Tag Archives: la mama

UNDER THE RADAR 2014

The Public Theater and other venues
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
January 8-19, $20-$28 (UTR Packs $75 for five shows)
212-967-7555
www.undertheradarfestival.com

The tenth edition of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival is another diverse collection of unique and unusual international theatrical productions, roundtable discussions, and free live music, from the strange to the familiar, the offbeat to the downright impossible to describe. Among the sixteen shows, most of which take place at the Public, are 600 Highwaymen’s The Record, a dance-theater work that brings together a roomful of strangers to comment on the relationship between performer and audience; John Hodgman’s one-man piece, I Stole Your Dad, in which the Daily Show “resident expert” shares intimate, personal stories about his family and technology while baring himself onstage; psychiatrist Kuro Tanino and his Niwa Gekidan Penino company’s The Room Nobody Knows (at Japan Society), about two brothers getting ready for the older one’s birthday party; Andrew Ondrejcak’s Feast, in which a king and his court (starring Reg E. Cathey) have a farewell dinner as Babylon collapses; and the American premiere of hip-hopper Kate Tempest and Battersea Arts Centre’s Brand New Ancients (at St. Ann’s Warehouse), a multidisciplinary show about everyday life in a changing world. Also on the roster is Sacred Stories, Toshi Reagon’s thirtieth annual birthday celebration with special guests; Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man improvisation, Rodney King; a reimagining of Sekou Sundiata’s blessing the boats with Mike Ladd, Will Power, and Carl Hancock Rux; Cie. Philippe Saire’s Black Out (at La MaMa), Edgar Oliver’s Helen and Edgar, Lola Arias’s El Año en que nací / The year I was born (at La MaMa), SKaGeN’s BigMouth, tg STAN’s JDX — a public enemy, Sean Edward Lewis’s work-in-progress Frankenstein (at the Freeman Space), excerpts from ANIMALS’ The Baroness Is the Future, and Daniel Fish’s Eternal, the last three also part of the Incoming! Festival within a Festival.

Kate Tempest will rap about the state of the world in BRAND NEW ANCIENTS (photo by Christine Hardinge)

In addition, there will be numerous postshow talkbacks, a pair of workshops with Sara De Roo and Jolente De Keersmaker of tg STAN on January 10-11, four noon Culturebot conversations January 11-12 and 18-19, and Coil, Under the Radar, Prototype, and American Realness have joined forces to present free live concerts every night from January 9 to 19 in the Lounge at the Public, including Invincible, Christeene, Ethan Lipton, Heather Christian & the Arbonauts, Sky-Pony, Timur and the Dime Museum, the Middle Church Jerriesse Johnson Gospel Choir, M.A.K.U. Sound System, DJ Acidophilus, and Nick Hallett, Space Palace, and Woahmone DJs.

QUEER NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

Sineglossa’s REMEMBER ME is part of second Queer New York International Arts Festival

Abrons Arts Center and other venues
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
October 23 – November 3, free – $18 (many shows $10 suggested donation)
212-598-0400
www.queerny.org
www.abronsartscenter.org

In a 2012 Huffington Post blog about the first Queer New York International Arts Festival, artistic codirector André von Ah wrote, “Queerness, in perhaps its barest and most basic concept, is about breaking the rules, shaking things up, and challenging preconceived ideas.” The second QNYIA continues to shake things up with twelve days and nights of performances, panel discussions, film screenings, workshops, and other events at such venues as Abrons Arts Center, the Invisible Dog, La MaMa, Joe’s Pub, and New York Live Arts, but sadly, it will be proceeding without von Ah, who curated this year’s programming with artistic director Zvonimir Dobrović but sadly passed away suddenly last month, still only in his mid-twenties. This year’s festival, which is dedicated to von Ah, opens October 23 with the U.S. premiere of Ivo Dimchev’s P-Project at Abrons Arts Center, the Bulgarian artist’s interactive piece that uses words that begin with the letter P to investigate societal taboos. Italy’s Sineglossa uses mirrored screens in Remember Me, based on Henry Purcell’s opera about Dido and Aeneas. Audience favorite Raimund Hoghe pays special tribute to von Ah with An Evening with Judy, in which he channels Judy Garland, Maria Callas, and others. Poland’s SUKA OFF investigates skin shedding in its multimedia Red Dragon. Brazil’s Ângelo Madureira plays “the dreamer” in his contemporary dance piece Delírio. Croatia’s Room 100 presents the U.S. premiere of its dark, experimental C8H11NO2. Dan Fishback offers a concert reading of The Material World at Joe’s Pub, the sequel to You Will Experience Silence; Fishback will also participate in the October 26 panel discussion “Creating Queer / Curating Queer” at the New School with Carla Peterson, Tere O’Connor, TL Cowan, Susana Cook, and Dobrović. The Club at La MaMa will host the New Music Series, featuring M Lamar, Shane Shane, Enid Ellen, Nath Ann Carrera, and Max Steele. The festival also includes works by Bojana Radulović, Elisa Jocson, Guillermo Riveros, Daniel Duford, Bruno Isaković, Gabriela Mureb, Heather Litteer, CHOKRA, Antonia Baehr, and Antoni Karwowski, with most shows requiring advance RSVPs and requesting a $10 suggested donation.

FIAF FALL FSTVL: CROSSING THE LINE

Eliane Radigue and Xavier Veilhan’s SYSTEMA OCCAM kicks off FIAF’s seventh annual Crossing the Line festival

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Le Skyroom and FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 19 – October 13, free – $30
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Curators Lili Chopra, Simon Dove, and Gideon Lester have once again put together an impressive, wide-ranging program for the Crossing the Line festival, now in its seventh year. Sponsored by the French Institute Alliance Française and taking place there as well as at other venues around the city, CTL features cutting-edge art, dance, music, theater, discussion, and more from an international collection of multidisciplinary performers, with many events free and nothing costing more than $30. The twenty-five-day festival begins September 19 with electronic music composer Eliane Radigue and artist Xavier Veilhan collaborating on Systema Occam (Florence Gould Hall, $30), a multimedia performance installation that is part of CTL’s “New Settings” series, a joint venture with Hermès; the fashion company will be hosting Martine Fougeron’s “Teen Tribe” photo exhibition at the Gallery at Hermès from September 20 to November 8. In Capitalism Works for Me! True/False (September 20, October 6-9, free), Steve Lambert will keep score in Times Square as people vote on whether capitalism indeed works for them. The award-winning Nature Theater of Oklahoma presents episodes 4.5 and 5 at FIAF of their massive undertaking, Life and Times (September 20-21, $30), accompanied by the FIAF Gallery show “10fps,” consisting of 1,343 hand-colored drawings (September 21 – November 2, free). For “The Library,” Fanny de Chaillé invites people to FIAF’s Haskell Library on September 24 and 26 and the NYPL’s Jefferson Market Branch on September 27 (free), where they can choose books that are actually men and women who will share their stories verbally one on one.

Boyzie Cekwana and Panaibra Canda look at postcolonial Africa in THE INKOMATI (DIS)CORD

In The Inkomati (dis)cord (September 25-26, New York Live Arts, $20), Boyzie Cekwana and Panaibra Canda use contemporary dance to examine postcolonial Africa. De Chaillé teams up with Philippe Ramette for Passage à l’acte / Acting Out (September 26-28, Invisible Dog, $30), using absurdist human sculpture to “rationalize the irrational.” Dancer and choreographer Nora Chipaumire will perform the CTL-commissioned solo piece rite riot (October 3-5, Le Skyroom, $30), exploring African stereotypes, collaborating with writer Teju Cole and visual artist Wangechi Mutu. Pascal Rembert’s large-scale A (micro) history of world economics, danced (October 11-13, La MaMa, $20) features New Yorkers discussing how the financial crisis impacted their lives. The festival also includes works by Annie Dorsen, Ernesto Pujol and Carol Becker, Bouchra Ouizguen, Tim Etchells, and Kyle deCamp and Joshua Thorson, in addition to a series of talks and conversations.

DEVOURING DEVOURING

Netta Yerushalmy explores communication through movement and sound in debut evening-length piece (photo by Ayala Gazit)

NETTA YERUSHALMY: DEVOURING DEVOURING
La MaMa
Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St., second floor, between Bowery & Second Ave.
Through December 16, 7:30, $20
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org
www.nettay.com

Netta Yerushalmy’s Devouring Devouring was developed over the course of two years, as the choreographer and four dancers interacted primarily via video conferencing between New York and Tel Aviv before coming together for the physical performance. That communication is at the heart of the involving sixty-minute work, Yerushalmy’s first evening-length piece. For the first half of the performance, Joanna Kotze, Toni Melaas, Ofir Yudilevitch, and Stuart Singer acknowledge one another but don’t ever touch. They run, jump, and angle across the black stage, emerging and departing from behind a tall, narrow orange curtain in one corner. Twelve icicle bulbs dangle over the back, while six chandelier-type fixtures hang horizontally over the center. Wearing loose-fitting light gray tops and tight dark gray pants — except for when Singer appears twice in a lovely white Baroque gown designed by costumer Magdalena Jarkowiec — the dancers gesture with their hands, make direct eye contact with the audience, and perform repetitive movements. But slowly they begin engaging in physical contact, first just brushing by one another, then lightly touching hands, before breaking off into trios that have fun with conventions, including a memorable moment in which one dancer’s foot shoots out unexpectedly from between two other dancers’ bodies. Mark degli Antoni’s soundtrack also goes through significant changes, starting off with electronic noise, followed by a classic Woody Allen joke and a Baroque melody, along with patches of complete silence, the experiments in sound melding with the experiments in movement. Although all four dancers give strong performances, Kotze is extraordinary, whether standing on her tiptoes at the front of the stage for an extended period of time, gazing seriously at people in the crowd, or dramatically lifting one leg high up in the air while lying on the floor. Yerushalmy’s (Rooms Without a View; Hello, My Name Is Catherine) piece explores communication not only among the dancers but with the audience as well; if there is a narrative, it might actually be the audience’s need to discover one, which it will have trouble doing in this case. And despite many funny segments (in addition to Allen’s joke), the dancers never crack even the hint of a smile — at least, not until the performance is over and they get to enjoy a well-deserved round of applause.

NETTA YERUSHALMY: DEVOURING DEVOURING

Choreographer Netta Yerushalmy makes her evening-length debut with DEVOURING DEVOURING at La MaMa (photo by Yosi Yerushalmy)

La MaMa
Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St., second floor, between Bowery & Second Ave.
December 13-16, 7:30, $20
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org
www.nettay.com

Born in South Carolina, dancer and choreographer Netta Yerushalmy has spent most of her life in Tel Aviv and New York City, where she now resides. Her works often feature performers from Israel and New York, incorporating movement from both locations that bring them together and reveal their differences. Yerushalmy, who is currently an artist-in-residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, will be presenting her first evening-length piece, Devouring Devouring, December 13-16 at La MaMa. Two years in the making, Devouring Devouring explores how viewers interpret and categorize the movement they see onstage. Much of the piece was created by the dancers communicating over the internet between Israel and New York, engaging in video conversations as the project took shape. The piece, which also includes Baroque iconography, will be performed by Joanna Kotze, Toni Melaas, Ofir Yudilevitch, and Stuart Singer — a group described by Yerushalmy as “extraordinary, wild, articulate, virtuosic, sensitive, subtle, and intelligent.” The international flavor continues with music and sound design by the bicoastal Mark degli Antoni, who was a cofounder of Soul Coughing and has scored films by William Wegman, Werner Herzog, and Wallace Shawn; set and lighting by the Brooklyn-based Lenore Doxsee, associate artistic director of Target Margin Theater; and costumes and special creations by Austin-based fabric artist Magdalena Jarkowiec, who made fluorescent hand-sewn penis dolls for anyone who donated thirty-five dollars or more to Yerushalmy’s Kickstarter campaign, which was needed to put the finishing touches on Devouring Devouring.

A.O. MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE: barrish

AOMC’s “barrish” comes together at HERE (photo by Sarah A. O. Rosner)

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
July 12-14, $18
212-647-0202
www.here.org
www.theaomc.org

Over the last two years, Brooklyn-based A.O. Movement Collective has been preparing its evening-length piece, barrish, in a very public way, raising funds on Kickstarter, staging segments in such locations as La MaMa, Exit Art, Dance New Amsterdam, and various homes and apartments, and working with numerous curators as part of its MENU project. The world premiere is now set for July 12-14 at Here, where all twenty-seven sections will be performed for the very first time. Featuring Lillie DeArmon, Leah Ives, Anna Adams Stark, and Emily Skillings along with twenty guest performers, barrish examines desire, power, and threat in unique ways, one of its signature moves involving two dancers’ shirts suddenly becoming stuck together as issues of gender and intimacy and public and private space take center stage. The work, which is influenced by Law and Order SVU and the writings of Virginie Despentes, Andrea Dworkin, Catherine A. MacKinnon, and Virginia Woolf and consists of such sections as “SVU,” “Gyroscopic Pillow Score,” “Get the Fuck Out,” and “Skinless,” is choreographed by Sarah A. O. Rosner and the dancers, with a score by Jonah Rosenberg and lighting by Edward Rice.

THE KREUTZER SONATA

Hilton McRae gives a virtuoso performance in the Gate Theatre adaptation of the Tolstoy novella THE KREUTZER SONATA

La MaMa First Floor Theatre
74A East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
Through March 25, $18
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org

Leo Tolstoy’s 1889 novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, which examines love, jealousy, morality, and manners, was initially banned in both Russia and the United States. But over the years, it has since been made into several films and has inspired paintings, ballets, and musical compositions. In 2009, Nancy Harris adapted it for London’s Gate Theatre, and the intimate production has now crossed the pond, where it continues at La MaMa through March 25. As the audience is still being seated, Pozdynyshev (Hilton McRae) takes the stage, a well-dressed, erudite man carefully preparing a pot of tea on a moving train. For the next eighty minutes, he relates the fateful story of his marriage to a woman (Sophie Scott) he describes as “that one special lady who would stand above all others in virtue, ideals, character, and beauty.” Both feminist and misogynist, Pozdynyshev tells his tale of jealousy and murder almost matter-of-factly, making such grandiose declarations as “Women will never be equal until they’re free of men’s desire, and women will never be free as long as that desire is something they court. Women are slaves who think their shackles are bracelets. And marriage is . . . whoredom with a license.” Pozdynyshev, who freely admits to not being a music lover, describes how when Trukhachevski (Tobias Beer), a childhood acquaintance, suddenly showed up at his door one day, he virtually forced the violinist to spend time with his wife, who had recently taken up the piano again. Very soon Pozdynyshev’s jealousy overwhelms him, leading to tragedy of the most sordid order. Directed by Natalie Abrahami, The Kreutzer Sonata is essentially a one-man show, a virtuoso performance by McRae, who addresses the audience directly, not asking for forgiveness as much as just explaining himself. As he talks about his wife — he regularly begins sentences by calling out, “My wife,” infused with emotion and memory, before going on — and Trukhachevski, they appear either projected on a screen or live behind a scrim, flashbacks come to life. Chloe Lamford’s set, an open train car, practically places the audience on board, as if they are sitting next to Pozdynyshev, traveling companions who will be enraptured for this eighty-minute journey into one man’s soul.