cityArts July 13, 2011

JULY 13-AUG. 2, 2011 Volume 3, Issue 12

SUMMER

100: Bard SummerScape, Royal Shakespeare, and Premiere Brazil!

PLUS: Tyne Daly in Master Class Jazz Cruises in the harbor Judy Garland at Walter Reade & Paley Center

JUNE 12 – AUGUST 20

From Thomas Moran’s A Pond in the Meadow (ca. 1880) The Battell Stoeckel Collection

InthisIssue 5 THEATER

the royal shakespeare Company has taken up residence in the Park Avenue Armory, but struan Leslie is the one who helped the actors learn to move.

6 SUMMER 100 (PART 2) includes a special “get out of town” guide to outdoor art, music and theater, film and dance.

10 AT THE GALLERIES reviews: The Atomic Explosion at Peter Blum Soho; LOST at Invisible-Exports; Li songsong at The Pace Gallery; Form and Fashion at Staley-Wise Gallery; Kirk stoller at Mary Ryan Gallery; sigmar Polke at Leo Koenig Inc.

12 CLASSICAL JAY nordLinger ponders the partnership between City opera and rufus Wainwright.

2011

14 DANCE JoeL LoBentHAL on career ups and downs of the Mariinnsky Ballet’s stars.

14 JAzz HoWArd MAndeL takes to the city’s waterways on the Clipper City for jazz classics in the dark.

15 THEATER MArK PeiKert says tyne daly transforms the awkward Master Class into something approaching elegance.

16 ARTS AGENDA galleries, Auctions, Art events, Museums, Classical Music, opera, theater.

norfolkmusic.org

18 PAINT THE TOWN By AMANDA GORDON on tHe Cover: Meagan Miller (pictured) stars as danae in the Bard summerscape 2011 production of richard strauss’ opera Die Liebe der Danae, which takes place July 29-Aug. 7. the photo, by todd norwood, will be used in the set design.

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Michael Hart

InBrief

Jonah Bokaer rehearsing On Vanishing at the Guggenheim, July 14.

InToStep With Ufan perform On Vanishing, a new

site-specific work created for the current Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum, choreographer Jonah Bokaer’s task began with a selfimposed, rigorously involved research session. As a respected dance and media artist, this is his way of understanding and expanding on the art, not simply dancing around it, or through it, or on it.

With two performances July 14, Bokaer’s 40-minute On Vanishing will delve into Ufan’s work, exhibited as a retrospective of the artist/philosopher/writer’s career.

This includes a live performance by Loren Kiyoshi Dempster of John Cage’s “One8,” a complex and driving score for solo cello composed in 1991.

Bokaer discusses Ufan with a scholar’s accuracy—but a choreographer’s explorative spirit. Inspired by Ufan’s whole body of work and two in particular—“Things and Words” (1969) and the large sculpture in the Guggenheim’s rotunda, “Dialogue” (2009)—Bokaer plays with space and the bodies of his dancers to reveal his own informed interpretations.

“It’s been an enormous process,” Bokaer says over the phone during a break in rehearsal. “I have immersed myself in [Ufan’s] body of work and also his career.

There really are five decades on view and an enormous amount of material.”

Devoting himself to research in Ufan’s art and writings, as well as the Guggenheim’s catalog of his art, Bokaer utilized a three-week Jerome Robbins Prize Fellowship in Dance at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy to absorb and respond to the material. He completely immersed himself in the work for March, April and May of this year.

In June, Bokaer began intensive rehearsals with four other dancers of diverse backgrounds, not as a national or ethnic statement, he explains, but to convey the sense of universality in all of Ufan’s art.

Bokaer will perform along with Chun-Chen Chang, Adam Weinert, Irena Misirli and David Botana.

Bokaer is noticeably touched by the 1969 performance work “Things and Words,” in which Ufan exposed three sheets of Japanese paper to the outdoor elements of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, running back and forth, allowing them to catch the wind, and pining them down with his own body. “Obviously the papers were marked, they were tattered, perhaps torn, and definitely affected by these ephemeral elements,” he says. “Lee Ufan then brought them into the exhibition space and exhibited them as objects. So along with three dancers, one per page, I’ve choreographed elements not as a literal reading by any means, but as a point of departure.”

If we can trust anyone for this departure, it is Bokaer. [Meryl Cates] July 13, 2011 | City Arts

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InBrief

Summer Stock, directed by Charles Walters, screens Aug. 6 & 9 at the Walter Reade Theater.

A Star Is Still Ascendant Judy Garland would have been 89

years old this year had she lived. And yet, despite the 42 years since her death, her legacy lives on and on and on. The sheer number of fans sites dedicated to Garland prompted Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Program Director Richard Peña to curate a comprehensive retrospective of Garland’s films, and, in association with The Paley Center, a series of her best-loved and littleknown television work.

The film series, All Singin’, All Dancin’, All Judy! (at the Walter Reade Theater July 26–Aug. 9), will include all of Garland’s big-screen acting performances, as well as a selection of rarely seen shorts—and The Wizard of Oz will screen in a special sing-along presentation, co-presented by NewFest. On hand for the series will be noted Garland scholar John Fricke, who will be signing copies of his new book Judy: A Legendary Film Career, Aug. 5.

For true Garland fans, though, the treasures will be at The Paley Center.

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Seeing a restored version of A Star Is Born on the big screen will always remain a treat (and if you’ve never seen it, or worse, only seen the Barbra Streisand remake, remedy that immediately), but The Paley Center has amassed a stunningly thorough collection of Garland TV specials and appearances for its Judy Garland: The Television Years series (July 20–Aug. 18). The Judy Garland Show is well represented, by both fulllength episodes and highlights, but there are also clips of Garland on Gypsy Rose Lee’s West Coast talk show, highlights from the 1964 Judy and Liza at the Palladium concert and a 10-minute medley of Cole Porter songs that Garland performed on the 1965 Academy Awards. Even the most diehard Judy fan will find new reasons to yelp “Judy, Judy, Judy!” this summer. [Mark Peikert]

Animal Crackers On the surface, the story of

Project Nim, the new film from director James Marsh (Man on Wire), seems more like fiction rather

than truth. It’s late 1973, and a chimpanzee born in a prison-like research facility is shipped to New York to live with a family as part of a controversial and bizarre behavioral experiment. It didn’t go exactly as planned. As everyone quickly realized, Nim was a troublemaker—though a lovable one—with equal propensity to cuddle and smash valuable household items. As he was moved from one family to another, Nim grew more attached and more angry.

The film is a swifter, more nuanced adaptation of Elizabeth Hess’ non-fiction account Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human. The book stakes a firm moral position in the battleground of animal rights, coming down hard against the experiment. Project Nim avoids snap judgments and righteous generalizations: the focus is on what happened instead of what should have happened, never presenting heroes or villains, although some appear more qualified for the position than others.

“That’s probably a distinction I was aware of making the film,” Marsh explains during a recent conversation. “I don’t know; I wouldn’t want to speak for Elizabeth, but clearly she was more familiar with the world of animal rights and animal culture than I am. What I wanted to do was try to tell the story in a more neutral kind of way.”

Emotions run rampant, and the story of Nim means many things to many people.

Everyone has their side of the story, most detailing what they did right and others did wrong. Nobody can step back and see themselves as part of the problem. What’s clear across the board is how much of a personal effect the animal had on the lives involved; the film deals in tears and anger more than facts and figures and data.

“You can potentially fault the film for its lack of scientific rigor,” Marsh notes, “but I was personally more interested in the behavior aspects of all this. And what we would find out about ourselves in the context of this animal. What behavior he fleshes out in us.”

Much of the behavior in Project Nim is funny, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous. Nim occasionally smokes pot, Nim Chimpsky in Project Nim.

and is cared for by a series of sexually intertwined research assistants, down on their knees for the father-figure Terrace.

The whole scene is heady, leftovers from the Age of Aquarius. At times, it’s hard to believe any of these people could take care of themselves, let alone a wild animal.

The end result is something much stronger. Before making the film, one of the questions Marsh says he asked himself was: “Can you make a biography of an animal?” The answer is a resounding yes: one that is funny, tragic and ultimately human. [Craig Hubert]

Enter Through theYou’dGift Shop be wise to forget what you know

about gallery bookstores before stepping into The Hole’s bodega-sized shop: the Bowery gallery’s new space feels more like a high-art Urban Outfitters than the stuffy art bookstores of yore. Gone are the thick, dusty volumes of Picasso prints; in their place are cheap, stylish zines and Harmony Korine screenplays.

It’s all part of The Hole’s mission, director Katy Grayson says, to demystify modern art and to give the interdisciplinary artists they work with a space to showcase the things they make. “There are tons of people out there that are intimidated by art galleries,” Grayson says. “It’s, like, the funnest thing in the world! It’s a free space to come look at stuff people made!”

While the store hasn’t officially opened yet, it’s still raking in hundreds of dollars a day. And with good reason: much of its product is exclusive to The Hole.

“These artists haven’t made posters before.

Essentially, we found 200 artists to make posters with us,” Grayson says. Among the artists are Shepard Fairey, Ben Jones and Kristy Liebowitz, whose posters can, for $75, be hung on your modern-art-starved apartment walls. (The prints are laid out like Led Zeppelin posters at a ’90s Sam Goody, which only adds to the shop’s DIY charm.)

And then there are the sneakers: Native Shoes, sponsors of the current exhibit by FriendsWithYou, has provided a selection of rare, colorful kicks, and Grayson says that excited sneaker fiends are in and out all day looking for them. If you’re looking to play some unusually stylish seaside sports, you can also buy a FriendsWithYou-designed beach ball from the shop for roughly $44,955 less than what an inflatable from the exhibit proper would cost you.

“Instead of having people be snobby and rude to you, you can come buy a book, and some shoes, and a poster, and a confetti-filled egg,” Grayson says. Or a disembodied plastic breast, or a limited edition, artist-designed hoodie or rare graffiti tools. Or, if you happen to be feeling flush, the actual art on display.

[Daniel Kolitz]

Theater

All the Right Moves Struan Leslie helps actors walk, touch and fight in verse

By Valerie Gladstone “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” begins one of the most memorable speeches in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

While the words alone can often bring a hush to theaters, audiences at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of the play—along with productions of Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale at the Park Avenue Armory July 6–Aug. 14—may have an even more intense experience thanks to the ensemble’s head movement director, Struan Leslie.

“Struan is the RSC’s conscience in the bodies of the actors,” Michael Boyd, the RSC artistic director, says. “He’s there to help our company be physically fit for purpose, and spatially literate. He uses his choreographic intelligence and expertise to extend the expressive possibilities of any given show.”

Tall, with an easy-going manner, Leslie describes his work with the passion of an evangelist. “The actor’s body,” he says, “is

as much a part of their communicating and performing tool kit as their voice. So we need to prepare it in the same way as we do the voice to speak.”

He compares the body’s workings to the mechanism or movement of a watch, with every joint and muscle wellconnected and functioning for smooth and accurate running. Thus, he suggests that only with daily physical preparation can such efficiency and sustainability of the body be maintained. Just as the voice requires a daily workout so does the body, for, he emphasizes, they are inextricably linked. “Think about it: In your everyday communication with people, you tell them and are told as much by what the body is doing as by your words,” he explains.

“When we started with Struan over two years ago,” says Dyfan Dwyer, a cast member in As You Like It, “he told us that we would be finding a language together.

We actors can be lazy about our movement and not think about how essential it is. He had us warm up with exercises every day, a combination of using alignment, yoga and Pilates, a bit of everything. Then, we’d talk about our characters with him and bring up

ideas. He has a great overriding eye. All of our bodies changed. It was a lot of fun. It’s a very joyous production.”

The RSC will be performing on a thrust stage at the Park Avenue Armory, a recreation of the stage in the company’s spectacular new theater in Stratford-uponAvon. “The actors have to connect with the environment on this kind of stage because the body has to open in all directions, 360 degrees,” Leslie explains. “They have to be conscious all the time of where they are in relation to each other and the audience. For the audience, it’s the difference between looking at a painting and a sculpture. It’s in 3D.” In preparation for As You Like It, Leslie says he researched the dress, religion and politics of its early 17th-century setting, because, he explains, they inform the characters’ physicality. In Act 1, Scene 2, the audience first sees Rosalind and Celia in full Elizabethan costume at the court of the new Duke. “Here, we explored the restraint and the quality of movement that a ruff imposes on one’s sense of self and where the weight is carried in the body,” he says. “The actors wore improvised ruffs and discovered the center of gravity to be held high in the body and that when wearing them, they moved more easily in a grid pattern.”

Because of this restraint, Leslie says, the gaze between people was averted and indirect and the flow of movement through

the space quite restricted. The second scene of Act 3 takes place in the forest, so he then asked them to place more weight in the pelvis, where they discovered a physicality that was grounded and organic and had more fluidity in its patterning. Their gazes became more direct and honest, in keeping with how they were changing.

A veteran choreographer and director, Leslie brings extensive dance and theater training to his work at the RSC. He began performing with Royston Maldoom in Dundee, Scotland, in 1981, continuing his studies with Jane Dudley, a disciple of Martha Graham who taught at the London Contemporary Dance School. In the United States, he trained with Viola Farber and Merce Cunningham, as well as at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

He has directed and choreographed shows such as Guys and Dolls, as well as been produced at London’s National Theatre, the Manchester International Festival and the American Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre in the United States.

Since joining the RSC three years ago, he has been in charge of movement for 26 plays, several of them contemporary.

“Though I am as much from the theater as from dance, I like to inject a little bit of a dancer in all actors,” he says. “So that when you see one of our performances, I hope you hear more than is spoken and understand more than the text alone can say.” <

90 miles from NYC • minutes from I-78

“Everything a Shakespeare Festival should be able to give you.”

Philadelphia Inquirer

Hamlet and Pride & Prejudice • 7/19 - 8/7

In rep with the same cast: see both plays in one or two days!

The Two Noble Kinsmen • 7/27 - 8/7 Instant Shakespeare: just add actors!

pashakespeare.org • 610.282.WILL July 13, 2011 | City Arts

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TheSuMMEr100(Part 2)

A

s the summer heats up, we offer the second half of our must list, taking you all the way through Labor Day. If you’re planning a trip out of the city, make sure to check our “Get Out of Town” section—which has everything from performances to museum shows that you won’t want to miss.

High Line Art The water fountains atop the High Line are really concerned for your well-being.

They love you, and they just want you to be happy. If you don’t believe us, let them tell you for themselves in Julianne Swartz’s Digital Empathy. In 11 surprising locations throughout the park, everyday objects form the basis for a sound installation that blurs the lines between comforting and downright creepy, and riffs on our increasing reliance on technology to form and maintain social bonds. (The installation may also feel strikingly familiar to fans of the video game Portal.) Ends Spring 2012, thehighline.org/ about/public-art/swartz.

Socrates Sculpture Park Specializing in large-scale works and multimedia installations, the park boasts a packed summer schedule, with live performances, film, interactive art exhibitions, workshops, fitness programs and more. On July 26, catch performers from the Metropolitan Opera singing arias and duets from various operas. On Aug. 2 and 9, Hip to Hip Theatre Company performs free Shakespeare. On Aug. 24, a silent film fest features new films with live, original scores, and potluck pie. Ongoing, 32-01 Vernon Blvd at Broadway, Queens, socratessculpturepark. org.

Joe Bataan at Central Park SummerStage Missed out on the Latin Boogaloo scene the first time around? Then you probably won’t want to miss its most influential export, Joe Bataan, perform for free at SummerStage. He’ll be performing with fellow Latin Boogaloo pioneer Johnny Colon (mastermind behind the classic Boogaloo Blues) as well as DJ Turmix, a Barcelonan expatriate who specializes in the Boogaloo scene.

Aug. 10, SummerStage, summerstage.org.

2011 Concerts on the Green: Opera Under the Stars The Queens Symphony Orchestra—the borough’s only professional orchestra, and its oldest and largest professional arts organization—presents its free summer concert series, with guest singers (and brothers)

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Kate Enman

Outdoor Music & Art

Teach me how to Dougie: David Dorfman Dance performs during Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

Martin Sola, tenor, and Marcos Sola, baritone. Catch your favorite opera excerpts in a casual setting July 17 at the George Seuffert Bandshell at Forest Park in Woodhaven, and July 20 on the St. John’s University Great Lawn in Jamaica. More information at queenssymphony.org.

Portraits in Dramatic Time Lincoln Center presents David Michalek’s extreme-slow-motion, high-definition video installation, projected on the facade of David H. Koch Theater. In each segment, an actor or actress—including notables like Holly Hunter, Liev Schreiber and Alan Rickman—performs a 10–15-second scene, which is slowed down to take up 6–7 minutes. Ends July 31, Columbus Ave. at 63rd St., lincolncenterfestival.org; 8:45-11:45, free.

Charlie Parker Jazz Fest The two-day festival, which sets up shop in the neighborhoods—Harlem and the Lower East Side—where Parker lived and worked, celebrates the iconic jazz artist’s legacy with performances from Toots Thielemans, James Carter, Tia Fuller, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Archie Shepp Quartet, Madeleine Peyroux, Anat Cohen and The Gerald Clayton Trio. Aug 27 & 28, summerstage.org.

BAM Rhythm & Blues Festival We’re sorry to report that you already missed George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, but the BAM Festival still has a lot more well-known and up-andcoming talent to offer. Check out Swamp Dogg July 14, Urban Guerilla Orchestra with Miles Jaye July 21, José James July 28 or Maxi Priest Aug. 4. Ends Aug. 4,

MetroTech Commons, Flatbush Ave. at Myrtle Ave., Brooklyn, bam.org; noon, free.

Hudson River Blues BBQ Hudson River Park’s 12th annual festival unites blues bands from all over the U.S. with BBQ from all over the city. This year’s musical line-up includes Marquise Knox, Diana Braithwaite & Chris Whiteley, Walter Trout, Shakura S’Aida & Bonerama.

Aug. 21, Pier 54 at W. 14th St., hudsonriverpark.org/events; 2-9, free.

Summergarden: New Music for New York The Juilliard School and Jazz at Lincoln Center bring music to the MoMA sculpture garden on alternating Sundays. The gates open at 7 and seating is first-come, firstserved, so get there early and enjoy drinks, gelato and other sophisticated desserts (like ice cream sandwiches) from The Garden Bar while you wait for the music to start.

Ends July 31, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, W. 54th St. betw 5th & 6th Aves., moma.org; 8, free.

Music Events The 4x4 Baroque Festival Gotham Early Music Scene presents a series of free, short concerts of well- and lesser-known Baroque compositions, performed by a variety of local singers, musicians and ensembles. The series highlights 4 different composers—Monteverdi, Heinrich Biber, Arcangello Corelli and (of course) J.S. Bach—celebrating their contributions to the field by presenting a range of pieces from each of their times and influenced by their work. July 29 & 30, Aug.

2 & 3, Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, E. 54th St. at Lexington Ave., 4x4baroque.com; 7:30, free ($20 suggested donation).

Jazz Wednesdays The Jazz Department of Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts presents a free series of Guest Artist events. On July 20, bandoneón player Hector Del Curto leads a master class on new and traditional Tango. On July 27, Pedro Giraudo Jazz Orchestra performs modern orchestral jazz. And on Aug. 10, Adam Cruz Sextet performs swing, funk and Latin-influenced rhythms. Music Studio B21, Heckscher Building, 1230 5th Ave., boysandgirlsharbor.net; 7:30, free.

Summer Sings at Symphony Space Thalia Belt your heart out or relive your glory days singing the music of Mozart, Verdi and others, under the direction of one of 6 wellknown choral conductors at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia. Sheet music is provided, but please, please bring your own talent. July 20–Aug. 24, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, symphonyspace.org; 7:30, $15.

Museum & Gallery Shows The Obama Presidency at Leica Gallery Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza’s photographs of President Obama capture him during some of his presidency’s most—and least—significant moments. The contrasting severity and lightheartedness of the photos remind us that, at least in some cases, politicians are human beings too. Ends Aug. 6, 670 Broadway, Ste. 500, en.leica-camera.com.

Elevator History Museum Perhaps this one’s an acquired taste, but we thought we should let you know that this summer marks the opening of the Elevator History Museum in Long Island City. The museum’s collection includes antique elevator components dating back to the 1860s, plus advertising, children’s toys and games, elevator operator licenses, and a “unique collection of elevator postal history.” Ongoing, 21-03 44th Ave., Ste. 206, Queens, 917-748-2328.

Rubin Museum of Art In “Human Currents,” Hannes Schmid’s vivid films and photographs capture the intensity of the Maha Kumbh Mela festival—the largest gathering of humans on earth, held only once every 144 years. July 22–Nov. 13. Also at the Rubin Museum is “Silent Echoes,” Bill Fontana’s meditative sound installation capturing the reverberations of five famous Buddhist temples in Kyoto—& ambient noises in the environment—while they’re not ringing, with corresponding high-resolution projections.

Ends Aug. 14. 150 W. 17th St., rmanyc.org.

Art Within Reach from the WPA to the Present The Children’s Museum of the Arts brings work by young artists of the Depression era and today to Governors Island, highlighting intergenerational changes in landscape and life experience. Hands-on drawing exhibitions further immerse visitors in the experience of urban evolution through art-making. Ends Sept. 5, CMA’s Free Art Island Outpost, Governors Island, Building 11, cmany.org.

Film Premiere Brazil!

MoMA and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival bring the vibrancy of 14 new Brazilian films to New York audiences.

In Utopia e barbárie (Utopia and Barbarism), director Silvio Tendler uses found footage to document post-World War II attempts at utopia. Rua de mao dupla (Two-Way Street) is

the product of an experiment in which complete strangers swapped homes for 24 hours, and captured their experiences on film. As part of the festival, MoMA will also screen a retrospective of the documentaries and film essays of Cao Guimarães. In Guimarães’ Ex Isto (Ex It), René Descartes gets high on hallucinogens, travels through time and explores geometry, optics and inexplicable phenomena. July 14–27, The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, moma.org.

Rooftop Films Rooftop Films brings underground films up to the surface—and then some. All of the films are screened outdoors, many on the rooftops of high schools and factories in Brooklyn, often complete with live music before the screenings and/or after-parties once the credits roll. On July 21, bring extra tissues to Hope and Heartbreak—a program of heart-wrenching short films about difficulties in new love, and even sadder stories about long-lost love (venue TBA). On July 30, Rooftop Films teams up with Kill Screen to present an evening of short films, new video games and special presentations, on the roof of The Old American Can Factory. Ends Aug. 20, rooftopfilms.com/2011.

D A N C E FESTIVAL 2011 June 18 – August 28

LDP/Laboratory Dance Project July 27-31

Photos Yong Hoon Han, Steve Murez, and Ikegani Naoya

Night Vision: Photography After Dark You take your camera’s flash for granted: until the early 20th century, cameras could barely function in low-light environments.

(How people took pictures at ill-lit parties is anyone’s guess.) This exhibit displays the work of those artists—Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Bill Brant—who, finally able to shoot through the night, found themselves transfixed by its possibilities. Ends Sept. 18, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave., metmuseum.org.

JACOB’S PILLOW “ Two-plus months, more than

300 total dance-related events, companies traveling from all over the globe: the Pillow isn’t

3e Étage

messing around.“

Soloists of the Paris Opera Ballet August 3-7

– The New York Times

Trisha Brown Dance Company

Featuring world premieres, U.S. company debuts, new dance artists & legendary choreographers

August 10-14

Becket, MA • less than 3 hours from NYC • full schedule online

413.243.0745 • jacobspillow.org

An Assault of Reality Presented in conjunction with its exhibit Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities, MAD’s fantastical series of double-

billings juxtaposes unlikely works—ranging from Disney to Cronenberg—to shed light on the way cinema influences our perceptions of reality. Ends Aug. 4, Museum of Arts & Design, 2 Columbus Circ., madmuseum.org.

Ice Age

Manhattan Film Festival This film festival has held on to its indie roots and includes 10 days of film screenings as well as panel discussions, workshops and Q&A sessions. The fest presents a total of 132 films, 30 of which are international selections, with John Gray’s White Irish Drinkers selected for opening night. The Children and Family Program is among the new programming this year, along with the Student Film Program, featuring the work of 19 student filmmakers. For beginning filmmakers, the Festival has partnered with screenbooker.com to create the Film Revenue Sharing Program, a start-up that enables filmmakers to promote festival events and earn 50 percent of the revenue. July 22–31, 2537 Broadway, manhattanfilmfestival.org.

William Lustig Presents Lustig’s annual festival digs up hardto-find grindhouse films from the ’60s and ’70s, many of which never made it to video.

Catch Martin Sheen in his first-ever film

to the

Digital Age The 3D Animation Art of Blue Sky Studios on view through October 31 From sketch to screen, see the animazing art behind the movies Ice Age, Robots and Rio, oh my!

Rio & IceAge™ ™ ©2011 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

nrm.org

413-298-4100

9 Rt. 183, Stockbridge, MA

open daily

July 13, 2011 | City Arts

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TheSummer100 role (The Incident), George C. Scott as an over-the-hill mobster (The Last Run) and Burt Reynolds as Navajo Joe. Also don’t miss not one but two films about corrupt NYPD officers (The Super Cops and Cops and Robbers), a classic spaghetti western (The Mercenary) and a host of other films that (phew!) aren’t Green Lantern. Aug. 12–20, Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave., anthologyfilmarchives.org.

Theater & Dance Summer Shorts 5 Throughline Artists presents two alternating programs—4 short plays each night—for a total of 8 world-premiere oneacts by a range of emerging and established American playwrights, at the award-winning, state-of-the-art 59E59 Theaters. Aug. 4–Sept. 3, 59 E. 59th St., 59e59.org.

Free Outdoor Modern Dance Classes with Limón Dance Comany Saturdays from 11 am to noon, stop by Bryant Park for a free modern dance class with Limón Dance Company. Taught by members of the company, the basic level classes are open to students of all ages, and no reservations are required to make a fool of yourself. Just remember to wear comfortable clothing and shoes (or go barefoot).

On Aug. 2, the company will also give a free performance of Jose Limón’s There is a Time and a suite from Donald McKayle’s Heartbeats. Ends Sept. 11, Bryant Park, 42nd St. at 6th Ave., limon.org; 11 a.m.–noon; free.

The Amoralists in HotelMotel Join only 19 other audience members for an ultra-personal, site-specific double-feature at The Gershwin Hotel. In Animals and Plants, two drug runners are snowbound in a motel room in the Appalachian mountains.

In Pink Knees On Pale Skin, a sex counselor’s last-ditch effort to save two marriages with a hotel-room orgy results in a night of madness. Aug. 4–29, The Gershwin Hotel, 7 E. 27th St., theamoralists.com.

Performing Arts Marathon The International Theater Arts Institute (IATI)—which serves English- and Spanish-speaking audiences and emphasizes the celebration of Latin American culture—presents PAM 2011, with 12 diverse new works. Among the selections are aerial, Flamenco and Indian dance performances, and a variety of music and theater works.

Ends Aug. 7, teatroiati.org.

Battery Dance Company/Downtown Dance Festival First established in 1982, New York’s longest-running free public dance festival—

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which last year drew over 10,000 attendees—invites companies, choreographers and performers from all over the world and at all stages in their careers to perform in the 9-day, multi-venue line-up. Artists submit DVDs of their work to the festivals organizers, who select for variety, originality and artistic merit—versus, you know, fame and funding. The selection process ensures an eclectic festival that celebrates a plethora of dance traditions and creative visions. Aug. 13–21, batterydanceco.com.

Cecilia Marta Dance Company & The Walk Two titanic talents—Cecilia Marta and Francine E. Ott—present their renowned, multicultural dance companies back to back. Marta’s Cecilia Marta Dance Company combines elements of traditional and contemporary ballet; Ott’s The Walk synthesizes modern, hip-hop, house and African influences. And, if you should be so inspired, the performances will be followed by a master class in dance. Aug. 13, Marcus Garvey Park, 120–124th Sts. at Madison Ave., nycgovparks.org/events.

East to Edinburgh The festival functions as a sort of launch pad for productions making their way to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe—the world’s largest arts festival. Operating under the same guidelines as the Scotland version, East to Edinburgh is a lively 3-week ride that provides a nurturing space for over a dozen new works to grow. Check out the totally bizarre Interpretive Dances to My Diary!!! (72% Non-fiction)—complete with clapping monkeys and slow-motion dance parties—July 19, or catch the psychedelic journey Dr. Apple’s Last Lecture July 24.

Ends July 31, 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St., 59e59.org.

New York International Fringe Festival What would the dog days of summer be like without the Fringe Fest? Never mind that at this point, the fest is 95 percent vanity projects that somehow get produced, and only 5 percent worthwhile shows from new writers, directors and unknown actors. It’s a New York institution now, so get ready for the 15th year of theater taking over Downtown. Aug. 12–29, fringenyc.org.

Dream Up Festival 2011 Theater for the New City presents its second summer festival of over 20 highcaliber new theater, dance and performance art productions at affordable prices. In Gloves for Guns, two teenagers who shot up their school find themselves in purgatory with a glove, a baseball and a portal that reminds them of their past. In Stand Clear

Of The Closing Doors (A Subway Musical and Romance), a man and a woman reevaluate

their lives while trapped in a subway car.

Ends Sept. 4, Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave., theaterforthenewcity.net.

Dixon Place HOT! Festival The 20th annual theater festival celebrates queer performance, dance, burlesque, music & literature all summer. Named for Dixon’s former lack of air-conditioning, the HOT! Festival isn’t quite as warm as it used to be, but it’s no less flaming. In the wake of legalized gay marriage, we’re thinking this year’s festival will be especially meaningful.

Ends Aug. 6, 161A Chrystie St., hotfestival.org.

Potomac Theatre Project PTP/NYC’s 25th anniversary season brings you two U.S. premieres and the revival of an Obie-award winner. In Spatter Pattern: or How I Got Away with It, two men bond during a bloody murder investigation.

Territories features two “erotic stories of betrayal and voyeurism”—one about an army official whose faith in music is destroyed by four women, and another about what happens to lovers when the government praises betrayal. Finally, in Victory: Choices in Reaction, a woman discovers the fate of her dead husband’s body in 1660. Ends July 31, The Atlantic Stage 2, 330 W. 16th St., potomactheatreproject.org.

Young Dancemakers Company 16 high school dancer/choreographers representing 10 New York City public schools present their original works and an excerpt from Jose Limon’s Psalm, in 7 free performances throughout the city. At the end of each performance, audience members can join in for “Dance With Us,” an improvisational exercise. July 21, 22, 25–29 & 31, 718-329-7300 x3358 for information & reservations; free.

Get Out of Town Music Mountain Now in its 82nd season, the air-conditioned summer festival spans 4 centuries of chamber music, plus big band, jazz, country—complete with an outdoor dance floor—and other special events. This year’s new Friday Nights series features silent movie night with live music. Ends Sept. 4, Falls Village, Conn., musicmountain.org.

Caramoor International Music Festival The nearly 7-week long, genre-bridging summer music festival brings together folk, world, classical music & more, plus a host of other special events. Ends Aug. 10, 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah, N.Y., caramoor.org.

Jazz in the Garden Thursday afternoons, head out to Newark for some fresh air. We know it sounds counter-intuitive, but the Newark Museum’s summer jazz series is decidedly un-smoggy. Jazz in the Garden brings established and emerging jazz artists, like Dafnis Prieto (July 21) and Gregory Porter (July 28) to a beautiful outdoor setting in unlikely dirty Jerz. Ends July 28, 49 Washington St., Newark, N.J., newarkmuseum.org; 12:15–1:45, $3 suggested admission.

Bard Music Festival 2011: Sibelius and His World Both celebrated and dismissed, the iconic Finnish composer’s work has always been popular with American listeners.

Now, Bard Music Festival 2011 delves into Sibelius’ music, historical significance and personal life with two weekends of talks, performances and festivities. Aug 12–14 & 19–21, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, Annandale-onHudson, N.Y., fishercenter.bard.edu.

Dia: Beacon & CCS Bard Although they are about 50 miles apart, the two beautiful settings will present Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 1964-1977 and artistled programs all summer long that focus on the European artist’s works that should be better known. On July 24, catch a special walkthrough at Dia of the Palermo installation, led by artist David Reed. Talks and walkthroughs are free with museum admission. Ends Oct. 10, 3 Beekman St., Beacon, N.Y., diabeacon.org.

Art on the Edge 2011 (and more) at Vered Gallery Through August 1, the East Hampton Gallery, which showcases cutting edge 20th and 21st century New Contemporary art, presents a special group exhibition of painting, sculpture and photography by innovative artists working today. Then, opening August 6 are Frank Stella: “Fully Volumetric Reliefs”—an exhibition of the artists sculptures—and a collection of portraits by Chuck Close. Ends Aug. 30, Vered Gallery, 68 Park Place, East Hampton, N.Y., veredart.com.

Nose Jobs Eric Firestone and Carlo McCormick scavenged the “bone yards” of the Arizona Desert, collecting old nose cones from discarded air force planes. Then, they invited a group of artists to give the noses a new face. The result is a wide range of works on a decidedly unconventional form of canvas. July 15–Aug. 21, Eric Firestone Gallery, 4 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, N.Y., ericfirestonegallery.com.

Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival For the first time ever, The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival will run two alternating productions—Hamlet and Pride and Prejudice—starring the same cast in the same theater. The inclusion of two separate plays in the festival—a method known as “true rep”—allows visiting audiences to see more than one play during their time at the festival, and gives the actors an opportunity to show audiences just how well they can transform themselves into different personas. July 19–Aug. 7, PSF Main Stage, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, Center Valley, Penn., pashakespeare.org.

Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College Professional artists and theater students perform fully-staged productions, readings and workshops through the end of July. In A Maze, two artists and a young girl search for inspiration, creativity and identity. In February House, composer Benjamin Britten, poet W. H. Auden, and other famous (and infamous) visionaries of the 1940s shack up in the old Brooklyn boardinghouse at 7 Middagh Street. And Piece Of My Heart commemorates the work of Bert Berns, who died at the age of 37 after writing and/or producing some of America’s most beloved songs, like “Twist and Shout,” “Piece Of My Heart,” “Under The Boardwalk” and “Brown Eyed Girl.” Ends July 31, 124 Raymound Ave., Poughkeepsie, N.Y., powerhouse.vassar.edu.

The Wild Duck Bard SummerScape presents a new production of Henrik Ibsen’s 1884 masterpiece, which reminds us that uncovering the truth sometimes leads to tragic consequences. Shuttle service from Manhattan is available, with reservations, to ticket-holders on July 16 and 23. See website for prices and details. Ends July 24, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Theater Two, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., fishercenter.bard.edu.

Williamstown Theatre Festival “WTF” presents a summer-long series of great works by the likes of Henrik Ibsen and Tennessee Williams, plus late-night cabaret (various nights), talks, workshops, and a special free kids theatre day (July 15).

There’s even an evening of by Stand-Up from Lewis Black (July 18), who also has a play in the line-up. Ends Aug. 28, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., wtfestival.org.

Norfolk Chamber Music Festival Renowned professionals and young artists perform in free and ticketed

chamber concerts throughout the summer. Special events include a performance from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (Aug. 15), an evening of choral-orchestral music (Aug. 20) and a family day (July 31), plus lectures, workshops and more.

Ends Aug. 20, Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate, Routes 44 & 272, Norfolk, Conn., music. yale.edu/norfolk.

The Clark The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has a number of summer exhibitions on view. An exhibition of the work of El Anatsui features the artist’s large-scale sculptures, which weave literal Nigerian trash into Ghanian tradition. Ends Oct. 16.

In “Spaces,” large-scale photographs by Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth capture the emptiness of public spaces. Ends Sept.

15. “Pissarro’s People” provides a representative sample of the impressionist painter Camille Pissarro’s work throughout his career. Ends Oct. 2. 225 South St., Williamstown, Mass., clarkart.edu/museum.

Norman Rockwell Museum The museum has a packed summer schedule, with tons of classes, workshops, tours and other programs for children and adults alike. Be sure to check out “Robot Nation” (July 16–Oct. 31), an outdoor exhibition of weatherproof 3D robot sculptures, and “Ice Age: To The Digital Age: The 3D Animation Art of Blue Sky Studios,” an interactive exhibition on digital animation.

Ends Oct. 31. 9 Route 183, Stockbridge, Mass., nrm.org.

Storm King Art Center Storm King presents two special exhibitions. For “5+5: New Perspectives,” 10 sculptors were asked to create a new work or lend a recent work to the center, and to work with Director and Curator David R. Collens to choose an outdoor location for the sculpture. “The View From Here: Storm King at Fifty” explores the history of the art center through documents, photographs, videos, digital media, drawings and more. Ends Nov. 14, Old Pleasant Hill Rd., Mountainville, N.Y., stormking.org.

Concerts at Tannery Pond Chamber and solo musicians perform classical, romantic and newer works in an intimate, casual setting—a barn-like building constructed by Shakers in 1834. On July 23, pianist Vassily Primakov performs Schubert, Schumann and Rachmaninoff.

And on Aug. 3, pianist Ilya Poletaev performs Bach, Ensecu, Chopin, Debussy and Liszt. Ends Sept. 17, New Lebanon, N.Y., tannerypondconcerts.org.

MdS SK cityarts ad_v2final_Layout 1 6/10/11 3:06 PM Page 1

Mark di Suvero at GOVERNORS ISLAND presented by STORM KING ART CENTER

through September 25, 2011 A special exhibition of large-scale works by the iconic American sculptor, sited across the 172-acre expanse of Governors Island.

Experience these dynamic steel works against sweeping views of New York City’s harbor and skyline.

APPS: Text STORM to 56512, or download “Storm King” from iTunes

Open Friday–Sunday, holiday Mondays Free ferries from Manhattan and Brooklyn MORE INFORMATION: stormking.org; govisland.com

July 13, 2011 | City Arts

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AttheGALLERIES Catacombs in Palermo, works in progress, art fairs, friends and the artist pretending to be a palm tree. Fans and scholars— people who genuinely believe the work “emphasizes a delight in the unintentional and infuses... pictorial language with an incandescent force”—will be mesmerized

by Koenig’s cache of Polke arcana.

The rest of us? We’ll figure out pretty quickly that the marketplace moves in not so mysterious ways and skip on to the next venture. [Mario Naves] Through Sept. 3, Leo Koenig Inc., 545 W. 23rd St., www.leokoenig.com.

LOST

“Untitled (Atomic bomb explosion),” by Anonymous.

The Atomic Explosion

Is there any greater visual icon of the mid-twentieth century than the mushroom cloud? The atomic bomb’s destructive force and the following radiation and disease render its sight unmistakable. The Atomic Explosion collects a series of 66 vintage photographs taken in the 1940s and ’50s depicting nuclear tests performed by the United States at Bikini Atoll and at the Nevada Test Site. The U.S.’s bombing of Nagasaki, too, is represented in a handful of photographs.

You know the images; you’ve seen them before. A billowing, manmade cloud rising high above the Nevada desert or a tropical island with the helmeted heads of young men on assignment in the South Pacific reminding us that there really isn’t anything like a day at the beach. The photographs are strangely beautiful and at times betray their underlying narrative. Shot by military personnel or scientists from the Manhattan Project, the pictures are uncredited and occasionally accompanied by clinical descriptions of the test’s immediate results.

If the advent of Modernism (in a nonliterary sense) was heralded by the industrial killing mechanisms of Flanders Fields, then the noise-canceling boom of the A-bomb was surely the wake-up call from utopian movements. It was, after all, the necessity of the bomb which catapulted us into the first technological race for global dominance (nee security), soon to be followed by the space race and nuclear arsenal buildups of the ’50s and ’60s.

So was the explosion—heard “200 miles away from ground zero”—anything but the death knell of Modernism? And that flash of light that seemed to illuminate the entire world in its single second of existence, while answering no questions about the nature of man and his relationship

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to the world, succeeded in rearranging the questions, scrambling them together and casting on them all a blinding new outlook.

[Nicholas Wells] Through July 29, Peter Blum Soho, 99 Wooster St., www.peterblumgallery.com.

Sigmar Polke: Photoworks 1964-2000

This exhibition at Leo Koenig Inc. does no favors to either the oeuvre or the memory of the German painter Sigmar Polke, who died of cancer in 2010 at the age of 69.

Who it favors is hard to say—certainly not the viewer or, at least, a viewer with only a cursory idea of Polke’s status and achievement.

Polke came of age after the Second World War and straddled the political and cultural divides between East and West. He adopted a neo-Dadaist brand of anarchist agit-prop, abjuring a signature style in the cause of anti-commodification. In 1963, Polke founded the “Capitalist Realism” group along with like-minds Gerhard Richter and Konrad Fischer. You don’t need a PhD in post-modernism to glean their dour, programmatic intent.

As with many anti-commodity artists, Polke’s work went on to become a hot commodity, an irony that didn’t seem to elicit much self-examination (or doubt) on the international art star’s part. And Polke was, most decidedly, a star. In his New York Times obituary, critic Roberta Smith described Polke as “nearly as influential as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol.” In blue-chip parlance, you couldn’t ask for better company.

Without knowing something of Polke’s cultural and, yes, capitalist realist standing, you’re unlikely to make much sense of Koenig’s artful installation of photographs, dim and desultory pictures of the Capuchin

As a sub-genre of action movies and literature, apocalypse porn has made a name for itself in recent years. Discounting what we typically look for in movies, story becomes secondary and characters’ interaction is merely filler for the money shots of Tokyo being trampled by a giant monster or Los Angeles falling into a great chasm. LOST, a solid summer group show at Invisible-Exports, explores our fascination and obsession with the End. Organized by Amy Smith-Stewart as part of Smith-Stewart Gallery’s “roving curatorial project,” LOST packs a lot into the Lower East Side gallery’s small space, without making it feel crowded. Almost entirely devoid of human figures, the exhibition centers around an abandoned world of barren landscapes and the remnants of civilization.

Yamini Nayar’s two photographs, “Strange Event” and “Cleo,” beg to explain their backstories. Nayar builds the sets for her photographs in her Brooklyn studio, giving them a tight and interior feel: the awkward quarters of a postapocalyptic safe space. In “Cleo,” the black wooden floor of a cramped room is partly torn away, revealing the rotting space beneath. The picture is strange and angled, with an eye peering through a chink in the opposite wall.

If Nayar’s analog images envision a future of closed-off space amid destruction, then Leah Beeferman’s graphite and laser-etched works indicate a machineobsessed world where detail and exactness are paramount. Unexplained graphs and squared-off shapes share space in these graphic representations of geometrical obsession and time keeping.

LOST definitely takes the high road of apocalyptic media, tending toward the conceptual rather than the graphic and chaotic imagination, but the underlying fascination with a post-human world carries through as a common thread.

People like Harold Camping and Stephen King keep the threat of apocalypse fresh in our minds, but why are we drawn to the prospect of our collective demise? LOST does little to answer the question, but

proposes some futures toward which we may be heading. [NW] Through July 30, Invisible-Exports, 14A Orchard St., www.invisible-exports.com.

Li Songsong

Contemporary art doesn’t come more soulless than the paintings of the Beijingbased artist Li Songsong, who is having his American debut at Pace Gallery.

OK, that might be a stretch. The competition is, after all, pretty stiff.

Songsong isn’t any less professional—that is to say slick and superficial—than any number of artists whose names you could rattle off. But Songsong’s gargantuan, multipanel paintings are fairly egregious in that they are unrelentingly pro forma. Whether Songsong is proud or oblivious to this fact is difficult to parse.

There’s not an iota of Songsong’s art that can’t be traced with a straight, steady line to another artist or genre. Here is an artist for whom appropriation isn’t a transgression or a prank, but an established tradition.

He is, in other words, an academic, and when academicism reaches this pitch of handsomely overbearing blandness, you’ve got art that’s guaranteed not to put a crimp in your day.

Poaching upon the ubiquity of the photographed (or filmed) image, Songsong paints scenes drawn from contemporary events and personal snapshots, rendering them in stucco-like slurries of oil paint. The work’s political bent is patent, but made vague and palatable through a risk-free manipulation of material, format and image.

The paintings are impossible to imagine without Social Realism, China’s state-sanctioned style of painting, but its influence is no less oppressive than that of Gerhard Richter, say, or Sean Scully and Chuck Close. Songsong touches innumerable artistic bases without transforming any of them. This is Significant Art as pure style.

Songsong’s art is notable primarily as an example of how the world’s largest communist state has embraced avant-gardist art as an international marketing tool—a sociological fillip that cultural historians will have a heyday unraveling. Art historians will have an easier time of it, filing Songsong’s achievement as another blip amongst the novelties that power the marketplace, if not the life of art itself. [MN] Through Aug. 5, The Pace Gallery, 534 W. 25th St., www.thepacegallery.com.

Form And Fashion

Can fashion photography be classed as art? How have fashion magazines changed over the decades? What is fashion’s relationship with the natural world? These are just some of the questions raised by the gorgeous Form and Fashion exhibit at the Staley-Wise gallery, where 90-year-old works by the French photographer George

DOROTHEA ROCKBURNE In My Mind’s Eye On view through August 14, 2011

“Escape,” by Li Songsong.

Kirk Stoller: On Point

Any genre of art has its own set of rewards, pitfalls and clichés. The tradition

of the found object can seem especially prone to the latter. The challenge of recycling ephemera is in overcoming (or thwarting) a readymade veneer of history.

Too many artists coast on the romance of the found object, milking its surface appeal and playing to nostalgia. It’s hard to transform junk into magic. There’s a reason Joseph Cornell is a singular figure.

Kirk Stoller, whose found object sculptures are on display at Mary Ryan Gallery, isn’t Cornell, but neither is he Richard Tuttle. While Stoller flirts with Tuttle’s piss elegant brand of postminimalist caprice, he doesn’t succumb to its glib charms. Instead, Stoller elicits a fine strain of animism from the cobbling together of lumberyard oddments. Scraps of wood (sometimes painted; sometimes not), rusty bits of iron and other disabused utilitarian materials are perched atop and against each other with acrobatic finesse.

Actually, “cobbling” is too muscular a word for what Stoller does. His accumulations of detritus are almost alarmingly casual in their precariousness.

You tiptoe around the pieces—hold your breath, in fact—for fear of knocking them over. This attribute signals Stoller’s knack for distillation and choreography. It also hints at why the work can, in more skeptical frames of mind, appear artful and cute.

Describing someone’s art as “Calder-esque” isn’t always a commendation.

Mostly, though, Stoller’s precisiontuned emphasis on line, mass, volume and (less so) color waylays critical quibbles with considerable aplomb and, or so we are told, gravitas. The sculptures “reflect the precipice of our current world situation... it is possible to foresee both the enlightenment of the human race and its destruction.” That’s a lot to ask from Home Depot cast-offs and not much to ask at all: What artist since Day One hasn’t felt the same way? But Stoller builds upon his diversions in witty and adroit ways. He’s an artist worth keeping an eye on. [MN] Through Aug. 24, Mary Ryan Gallery, 527 W. 26th St., www.maryryangallery.com.

25 JOBS LANE, SOUTHAMPTON, NY PARRISHART.ORG

T 631 283 2118

The presentation of Dorothea Rockburne: In My Mind’s Eye and its accompanying programs are made possible, in part, with generous support from Agnes Gund, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Dina Recanati, C.A.L. Foundation, The Dedalus Foundation, Inc., Barbara J. Slifka, Georgia Welles, Anonymous, Jacqueline Brody, James Goodman, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, Barbara Grodd, Penny Dammann Johnston-Foote, Michael A. Rubenstein, Gillis MacGil Addison, the Herman Goldman Foundation, Hobart Betts, and Martin S. Weinstein.

The Museum’s programs are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties.

Dorothea Rockburne (Canadian, born 1932), Narcissus, 1985. Oil on gessoed linen, 92 ½ x 123 x 6 3/8 inches. Private Collection, New York. © 2011 Dorothea Rockburne/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Billy Jim

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Pissarro’s People Through October 2, 2011 A fresh look at one of the masters of French Impressionism

Detail of Apple Harvest, 1888, by Camille Pissarro.

Dallas Museum of Art. Munger Fund

Hoynigen-Huene hang side by side with works by the contemporary American Kurt Markus.

The two photographers are very different. Markus is fascinated with the American West. He sets his photos in Utah and New Mexico, posing his models in front of massive rock formations or against endless deserts. Sometimes the landscape even replaces the models. One 1990 print shows us a broad-brimmed black hat hanging on a wooden fence, while a harsh sun beats down on barbed wire and fence posts. We don’t need a model to tell us that this picture is about human survival in a tough setting.

Hoynigen-Huene, for his part, was an aristocrat. He fled the Russian revolution and moved, first to London, then to Paris, where he worked for Vogue. His photographs are full of abstract geometric shapes and lines, rather than specific places.

In one 1937 print an oversized, beautifully rounded female head appears against a white background. Her neck is wrapped in a voluminous checkered scarf. She could be anywhere; she could be nowhere.

And yet the two photographers are not always so far apart. Take two of the first pieces in the show. In a 1930 swimwear spread, Hoynigen-Huene shoots six models in bathing gear, lying together in neat rows on the sand. Their faces and hair add to the picture’s geometry and match the striped swimsuits. Next to it is a 2004 Markus shot of a woman in a black gown. She’s spread out against a boulder in a straight line, every bit as geometrical and as still as HoynigenHuene’s bathers.

The show is full of interesting juxtapositions like this one. They remind us that for all their differences these are still all fashion photographs, designed to sell an ideal of what clothing can do for us. And the ideal will always dominate the shot.

[Kate Prengel] Through Aug. 12, Staley-Wise Gallery, 560 Broadway, www.staleywise.com.

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Williamstown, Massachusetts 413 458 2303

clarkart.edu July 13, 2011 | City Arts

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By Jay NordliNger ity Opera arranged one of the weirdest musical evenings I have ever attended.

The evening was a combination of pretentiousness, vulgarity, sincerity and sweetness. City Opera dubbed it “Rufus Wainwright Goes to the Opera!”

That exclamation point seems to try a little too hard.

The event was part of the River to River Festival, and took place in the Winter Garden Atrium down at the World Financial Center. Outside, unionists were stopping concertgoers and handing out leaflets. They were not dressed like typical unionists. They were wearing tuxedos, and some of them were playing instruments.

These guys were members of the City Opera orchestra, protesting changes being made by George Steel, the company’s general manager.

Inside, there was no orchestra, just a pianist, and an excellent one: Kevin Murphy, head of City Opera’s music staff.

There were also four singers from the company: a soprano, a mezzo-soprano, a tenor and a bass-baritone. And there was, of course, the star.

Rufus Wainwright is a singer-songwriter who crosses over into classical music sometimes. He has written an opera, Prima Donna, commissioned by the mightiest institution in the field: the Metropolitan Opera. The Met dropped it, however, apparently because the libretto is in French, and the Met preferred English. City Opera will perform Prima Donna next season.

The program in the atrium was a hodgepodge. There were excerpts from standard operas, selected by Wainwright, if I’m not mistaken. They included such gala favorites as the duet from Bizet’s Pearl Fishers.

C

(Wonderful stuff, all.) There were also two excerpts from Prima Donna. And there was a sprinkling of Wainwright pop songs.

If you have not experienced him, you will want to do so, at least once: Wainwright is a piece of work, a diva, almost a happening. He’s full of camp, and full of himself—but full of himself in a sly, self-knowing way. Near the beginning of the concert, he said, “We’re going to hear some of the most beautiful music in the world—my songs.” He delivered this line with winking appeal.

The crowd that turned out for him was enormous, standing room only. They did not pay—the concert was free—but I have a feeling they would have. Before Wainwright appeared, a man talked to the audience, introducing the event. I didn’t catch his name or affiliation. He marveled at the size of the crowd, then said, “Thank you so much for showing up for classical music!”

Allow me to make two quick points: 1) The crowd did not show up for classical music, exactly—it showed up for Rufus.

2) Classical-music presenters, at all costs, should avoid Sally Field mode: “You like me, you really, honestly like me!” It’s embarrassing.

Next to take the stage was George Steel, the City Opera GM. He made a puzzling remark, which went roughly as follows: “We’re leaving Lincoln Center and going back into New York, and we’re giving City Opera back to the people of New York.”

Lincoln Center, as you know, is very much in New York. And how exactly were “the people” deprived of City Opera when it was at Lincoln Center?

Steel went on to praise Rufus Wainwright in the most extravagant terms: “one of the greatest living songwriters,”

“passionate about opera,” “brilliant about opera.” Sometimes, it’s best to let audiences decide for themselves. Constant puffing, constant hype, is a bane of the classicalmusic world.

Wainwright made his appearance in a tuxedo jacket, tuxedo shirt, little black shorts and sandals. He began with a song of his called “Damned Ladies”: pleasant, chromatic, with a rocking accompaniment.

(When singing his own music, Wainwright accompanied himself at the piano. Kevin Murphy handled the rest.) He sings decently, innocuously, more or less in tune.

Like many another pop artist, he gets a sullen, earnest look on his face when he sings. Do you know this look? Also, do you know how a pop artist will scrunch up his face, as though the act of singing hurt?

Wainwright does that.

All evening long, he talked to the audience, often in a mumble. Sitting in the second row, I had a hard time hearing him. Still, he said many interesting or witty things. Looking out over the vast atrium, he commented, “I’m feeling a Tiffany vibe.” He was referring to the 1980s pop star Tiffany, who often performed in malls.

“Bring it to the masses,” Wainwright added, almost under his breath.

He made introductory remarks before each operatic item. The first was “O don fatale,” from Verdi’s Don Carlo. Wainwright told us he didn’t know what “O don fatale” meant. (“O fatal gift.”) This rather undercut Steel’s statement that the star was “brilliant about opera.” The next item was “Che gelida manina,” from Puccini’s Bohème.

Wainwright had trouble, not with meaning, but with pronunciation.

Which isn’t everything, of course. Plenty of people can pronounce Italian without being able to compose a decent pop song.

Or an opera, of any quality. As I mentioned, there were two excerpts from Prima Donna. The first was sung by the soprano on hand, and the second was sung by the composer himself. The excerpts were similar in character: pretty and transparent, with an Impressionist sheen, or a minimalist wash. They were also a bit long and repetitive. During the second excerpt,

audience members thought Wainwright had ended, so they applauded. He kept going, smiling at them.

Soon after came the “Evening Star Song,” from Wagner’s Tannhäuser.

Wainwright said he could “relate” to the opera’s title character, “a very arrogant singer, who thinks he’s better than anyone else.” He also said that the “Evening Star Song” had a “crossover quality.” I cringed at this remark—but then thought, “You know, he’s right, in a way.”

Wainwright sang his song “Who Are You New York?”—another pretty number, although I wish I could insert a comma in the title—and also his “Vibrate.” The latter song followed the “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen, and uses the same rhythm.

The grand finale was the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto. In his preamble, Wainwright mentioned a famed American baritone, Cornell MacNeil—although I think he said “Colonel MacNeil,” as in Colonel Sanders. I’m picking on Wainwright a little. But his blasé approach to the evening had a strange charm, and his love of opera was obvious, and right.

There is no doubt that City Opera wants to be cool—and wants opera to be cool.

Good luck with that. I always say, there’s a reason they call popular music “popular music.” Classical-music people are forever on the defensive, forever apologizing, forever wanting to be loved, by “the masses” (to use Wainwright’s words). They also cast votes of no confidence in their art form.

Thus, the New York Philharmonic opens its season with a new jazz work by Wynton Marsalis. (He may call it a symphony—a “swing symphony”—but it’s still a jazz work.) Thus, Carnegie Hall hires as its composer-in-residence a jazz composer, Brad Mehldau. Aren’t there plenty of opportunities for jazzmen, in the jazz world?

Shouldn’t classical-music institutions promote—you know, classical music?

Rufus Wainwright is a fun and talented guy, and his adventures on the classical side are probably to the good. But if classical music hangs its hat on pop artists and their coolness—on that which is trendy, and ephemeral—we’re doomed. <

INTERNATIONAL KEYBOARD INSTITUTE & FESTIVAL Jerome Rose, Founder & Director

•

Julie Kedersha, Festival Director

With the Participation of

July 17-31, 2011 Prestige Series at 6pm Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

July 17 July 18 July 19 July 20 July 21 July 22 July 23

Sun July 24 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

July 25 July 26 July 27 July 28 July 29 July 30 July 31

Masters Series at 8:30pm

Jerome Rose David Dubal Xiayin Wang Cyprien Katsaris Yuan Sheng Mykola Suk Denis Kozhukhin

Koji Attwood Denis Evstuhin Gesa Luecker Eduard Kunz Anna Fedorova Alan Walker: Liszt Lecture at 3pm (FREE) Faculty Concert at 6pm An Afternoon with Alan Walker hosted by David Dubal at 3pm (FREE) Faculty Concert at 6pm Faculty Concert at 8:30pm Silver-Garburg Duo Alexander Kobrin Claire Huangci HaeSun Paik Masataka Goto: 1st Prize Liszt 2011 Dmitri Alexeev Daniil Trifonov: 1st Prize Rubinstein 2011 Akiko Ebi Roman Rabinovich Marc-André Hamelin MacKenzie Semifinal at 11am Jon Nakamatsu MacKenzie Final at 11am - 1 pm & 2 - 4pm

www.ikif.org All Concerts $20

info@ikif.org

Daily Masterclasses $15

Festival Concert Pass $250

MANNES COLLEGE THE NEW SCHOOL FOR MUSIC 150 West 85 Street NYC 10024 IKIF_CityArts_2011.indd 1

30/6/11 5:56:24 PM

JUNE 30 – AUGUST 19, 2011 Gallery 1: A Desert In The Ocean— The View From Cill Rialaig curated by Catherine Howe

Cill Rialaig, Ballinskellings, Co Kerry, Ireland, 2010 Photo credit: Catherine Howe

54 Orchard Street NY, NY 10002 212 410 6120 lesleyheller.com summer hours: wed-sat 11am-6pm

July 13, 2011 | City Arts

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DANCE

Riding the Waves

By Joel loBenthal allet is a rough, wild ride! A dancer’s position in the casting pecking order can turn on a dime, and nowhere more visibly than at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet, which is playing the Metropolitan Opera through July 16.

Few dancers have had such a varied and contradictory career at the Mariinsky as Svetlana Ivanova, who will dance Kitty in Alexei Ratmansky’s Anna Karenina.

Ivanova entered the company in 1996, after graduating from its feeder academy on Rossi Street. She is a dancer of delicacy, grace, style and real artistry.

Last February, when the Mariinsky played the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Ivanova was dancing in the corps de ballet of its Giselle. We talked about a number of topics, among them the late Inna Zubkovskaya, the ex-Mariinsky ballerina who was Ivanova’s senior teacher at the school. I remember Zubkovskaya extolling Ivanova when I interviewed her in New York in 1999. The indomitable Zubkovskaya was “like a second mother,” Ivanova recalled in English. “In the theater, there was sometimes a not good situation, but we don’t know about this, because she was like a wall for us.”

B

Zubkovskaya died in 2001, after which Ivanova spent a year with John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet, where she is still fondly remembered. But she missed loved ones in Russia. Since she returned to the Mariinsky in 2002, casting her in lead roles has not been a priority there.

Nevertheless, in 2008 Ivanova had been scheduled to make her Mariinsky debut as Giselle, a role for which she is ideal. She had prepared it with Zubkovskaya early in her career, and then more recently with Elena Evteyeva, another great formerMariinsky ballerina. However, Ivanova scheduled a minor operation before she knew that her Giselle had actually been given a performance date, and so she never got to do it. That’s probably also in part because later that year she took a maternity leave and gave birth to a son, Ivan.

Ivanova’s Albrecht was to have been Vasily Scherbakov, another dancer who, like she, embodies the company’s highest echelon of artistry but not rank. As “Cassandra” wrote on Criticaldance.com several years ago, “this superb dancer has a fan following way out of proportion to the meager number of roles he is allocated.”

He and Ivanova danced the Bluebird pas de deux together when the Mariinsky was

n.razina

The career ups and downs of The Mariinnsky Ballet’s stars

Svetlana Ivanova as Kitty in Anna Karenina at the Met in 1999—that was a dazzling season. The company has been putting him mostly in the corps in the last couple of years, and that’s where he’s dancing during this Met visit.

The raison d’etre of this Met season is musical as much as kinetic: Valery Gergiev’s interest in the music of Rodion Shchedrin, who composed three of the four ballets being performed. Among the dancers featured in New York, Diana Vishneva and

Uliana Lopatkina are of course among the world’s leading ballerinas. Each will dance Karenina and Alberto Alonso’s Carmen Suite. Lopatkina will also dance the adagio in Balanchine’s Symphony in C, as she did memorably in 1999 when the company first performed the ballet in New York.

Yuri Smekalov was here when the school performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1998 and more recently with the Eifman company. He’s a charismatic danceactor who will be Lopatkina’s Vronsky and Vishneva’s Jose.

Among the younger generation, Evgenia Obraztsova and Vladimir Shklyarov gave what for me were their best performances in Ratmansky’s Cinderella, and they will here dance the leads in his Little Humpbacked Horse. As I wrote in these pages last February, Alina Somova’s Giselle in Washington was an indicator that she may be at an auspicious crossroads about how to present herself. She dances in Ratmansky and Balanchine, as does Ekaterina Kondaurova and Viktoria Tereshkina, who made hits here when the Mariinsky visited City Center in 2008. Andrian Fadeyev, Vishenva’s partner in that 1999 Met season, is now director of St Petersburg’s Yakobson Ballet. He’s scheduled to dance in Symphony in C; I wonder if these will be his final performances in New York with the Mariinsky. < Read more by Joel Lobenthal at Lobenthal.com.

Jazz

Musical Staycations

As an alternative to swanky or dank clubs, try the concerts in the city’s harbor and parks By howard Mandel ne of the great things about jazz in this city is that you can get away from it all and still be on the case—at least during summer. For instance, there are few venues more transporting than the open deck of a two-masted schooner skimming through the night in New York Harbor.

Just after the 4th of July, saxophonist Avram Fefer and guitarist Joe Cohn kicked off a weekly gig on the Clipper City, a tall ship that will disembark from the far end of South Street Seaport at 9:30 every Wednesday night during July, August and September. It’s a pleasure cruise, plain and simple: two hours on the water, including a turn around the Statue of Liberty with the Fefer-Cohn quartet (completed by what will be a rotating cast of bassists and drummers) stretching out on standards without much fuss. On opening night, they breezed mellowly through Miles’ “All Blues,” Monk’s “Well You Needn’t” and Rollins’ calypso “St. Thomas,” among other evergreen modern fare.

An eclectic audience of about 80— dating couples, middle-aged folks and

O

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City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

families with kids—sat on wooden benches or lounged against the gunwales, gazing out at the skyscraper lights of Manhattan and Brooklyn, while party boats headed upriver and the Statue of Liberty, indefatigably, held her torch aloft. There was a bar, no food. Fefer, a gregarious reedsman best known on the edgy downtown scene but also a veteran of straight-ahead commercial jobs, connected easily with the crowd, though the whole band—indeed, the whole deck—was bathed in darkness.

A young woman danced expressively, energetically, a few feet from where the saxophonist stood, and he played to her (but there was no requisite intermingling among attendees). We were as unknown to each other as ticket-holders at the movies. Cohn, whose guitar playing is fresh yet swingbased, was only a silhouette; similarly, bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Mike Pride could be heard, not seen. But the entire experience, rather than fine points of the musicians’ performances, was the balm.

The music, familiar but always mutating, was our link to shore, to home; the air, the water, the gentle swells of the sea and

rolling of the boat was our respite.

Time out on the Clipper City is not exactly cheap. It costs $95 to board (reservations recommended), with a complimentary drink. Other away-at-home possibilities exist, however.

We’re lucky in this town to have an extraordinary variety of free concerts in the parks, ranging from the Metropolitan Opera’s summer recital series throughout the boroughs to SummerStage’s celebration of Nigerian independence July 22 with Faaji Agba (that country’s Buena Vista Social Club) opening for Seun Kuti (youngest son of Fela Kuti) and his band Egypt 80. The following Friday (July 29), SummerStage puts on Malian singer Oumou Sangaré and Arabic multi-instrumentalist Bassam Saba.

On July 31, Yeminite singer Ravid Kahalani, the French group Watcha Clan (its latest recording is Radio Babel) and Shabate (described as Ethiopian rhythms meet Jewish melodies and bebop blues) practice the imperative of world fusions. Can one get further out while remaining in New York?

Well, yes: Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center is presenting the New York

Electronic Arts Festival at Governors Island, with participatory sound sculptures, installations, workshops and shows through Sept. 25. Composers Inside Electronics has realized the late David Tudor’s “Rainforest V” sound art piece, which features an “orchestra of resonant instruments.” Composer John Driscoll will discuss the concept behind that work and demonstrate his own developments of it as “Sounds Out of Thin Air” on the afternoon of Saturday, July 16; there’s also a special CIE performance July 30.

If processed sound waves aren’t music to your ears, know that Governors Island is home to car-free biking, grassy meadows, a trapeze school, playgrounds, art exhibits and participatory sound sculptures, including a percussion instrument made of thousands of bottle caps and the Ministry of Random Events’ circle of plastic drums. Most of the exhibits—spread through indoor and outdoor sites—are open every Friday through Sunday.

The beloved island, about half a mile into New York Bay, is reached by ferry (free ones leave from Manhattan’s Battery Maritime Building, next to the Staten Island Ferry, and from Pier 6 in the Brooklyn Bridge Park at the foot of Atlantic Avenue). From it you can look back at the grit and pressure of the city, be glad you’re out of it, and yet get quickly back. It’s the perfect escape for those who can’t bear to leave for long. <

Theater

A Lesson in Charisma When in Rome…Don’t Do As the Tourists Do

Tyne Daly transforms an awkward bio play into something approaching elegance

Joan Marcus

By J. Blank

Sierra Boggess (left) and Tyne Daly in Master Class.

By Mark Peikert nless you’re already familiar with the world of opera and the life of Maria Callas prior to attending a performance of Master Class, well, playwright Terrence McNally doesn’t have much interest in catching you up. His 1995 play, set at one of the master classes Callas taught at Juilliard in the ’70s, thrives on delighting culture vultures by not talking down to them. You get a pat on the back if you recognize that “Sutherland” means Dame Joan, and that “Ari” is, of course, Aristotle Onassis. If you don’t know either reference, the bitchiness that runs through the play like an undercurrent will presumably keep your attention from wandering.

And it does, at least most of the time.

Tyne Daly, an unlikely choice, plays Callas with all of the lip-smacking aplomb of a born diva, a role she didn’t seem ideally suited for. But as a theater artist, she recognizes the holes in McNally’s play for what they are, and works to fill them with an oversized personality and some bewitchingly delivered zingers, particularly those at the expense of poor Joan Sutherland.

As for the rest of the show, which alternates between Callas reminiscing to the audience or probing old wounds in her mind, and her interactions with the three students who have been brave (or foolhardy) enough to sing for her, Ms. Daly can only do so much. In the hands of Sierra Boggess, one wonders how the role of Sharon, a student furious over Callas’ casual cruelty, netted Audra McDonald a Tony Award in the original production. Her climactic confrontation with Callas isn’t as devastating as it seems intended to be; Daly looks as if

U

she could snap the whippersnapper in two and then file her nails with the bones. And Alexandra Silber is playing the comedy of her meek singer too hard, killing her laughs and turning the role into a pantomime of nervousness. As the less confrontational men, a pianist, a stagehand and a tenor, Jeremy Cohen, Clinton Brandhagen and Garrett Sorenson understand that Master Class is a diva vehicle, and shade their performances accordingly. None of them threaten to upstage either Callas or Daly, coming off better than the overwhelmed Boggess and Silber.

Master Class grinds to a halt at the end of both acts for Callas to take center stage and recreate long-ago conversations that are supposed to humanize the temperamental La Divina. Neither Daly nor director Stephen Wadsworth can make these sudden excursions into memory believable or organic (though the atmospheric lighting comes as a relief after the flat, harsh glare of David Lander’s work during the class).

Backed by recordings of the actual Callas, Daly switches from character to character, obsessively recalling her tortured love affair with Onassis. Never mind that Callas’ thrilling recklessness with her voice ultimately left it in ruins; McNally is more interested in her tempestuous love life (including a much-older husband) than the choices that left her vocally bereft.

One would think that a once-in-acentury career like Callas’ would be enough to hang a play on, but instead we wander down the soap opera-ready byways of a woman undone by her own passions, delivered in soliloquies rather than folded into the classroom conversations, where they wouldn’t feel so hamfisted. Callas— and audiences—deserve better. <

You’ve just left the Coliseum and you’re now on the Spanish Steps watching motorcycles and Vespas zoom down narrow side streets. Locals gesture so intently that for a second you wonder if sign language is the lingua franca. A street vendor offers you a bacio gelato and, although you’ve heard the heat is unpleasant, you’re actually quite comfortable.

Why? Because you were smarter than the typical tourist and booked one of American Airlines’ fall or winter flights. All roads lead to Rome but only one offers you 28 affordable seats in business class and 167 in coach, American Airlines’ transatlantic route on the Boeing 767300. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but now with constant nonstop flights from JFK International to Fiumicino through Nov. 10, you can certainly get there in one!

And what’s there to do in the cradle of civiliza- The Pantheon tion? Plenty. But as Italy’s most visited city, Rome, even off-season Rome, has many sights best replaced with underappreciated gems. Or at least approached with creativity. Here’s our short guide of musts: The Pantheon. An obvious choice, but the pagan temple puts you within walking distance of San Luigi dei Francesi, Santa Maria, San Ignazio and Gesù, four churches that provide an abridged version of the Vatican’s grandeur without its line. You’ll also be right next to the rarely visited Galleria Doria Pamphilj, which allows you to see Caravaggios and Titians the aristocratic Roman way: in a palace, away from the plebs.

Cappuccin Crypt and Catacombs of Priscillia. Do you see artfully arranged bones when you picture catacombs? Turns out that’s more of a crypt thing; Cappuccin is the best. And while San Sebastiano and San Callisto get all the attention, the

Catacombs of Priscillia are just as extensive and far more accessible. Their dead aren’t quite as famous but who cares? Bones are bones.

Testaccio. Located in the typically overlooked south, this neighborhood has hands down the city’s best food market. And a pyramid. When Rome sacked Egypt, it stole everything in sight, including

(Above) The Roman Forum

its sense of style.

A wealthy general decided to model his tomb on those he pillaged in Nubia, but at least he had the propriety to build it the Egyptian way.

He used slaves.

Be sure to check out the area’s inimitable Montemartini Museum, which displays 400 ancient statues in a 1932 electric plant.

Campo de’Fior. Not exactly an undiscovered secret, this city square remains the best place to get a drink. Looking for something authentic? Watch where underage Americans are going and head in the opposite direction. You’re sure to hit one of the area’s many locals-only wine bars.

La Vinera is a good one. And if you want a trashy expat place? Anywhere with an English name should do. Sloppy Sam’s and Drunken Ship get points for cheap shots of absinthe.

Once you get a taste of what Rome has to offer, you’ll want to return. The American Airlines return flights depart from Rome at 12:55 p.m., arriving at JFK at 4:45 p.m.

Then you’ll start planning your next Italian trip with American Airlines.

July 13, 2011 | City Arts

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ArtsAGENDA The Beehive Salon: “Relativity.” Opens July 13,

115 N. 7th St., Brooklyn, thebeehivesalonbrooklyn.com. eT Modern: Edward Tufte: “Multiplicity.” Opens July 24, 547 W. 20th St., 212-206-0300.

FirST STreeT Gallery: “2011 MFA Juried Exhibition.” Opens July 21, 526 W. 26th St., Ste. 209, firststreetgallery.net.

GeorGe BilliS Gallery: “The Buildings of New York: Part 2.” Opens July 19, 521 W. 26th St., georgebillis.com.

MF Gallery: “Stranamore: A Show of Deranged Erotic Art.” Opens July 16, 213 Bond St., Brooklyn, mfgallery.net. noho Gallery: “Six in the City.” Opens Aug. 2, 530 W. 25th St., nohogallery.com.

Paula Barr ChelSea: “Chelsea Biennial Art Exhibition.” Opens July 14, 508/526 W. 26th St., 9G, paulabarrchelsea.com.

STeven KaSher Gallery: “Rude & Reckless: Punk/ Post-Punk Graphics 1776–82.” Opens July 14, 521 W. 23rd St., stevenkasher.com.

Sva Gallery: “AuthentiCity.” Opens July 8, 209 E. 23rd St., schoolofvisualarts.edu.

Exhibition Closings The 8Th Floor: “Queloides.” Ends July 21, 17 W. 17th

St., 8th Fl., the8thfloor.org.

aC inSTiTuTe: Sebastian Mahaluf: “Gravity, inversion

of the matter.” Ends July 30, 547 W. 27th St., #610, artcurrents.org. alMaCen unliMiTed arT: Herton Roitman: “Paintings.” Ends July 31, 111 Front St., Ste. 224, Brooklyn, almacen.com/br. aMerinGer MCenery yohe: Wolf Kahn: “Color & Consequence.” Ends July 16, 525 W. 22nd St., amy-nyc.com. aPexarT: “The Peripheterists.” Ends July 30, 291 Church St., apexart.org. arSenal Gallery: “Full Circle: Ai Weiwei & the Emperor’s Fountain.” Ends July 15, Central Park, Enter at 64th St. & 5th Ave., 3rd Fl., nycgovparks.org.

BenriMon ConTeMPorary: “Nachume Miller vs Danny Miller.” Ends July 16, 514 W. 24th St., 2nd Fl., bcontemporary.com.

BernarduCCi.MeiSel.Gallery: Hans Van de Bovenkamp: “Menhirs & Maquettes.” Ends July 22, 37 W. 57th St., meiselgallery.com.

BlanK SPaCe: “In Portrait.” Ends July 29, 511 W. 25th St., Ste. 204, blankspaceart.com.

Blue MounTain Gallery: “Zones of Contact, The Public Art of Joan Marie Kelly.” Ends July 30, 530 W. 25th St., bluemountaingallery.org.

Bonni BenruBi Gallery: Linda McCartney: “Life in Photographs.” Ends July 29, 41 E. 57th St., 13th Fl., bonnibenrubi.com.

BrooKlyniTe Gallery: Miss Bugs: “Parlour.” Ends July 16, 334 Malcolm X Blvd., Brooklyn, brooklynitegallery.blogspot.com.

ChurCh oF ST. Mary The virGin: Charlotte Lichtblau: “Seeing And Believing.” Ends July 31, 145 W. 46th St., stmvirgin.org.

Churner & Churner: “Every Photo Graph Is In Visible.” Ends July 30, 205 10th Ave., churnerandchurner.com. dean ProjeCT: “On the Verge.” Ends July 29, 511 W. 25th St., 2nd Fl., deanproject.com.

FaMouS aCCounTanTS: Shanna Maurizi: “Unidentified.” Ends July 24, 1673 Gates Ave., Brooklyn, famousaccountants.wordpress.com.

ForuM Gallery: Megan Rye: “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.” Ends July 15, 730 5th Ave., forumgallery.com.

FreiGhT+voluMe: “Migration.” Ends July 30, 530 W.

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24th St., freightandvolume.com.

GiTTerMan Gallery: Yelena Yemchuk: “Gidropark.”

Ends July 16, 170 E. 75th St., gittermangallery.com.

GeorGe BilliS Gallery: “The Buildings of New York:

Part 1.” Ends July 16, 521 W. 26th St., georgebillis.com.

The halF KinG Gallery: Jehad Nga: “In Memory of the Future.” Ends July 31, 505 W. 23rd St., thehalfking.com/gallery. horTon Gallery ChelSea: “Monkey Wrench.” Ends July 22, 504 W. 22nd St., Parlor Level, hortongallery.com. hoSFelT Gallery: Christopher Adams: “Natural Selection.” Ends July 30. Jeremy Stenger. Ends July 30. Rachell Sumpter: “Cornucopia.” Ends July 30, 531 W. 36th St., hosfeltgallery.com. jeFFrey leder Gallery: “Made in Long Island City.”

Ends July 15, 1105 44th Rd., 3rd Fl., Queens, jeffreyledergallery.com. jiM KeMPner Fine arT: “Conversations in Post-Minimalist Abstraction.” Ends July 28, 501 W. 23rd St., jimkempnerfineart.com.

Knoedler & CoMPany: Conrad Marca-Relli: “City To Town.” Ends July 29, 19 E. 70th St., knoedlergallery.com. laurenCe Miller Gallery: “Past (Present) Future III.” Ends July 28, 20 W. 57th St., laurencemillergallery.com. loCaTion one: “Sounds Good.” Ends July 29, 26 Greene St., location1.org. loMBard Freid ProjeCTS: Eva Struble: “Landsmen.”

Ends July 29, 518 W. 19th St., lombard-freid.com. luiSe roSS Gallery: “Small.” Ends July 29, 511 W. 25th St., #307, luiserossgallery.com. lZ ProjeCT SPaCe: K.M. Copham: “One Thousand Faces.” Ends July 16, 164 Suffolk St., nystudiogallery.com.

Madeline WeinriB/aBC CarPeT & hoMe: Mark Wilson: “The Color of Sacred.” Ends July 14, 888 Broadway, 6th Fl., madelineweinrib.com.

MarlBorouGh ChelSea: “Intersection: Photography/ Painting/Document.” Ends July 22, 545 W. 25th St., marlboroughgallery.com.

Marvelli Gallery: “Sailors & Shamans.” Ends July 30. Christine Rebet: “The Square.” Ends July 30, 526 W. 26th St., 2nd Fl., marvelligallery.com. nanCy MarGoliS Gallery: Eva Hild & Jackie Meier.

Ends July 31, 523 W. 25th St., nancymargolisgallery.com. niCole KlaGSBrun Gallery: “Belief & Understanding.” Ends July 28. “Spirit of the Signal.” Ends July 28, 526 W. 26th St., nicoleklagsbrun.com. noho Gallery: “Black Dog.” Ends July 30, 530 W. 25th St., nohogallery.com. oK harriS WorKS oF arT: “American Abstract Artists: 75th Anniversary.” Ends July 15, 383 W. Broadway, okharris.com.

The PaCe Gallery: Willem de Kooning. Ends July 29, 32 E. 57th St., the pacegallery.com.

Paula Barr ChelSea: “Chelsea Biennial Art Exhibition.” Ends July 23, 508/526 W. 26th St., 9G, paulabarrchelsea.com.

P.j.S. exhiBiTionS: Michael Cole: “Bespoke.” Ends July 29, 238 W. 14th St., pjs-exhibitions.com.

PrinCe STreeT Gallery: “4th National Juried Exhibition.” Ends July 30, 530 W. 25th St., princestreetgallery.com. raChel uFFner Gallery: “Summer Whites.” Ends July 29, 47 Orchard St., racheluffnergallery.com. rhv Fine arT: Henry Chung. Ends July 31, 683 6th Ave., rhvfineart.com. ronald FeldMan Fine arTS: “Taking Shape.” Ends July 29, 31 Mercer St., feldmangallery.com.

SPanierMan Modern: Demetrio Alfonso: “Renewing The Past.” Ends July 16. “Ten Modern & Contemporary Artists.” Ends July 16, 53 E. 58th St., spanierman.com.

STandPiPe Gallery: Elizabeth Terhune: “From Such

T. Charles Erickson

Exhibition opEnings

Judy Gold in The Judy Show - My Life As A Sitcom. a Velvet World It Comes.” Ends July 30, 150 W. 25th St., standpipegallery.com.

Sva Gallery: “AuthentiCity.” Ends July 27, 209 E. 23rd St., schoolofvisualarts.edu.

ThoMaS erBen Gallery: Nadia Khawaja: “Drawings - Videos - Photographs.” Ends July 22, 526 W. 26th St., 4th Fl., thomaserban.com.

TiBor de naGy Gallery: John O’Reilly: “Recent Montage.” Ends July 29, 724 5th Ave, #12, tibordenagy.com.

Tria Gallery: James Walton Fox & Sonam Dolma Brauen: “How Soon Is Now.” Ends July 14, 531 W. 25th St., Grnd Fl. #5, triagallerynyc.com. von linTel Gallery: “Driven to Abstraction.” Ends July 23, 520 W. 23rd St., vonlintel.com.

WeSTSide Gallery: “Hidden in Plain Sight.” Ends July 23, 133/144 W. 21st St., schoolofvisualarts.edu.

WhiTe ColuMnS: Cynthia Daignault. Ends July 16.

John Hiltunen. Ends July 16. Sara MacKillop.

Ends July 16. Aurie Ramirez. Ends July 16. Daniel Rios Rodriguez. Ends July 16, 320 W. 13th St., whitecolumns.org. yanCey riChardSon Gallery: Bryan Graf: “Field Recordings.” Ends July 16. Melanie Willhide: “Sleeping Beauties.” Ends July 16, 535 W. 22nd St., yanceyrichardson.com.

ZürCher STudio: “REVERIE.” Ends July 20, 33 Bleecker St., galeriezurcher.com.

MusEuMs aMeriCan FolK arT MuSeuM: “Perspectives: Forming

the Figure.” Ends Aug. 21. Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. Ends Oct. 9. “Quilts: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum.” Ends Oct. 16, 45 W. 53rd St., folkartmuseum.org. aMeriCan MuSeuM oF naTural hiSTory: “Body & Spirit: Tibetan Medical Paintings.” Ends July 17.

“Brain: The Inside Story.” Ends Aug. 15. “Highway of An Empire: The Great Inca Road.” Ends September. “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs.”

Ends Jan. 2, 2012. “Frogs: A Chorus of Colors.”

Ends Jan. 8, 2012, Central Park West at W. 79th St., amnh.org. aSia SoCieTy & MuSeuM: “Inspired by Yoshitomo Nara: Works by New York City Students.” Ends Aug. 14. “A Longing for Luxury.” Ends Sept. 11, 725 Park Ave., asiasociety.org. auSTrian CulTural ForuM: “Fünf Räume.” Ends Sept. 5, 11 E. 52nd St., acfny.org.

Bronx MuSeuM: “Bronx Calling: The First AIM Biennial.” Ends Sept. 5. “Taking AIM: 30-Year Anniversary Exhibition.” Ends Sept. 5, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, bronxmuseum.org.

BrooKlyn hiSToriCal SoCieTy: “Painting Brooklyn: Stories of Immigration & Survival.” Ends Aug. 14. “It Happened in Brooklyn.” Ongoing, 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, brooklynhistory.org.

BrooKlyn MuSeuM: “Four Bathers by Degas & Bonnard.” Ends Aug. 14. “Sam Taylor-Wood: Ghosts.” Ends Aug. 14. “Lorna Simpson: Gathered.” Ends Aug. 21. “Skylar Fein: Black Lincoln

for Dooky Chase.” Ends Aug. 28. “Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior.” Ends Oct. 2. “Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments & Amulets.” Ends Nov. 27. “Split Second: Indian Paintings.” Ends Jan. 12, 2012. “reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio.” Ends Jan. 15, 2012, 200 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn, brooklynmuseum.org.

FriCK ColleCTion: “In a New Light: Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert.” Ends Aug. 28. “Turkish Taste at the Court of Marie-Antoinette.” Ends Sept. 11, 1 E. 70th St., frick.org. inTernaTional CenTer oF PhoToGraPhy: “Elliott Erwitt: Personal Best.” Ends Aug. 28. “Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945.” Ends Aug. 28. “Ruth Gruber, Photojournalist.” Ends Aug. 28, 1133 6th Ave., icp.org.

The jeWiSh MuSeuM: “Maya Zack: Living Room.”

July 31–Oct. 23. “Maria Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World).” Ends July 31. “The Line & the Circle: Video by Sharone Lifschitz.”

Ends Aug. 21. “Collecting Matisse & Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore.” Ends Sept. 25, 1109 5th Ave., thejewishmuseum.org. john jay ColleGe PreSidenT’S Gallery: “Faith Ringgold: Political Prints.” Ends Oct. 7, 889 10th Ave., 6th Floor, jjay.cuny.edu.

MerChanT’S houSe MuSeuM: “New York’s Civil War Soldiers - Photographs of Dr. R.B. Bontecou, Words of Walt Whitman.” Ends Aug. 1, 29 E. 4th St., merchantshouse.com.

The MeTroPoliTan MuSeuM oF arT: “Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum.” July 26–Oct. 10. “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.” Ends Aug. 7. “P.S. Art 2011: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids.” Ends Aug. 7. “Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-Century Europe.” Ends Aug. 14.

“Poetry in Clay: Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art.” Ends Aug. 14. “Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective.” Ends Aug. 28. “Drawings & Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection.” Ends Sept. 11. “The Andean Tunic, 400 BCE–1800 CE.” Ends Sept. 18. “Night Vision: Photography After Dark.” Ends Sept. 18. “Anthony Caro on the Roof.” Ends Oct. 30. “Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age: The Reproductions of E. Gilliéron & Son.” Ends Nov. 13. “Mother India: The Goddess in Indian Painting.” Ends Nov. 27.

“After the Gold Rush.” Ends Jan. 2, 2012, 1000 5th Ave., metmuseum.org.

MoMa PS1: “Modern Women: Single Channel.” Ends Aug. 8. “Laurel Nakadate: Only the Lonely.”

Ends Aug. 8. “Nancy Grossman: Heads.” Ends Aug. 15. “Ryan Trecartin: Any Ever.” Ends Sept.

3. “Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception.” Ends Sept. 12, 22-25 Jackson Ave., Queens, ps1.org.

MonTClair arT MuSeuM: “Will Barnet: A Centennial Celebration.” Ends July 17. “Robert Mapplethorpe Flowers.” Ends July 17. Will Barnet: A Centennial Celebration.” Ends July 17. “Engaging with Nature: American & Native

American Artists (A.D. 1200-2004).” Ends Sept.

25. “What Is Portraiture?” Ends Nov. 4. “Motor Lodge: An Installation by Dan Funderburgh.”

Ends Fall 2012, 3 S. Mountain Ave., Montclair, N.J., montclair-art.com.

The Morgan Library & Museum: “ The Living Word 3.” July 19–late September. “The Age of Elegance: The Joan Taub Ades Collection.” Ends Aug. 28. “Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France & the Netherlands.” Ends Sept. 4. “Jim Dine: The Gliptotek Drawings.”

Ends Sept. 4. “Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, & Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.” Ends Oct. 2, 225 Madison Ave., themorgan.org.

El Museo del Barrio: “The (S) Files 2011.” Ends Jan. 8, 1230 5th Ave., elmuseo.org.

Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology: “Sporting Life.” Ends Nov. 5, 7th Ave. at W. 27th St., fitnyc.edu.

Museum of American Finance: “Scandal! Financial Crime, Chicanery & Corruption That Rocked America.” Ends Oct. 29, 48 Wall St., moaf.org.

Museum of Arts & Design: “A Bit of Clay on the Skin: New Ceramic Jewelry.” Ends Sept. 4. “Otherworldly: Optical Delusions & Small Realities.”

Ends Sept. 18. “Stephen Burks: Are You A Hybrid?” Ends Oct. 2. “Flora & Fauna, MAD about Nature.” Ends Nov. 6, 2 Columbus Cir., madmuseum.org.

Museum of Chinese in America: “Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands & Mind.” Ends Sept. 5.

“Unearthing: Works in Clay & Mixed Media

by Carole Wong Chesek.” Ends Sept. 19, 215 Centre St., mocanyc.org.

Museum of the City of New York: “Joel Grey: A New York Life.” Ends Aug. 7. “The American Style: Colonial Revival & The Modern Metropolis.”

Ends Oct. 30, 1220 5th Ave., mcny.org.

Museum of Jewish Heritage: “Last Folio: A Photographic Journey with Yuri Dojc.” Ends late summer. “Fire in My Heart: The Story of Hannah Senesh.” Ends Aug. 7. “The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service.” Ends Sept. 5, 36 Battery Pl., mjhnyc.org.

Museum of Modern Art: “Talk to Me.” July 24– Nov. 7. “German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse.” Ends July 11. “Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception.” Ends Aug. 1. “Impressions of South Africa, 1965 to Now.” Ends Aug. 14.

“Boris Mikhailov: Case History.” Ends Sept. 5.

“I Am Still Alive: Politics & Everyday Life in Contemporary Drawing.” Ends Sept. 19. “Young Architects Program 2011.” Ends Sept. 19. “Projects 95: Runa Islam.” Ends Sept. 19. “Crafting Genre: Kathryn Bigelow.” Ends Oct. 3. “194X9/11: American Architects & The City.” Ends Jan. 2, 2012. “Harun Farocki: Images of War (at a Distance).” Ends Jan. 2, 2012. “Cy Twombly: Sculpture.” Ongoing. “Figure in the Garden.”

Ongoing, 11 W. 53rd St., moma.org.

Museum of the Moving Image: “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World.” July 16–Jan. 16, 2012. Chiho Aoshima: “City Glow.” Ends July 17. “Trash Mirror.” Ends Aug. 15. “Behind the Screen.”

Ongoing, 36-01 35th Ave., Queens, movingimage.us.

New Museum: “Ostalgia.” July 14–Sept. 25. “Neil Beloufa: Kempinski.” Ends July 15. “Isa Genzken: Rose II (2007).” Ends Nov. 13, 235 Bowery, newmuseum.org.

The New York Public Library: “Celebrating 100 Years.” Ends Dec. 31, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 5th Ave. at 42nd St., exhibitions.nypl. org/100.

Rubin Museum of Art: “Human Currents.” July 22– Nov. 13. “Patterns of Life: The Art of Tibetan

Carpets.” Ends Aug. 22. “Quentin Roosevelt’s China.” Ends Sept. 19. “Pilgrimage & Faith.”

Ends Oct. 24. “Masterworks: Jewels of the Collection.” Ends Dec. 31, 2012, 150 W. 17th St., rmanyc.org.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: “Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity.” Ends Sept. 28. “THE HUGO BOSS PRIZE 2010: Hans-Peter Feldman.” Ends Nov. 2. “Kandinsky at the Bauhaus, 1922-1933.”

Ongoing, 1071 5th Ave., guggenheim.org.

Studio Museum: “Spiral: Perspectives on an African American Art Collective.” July 14–Oct. 23.

“Artists in Residence 2010–2011: Simon Leigh, Kamau Amu Patton, Paul Mpagi Sepuya.” July 14–Oct. 23. “Lyle Ashton Harris: Self/Portrait.”

July 14–Oct. 23. “As It Was, As It Could Be: Expanding the Walls 2011.” July 14–Oct. 23.

“Harlem Postcards.” July 14–Oct. 23. “StudioSound.” July 14–Oct. 23, 144 W. 125th St., studiomuseum.org.

Wave Hill: “Bronx Calling: The First AIM Biennial.” Ends Sept. 5, W. 249th St. at Independence Ave., Bronx, wavehill.org.

Whitney Museum of American Art: “Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools.” Ends Sept. 11. “Breaking Ground: The Whitney’s Founding Collection.” Ends Sept. 18. “Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World.” Ends Oct. 16. “Xavier Cha: Body Drama.” Ongoing. “Designing the Whitney of the Future.” Ongoing, 945 Madison Ave., whitney.org.

Auctions Christie’s: Christie’s Interiors. July 18–20, times

vary. The Beatles Illuminated: The Discovered Works of Mike Mitchell. July 20, 7. Prints & Multiples. July 21, 10 a.m. & 2, 20 Rockefeller Plz., christies.com.

Doyle New York: Provident Loan Society: Jewelry, Watches, Silverware & Coins. July 19, 10 a.m.

Doyle at Home. July 21, 10 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., doylenewyork.com. iGavel: Online auctions of fine art, antiques & collectibles from a network of independent sources, igavelauctions.com.

ROGALLERY.com: Fine art buyers & sellers in online live art auctions, rogallery.com.

Swann Auction Galleries: Vintage Posters. Aug. 3, 10:30 a.m. & 2, 104 E. 25th St., swanngalleries.com.

Art Events Silent Echoes: The Rubin Museum presents Bill

Fontana’s meditative sound installation capturing the reverberations of five famous Buddhist temples in Kyoto—& ambient noises in the environment—while they’re not ringing, with corresponding high-resolution projections. Ends Aug. 14, rmanyc.org/silentechoes; see website for schedule, $10.

Sol LeWitt - Structures, 1965-2006: The Public Art Fund presents a free, outdoor career retrospective of LeWitt’s work, with 27 works spanning over 40 years. Ends Dec. 2, City Hall Park, publicartfund.org.

Summer on the Hudson: Riverside Park announces the 11th year of New York’s largest free festival offering over 75 blocks of free summer events, including films, live performances, an open-air dance party & more. Ends Nov. 11, Riverside Park & West Harlem Piers Park. Visit nycgovparks.org for schedule & information.

Music & Opera St. John’s University Great Lawn: The Queens Sym-

phony Orchestra presents two free evenings of opera favorites under the stars. July 17 & 20, visit queenssymphony.org for details.

Summer Sings: The New York Choral Society brings 6 well-known choral conductors to the Leonard Nimoy Thalia theater, where they lead audience members in singing works by Mozart, Verdi & others. July 20–Aug. 24, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, symphonyspace.org; 7:30, $15.

Washington Square Music Festival: Stanley Drucker, the Charles Mingus Orchestra & others play free music in Washington Square Park on Tuesdays throughout the summer. July 12 & 19, Aug 2, washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org; 8, free.

Jazz Birdland: Pablo Ziegler performs with his quartet

& guest singer Sandra Luna in “Buenos Aires Conexion: From Piazzolla to Ziegler.” Ends July 16, 315 W. 44th St., birdlandjazz.com; 8:30 & 11, $40+.

Birdland: Bossa Nova singer Leny Andrade performs in “From Rio with Love.” July 26–30, 315 W. 44th St., birdlandjazz.com; 8:30 & 11, $40+.

Ella Lounge: Always stylish Dandy Wellington & the Made to Measure Band perform modern jazz, swing, pop & more, with inventive new takes on classic tunes. Every Thursday, 9 Ave. A, ellalounge.com; 8, free.

Jazz Standard: Animation—featuring Bob Belden & Tim Hagans—performs their innovative blend of rock, jazz, drum & bass, hip-hop & more. July 19 & 20, 116 E. 27th St., jazzstandard.net; $25.

The Kitano: Richard Sussman Quintet performs the original compositions of Hank Jones. July 28, 66 Park Ave., kitano.com; 8 & 10, no cover, $15 food & drink minimum.

The Moldy Fig Jazz Club: Wade Barnes & The Bottom Line Ensemble perform. Every Monday, 178 Stanton St., moldyfigjazzclub.com; 8, $5.

Walker’s: Peter Leitch Duo performs. July 17, 24 & 31, 16 N. Moore St., peterleitch.com; 8, no cover.

Dance Anikai Dance Company: The company performs Wen-

dy Jehlen’s “He Who Burns,” a dance-theater work that combines elements from varying religions & traditions in movement—from Capoeira to Butoh to American Sign Language—to investigate good & evil & humankind’s relationship with the divine. July 13–16, Dance Theater Workshop, 219 W. 19th St., dancetheaterworkshop.org; 7:30, $20.

Sidra Bell Dance Company: Male members of the company perform in the world premiere of “Homme.” July 17, Baruch Performing Arts Center, E. 25th St betw. Lexington & 3rd Aves., baruch.cuny.edu/bpac; 3 & 7:30, $25.

Young Dancemakers Company: 16 high school dancer/ choreographers present their original works and an excerpt from Jose Limón’s “Psalm,” in 7 free performances throughout the city. July 21, 22, 25–29 & 31, 718-329-7300 x3358 for information & reservations; free.

Theater Angelina Ballerina The Musical: The Vital The-

atre Company resumes performances of this family-friendly show, based on the well-known children’s book about a dancing mouse. Open run, Dicapo Opera Theatre, 184 E. 76th St., angelinathemusical.com.

Bad Evidence: The Hive & the cell present Terry Quinn’s tale of a husband & wife who make a pact to save their marriage by sharing secrets

while in compromising positions. Ends July 31, the cell, 338 W. 23rd St., thecelltheatre.org.

The Banana Monologues: Sometimes a banana’s just a banana, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in this sexy new comedy inspired by the phallic fruit. Ends July 30, Dorothy Strelsin Theatre, 312 W. 36th St., thebananamonologues.com.

Blues for Mister Charlie: CCNY’s freshly launched New Haarlem Arts Theatre opens its first season with James Baldwin’s exploration of race, class & gender inspired by the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Ends July 17, Theatre B of Aaron Davis Hall, Convent Ave. at W. 135th St., smarttix.com.

Danny & Sylvia - The Danny Kaye Musical: Brian Childers & Kimberly Faye Greenberg star in this adaptation of the real-life love story of creative partners Danny Kaye & Sylvia Fine. Open run, St. Luke’s Theatre, 308 W. 46th St., dannyandsylvia.com.

Fuerza Bruta - Look Up: A visual dance-rave, technoride, Latino walking-on-the-ceiling fiesta from Buenos Aires. Open run, Daryl Roth Theatre, 101 E. 15th St., fuerzabrutanyc.com.

Georgia & Me: The spirit of Georgia O’Keeffe inspires one woman to rediscover her art. Ends July 31, June Havoc Theatre, 312 W. 36th St., 1st Fl., midtownfestival.org.

Ice Factory Festival: Soho Think Tank’s 18th annual festival features 6 New York premieres over 6 weeks, with aesthetically & culturally diverse theater works from established & emerging companies. Ends July 30, 3LD Art & Technology Center, 80 Greenwich St., sohothinktank.org.

It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues: The New Haarlem Arts Theatre continues its inaugural season with the first New York production of this musical review—which, despite its name, also draws from African chants & American popular music—since 1999. July 27–Aug. 21, Theatre B of Aaron Davis Hall, Convent Ave. at W. 135th St., smarttix.com.

The Judy Show - My Life As A Sitcom: Judy Gold stars in this comedic, multimedia memoir, interpreting her own life through classic sitcoms of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Open run, The DR2 Theater, 103 E. 15th St., judygold.com.

No hay mejor amigo, Ni peor enemigo: A major-league Latino baseball player’s career is jeopardized when he refuses to sing the national anthem after his brother dies in the Iraq war. Presented in Spanish with simultaneous live English translation. Open run, Repertorio Español, 138 E. 27th St., repertorio.org.

Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot: The Drilling Company steals some thunder from Shakespeare in the Park with its annual series, performing “The Comedy of Errors” & then “Hamlet” in a municipal parking lot at Ludlow & Broome Sts. July 7–23 & July 28–Aug 13, drillingcompany.org.

Tickets To Manhood: In a culture with no standard rite of passage, how does a boy become a man?

5 American males follow 5 different paths into adulthood. July 14–30, Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., dixonplace.org.

Tryst: Set in Edwardian London, this romantic, psychological thriller follows aptly-named con-man George Love as he makes a living by stealing the hearts & fortunes of wealthy women, until he meets his match. Ends Aug. 21, The Irish Repertory Theater, 132 W. 22nd St., irishrep.org.

Wild in Wichita (Locuras en Wichita): Repertorio Español presents the world premiere of this offbeat romantic comedy in which a Puerto Rican woman & a Mexican man fall in love when they meet at an assisted-living home in Kansas. Ends Sept. 25, Repertorio Español, 138 E. 27th St., repertorio.org/wichita.

July 13, 2011 | City Arts

17

PainttheTOWN

By Amanda Gordon

Go For A Spin In a bright yellow suit and matching bow tie, DJ Cassidy took a bite of his 5-foot-tall 30th-birthday cake in the shape of a bottle of Hennessy Black, and gave some instructions to the guests on the dance floor.

“I’ll need a little path, so just let me by,” Cassidy said July 6 from the stage in the cavernous and slightly too warm Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

A minute later, the sweaty sea of guests—including singer-songwriter Shontelle, who co-wrote Rihanna’s hit “Man Down”—parted obediently, and Cassidy, surrounded by bodyguards and photographers, made his way to join Russell Simmons, Grandmaster Flash and Tyson Beckford on the VIP white couches.

This is where he watched a reunited New Edition complete with Bobby Brown bounce all over the stage with such finesse it was hard to believe the band’s glory days were in the 1980s.

DJ Cassidy, born in 1981, just two years before New Edition released “Candy Girl,” got his first turntables as a gift from his mother on his 10th birthday. He’s since DJ’d for President Barack Obama at one of his inaugural balls, Kanye West, Jay-Z and Oprah Winfrey, at a party to celebrate the opening of her Leadership Academy for Girls.

Clockwise, from left: Doug E. Fresh; Jenny Bapst, a singer and model, and Hannah Davis, a model; DJ Cassidy and DJ Mel DeBarge.

Under The BiG Top

Russell Martin, Yankees catcher, and Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil and the nongovernmental organization One Drop, which brings safe water to developing countries.

At the New York City premiere of Cirque du Soleil’s new show, Zarkana, a man climbed a ladder with a woman standing on his shoulders. Another did flips off a moving contraption that looked a lot like a hamster wheel.

“I’m glad I can touch my toes,” said former Senator Bill Bradley during intermission at Radio City Music Hall.

Also in the opening-night crowd: violinist Joshua Bell (who worked with the show’s director, Francois Girard, on his film The Red Violin); fashion commentator Robert Verdi; and John and Lizzie Tisch.

“I loved the tightrope,” said Gerry Pasciucco, the chief executive officer of financial products at American International Group. “They must have tiny feet.”

While the show offered many human feats, offstage the man who founded Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, wanted to talk about a feat of nature: water.

Three and half years ago, Laliberte pledged $100 million over 25 years to the nongovernmental organization One Drop, which he founded and serves as chairman.

“Water is a source of life and a creative source of development,” Laliberte said at the after-party held at Roseland Ballroom.

He was standing in a roped-off area for One Drop benefactors with Russell Martin, the catcher for the New York Yankees who is a One Drop ambassador. Across the room was Cirque du Soleil board member Andre Desmarais, co-chief executive officer of Power Corp. of Canada, and his wife, France Chretien Desmarais, who is One Drop’s vice chairman, overseeing philanthropy.

(She is also the daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.)

A cello player and a midget roamed. Stands offered caramel popcorn and hotdogs. Guests played ring toss while waiting in line for macaroni and cheese.

Courtesy of Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News; agordon01@bloomberg.net. Photos by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

18

City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

AllStar ad 2011 v2_ManhattanMedia 7/11/11 12:41 PM Page 1

HER

TED PITC

DESIGNA

“CUNY students continue to win the nation’s most prestigious awards, ‘coached’ by our world-class faculty.”

— Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor

1-800-CUNY-YES

cuny.edu/allstars

the bard music festival presents

Sibelius and His World august

12–14

and

19–21

The Bard Music Festival presents two extraordinary weeks of concerts, panels, and other special events that will explore the musical world of Jean Sibelius.

weekend one

Imagining Finland

Friday, August 12

program one

Jean Sibelius: National Symbol, International Iconoclast

Saturday, August 13

program two

Berlin and Vienna: The Artist as a Young Man

program three

Kalevala: Myth and the Birth of a Nation

program four

White Nights - Dark Mornings: Creativity, Depression, and Addiction

Sunday, August 14

Chamber works by Sibelius, Goldmark, Fuchs, Busoni

American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor Orchestral works by Sibelius and Kajanus Chamber works by Sibelius, Grieg, Peterson-Berger, Delius

program five

Aurora Borealis: Nature and Music in Finland and Scandinavia

program six

To the Finland Station: Sibelius and Russia

weekend two

Chamber works by Sibelius, Grieg, Stenhammar, Kuula

Chamber works by Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Rachmaninov

Sibelius: Conservative or Modernist?

Friday, August 19

program seven

Saturday, August 20

program eight program nine program ten

Sunday, August 21

American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor Orchestral works by Sibelius

Nordic Purity, Aryan Fantasies, and Music

Chamber works by Sibelius, Bruckner, Atterberg, Kilpinen

From the Nordic Folk

Chamber works by Sibelius, Grieg, Grainger, Ravel, Kuula

Finnish Modern

Chamber works by Sibelius, Melartin, Madetoja, Merikanto

The Heritage of Symbolism

American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor Orchestral works by Sibelius and Raitio

program eleven

Nostalgia and the Challenge of Modernity

program twelve

Silence and Influence

Works by Sibelius, Strauss, Respighi

American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor Orchestral works by Sibelius, Barber, Vaughan Williams

845-758-7900 | fishercenter.bard.edu Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

PHOTO: Jean Sibelius at his house “Ainola” in Järvenpää, Finland, 1907. ©akg-images