiner Goebbels’s multidisciplinary reimagining of Louis Andriessen’s DE MATERIE runs at the Park Avenue Armory March 22-30 (photo by Wonge Bergmann)

Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. between 66th & 67th Sts.
March 22–30, $85-$195
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s four-part magnum opus, De Materie, makes its North American stage debut this month at the Park Avenue Armory, in a wildly inventive production directed by Heiner Goebbels, whose Stifters Dinge had its U.S. premiere at the armory in December 2009. Andriessen’s visionary work weaves in dance, spoken text, choral singing, jazz, science, philosophy, poetry, Renaissance music, and more, with Goebbels adding, among other things, one hundred sheep. Among those being referenced in the piece, which explores the relationship between matter and spirit, are Madame Curie, Piet Mondrian, Hadewijch, David Gorlaeus, and the De Stijl art movement. The work will be performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), conducted by Peter Rundel, with the ChorWerk Ruhr, more than two dozen actors and dancers, and others; tenor Pascal Charbonneau is Gorlaeus, soprano Evgeniya Sotnikova is Hadewijch, and Catherine Milliken is Madame Curie. The stage and lighting design is by Klaus Grünberg, with costumes by Florence von Gerkan, sound by Norbert Ommer, and choreography by Florian Bilbao. “This highly imaginative collaboration asks us to appreciate the inherent connections between all manner of innovation throughout society — from the discovery of radioactivity to the creation of a work of art,” new Park Avenue Armory artistic director Pierre Audi said in a statement. In addition to the six performances, there will be four special programs to shed more light on this monumental undertaking. On March 23 at 8:00 ($60), Andriessen will team up with pianist Jason Moran for “Improvisations: Louis Andriessen and Jason Moran,” an exploration of how jazz is used in De Materie while discussing improvisation in general. On March 24 at 6:00 ($15), WNYC’s John Schaefer will host “De Materie: Matter & Spirit,” a conversation with Goebbels, Columbia music professor and musician and composer George E. Lewis, and composer Missy Mazzoli. On March 25 at 6:00 ($15), Schaefer will moderate “Four Different Ways: Celebrating Louis Andriessen,” with Bang on a Can cofounder Julia Wolfe, electronic experimental musician and composer Nathan Michel, and Princeton music professor Donnacha Dennehy. And finally, on March 26 at 6:00 ($15), Audi will lead an artist talk with Goebbels, Rundel, and Andriessen.

REBECCA LAZIER AND DAN TRUEMAN: THERE MIGHT BE OTHERS

Rebecca Lazier makes NYLA debut with world premiere of THERE MIGHT BE OTHERS (photo by Maria Baranova)

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
March 16-19, $15-$40, 7:30
212-924-0077
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.rebeccalazier.com

On the back cover of the new book There Might Be Others, which contains the music and dance score for Rebecca Lazier’s New York Live Arts commission along with collaborator notes, instructions, principles, and more, NYLA director of programs Tommy Kreigsmann says, “Seminal works of the avant-garde become so when the inherent risk at the heart of the experiment catalyzing the vision to its fruition pushes the work’s sphere of influence beyond its original form and often its intended meaning. Intrepid choreographer Rebecca Lazier [has a] penchant for musical interpretation and the infinite aesthetic and physical languages in its breadth, making her among the very best of her generation.” New York-based dancer, choreographer, and teacher Lazier will be making her NYLA debut with the world premiere of There Might Be Others on March 16-19, inspired by Terry Riley’s 1964, fifty-three-part composition, “In C,” one of the first major minimalist works. The live score will be performed by fiddler Dan Trueman and SŌ Percussion and Mobius Percussion (March 16-18) and members of Mantra Percussion (March 19). The piece features dramaturgy and design by Naomi Leonard, Davison Scandrett, and Mary Jo Mecca and will be danced by Simon Courchel, Natalie Green, raja feather kelly, Cori Kresge, Christopher Ralph, Anna Schön, Saúl Ulerio, Agnieszka Kryst, Jan Lorys, Ramona Nagabczynska, Pawel Sakowicz Rhonda Baker, Sara Coffin, and Tan Temel. On March 13 ($20, 1:30), Lazier (Coming Together/Attica, Terminal) and Trueman will host the Shared Practice workshop “Choreographing Being in Action — Staging Negotiation and Interaction,” while the March 17 show will be followed by a Stay Late Discussion with Neil Greenberg.

KINETIC PAINTING: AN ART BOOK SERIES EVENT

carolee schneeman kinetic painting

Who: Carolee Schneemann with Kathy Battista, Jenny Jaskey, and David Levi Strauss
What: Celebration of the release of Carolee Schneeman monograph Kinetic Painting (Prestel, February 2016, $60), edited by Sabine Breitwieser
Where: New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Celeste Auditorium, Fifth Ave. at 42nd St., 917-275-6975
When: Wednesday, March 9, free, 6:00
Why: In Kinetic Painting, editor Sabine Breitwieser writes, “Schneeman’s vital contributions to the establishment of a feminist art practice, her ‘painting constructions,’ her choreography and performances, and her experimental films, whose full significance has not yet been recognized: these are only some facets of her oeuvre, and a thorough review of her prodigious output, which now spans six decades and reflects the period’s social and technological changes in its extraordinary diversity, has been long overdue.” The fully illustrated monograph seeks to rectify that, and on March 9, Schneeman will be at the New York Public Library to talk about her career, joined by Kathy Battista, director of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art; Jenny Jaskey, director and curator of the Artist’s Institute; and writer, cultural critic, and professor David Levi Strauss. The monograph was published on conjunction with a major retrospective of Schneeman’s work at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, which was organized by Breitwieser and Branden Joseph. A book signing will follow the discussion.

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY: BLOODLINES II

Longtime Stephen Petronio Company dancer Gino Grenek will dance the male solo in MIDDLESEXGORGE at the Joyce this week (photo by Sarah Silver)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
March 8-13, $10-$60
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
petron.io

Last April, Newark-born dancer and choreographer Stephen Petronio premiered his new initiative, “Bloodlines,” at the Joyce, presenting Merce Cunningham’s RainForest. The five-year project will consist of iconic works from master American choreographers, paired with a new work by Petronio. This week the New York-based company returns to the Joyce with the second edition of “Bloodlines,” performing Trisha Brown’s Glacial Decoy, her 1979 silent piece featuring costumes and visual design by Robert Rauschenberg, who also designed the lighting with Beverly Emmons. Glacial Decoy was Brown’s first piece for a proscenium stage and debuted the same year that Petronio joined her company as its first male dancer. To complement the all-female Glacial Decoy, Petronio has chosen to reconstruct his 1990 piece about gender and power, MiddleSexGorge, set to commissioned music by the British band Wire and inspired by Petronio’s participation with the AIDS activist organization ACT UP in the late 1980s. Company dancer and assistant artistic director Gino Grenek, in his seventeenth and last season with the troupe, will take the male solo and one half of the male duet. “The piece is ferocious and the dancers must be fearless in their execution of the dance. Hands grab, legs fly, heads whip, and torsos twist at warp speed. It is a rite of passage for every Petronio dancer to perform MiddleSexGorge,” Grenek writes on the company’s blog. “I adore it, I crave it, and I am humbled by it.” Also on the bill is the world premiere of Petronio’s Big Daddy Deluxe, an updated version of his 2014 solo “talking dance” Big Daddy, a tribute to his late father, built around text from Petronio’s 2014 memoir, Confessions of a Motion Addict; the work has now been expanded for the full company, which includes Grenek, Davalois Fearon, Kyle Filley, Cori Kresge, Jaqlin Medlock, Tess Montoya, Nicholas Sciscione, Emily Stone, and Joshua Tuason. The March 10 performance will be followed by a Curtain Chat with members of the company

PLATFORM 2016 — A BODY IN PLACES: EIKO SOLOS

Eiko performs one of her solos for an intimate audience in a Lower East Side textile studio as part of Danspace Project Platform series (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eiko performs one of her solos for an intimate audience in a Lower East Side textile studio as part of Danspace Project’s “Platform” series (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

A BODY IN PLACES: EIKO SOLO #4
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
131 East Tenth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Monday – Friday through March 19, $20, varying times
Platform continues through March 23
866-811-4111
www.danspaceproject.org
eiko solo #4 slideshow

New York-based Japanese dancer and choreographer Eiko Otake’s “A Body in Places” is the centerpiece of Danspace Project’s tenth “Platform” series, a five-week multidisciplinary exploration of Eiko’s work, including live performances, art and video installations, film screenings, lectures and discussions, a book club, and more. Every Monday through Friday, Eiko will be performing “A Body in Places: Eiko Solos,” unique hour-long dances that occur around Danspace’s home at St. Mark’s Church on East Tenth St. Between ten and twenty-five ticket holders will meet at the church, then be led to a secret location, where Eiko will perform exclusively for them. On March 3, the group walked over to 44 East Third St., a three-story townhouse that once was the home of the Reuben Gallery, the site of the first Happenings back in 1959, and currently the studio of textile artist Suzanne Tick. The performance began in the basement, as Eiko, wearing a luxurious kimono, moved alongside Tick working at a loom as the audience gathered around the space. At her trademark slow pace — but with occasional bursts of energy — Eiko headed up the stairs and continued in the main room, spreading out her arms and legs, then bringing her body together in an almost fetal-like position, and even emitting guttural sounds, before heading to the top floor, where, during part of her performance, one of Tick’s cats rested next to her on the floor until Eiko got up and eventually concluded with a flourish in the outdoor patio. It was an intimate, one-of-a-kind performance, a modern-day Happening, during which the performer and the crowd bonded in touching ways amid the unusual surroundings. The solos continue through March 19 at a different time each day; among the other locations on the schedule are the ANNA clothing store on East Eleventh St., Middle Collegiate Church on Second Ave., Dashwood Books on Bond St., the Sirovich Center for Balanced Living on East Twelfth St., and the Zürcher Gallery on Bleecker St. For our interview with Eiko about the Platform series as a whole, go here.