Rachid Ouramdane will explore political ideology and torture in two presentations at FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival (photo © Patrick Imbert)
New York Live Arts
Bessie Schönberg Theater
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
ORDINARY WITNESSES: Tuesday, October 11, $24-$30, 6:30, and Wednesday, October 12, $15, 7:30
WORLD FAIR: Thursday, October 14, and Friday, October 15, $24-$30, 7:30
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.rachidouramdane.com
Paris-based dancer-choreographer Rachid Ouramdane, who founded the L’A company in 2007, will be presenting a pair of fascinating programs at New York Live Arts as part of the “Endurance/Resistance/Inspiration” section of the French Institute Alliance Française’s fifth annual Crossing the Line Festival. On October 11 & 12, Ordinary Witnesses examines torture, memory, and identity in a violent world. Ouramdane, who interviewed victims of torture in putting together the evening-length piece, writes that Ordinary Witnesses takes place “at the edges of civilization and the gateways to barbarity. The instant where people exit humanity to be cast into the jaws of torture.” He continues, “Doing a portrait of people who lived through torture is an attempt to depict the unpresentable. . . . It is about trying to grasp the imagination of those who experienced such atrocities, so that this experience does not remain hushed up. It is also about awareness of history’s repeated violence now that torture seems to be tolerated and even legitimate at the very core of our democracies.” Ouramdane will give a preshow talk on October 11 and participate in a conversation with the PEN American Center’s Larry Siems following the October 12 show. On October 14 & 15, Ouramdane will stage World Fair, an exploration of the human body as it relates to social and political ideology, performed by Ouramdane and multi-instrumentalist Jean-Baptiste Julien, with an artist talk following the October 14 show.
Rachid Ouramdane’s ORDINARY WITNESSES offers an extraordinary look at torture
Update: The son of an Algerian father who was tortured, Rachid Ouramdane has been making the sociopolitical physical in such works as Cover, Discreet Death, and Far . . . , examining memory and identity through multimedia presentations involving progressive movement. On October 11 he and his Paris-based L’A company performed the mesmerizing Ordinary Witnesses at New York Live Arts, part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line interdisciplinary international arts festival. The show begins with a man’s voice detailing his emotions — or lack thereof — as he describes his reaction to having been the victim of torture. He speaks in French, his words translated on the back wall. After several minutes, Lora Juodkaite, Mille Lundt, Jean-Claude Nelson, Georgina Vila-Bruch, and Jean-Baptiste André emerge onto Sylvain Giraudeau’s dark, bare stage, their faces blank as they walk slowly around a rectangular video frame lying flat on the floor and, in one corner, a grid of sixty spotlights that go on and off at various intervals and at different levels of brightness (at times evoking interrogation lights). The dancers occasionally stop, fall to the floor, adopt yogalike poses, and then move on as Jean-Baptiste Julien’s subtle electronic score, including the low buzz of feedback from an onstage electric guitar, hovers ominously above them. At one point a female dancer breaks into a nearly endless twirl, spinning around and around in a dizzying display of agility and sheer breathlessness; watching her, one wonders just how long she can continue, the audience wanting to call out and stop the torture but too amazed to do so. Although it does get repetitive and goes on slightly too long — perhaps echoing the repetitiveness of torture itself — Ordinary Witnesses is an emotionally powerful work that makes its purposes very clear, right from the start. There are still tickets left for the second and final performance on October 12, which will be followed by a discussion between Ouramdane and Larry Siems. Ouramdane will also be presenting his solo work, World Fair, at New York Live Arts October 14-15.
In his hysterical 2001 black comedy The Royal Tenenbaums, eclectic indie auteur Wes Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox) created one of the kings of dysfunctional film families. Directly inspired by J. D. Salinger’s Glass clan (Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beam), the Tenenbaums of New York City have more than their fair share of distress. After being kicked out of the house for being a lousy father and husband, Royal (Gene Hackman) returns, claiming he is dying of stomach cancer. His wife, noted archaeologist Etheline (Anjelica Huston), is now seeing her accountant, the straitlaced Henry Sherman (Danny Glover). Finance wiz Chas (Ben Stiller) is having difficulty getting over his wife’s death in a plane crash, becoming absurdly overprotective of his two young sons’ (Grant Rosenmeyer and Jonah Meyerson) safety. Tennis prodigy Richie (Luke Wilson) is recovering from a very public breakdown and soon has to admit to himself that he is madly in love with his adopted playwright sister, Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is married to strange neurologist Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) and having an affair with longtime family friend and Western novelist Eli Cash (cowriter Owen Wilson). Narrated by Alec Baldwin, The Royal Tenenbaums completed an impressive opening hat trick from Anderson, who had previously made Bottle Rocket (1996) and Rushmore (1998). The marvelously funny flick — which had its premiere at the 2001 New York Film Festival — is having a special tenth-anniversary screening October 13 at the forty-ninth annual New York Film Festival, followed by a discussion with the cast and crew, including Anderson and many of the stars. Additional tickets have just been released, but you better act fast if you want to see this unique event.
When they were junior high school students in South Central Los Angeles in 1979, Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher formed the core of Fishbone, what would soon become one of the most exciting live bands on the planet. Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson document the band’s rise and fall — and rise and fall, and rise and fall, etc. — in the stirring Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone. Using archival footage, old and new interviews, and playful animation, Metzler and Anderson follow the group — Moore and Fisher along with fellow founding members Chris Dowd, Walter “Dirty Walt” Kibby II, and Kendall Jones — through its many personal and financial struggles as it tries to deal with such socioeconomic issues as racism, violence, and the anti-liberal bias taking hold of the nation in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s. Fishbone held nothing back on such albums as In Your Face (1986), Truth and Soul (1988), The Reality of My Surroundings (1991), Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe (1993), and Chim Chim’s Badass Revenge (1996), mixing in pop, punk, funk, ska, reggae, R&B, soul, jazz, and hardcore, prancing about the stage without shirts, diving into the crowd, and always speaking their mind, and they hold nothing back in Everyday Sunshine as well. Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, the film really picks up speed when it delves into the Rodney King beating and the mysterious circumstances involving Jones’s religious transformation and the band’s attempt at an intervention. The decidedly unusual tale also features an impressive lineup of talking heads offering their views on the history of Fishbone, including Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction, fIREHOSE’s Mike Watt, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal, the Roots’ ?uestlove, Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz, Parliament-Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Primus’s Les Clayool, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Circle Jerk Keith Morris, Ice-T, and, perhaps most informatively, Columbia Records executive David Kahne, who lends fascinating insight into what made Fishbone great — and what kept them from greater success. While you definitely don’t have to know a thing about Fishbone to enjoy this very intimate documentary, longtime fans should eat it up. Everyday Sunshine has its New York theatrical premiere October 7-13 at the reRun Gastropub Theater in Brooklyn in conjunction with the release of Fishbone’s latest release, the seven-track EP Crazy Glue (DC-Jam, October 11, 2011). Metzler, Anderson, Moore, and Fisher will appear in person at many of this weekend’s screenings, at least one of which will also include a live performance.
