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

FRIEZE ART FAIR WEEK 2014

Paul McCarthy’s giant “Balloon Dog” welcomes visitors to the 2013 Frieze New York art fair (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Paul McCarthy’s giant “Balloon Dog” welcomed visitors to the 2013 Frieze New York art fair (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FRIEZE NEW YORK
Randall’s Island Park
May 9-12, $43 ($76 with catalog), 11:00 am – 6:00/7:00 pm
646-346-2845
friezenewyork.com
frieze new york 2013 online slideshow

Much like the Armory Show is the anchor of March’s art-fair extravaganza, Frieze is the centerpiece of May’s explosion, which includes no fewer than eleven fairs. Of course, Frieze is also the most expensive, with admission $43 ($76 if you want the catalog as well) and a round-trip ferry ticket going for $19. (A bus from the Guggenheim is $7; bus and ferry tickets must be purchased in advance.) Still, Frieze is a sprawling, exciting fair, with art from nearly two hundred galleries placed all around Randall’s Island. This year’s Frieze Projects feature interventions by Darren Bader, a soccer installation by Eduardo Basualdo, a playground sculpture by Eva Kotátková, an alternative Tide and Current Taxi ferry by Marie Lorenz, a piece focusing on “invisible communities” by Koki Tanaka, and a Jimi Hendrix–inspired mini-music festival by Naama Tsabar. Frieze Sounds consists of newly commissioned audio works by Keren Cytter, Cally Spooner, and Hannah Weinberger. In addition, visitors can reserve a room (prices start at $350) in Al’s Grand Hotel, a collaboration between original creator Allen Ruppersberg and Public Fiction. Food and drink will be available from Blue Bottle Coffee, Court Street Grocers, Furanku, Frankies Spuntino, Marlow & Sons, Mission Cantina, Momofuku Milk Bar, Roberta’s, and the Fat Radish, with some restaurants requiring advance reservations.

Friday, May 9
Frieze Talks: Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina of Pussy Riot / Zona Prava in conversation with David Remnick, 4:00

Saturday, May 10
Frieze Talks: Adam Szymczyk in conversation with Jenny Jaskey, 4:00

Sunday, May 11
Frieze Talks: The World Wide Web at 25: Terms and Conditions, with Orit Gat, Tyler Coburn, Gene McHugh, and Christiane Paul, 12 noon

Frieze Talks: Keynote Lecture by Kenneth Goldsmith, 4:00

Monday, May 12
Frieze Talks: U.S. premiere of The Act of Killing: The Director’s Cut (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012), screening followed by Joshua Oppenheimer in conversation with Thomas Keenan and Dana Stevens, 12 noon

Andy Yoder’s “Early One Morning” is one of 2014’s Pule Projects

PULSE NEW YORK CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR
The Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
May 8-11, $15-$35
www.pulse-art.com

Pulse is consistently one of the best fairs of the season, with innovative works spread out in a convenient layout. Held at the Metropolitan Pavilion, Pulse consists of works from approximately fifty galleries. This year’s Pulse Projects are Andy Yoder’s “Early One Morning,” Charles Lutz’s “LOAD,” Jasmina Cibic’s “Fruits of Our Land,” Samuel Jablon’s “Poet Sculpture,” Sean Fader’s “#wishingpelt,” Shantell Martin’s “You Are You,” Simon Vega’s “The Whitney Museum of Central American Art, a Post-Apocalyptic Dream,” Tamara Gayer’s “All the World’s Affair,” and Zoe Buckman’s “Present Life.” Below is a list of the “Pulse Perspectives: New Models” talks and panel discussions.

Thursday May 8
Claire Breukel and Simón Vega, 1:00

Adarsh Alphons, Ann Fensterstock, Saul Ostrow, 3:00

Daniel Temkin and Benjamin Sutton, 6:00

Friday May 9
Mark Ellwood and Ben Hartley, 1:00

Sherry Dobbin and Carlos Pomares, 3:00

PULSE Prize Jury: discussion and announcement of the 2014 Pulse Prize winner, 6:00

Saturday May 10
Alice Gray Stites and Edward Winkleman, 1:00

Renée Vara and Patrick Regan, 3:00

Jake Yuzna and Kyle DeWoody, 6:00

Sunday May 11
Sue Stoffel, Andrew Gori, and Ambre Kelly, 1:00

Paddy Johnson, William Powhida, and Shawn Gallagher, 3:00

Cutlog brings cutting-edge art to the Clemente on the Lower East Side

CUTLOG
The Clemente
107 Suffolk St.
May 8-11, $15-$50
www.cutlogny.org

Cutlog is back for its second year, highlighting multimedia works by cutting-edge and established artists from approximately sixty galleries. Held at the Clemente on the Lower East Side, the fair features such installations as Mark L. Power’s “See God,” Guillaume Paturel’s “Shelter,” Hrafnhildur Arnardottir aka Shoplifter’s “Hairdoo for a Hallway,” Jessica Deane Rosner’s “The Ulysses Glove Project,” Joan Backes’s “Papier Mache Trees,” Igor Molochevsky’s “In Transition,” and Clara Feder’s “The Wall of Temptation.” There will also be video screenings and/or live performances by Anthony Haden-Guest, Fanni Futterknecht and Marianne Vlaschits, Robert Montgomery, Grayson Earle, Marc Grubstein, Cai Qing, and Bruno Levy & Deantoni Parks, among others.

OUTSIDER ART FAIR
Center 548
548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
May 8–11, $20-$100
www.outsiderartfair.com

Self-taught artists are celebrated at the Outsider Art Fair, taking place at Center 548 in Chelsea. Some seventy galleries will be exhibiting the work of artists who often worked alone in obscurity, discovered only late in life or even after death. Baumann + Muksian have created a special curated space for the show, with works by “Crystal” John Urho Kemp, Sarah Lucas, Dr. Lakra, and Lewis Smith. “From very different eras and backgrounds, these works share a common ground: a masterly executed disrespect for social conventions and artistic norms in search of enlightenment and artistic freedom,” Daniel Baumann explains about the installation.

Saturday, May 10
Lost in Translation: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Self-Taught Artist, with Brooke Davis Anderson, Eric Fretz, Lenore Schorr, and Xaviera Simmons, moderated by Paul Laster, Center 548 rooftop, 2:00

Henry Darger: 40 Years Later, Anne Hill Blanchard symposium, with Michael Bonesteel, James Brett, Jim Elledge, and Jane Kallir, moderated by Valérie Rousseau, Center 548 rooftop, 4:00

CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR NYC
The Tunnel
May 8-11, $12-$20
269 11th Ave. between 27th & 28th Sts.
www.contemporaryartfairnyc.com

The fifth Contemporary Art Fair NYC, held in the Tunnel in Chelsea, focuses on independent artists and designers and the art of the craft, with prices mostly ranging from $100 to $6,000.

Marck, “Tank,” mixed media with electronical performance (photo courtesy Galerie von Braunbehrens)

DOWNTOWN ART FAIR
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Ave. at 25th St.
May 8-11, $15-$45
www.downtownfair.com

Art Miami comes to New York for the inaugural Downtown Fair, comprising more than fifty galleries at the 69th Regiment Armory, promising to “provide a fresh alternative to acquire important never-before-exhibited works from both the primary and secondary markets in an intimate light.” The curators of No Longer Empty will give daily tours at 12:30, and there will be free shuttle bus service to and from the Frieze ferry.

Friday, May 9
A Conversation with Hunt Slonem about Bunnies!, moderated by Bruce Helander, 12:30

Lecture on 69th Regiment Armory History, with Roslyn Bernstein, 2:00

Saturday, May 10
The Curious Legacy of Collage and Its Current Affiliation to Contemporary Art, with Anthony Haden-Guest and Bruce Helander, 2:00

Sunday, May 11
Willem De Kooning, lecture by Molly Barnes, 2:00

COLLECTIVE 2 DESIGN FAIR
Skylight at Moynihan Station
360 West 33rd St. at Eighth Ave.
May 8-11, $15-$25
www.collectivedesignfair.com

The Collective Design Fair is back for its second year, highlighting the artistic, commercial, and educational aspects of contemporary and twentieth-century design. Some three dozen exhibitors will have booths at Skylight at Moynihan Station at the post office, along with special Collective Settings installations that bring together designers and gallerists, including Robert Couturier and Cristina Grajales, Jonathan Adler and Paul Donzella, David Mann and Maison Gerard, and Alan Wanzenberg and 1950. Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell have curated a solo show by Hella Jongerius, and there are also Collective Conversations that will be held Saturday and Sunday in an area designed by BroLab.

Saturday, May 10
Car Culture, Design Culture, with Andrew Smith and Josh Rubin, 11:30 am

Nordic Influence: Designers Discuss the Scandinavian Legacy, with Glenn Adamson, Wendell Castle, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, and Joseph Walsh, 1:00

Creative License: Decorating with Collectible Design, with Sarah Medford, Cristina Grajales, India Mahdavi, and Suchi Reddy, 2:30

Jewelry Design: Quick Changes in an Ancient Medium, with Jane Adlin, Michele Oka Doner, and Jennifer Trask, 4:00

Manufacturing in Place: The Next Wave in Making and Process, with Rama Chorpash, and the Haas Brothers, 5:30

Sunday, May 11
Students Designing for the Future, with Ellen Lupton and Nikki Gonnissen, 11:30 am

Twenty Questions: New Frontiers in Design, with Henry Urbach, Murray Moss, and Franklin Getchell, 1:00

Design On Demand: New Takes on Rapid Manufacturing, with Julia Kaganskiy, Janos Stone, and Mihae S. Mukaida, 2:30

Dressing the Future: Fashion and 3D Printing, with Adam Brent, Partner, Gabi Asfour, and Bradley Rothenberg, 4:00

Select fair will feature a specially designed beer garden

SELECT FAIR
Altman Building
135 West 18th St.
May 8-11, $5-$20
www.select-fair.com

More than thirty galleries will have booths featuring progressive works at Select in the Altman Building, along with eight Select Project installations and four special projects, Lambert Fine Arts’ “The Directors Den,” “Meow Wolf” by a group of Santa Fe artists, Chelsea Maida’s “Sun Chandelier,” and the interactive performance piece “DOTART” by Tibor Hargitai. In addition, a beer garden will serve food and drink from Six Point Brewery and Brooklyn Bangers.

PooL takes a more low-key approach to the concept of the art fair

POOL ART FAIR
Off Soho Suites
11 Rivington St.
May 9-11, free
www.frereindependent-poolartf.squarespace.com

PooL Art Fair, from the same folks who put on March’s Independent, prefers a modest, low-key approach focusing on artists who do not have representation. The fair will include lectures, special projects and events, and curated installations at Off Soho Suites on Rivington St.

Chris Hefner, Detail from "The Americans (Shoreline)," charcoal on paper, 2013.

Chris Hefner, “The Americans (Shoreline),” detail, charcoal on paper, 2013

VERGE NYC
177 Prince St. between Thompson & Sullivan Sts.
May 9 – May 11, free
www.vergeartfair.com

The fifth annual boutique Verge art fair, “an ongoing experiment in art, markets, ideas, and the art culture,” consists of nearly two dozen galleries, mostly from New York, New Jersey, and Chicago, gathering at 177 Prince St., with two special exhibitions, “Tomorrow Stars” and “The Drawing Show.”

Thursday, May 8
Opening night party, free and open to the public, 6:00 – 10:00

NADA NEW YORK
Pier 36, Basketball City
299 South St. at the East River
May 9-11, free
www.newartdealers.org

More than one hundred exhibitors will take over Basketball City for the third annual NADA New York fair, including such twi-ny faves as Abrons Arts Center, the Hole, Klaus von Nichtssagend, Freight + Volume, and Eleven Rivington. The special projects include “Phaidon Presents Beta-Local and MOCAD,” including interactive community-centric installations, and “Shoot the Lobster,” a site-specific outdoor collaboration with pieces by Lena Henke and Marie Karlberg , Eli Ping, Jennie Jeun Lee, Ryan Foerster, Justin Lieberman, Denise Kupferschmidt, Eddie Martinez, Jeffrey Joyal, Bradley Kronz, Win McCarthy, and Nicholas Buffon.

Saturday, May 10
Contemporary Poetry, marathon reading with thirty poets, Tacombi Lounge, 12 noon – 6:00 pm

LittleCollector workshops by Amy Stevens and Shelter Serra, $20, 11:30 am

Sunday, May 11
LittleCollector workshops by Amy Stevens and Shelter Serra, $20, 11:30 am

El Local Club, conversation about Caribbean art practice and production, with Stefan Benchoam, Pablo Guardiola, and Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, 2:00

MOVIE MEDICINE: TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL

A trio of nurses deal with a deadly epidemic in early Guy Maddin cult classic, TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL

CABARET CINEMA: TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL (Guy Maddin, 1988)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, May 9, free with $10 K2 minimum, 9:30
Series continues through August 29
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

In his first feature-length film, Canadian DIY master Guy Maddin reaches into Icelandic sagas for the ultra-low-budget Tales from the Gimli Hospital. In many ways a kind of Scandinavian Frankenstein as if directed by Ingmar Bergman and George A. Romero, the seventy-two-minute mostly black-and-white Expressionist film is a story within a story (at times within another story) that an old woman, Amma (Margaret Anne MacLeod), is telling her grandchildren (Heather and David Neale) in a hospital room where their mother lies very ill. The dark, lurid fairy tale, set in “a Gimli we no longer know,” is about Einar the Lonely (assistant director Kyle McCulloch), a shy fish smoker who does not know how to relate to other people, particularly women. Felled by an epidemic, he is brought to Gimli Hospital in Manitoba, where other men battle this dread disease, which leaves stitchlike scars on their face and body. Einar is discouraged that the patient in the bed next to him, the portly Gunnar (Michael Gottli), is treated much nicer by the nurses than he is, but he is helpless to do anything about it. Gunnar is soon telling Einar the story of his true love, Snjófridur (Angela Heck), a tragic tale with a surprising twist that brings everything full circle. A unique visual stylist who regularly pays homage to the early days of cinema, Maddin, who directed and edited the picture (and wrote the script on Post-it Notes), purposely keeps things low-tech, including poor sound dubbing and bumpy, awkward cuts, incorporating such oddities as a puppet show anesthetic, Glima wrestling, fish-oil hair gel, an ominous soundtrack, and an over-the-top minstrel in blackface (McCulloch also); Maddin (My Winnipeg, Careful) also plays the weirdo surgeon who operates on Gunnar and Einar in rather strange fashion. In 2011, Maddin, who is part Icelandic, reimagined the film in the special Performa presentation Tales From the Gimli Hospital: Reframed, a reedited version with a live score by Icelandic musicians. The amateur nature of the original work led to its being rejected by the Toronto International Film Festival for ineptitude; it went on to become an instant cult classic, holding the midnight-movie slot at the Quad for nearly a year. Tales from the Gimli Hospital is screening May 9 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Movie Medicine,” held in conjunction with the exhibition “Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine”; the festival continues May 16 with John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday and May 23 with Michael Bastian introducing Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice.

KEEP YOUR ELECTRIC EYE ON ME

KEEP YOUR ELECTRIC EYE ON ME is a mind-numbing conceptual multimedia work running at HERE May 7-10 (photo by Paula Court)

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
May 7-10, $20, 8:30
212-647-0202
www.here.org

Originally presented at CultureMart 2013 as part of HARP (the Here Artist Residency Program), Keep Your Electric Eye on Me is a mind-numbingly dull multimedia foray into the making of a tuna melt (or something like that). Conceived, created, and directed by Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty, the seventy-minute, two-character show features Madeline Best as a woman who can’t keep her top on and Carlton Ward as a bald voyeur who assists her, collecting the meth-like green candies her body creates after drinking something like absinthe and cleaning up her white throw-up (or something like that). Brad Kisicki’s interesting set includes three large screens in the back, numerous monitors, and a table covered with Amy Mascena’s unusual props, a grouping of glass elements that evoke a lab. To the right of the audience, Irons and Petty mix live and prerecorded sounds and images, ranging from the beautiful (shots of the sea) to the confounding (just about everything else). The music is by the Chocolate Factory’s Brian Rogers, featuring such songs as “Moon (Sitting in the Room Every Day Like a Mustard)” and “I’m Sorry My Face.” According to an Artists’ Note in the program, Keep Your Electric Eye on Me is meant to “conjure notions of transformation, liminality, hysteria, and the desire for the unattainable.” Maybe the cast and crew can explain how in a talkback following the May 7 show, although we won’t be there to find out.

HARLEM JAZZ SHRINES FESTIVAL 2014

The Vijay Iyer Trio will perform a free show as part of Harlem

The Vijay Iyer Trio will perform free show at Harlem Stage Gatehouse as part of Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival

Multiple locations in Harlem
Through May 10, free – $45
www.harlemjazzshrines.org

This year’s annual Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival continues through May 10 with great events at historic locations, celebrating the theme “The Prestige of the Past with the Pulse of the Present.” As Columbia professor Robert G. O’Meally writes in “Harlem Shrines”: “One of the mysteries in the music made famous in these Harlem Jazz Shrines is that it has never been enough for musicians who would capture the spirit of Harlem music merely to re-create — however lovingly – the styles of yesteryear’s great ones. For what makes the term ‘shrine’ so appropriate here is that this music at its best is fluently improvised — and thus truer to its particular moment than to any other time; it is music created devotedly ‘in the moment,’ as the musicians say. Further, artists in this tradition are ever in search of their own ways of playing, their own voices in music.” Among those musicians sharing their voices while honoring tradition are Aruán Ortiz and Manuel Valera in a Latin double bill at Harlem Stage Gatehouse (May 7, $10, 7:30), Kimberly Thompson at Showman’s Jazz Club (May 7, two-drink minimum, 8:30, 10:00, 11:30), T. K. Blue at Ginny’s Supper Club as part of the Jazzmobile’s New Legends on the Bandstand series ($10, food & drink minimum, 10:00 & 11:30), the Christian aTunde Adjuah Double Quartet at Harlem Stage Gatehouse performing “Stretch Music in Tribute to Clark Monroe’s Uptown House” (May 8, $10, 7:30, followed by a Q&A), Jazmyn at Showman’s (May 8, two-drink minimum, 8:30, 10:00, 11:30), the Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band at the Apollo Theater as part of Apollo School Day Live (May 9, $7, 11:30 am), the Vijay Iyer Trio featuring Stephen Crump and Marcus Gilmore at the Marian Anderson Theater at Aaron Davis Hall (May 9, free with advance RSVP, 7:30, followed by a reception), Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra at the Apollo (May 10, $10-$45, 8:00), and the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra at MIST Harlem for the finale, “Jazzmobile Celebrates Frankie Manning’s 100th: Lindy Hopping at the Savoy” (May 10, $10-$20, 10:00).

CINCY IN NYC: CINCINNATI BALLET

HUMMINGBIRD is one of three pieces to be presented by Cincinnati Ballet in the company’s Joyce debut (photo by Peter Mueller)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
May 6-11, $10-$59
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.cballet.org

Usually when you talk about Cincinnati being in New York, it means that the Reds are taking on the Mets at CitiField or the Bengals are in town taking on the Jets or the Giants at the Meadowlands. But this week it refers to Cincy in NYC, seven days of art, music, dance, theater, and food celebrating the Queen of the West. The centerpiece is the Cincinnati Ballet, returning to New York City for the first time in thirty-five years as part of its fiftieth anniversary season. The company, which features six Cuban dancers, will be presenting three recent works at its Joyce debut from May 6 to 11. Resident choreographer Adam Hougland’s 2013 Hummingbird in a Box is a piece for eight dancers, set to seven specially commissioned songs by guitar god Peter Frampton and Gordon Kennedy; Frampton, who performed the music live at the Cincinnati premiere, will be on hand to introduce the work on opening night at the Joyce. Trey McIntyre’s 2004 Chasing Squirrel is a wildly energetic and fanciful piece for ten dancers in dazzling costumes by Sandra Woodall, with raucous Latino-infused music recorded by the Kronos Quartet. And Val Caniparoli’s 2013 Caprice is an elegant piece that brings together live musicians and ten dancers to Paganini’s “Violin Caprices.” Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan will participate in a Joyce Dance Chat following the May 7 show.

Cincy in NYC also includes University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music jazz alums performing at Lincoln Center, “Music and Words with Ricky Ian Gordon” at the National Opera House, a Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park staged reading of Cincinnati native Theresa Rebeck’s new play, Fool, at Pearl Studios, the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, seven Cincy chefs preparing a special meal at the James Beard House, the CCM Ariel Quartet playing Haydn, Berg, and Beethoven at the 92nd St. Y’s downtown SubCulture, and, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the reunion of Rembrandt’s separate portraits of a husband and wife, the Taft Museum’s “Portrait of a Man Rising from His Chair” and the Met’s “Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan.”

TWI-NY TALK: JAY O. SANDERS

Jay O. Sanders will present UNEXPLORED INTERIOR at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 11 as part of twentieth anniversary commemoration of Rwandan genocide

UNEXPLORED INTERIOR
Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Sunday, May 11, 12 noon, free with advance RSVP
www.mjhnyc.org
www.theflea.org

In 2004, struck by the world’s continued indifference to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, actor Jay O. Sanders attended the ten-year commemoration of the start of the mass killings in Kigali, the African nation’s capital. Moved by what he saw, Sanders, the Austin-born son of activist parents, decided to do something about it. A Shakespeare in the Park regular who has appeared in such films as JFK, The Day After Tomorrow, and Revolutionary Road and has played recurring characters on such series as True Detective, Person of Interest, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Sanders began writing Unexplored Interior, a fictionalized play that takes place immediately following the 1994 genocide, as a Hutu man and Tutsi woman fall in love, a Rwandan student in New York City sets out to make a film about what happened, and a UN peacekeeper contemplates his own life in the wake of the tragic events. The play will have its latest staged reading on May 11 at 12 noon at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (admission is free with advance RSVP) as part of the official Kwibuka20 events commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, calling for people to “remember — unite — renew.” An all-star cast will be directed by James Glossman (Trouble Is My Business; Smiling, the Boy Fell Dead), and the production in New York will be broadcast live at the new outdoor amphitheater at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center courtesy of Google+ Hangout on Air, followed by an international panel discussion and Q&A session.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of Unexplored Interior and your interest in Rwanda?

Jay O. Sanders: Let me give you the short answer. In April of 1994, my wife and I, both working actors, were cloistered in our West Village apartment with our five-week-old, first-and-only child, reflecting on what it meant to be the guardians of a life, when President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down in Kigali and the start of genocide hit. We watched the news as reports of this horrific event unfolded and repeatedly told us it was beyond our understanding. Stories began to flow of brutal, neighbor-on-neighbor mass killings and a Canadian U.N. peacekeeping commander who was calling for help but no one was being sent, and all without pictures, as no press was inside the country. Until they began to show video of hundreds and hundreds of bloated bodies floating down the rivers along the borders, caught on the rocks, going over falls. It was a mind-numbing, grotesque, and totally infuriating circus of ignorance and failure of the world to respond.

I got it in my head that if I could just see out through the peacekeeper’s eyes, as a fellow Westerner, I might at least be able to understand. I thought, I need to play him (as actors do). I watched every report I could find, yielding reports of that same man refusing to order a full withdrawal and managing to save the lives of some tens of thousands of refugees while bearing witness to the 800,000 whom he couldn’t, and finally, on returning home, attempting suicide numerous times, unable to process what he’d been through. After ten years of germination and finding myself still as ignorant as before, I was overcome with the need to find an answer I could give my son. To arm him with an understanding of this genocide of his lifetime. I felt I owed him an answer.

twi-ny: You’re a well-respected actor, familiar for your work in numerous films and plays and on television. How did your acting experience inform your writing of the play?

JOS: I started out to write a one-man show for myself as [Roméo] Dallaire, the peacekeeper. It seemed like an obvious, straightforward way to enter the story and bring it to others. So I found him in Rwanda at the ten-year commemoration, flew myself over to see for myself where all this had happened and be among those who had experienced it. I had discovered that, fortunately, he was still alive and now the author of a book about his experiences, Shake Hands with the Devil.

Again, the short version: I met him there, then spent time with him later in Quebec, and proceeded to write that play. But I soon discovered, the more I knew about what had happened, that Dallaire was actually my White Rabbit who led me into the situation, and the larger story was among the people themselves. So, I continued to study and write and emerged with a twenty-six-character play for fourteen actors which weaves many stories together, including Dallaire’s, with crossing themes on a much larger canvas.

twi-ny: How did you hook up with Google+, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center?

JOS: My wife, Maryann Plunkett, and I had done a reading down at the museum several years ago and I had noted the beauty of both this center of record for not only the Holocaust but all related genocide, as well as the beauty of the theater [Edmond J. Safra Hall] itself. When I began to think about where my play began, this was perfect. When I flew over for the ten-year commemoration in 2004, I was recognized by members of the CNN team, who invited me to join them for the week, which I did, gladly, finding myself front and center at all the major official events, including the official opening of the Aegis trust Kigali Genocide Memorial. I was there as President Kagame, General Dallaire, and many, many others witnessed the lighting of the eternal flame, above a mass grave holding 250,000 victims of the genocide.

So, when I was thinking about where I wanted to connect with our event, that, again, was obvious. Then, one of my producers, my dear friend Daniel Neiden, introduced me to Paula Gil Rodriguez, who had, herself, produced several large Google+ Hangouts on Air and knew a number of people at Google. She loved the idea of the project and she and her husband, Nick Lopez, came on board. My friend James Glossman has been my director from the moment the idea hit me to write this. It all just grew and grew.

twi-ny: Who are some of the people who will be participating in the reading?

JOS: We have a brilliant family of actors — some well known to you, others who you should know. Michael McKean, presently in All the Way on Broadway, plays Dallaire; Sharon Washington, award nominated for Wild with Happy at the Public and on Broadway with The Scottsboro Boys; Arthur French, who has been in everything and most recently of The Trip to Bountiful on Broadway; Fritz Weaver, one of the most distinguished stage and film actors of his generation; Charles Parnell, whose TV series The Last Ship premieres soon; Owiso Odera, Marlyne Barrett, Clark Jackson, Craig Alan Edwards, Irungu Mutu, Matthew Murumba, Benjamin Thys, and our youngest at thirteen, Nile Bullock, lately also of The Scottsboro Boys — all fantastic, deeply dedicated to this project, and each one a reason to see the play.

twi-ny: Is a full production of the play in the works?

JOS: We are still looking for a production. I’m hoping this presentation grabs the imagination of some brave producer or producers!

twi-ny: As opposed to last year’s presentation, this one will use social media in a fascinating way. What’s your personal experience with social media? Are you a Facebook/Twitter/Google+ junkie?

JOS: My personal experience is everyday. I use Facebook regularly as an international bulletin board and have just recently ventured over to Google+ as well, because of this project. I have a Twitter account but am not very fluent with it yet. These online forums have afforded me connections beyond anything I might have come upon otherwise — people out of my past, which included a lot of traveling, so that reaches a very long way, and those I’m just now meeting with common friends and/or common interests. Also, I regularly give master classes out at my alma mater, SUNY Purchase, and social media is a place we can all stay in touch for mutual news, project updates, and personal encouragement. It has been a godsend.

twi-ny: At any given moment, there is some kind of brutal civil war or genocide going on somewhere in the world, and more often than not, the U.S. government opts not to get involved. What can we as individual, peace-loving Americans do to try to change things?

JOS: Learn. Understand as much as you can. It’s always evolving — it requires regular effort — but there are ways to make a difference through awareness, voting, challenging the machine, humanizing world issues, applying compassion in your own life. Kindness begins with each one of us, at home, at work, in our communities, with the homeless, in our voices lifted against apathy — it ripples out and grows from those seeds into and across the world.

SPEAK THE MUSIC: ROBERT MANN AND THE MYSTERIES OF CHAMBER MUSIC

SPEAK THE MUSIC: ROBERT MANN AND THE MYSTERIES OF CHAMBER MUSIC (Allan Miller, 2013)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, May 2
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.firstrunfeatures.com

The only real problem with Speak the Music: Robert Mann and the Mysteries of Chamber Music, an engaging look at the violinist extraordinaire, is its brevity, clocking in at just under an hour. Oscar-winning documentarian Allan Miller, who has made films about Isaac Stern, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, John Cage, Eubie Blake, and other musicians, gets up close and personal with Robert Mann, a cofounder of the Juilliard String Quartet and an enthusiastic teacher at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, who was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1920, is shown discussing his love of fishing and how he wanted to be a forest ranger; playing at the White House and the Library of Congress; performing with his wife and son; and talking about how watching waves crash against an Oregon cliff helped him understand “the slow growth of musical intensity.” Among those singing his praises and hailing his influence are Perlman, conductor Seiji Ozawa, composer Elliott Carter, pianist Stephen Hough, and cellist Joel Krosnick. But the film really shines when Mann is seen teaching the Amphion Quartet, the Ars Nova Quartet, and others, flailing his arms about, trying to get the musicians to go deep inside themselves and the music and not to play like they’re pounding on a typewriter. Of course, the film is also filled with lots of beautiful chamber music by Beethoven, Haydn, Bartók, etc., from rare archival footage to more contemporary performances, concluding with Mann in a lovely rehearsal of the third movement of Mozart’s Quintet in G Minor, making sure every note and pause is just right, not merely mechanical but intensely emotional and heartfelt, lovingly putting bow to strings. Speak the Music opens at the Quad on May 2, with Miller participating in Q&As following the 6:30 screenings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.