Tag Archives: park avenue armory

OPENHOUSENEWYORK WEEKEND

Green-Wood Cemetery is among the many historic locations opening its doors and gates to visitors for free during openhousenewyork Weekend (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
Saturday, October 6, and Sunday, October 7
Admission: free (advance reservations required for some sites)
OHNY Passport: $150
212-991-OHNY
www.ohny.org

The fabulous openhousenewyork Weekend celebrates its tenth anniversary by once again offering people the opportunity to experience the nooks and crannies of many of New York City’s most fascinating architectural constructions. Among this year’s special programs, some of which require advance reservations even though admission is free, are Designers’ Open House, with such interior designers as Thomas Jayne, Ali Tayar, Paul Ochs, Aizaki Allie, Christopher Coleman, and Lea Ciavarra inviting guests into their private homes; the Peace Bike Ride led by Nadette Stasa of Time’s Up!; a treasure hunt for kid explorers at the Park Avenue Armory; “Dance on the Greenway,” with Dance Theatre Etcetera performing site-specific pieces by four emerging choreographers in Erie Basin Park behind the Red Hook IKEA; “Paseo,” consisting of short works by choreographer Joanna Haigood and composer Bobby Sanabria that take place on fire escapes and stoops at Casita Maria in the Bronx; “Spirits Alive,” with actors in period costumes portraying famous people buried in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens; “Wilderness Plan,” in which costumed dancing creatures lead people through the Elevated Acre in the Financial District; and “Frost Court,” a performance installation featuring dancers Jon Kinzel, Silas Riener, Stuart Shugg, Saul Ulerio, Enrico Wey, and Aaron Mattocks. Although some of the special tours are already booked, plenty of others have vacancies or are first come, first served (unless you buy a $150 front-of-line Passport), so you can still check out the Fading Ads of New York City with Frank Jump, the Manhole Covers of Fourteenth St. with Michele Brody, the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Spaces, the Harlem Edge: 135th St. Marine Transfer Station, the Bronx River Right-of-Way, the Kings County Distillery Tour, Historic Richmond Town, the Noguchi Museum, the New York City Photo Safari for shutterbugs, the Lakeside at Prospect Park Construction Tour, the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, the Tenriko Mission New York Center, the Alice Austen House Museum, Fort Totten, the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, the Grand Lodge of Masons, the New York Marble Cemetery and the New York City Marble Cemetery, the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, Scandinavia House, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, Merchant’s House Museum, the Jefferson Market Library, the Little Red Lighthouse, the High Line, the African Burial Grounds, and so many, many more. The annual opendialogue series features talks and tours at such locations as the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at BLDG 92, Runner & Stone, UrbanGlass, the East Harlem School, the Horticultural Society of New York, the Museum of the Moving Image, New York City Center, and the TWA Flight Center at JFK. Keep watching the official website for late changes, additions, sell-outs, and other updated information.

JANET CARDIFF AND GEORGE BURES MILLER: THE MURDER OF CROWS

“The Murder of Crows” is an intriguing, involving immersive experience at the Park Ave. Armory (photo by James Ewing/Park Avenue Armory)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 9, $12 (open Labor Day Monday)
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
www.cardiffmiller.com

“Close your eyes and try to sleep,” Canadian-born sound artist Janet Cardiff repeatedly sings in a lullaby that is part of “The Murder of Crows,” a beautifully immersive installation continuing at the Park Ave. Armory through September 9. “Dreams will come / And when they’re done / It won’t be long / Until the dawn,” she adds. Closing one’s eyes and waiting for the coming of the proverbial dawn is the best way to experience “The Murder of Crows,” which was originally commissioned for the 2008 Biennale of Sydney. A collaboration between Cardiff — whose wonderful installation “The Forty Part Motet” can be seen at P.S. 1 in Queens through September 4 — and her husband, George Bures Miller, the thirty-minute “sound play” features ninety-eight speakers, fifty-five chairs, twenty-one amplifiers, and a gramophone horn on a lone desk. It was inspired by Goya’s late-eighteenth-century print “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” number forty-three of eighty works that make up “Los Caprichos,” a series that was critical of Spanish society. In the print, Goya buries his head in his arms on a table, surrounded by bats and owls, as if his nightmares are coming to life. In “The Murder of Crows” — the title refers to the collective noun used for a group of crows, intelligent, opportunistic birds that do so many things together, including mourning — Cardiff recounts several disturbing dreams, speaking through the gramophone horn, with sound effects, a traditional Tibetan prayer chant, and orchestral compositions arranged by Tilman Ritter and performed by Deutsches Film Orchester Babelsberg emanating from the speakers, which reside on chairs, hang at different heights from the ceiling, and are set on stands surrounding the chairs. “The Murder of Crows” touches on such issues as racism, globalization, war, and loss in evocative narrative fragments, including a surprising dose of unexpected humor, that create visual landscapes despite being a sound-based project. Visitors can enter the expansive Wade Thompson Drill Hall at any time during the piece and stay as long as they’d like, letting the dreamlike sounds wash over them as they remain in their seats or wander around the speakers, each one emitting something different. “The Murder of Crows” is yet another fascinating production at the armory, which has quickly become one of New York City’s most exciting venues for inventive, often cutting-edge art, dance, film, and music programming.

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY: ASTRAL CONVERTED

Trisha Brown’s ASTRAL CONVERTED will be performed July 10-14 at the Park Ave. Armory (photo © Stephanie Berger 2012)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
July 10-14, $35-$45, 7:30
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
www.trishabrowncompany.org

Last year, the Trisha Brown Dance Company celebrated its fortieth anniversary by presenting new works and updated repertory pieces at such locations as the Whitney, the High Line, and, for the first time ever, Dance Theater Workshop. Following a series of open rehearsals, lectures, panel discussions, and children’s workshops on Governors Island as part of the River to River Festival this summer, the company will premiere its latest work, a reconstruction of 1991’s Astral Converted, at another offbeat location, the Park Ave. Armory’s cavernous Ward Thompson Drill Hall, from July 10 to 14. Originally adapted from 1989’s Astral Convertible, Astral Converted features an extraordinary pair of collaborators: Robert Rauschenberg, who designed the set and lighting with Ken Tabatchnik as well as the costumes, and John Cage, who composed the score, which is impacted by motion detectors triggered by the dancers’ movement. The fifty-five-minute Astral Converted is the finale of Brown’s Valiant series, which began in 1985 with Lateral Pass and continued with 1987’s Newark, Astral Convertible, and 1990’s Foray Forêt. In conjunction with the performances, there will be a number of public programs held at the armory, including free screenings July 11-14 at 6:30 of Burt Barr’s 1990 documentary, Aeros, which goes behind the scenes with Brown; the preshow talk “Trisha Brown & John Cage: Seeing the Score” with Julie Martin and Susan Rosenberg on July 10 ($10, 6:00); the postshow talk “Reconstructing Astral Converted” on July 11 with Kristy Edmunds and members of the company and crew (free for ticket holders); the postshow talk “Deconstructing Astral Converted” on July 13 with Neal Beasley and members of the company (free for ticket holders); an onstage master class with company dancer Samuel Wentz on July 14 at 10:00 am ($15 for preregistration, $20 for walk-ins); and an “Astral Artists” family workshop on July 14 (free for ticket holders but advance registration is required).

Samuel Wentz and Megan Madorin go cosmic in beautifully reconstructed ASTRAL CONVERTED (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Update: As Trisha Brown’s reconstructed Astral Converted begins, it appears to have picked up right after the previous exhibition in the massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Tom Sachs’s charming “Space Program: Mars.” Robert Rauschenberg’s eight wheeled metal towers, which contain car batteries, headlights, and speakers that are triggered by motion, look like leftover lunar equipment from Sachs’s engaging re-creation, and Rauschenberg’s costumes evoke space suits, although much tighter fitting. Even the dancers’ graceful, elegant, fluid movements recall astronauts floating in zero gravity. And when two of the dancers pick up large brooms, well, it’s as if they’re cleaning up the mess left behind when Sachs unsuccessfully tried to dig up the armory floor / lunar landscape. Set to a dazzling electronic score by John Cage — although on opening night the sound of a photographer snapping away in the balcony during the live performance proved to be rather distracting — Astral Converted is a beautiful piece, fifty-five smooth-flowing minutes of human and mechanical interaction, as the towers are occasionally moved around the stage to provide barriers as well as companionship. The dancers — Patrick Ferreri, Tara Lorenzen, Megan Madorin, Leah Morrison, Tamara Riewe, Jamie Scott, Stuart Shugg, Nicholas Strafaccia, and Samuel Wentz — wait their turn on the dark sidelines, then slither across the black mat and fold their bodies into unusual shapes with an intoxicating gentleness that is reminiscent of some of the movement in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Running through July 14 at the Park Ave. Armory, Astral Converted, which made its debut in 1991 in Washington, DC, outside by the Mall, is a wonderfully cosmic experience reconstituted for a terrific indoor location that continues to surprise with its many splendid presentations.

SPACE PROGRAM: MARS

Tom Sachs takes visitors on a trip to Mars in the Park Avenue Armory (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 17, $12, 12 noon – 7:00 pm (open till 9:00 on Fridays)
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
tomsachsmars.com
space program: mars slideshow

You don’t have to have grown up dreaming of becoming an astronaut to get a huge kick out of Tom Sachs’s immersive “Space Program: Mars” experience at the Park Avenue Armory. In September 2007, the New York native and his well-trained team traveled to the moon at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, but this time around he sets his sights much bigger, as Sachs and crew have filled the armory’s expansive Wade Thompson Drill Hall with all the elements needed to journey to and explore the Red Planet. Curated by Creative Time’s Anne Pasternak and the armory’s Kristy Edmunds, “Space Program: Mars” begins with “Working to Code,” a series of short films (10 Bullets, Color, Love Letter to Plywood, Space Camp, How to Sweep, several made with Van Neistat) that detail Sachs’s bricolage DIY artistic process and hysterically precise rules (“When in doubt, leave it out! Or Die!”) that must be followed while toiling in the studio. You need to pay close attention to the very droll and funny movies if you want to pass the indoctrination test that is the only way to gain entrance to the life-size Lunar Excursion Module. (If you want a head start, you can check out all of the films in advance here.) And you’re going to want to get into the LEM, which is loaded with fascinating pieces that playfully evoke the real thing.

The Mission Control station makes sure everything is up and running in immersive space experience (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Working with NASA, Sachs and his crew of thirteen men and women painstakingly, and with a fabulous dose of tongue-in-cheek humor, re-created a multimedia Mission Control station, surveillance cameras, refrigeration units (including the Vader Fridge in the shape of the evil Death Lord), a miniature launch pad and docking target, a Mars Excursion Roving Vehicle, helmets and space suits, an ID station, an Incinolet, a Mobile Quarantine Facility inside a 1972 Winnebago, a cooking area, a clean air room, and other items necessary for achieving and surviving intergalactic travel, all put together with wood, metal, foam core, glue, nails, and other found materials ― resulting in a number of essential parts that actually work. NASA might have canceled the space shuttle program, but Sachs is reaffirming the continuing need for manned missions ― while also displaying his unique and endearing artistic sensibilities. And don’t miss the Museum of the Moon in the Veterans Room out in the hallway, where you can delve into the previous moon mission. The installation is up through June 17 and features several special activities. On June 7, Sachs and his team will conduct live demonstrations of the program’s flight plan. From June 9 through 16, Sachs and his Grummans will be holding mini-demonstrations, including a rescue mission, daily at 1:00 and 3:00, along with a Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bicycle race scheduled for 6:00 every evening. On June 9-10 at 10:00 am, children ages five to twelve and their parents or guardians can take part in the interactive workshop “Life on Mars: Imagining the Incredible” with members of the Armory Artists Corps. On June 16, you can have “Breakfast with Mars Scientists,” as Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists Gregg Vane, Kevin Hand, and Tommaso Rivellini will join Sachs and moderator Lawrence Weschler for an in-depth conversation. The grand finale takes off immediately following, as Sachs and company will lead a real-time flight-plan endurance demonstration that runs until around midnight, with visitors allowed to come and go as they please, although you’ll have to get back in line for reentry.

THE AIPAD PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW

Andrew Moore, “Room 348, Hermitage Museum,” from the series “Russia,” 2003 (courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
March 29 – April 1, $25 for one day, $40 for all four days
202-367-1158
www.aipad.com
www.armoryonpark.org

These days everyone seems to think they’re a photographer, taking picture after picture after picture with their digital phones and other electronic devices, then posting the results all over social media and blogs. So we always like when the AIPAD Photography Show New York comes to town, reminding us that there’s actually a whole lotta skill that goes with capturing images of the world at large. The thirty-second gathering sponsored by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers takes place March 29 through April 1 at the Park Avenue Armory, featuring exhibits from seventy-five galleries as well as a series of special events, beginning March 28 with the gala kickoff benefiting inMotion, an organization that provides “justice for all women.” Exhibitors from Beijing, Munich, Toronto, Osaka, Paris, Buenos Aires, and London will join American galleries from across the country at the show, including such New York faves as Howard Greenberg, Nailya Alexander, Bonni Benrubi (which will be displaying photographs by Linda McCartney), Steven Kasher (Weegee, Vivian Meier), Danziger (Karen Knorr), Sasha Wolf (Elinor Carucci), Laurence Miller, Julie Saul (Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao), Bryce Wolkowitz, Yancey Richardson (Laura Letinsky, Rachel Perry Welty), Yossi Milo (Alejandro Chaskielberg), and David Zwirner (Philip-Lorca diCorcia). As you wind your way through the armory, you’ll also find works by Ansel Adams, Man Ray, André Kertész, Flip Schulke, and many others. The panel discussions ($10 in advance) will take place Saturday at Hunter College’s Hunter West Building, beginning at 10:00 am with “A Conversation with Rineke Dijkstra,” who will be interviewed by Guggenheim curator Jennifer Blessing, and will continue at 12 noon with “Curator’s Choice: Emerging Artists in Photography,” with Sarah Meister, Christopher Phillips, and Joshua Chuang, moderated by Lindsay Pollock; “How to Collect Photographs: What Collectors Need to Know Now” at 2:00, with Kenneth Montague and Joseph Baio, moderated by Steven Kasher; “A Celebration of Francesca Woodman” at 4:00 with Julia Bryan-Wilson, Sloan Keck, and Elisabeth Subrin, moderated by Robert Klein; and “Italian Contemporary Photography” at 6:00, with Maria Antonella Pelizzari, Yancey Richardson, Julie Saul, and Olivo Barbieri, moderated by Sandra Phillips.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: PHILIP GLASS AT 75

One of the most influential musicians and composers of the last fifty years, Baltimore-born Philip Glass turns seventy-five today. Never one to slow down, the composer of an endless array of operas, symphonies, dances, and films will be celebrating the event with a series of special concerts and performances over the next several weeks, beginning tonight with a 75th Birthday Concert at Carnegie Hall in which he will premiere his ninth symphony, performed by the American Composers Orchestra, with Maki Namekawa at the piano. Though not technically part of his birthday celebration, Glass will once again serve as artistic director for the Tibet House Concert on February 13 also at Carnegie Hall, where it wouldn’t be surprising to hear Laurie Anderson, Antony, James Blake, Das Racist, Stephin Merritt, Rahzel, Lou Reed, and Dechen Shak-Dagsay sing “Happy Birthday” to Glass at the twenty-second annual event. And Glass will be the centerpiece of the Park Avenue Armory’s second annual Tune-In Music Festival next month, when “Celebrating the American Icon” honors Glass’s late friend Allen Ginsberg and the classic poem “Kaddish” with Bill Frisell, Hal Willner, and Chloe Webb and visual design by the great Ralph Steadman on February 23, then continues with “Philip Glass and Patti Smith: The Poet Speaks” on February 24 (also paying tribute to Ginsberg), “Music in 12 Parts” with the Philip Glass Ensemble on February 25, and concluding on February 26 with an afternoon concert featuring Nico Muhly and Nadia Sirota, Tania León, Samuel Torres, Zack Glass, Ruben Gónzaléz, Ashley Marcus, and Tirtha with Vijay Iyer, Prasanna, and Nitin Mitta, the artist talk “Composers in Conversation” with Glass, Iyer, Muhly, León, and Zack Glass, moderated by Kristy Edmunds, and “Another Look at Harmony — Part IV” with the Collegiate Chorale, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and organist Michael Riesman.

STREB: KISS THE AIR!

ASCENSION is part of STREB Extreme Action’s special presentation at the Park Avenue Armory (photo by Tom Caravaglia)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
December 14-22, $35, 7:30
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
www.streb.org

There’s good reason New York-based choreographer Elizabeth Streb calls her company Extreme Action: The diversely talented troupe is known for performing daring acrobatic feats that push the boundaries of contemporary dance. From December 14 to 22, STREB Extreme Action will be at the Park Avenue Armory displaying their vast skills in Kiss the Air!, a program that includes two dazzling pieces that were previewed this summer in special free outdoor presentations. In “Ascension,” nine dancers take individual turns and team up on a twenty-one-foot moving ladder, risking life and limb as it circles around and around to a score by master percussionist David Van Tieghem. The breathtaking piece debuted this summer in Gansevoort Plaza as part of Whitney on Site: New Commissions Downtown; for the indoor version, Robert Wierzel’s lighting design will add another aspect to the work. This summer Streb, a MacArthur Genius, also premiered the eye-popping “Human Fountain” as part of the River to River Festival’s Extraordinary Moves program at the World Financial Center, in which sixteen daredevils — er, dancers — took swan dives off a thirty-foot, three-story structural installation. Inspired by the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas, they fly through the air (with the greatest of ease?) in tandems, sometimes crossing one another’s path, landing on an inflatable mat that cushions their fall. “Human Fountain is another thrilling example of how STREB Extreme Action goes for, well, the extreme in its challenging repertoire. Streb and several of her dancers will participate in an artist talk following the December 15 performance, moderated by Kristy Edmunds. Kiss the Air! is the second of three dance presentations at the Park Avenue Armory, following Shen Wei Dance Arts and concluding with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s farewell December 29-31.

KISS THE AIR! is a one-of-a-kind experience at Park Avenue Armory (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Update: The STREB Extreme Action Heroes announce their arrival in the Park Avenue Armory in typically extreme fashion, individually riding an overhead wire and slamming face-first into a vertical mat, letting the audience know right from the start that they are in for a very different kind of performance, one filled with impressive feats of daring and plenty of good humor. A unique melding of modern dance, ballet, gymnastics, cheerleading, aerial arts, and stunt work, Kiss the Air! is a five-ring circus that tests the limits of the human body over the course of seventy thrilling minutes, supplemented by large screens displaying live close-up footage and action architect and choreographer Elizabeth Streb’s original layouts. As the dancers make their way across five architectural set-ups, the crowd is encouraged to scream out with enthusiasm, take photographs and video, and tweet away, knocking down the barrier between viewer and performer. Action engineers Jackie Carlson, John Kasten, Sarah Callan, Zaire Baptiste, Samantha Jakas, Leonardo Giron Torres, Cassandre Joseph, Felix Hess, Daniel Rysak, and associate artistic director Fabio Tavares da Silva, along with seven additional performers, manipulate one another in swinging harnesses, climb over a moving ladder, bounce their bodies up and down on mats, dive off a thirty-foot structure, and splash about in a shallow pool, getting some audience members wet (ponchos are provided) as they run nonstop through eleven numbers, including “Swing,” “Popaction,” “Falling Sideways,” “Drop,” “Catch,” “Wave,” and “Kiss the Water.” The abovementioned showpieces, “Ascension” and “Human Fountain,” turn out to be not quite as dazzling in the armory as they were outside last summer, as the dancers (understandably) take longer pauses to catch their breath and the audience is seated farther away, but they still are impressive, enhanced by Robert Wierzel’s lighting and David Van Tieghem´s sound design and music. A one-of-a-kind experience for children and adults of all ages, Kiss the Air! continues through December 22.