InfiniteBody

Chinese activist artist Ai Weiwei rocks out

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:44:56 PDT

Ai Weiwei Has Released a Heavy Metal Video for His Song “Dumbass”
By Chloe Pantazi, Flavorwire, May 22, 2013

Jena Strong on "The Inside of Out"

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:24:47 PDT

poet Jena Strong

A few months ago, Jena Strong, author of Don't Miss This (see my July 2012 review, "Don't Miss Jena Strong," here) posted this Status Update to Facebook:

In 2012, I got laid off, self-published my first book, landed a new job, moved, sold my house, signed divorce papers, and got engaged. One breath, one moment, one day at a time meets 30,000-foot view. Whew.

Today, she writes:

After nearly fifty people “liked” this status update, I found myself wondering what it was that seemed to resonate so deeply. And then I realized: We all live here, in the space between the ordinary and the vast, the intimate and the universal, the day-to-day and the Big Picture.

Strong, who I described in my review as "an engaging, captivating storyteller," will soon bring out a new volume of work, The Inside of Out. Find out more about it and pre-order your copy here.

The power of mentorship

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:37:30 PDT

In Conversation | Bruce Weber and Kathleen Turner on Becoming Mentors
by Jesse Ashlock, The New York Times, May 20, 2013

A special screening of "Katherine Dunham: Dancing with Life"

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:32:58 PDT

Katherine Dunham (photo by Dwight Carter)

The Museum of the Moving Image

welcomes you to

Katherine Dunham: Dancing with Life

Saturday, June 22 (3pm)

with director Terry Carter,

and dancers Julie Belafonte and Dr. Glory Van Scott in person

This screening is scheduled in celebration of the 104th anniversary of Katherine Dunham's birth. Following the screening will be a town hall discussion of the Dunham legacy with the film's director, Terry Carter, and two celebrated Dunham dancers, Julie Belafonte and Dr. Glory Van Scott. The discussion will be moderated by Warrington Hudlin, a former Dunham drummer and trustee of Museum of the Movie Image.

Dir. Terry Carter. 2013, 73 mins. (work-in-progress)

One of America's most influential performing artists, Katherine Dunham introduced African Diaspora dance movements to the American stage, greatly influencing the character and development of modern dance. This documentary by the renowned actor and director Terry Carter explores Dunham’s intellectual curiosity and artistic genius. The film documents Dunham as an artist/scholar whose anthropological fieldwork shaped her vision as a choreographer and led to her creating a new dance technique. The technique is based on a series of physical exercises that enable dancers to master and execute her complex dance vocabulary. Over time, this set of exercises evolved into what is today considered an important methodology of dance: The Dunham Technique.

Featured are excerpts of recorded performances from the early years of Katherine Dunham's career, including Carnival of Rhythm (1939), Hollywood’s first Technicolor dance film; The Spirit of Boogie-Woogie, a “soundie” short film of the Dunham dance troupe in action from the late 1930s, and the star-studded motion picture Stormy Weather (1943) which featured Lena Horne, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Katherine Dunham's remarkable performance with the Dunham company. Included in this painstakingly researched film are clips that have never been seen in the United States including rare highlights of Dunham Company's European performances from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s as well as scenes from the Italian motion pictures, Botta e Riposta (1952) and Mambo (1954), featuring Ms. Dunham as actress-dancer-choreographer. In addition to interviews with dancers and scholars who speak to her great artistic legacy, the film includes Katherine Dunham's reflection on coping with the racial bigotry of the times she confronted as she traveled with her dance company.

About the filmmaker

Terry Carter is an esteemed black film and television pioneer whose career as an actor and filmmaker spans 60 years. His television acting credits include The Phil Silvers Show, Julia, McCloud, and the original series Battlestar Galactica. He starred opposite Pam Grier in the cult classic Foxy Brown. His Emmy nominated documentary, A Duke Named Ellington, won several international awards and is widely considered to be the best documentary ever made on the life and art of Duke Ellington.

Program information

Free with Museum admission on a first-come, first-served basis. Museum members may reserve tickets in advance by calling 718-777-6800. For more information about becoming a Museum member and to join online, please click here.

Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Avenue (at 37th Street), Astoria, Queens
(map/directions)

Pam Tanowitz at New York Live Arts

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:34:13 PDT

Read my review of Pam Tanowitz's The Spectators (New York Live Arts, May 15-18). Click here!

Ray Manzarek, 74

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 21 May 2013 03:48:35 PDT

Ray Manzarek, Doors Keyboardist, Dies at 74
by James C. McKinley Jr., The New York Times, May 20 2013

Ray Manzarek, 74, Keyboardist and a Founder of the Doors, Is Dead
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, May 20 2013

Music, banned by Islamic militants, is central to Malian culture

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:39:18 PDT

The Day the Music Died in Mali
by Sujatha Fernandes, The New York Times, May 19, 2013

Jeffrey Gibson (Choctaw-Cherokee) on art and identity

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:17:53 PDT

At Peace With Many Tribes
by Carol King, The New York Times, May 15, 2013

William Miles, 82

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:23:19 PDT

William Miles, Maker of Films About Black History, Dies at 82
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, May 18, 2013

"The Firebird, A Ballez" at Danspace Project

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sat, 18 May 2013 09:47:03 PDT

This lesbian princess expects this Firebird to perch on her finger! (Photo: Christy Pessagno)

I think what I love most about Katy Pyle's queer appropriation of The Firebird--in the Firebird, A Ballez, concluding tonight at Danspace Project--is that almost nobody's trying terribly hard to live up to critical standards, to tailor themselves to any outsider's approval.

The first person we meet, the Narrator (Sacha Yanow) isn't declaiming her lines in a well-trained theatrical voice. She's just talking. She could be your lesbian girlfren' from around the block with a big grin and bit of gossip on her tongue. From what I can see, she's having a quick word with an audience filled with people who are a lot like her. So, yeah, she is your lesbian girlfren' from around the block!

Pyle, herself, for all her training in ballet, isn't the princess you might expect from the traditional Firebird tale and its balletic renderings. In this "ballez," she chooses to look like a cross between an animated ragdoll and a cake left out in the rain, but she shows no hesitation in stalking her desired "tranimal" Firebird (Jules Skloot) or lifting him numerous times like a stevedore--a stevedore with blue and purple hair. Dance technique- and plot-wise, she's more will than grace.

I love the chorus of lez and trans princes* in their ballet school black tights and white t-shirts and don't want them to aim for "perfect." Their earnestness and willingness and sense of togetherness in all things move me like little else can. That's a team any princess--this one included--would be lucky to gather close.

I love the space that Pyle and Skloot, with his modest charm, make for ballet to contain imperfection and feeling by reeling it back from mechanical exactitude and just plain giving it to the people. So that when the vampirish Sorceress (Cassie Mey) finally makes her electrifying entrance, with flapper-like bob, velvet, floor-sweeping coat and barely-there costume of straps and rhinestones, we see her flashy technique as a cold, heartless, relentless, manipulative thing with no room for love.

There's also the fancy of Hedia Maron's video, projected on the church's altar wall. It conjures a sense of place--a formidable castle rising on craggy heights; a classic garden with statuary and orange trees; a raging pyre--that we might find illustrating a volume of kid's fairytales. This naivete turns my heart over and turns me childlike. The excellent Queer Urban Orchestra, conducted by Nolan Dresden, brings the Stravinsky in a thrilling performance from St. Marks's balcony.

This evening-length version of The Firebird, A Ballez--long in the dreaming and making--has arrived. Tonight's performance (8pm) is sold out, but it's definitely worth a try. The wait list starts at 7:15pm.

[*Princes: Effie Bowen, Zari Esaian, Ariel "Speedwagon" Federow, Leah Hafezi, Sam Greenleaf Miller, Francis Rabkin, Mary Read, Lindsay Reuter, Lollo Romanski, Silky Shoemaker, Sacha Yanow and Nyx Zierhut]

Danspace Project
Second Avenue at 10th Street, Manhattan
(directions)

Thomas M. Messer, 93

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:45:41 PDT

Thomas M. Messer, Museum Director Who Gave Guggenheim Cachet, Dies at 93
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, May 15, 2013

Radhouane El Meddeb: He's Everywoman

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:07:26 PDT

In Sous leur pied, le paradis ("under their feet, heaven"), Tunisia-born Radhouane El Meddeb dances to rapturous music and crowd cheers from a live performance by Umm Kulthum, the Egyptian vocalist who died in 1975 after a long, world-renowned career. Costume El Meddeb in satin brocade and glitter, and he might look quite a bit like this beloved singer, substantial of face and body. But in his hour-long solo--a U.S. premiere presented at Alliance Française's Florence Gould Hall for the World Nomads Tunisia festival--the dancer wears a loose black t-shirt and black shorts and sometimes slips behind or between folds of heavy black drapery.

Through a minimalist, schematic approach to both self-presentation and movement, El Meddeb pursues not self-camouflage but revelation of a state of consciousness, sourced in women's experience, existing beyond gender. His bare feet and limbs, the casualness of his attire, eschew glamour but do not preclude regality. He allows the tangy, shimmering, low-rumbling music and the singer's dark, earthy voice to entrance him into stark, iconic postures and gestures. Despite difference in language, that voice and that music, both unsparing in passion and torment, reach right into the listener's chest.

"Under their feet, heaven" refers to the Islamic saying, "Paradise is found under the feet of mothers." Choreographed by the performer in collaboration with French dancemaker Thomas Lebrun, the solo presents a lens through which we are invited to see the condition and striving of women of the Arab world and Arab Spring. It is a dance of recognition, of honor, of celebratory ululation and encouragement to action--just as Umm Kulthum's bitter love song, the famous "Al-Atlal" ("The Ruins"), can be read as a sly indictment of any form of seduction and betrayal, from intimate dyad to oppressive societal hierarchy.

My heart, don't ask where the love has gone/It was only a mirage that collapsed....

Give me my freedom, release my hands/Indeed, I've given everything and have nothing.

We woke up, ah if only we did not awaken/Wakefulness ruined the dreams of slumber....

Perhaps one day our fates will cross/when our desire to meet is strong enough.

As El Meddeb's hour nears its end, he gradually sheds his meager clothing. Shorts off. A little later, bikini briefs off. Then, the t-shirt--tugged down in front and behind before it, too, gets pulled away. In themselves, these are acts of rebellion, modest only in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of their execution. The dancer's broad back gleams at us under the lights before he draws a train of filmy, white fabric around his lower body and sinks into the floor. The singer's voice rises to crescendo, and the trance is done.

For more on El Meddeb, read this account of a journey of the senses in another work, I Dance & I Feed You, reported by Neil de la Flor in Miami for Knight Arts.

For information on remaining World Nomads Tunisia 2013 events and exhibits, click here.

Behind the scenes with Gelsey Kirkland

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:38:47 PDT

92nd Street Y

presents

BEHIND THE SCENES:

THE GELSEY KIRKLAND ACADEMY OF CLASSICAL BALLET

Wed, Jul 31 (12pm)

Go behind the scenes as acclaimed ballerina Gelsey Kirkland conducts a demonstration with an advanced class at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet in Tribeca.

After the demonstration, join Michael Chernov, the Academy’s co-founder and co-artistic director, for a reception and Q&A about how he and Ms. Kirkland groom the next generation of dancers.

Gelsey Kirkland began her storied career in 1968 at New York City Ballet, where she rose to principal dancer. At the American Ballet Theatre she danced with Baryshnikov, receiving worldwide acclaim for performances in title roles in Giselle, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and others.

Michael Chernov has been an actor, dancer, director, classical ballet teacher and choreographer.

Meet at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy, 355 Broadway (between Grand and Leonard Streets in Tribeca), 2nd floor.

Admission: $38

Information and registration

Robert Lindgren, 89

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 15 May 2013 03:29:07 PDT

Robert Lindgren, 89, Ballet Dancer and College Dean, Is Dead
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, May 14, 2013

Stapleton and Fitzgerald on nudity in dance

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 14 May 2013 05:53:58 PDT

The naked truth about dance

In Greek mythology, the gods were depicted nude to show their higher status, but these days little inflames indignation like the sight of the naked human body. For some artists, and dancers in particular, it’s an essential, everyday part of their work.

Michael Seaver, The Irish Times, May 14, 2013

Dances of Iran and Afghanistan with master teacher Rana Gorgani

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 12 May 2013 06:45:28 PDT

Anahid Sofian Dance Studio

welcomes you to

Traditional and Sacred Dances of Iran

and

Nomadic Dances of Iran and Afghanistan

two workshops and slide presentations

with Persian master dancer

Rana Gorgani

Traditional and Sacred Dances of Iran
Saturday, June 29 (3-6pm)

Very honored and respected in ancient times, Persian Dances come directly from ancestral customs and traditions. Taught and preserved through generations, the Dance is delicate, elegant, subtle, and full of emotions, as is Persian Poetry and Arts. All the different dances of Persia have always expressed the joy of life and love.

Dance was essential in every sacred and divine rite related to the cultural environment of each people.

Drawing its roots from the heart of the Indo-European cultures, we can find in Iran more than ten style of dance, each owning its own vocabulary of the gesture, rhythms, garments, and meaning according to the region and people.

Rana Gorgani is one of the few Iranian artists promoting and preserving Persian folk and traditional dances. As an active member of the international dance council of UNESCO, her work is the result of years of research on music, customs, rites and symbols of Persia through dance. It is with authentic dresses, full of colors and amazing detail that she embodies and represents the variety of Persian peoples, revealing a rich and precious heritage.

Nomadic Dances of Iran and Afghanistan
Sunday, June 30 (2-5pm)

Dances of Afghanistan

Afghan dance is characterized by its amazing turns and movements intense in rhythms. It is a perpetual interaction between the dancer and the public. The improvisation of the music and the dance is omnipresent, creating breaks and accelerations. In the Afghan dances, the dancer's veil holds an essential place, such as in the culture, and it is by games of "hide-and-seek" that the movements evolve and become furthermore rich in meaning, always keeping a part of mystery.

Nomadic Dances (Ghashghai)

As a symbol of unity and harmony, this dance celebrates the joyful events of the tribe, with the dancers dressed in colorful and bright dresses and waving their shiny scarves towards the sky and then the earth. Precise gestures chain up ceaselessly, reminding of all the art of the Ghashghai women, who make colored carpets called "Ghabbeh." Their dances create a kind of trance, rocked by their light and swift movements. The dances symbolize the long trip gone through every year as the seasons pass by.

Her slide show and lecture is a journey, a walk danced in the heart of Persia, a mosaic colored with wonderful traditions and the rich diversity of Persia. From Khorasan, on the road of the Ghashghai nomads across the rice fields of Gilan … on the deserts of Yazd, the country of Zoroasters, on the path to Shiraz, Persian city of the great poets … Rana guides us through Iran.

Space is limited, and registration required (no walk-ins). For fees and other information or to register, contact sofiana@tiac.net.

Anahid Sofian Studio
29 West 15th Street, 6th Floor (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Taylor Mead, 88

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:43:07 PDT

Taylor Mead, Bohemian and Actor, Dies at 88
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, May 9, 2013

Tom Gualtieri goes solo

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:19:41 PDT

Tom Gualtieri (photo by Rob Sutton)

He had us from "When shall we three meet again...?"

He never lets us go.

Tom Gualtieri is Macbeth.

And Lady Macbeth.

And pretty much everyone else, including that infamous trio of "secret, black, and midnight hags" that he embodies in fully-invested, tense and gnarled physicality.

Die drei Hexen by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1783)

I might still long to see Alan Cumming make his way through Shakespearean darkness alone (and, yes, yes, I do). But I'm not at all sorry to have spent eighty minutes in thrall to sly, supple Gualtieri and That Play: A Solo Macbeth at Stage Left Studio.

Even when not physically conjuring the three weird ones, he knows how to shape every minute tilt of the head or flick of the eye into telling elements along a winding, complex dance. His silky, sinuous, glittering snake of a Lady Macbeth could fill an entire performance on her own. You can feel how much he relishes his moments as her, his finest.

photo by Rob Sutton

A word of warning. Stage Left Studio--you may remember it from my review of Margaret Morrison's Home in Her Heart--is a tiny speck of space tucked away on the sixth floor of an unassuming building just south of Penn Station. Seating is not only scarce; it is virtually in the lap of any performer strutting and fretting his or her hour or so upon the slip of a stage. Audience and player(s) are both captive. And, in the case of That Play, you might find yourself fretting and sweating along with an increasingly desperate Scotsman, particularly when you're asked to recall...well, I'm not going to give that juicy part away.

Gualtieri and co-writer and director Heather Hill seem to take perverse pleasure in plunging each one of us into the shadows. For this is not just the "Scottish Play," but the Scottish Play with a clever, sometimes amusing Narrator who not only guides and comments but also obeys his own compulsion to, as he would put it, "write the darkness into the room."

Nominated for the 2013 Drama Desk Award ("Unique Theatrical Experience"), That Play: A Solo Macbeth concludes its extended run on May 25. Just five performances remain--Saturday, May 11; Tuesday, May 14; Wednesday, May 15; Thursday, May 16, and Saturday, May 25, all at 7:30pm.

For Stage Left Studio information and tickets, click here.
To visit the Web site of That Play: A Solo Macbeth, click here.

Stage Left Studio
214 West 30th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Merrill Brockway, 90

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Fri, 10 May 2013 03:45:21 PDT

Merrill Brockway, Producer of TV’s ‘Dance in America,’ Dies at 90
by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, May 9, 2013

Dance at the Delacorte!

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Fri, 10 May 2013 03:41:06 PDT

Fall for Dance Festival Celebrates 10th Anniversary With Performances at the Delacorte Theater
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, May 9, 2013

Seeking balance: dancer Miyoko Shida

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:18:11 PDT

And now, please enjoy...

The Incredible Power Of Concentration - Miyoko Shida (7:43)

Jill Sigman's field of dance

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:11:12 PDT

In Jill Sigman's work, the art of dance and the greater world out there are not strangers to each other. Her choreographic and visual creations arise from inquiry into the nature of humanity's complicated relationship with and severe impact on our environment. Now last days/first field--her latest work, presented at The Invisible Dog through tomorrow evening--takes this connection a step further. This contemporary ritual brings the living world inside where it can no longer be ignored or abstracted.

last days/first field takes place on a long, rectangular space surrounded by audience on three sides; beyond the fourth end, composer-singer Kristin Norderval holds forth with her Mac and her ringing, exhilarating vocals. Sigman and several other women--Hadar Ahuvia, Corinne Cappelletti, Donna Costello, Sally Hess, Irene Hsi and Paloma McGregor--wear costumes made of an elaborate patchwork of fabrics and plastics. (Given Sigman's penchant for recycling trash for art, I'm guessing designer kymkym formed these constructions from discarded material.) Their movements suggest a massive, repetitive, accumulating process and arc of labor--forcefully mechanical, like threshers, and alert, assertively present in the space, clearly transformative. Since they surge and gallop so close to where we sit, we can't help but feel their strength. When they bind their legs to long, slender branches with rope and strips of cloth, reduced to rolling side-to-side, we feel life turned even more driven by that temporary confinement.

As they move, another dancer, Devika Wickremesinghe, circumnavigates the space, carrying boxes of little plantings suspended from a long tree branch or encased in pouches stitched into the front and rear of her gown. This elegant Spirit of Time slowly, very slowly, makes her way around as other dancers channel the dynamic inner processes of soil, roots and shoots.

That larger, outer world grows increasingly visible in the Invisible Dog space. The dancers construct perfect rows of rich, black soil and carefully plant little green seedlings along the ridge of these rows. Their tending of this field, along with Norderval's music, can induce serenity--as can the proffered cups of hot, sweet tea and the invitation to join little groups of performers, fellow audience members, farmers, educators and activists for a friendly chat.

jill sigman/thinkdance's last days/first field continues this evening and tomorrow evening with performances at 7:30pm. Be prepared for a roughly two-hour experience (sans intermission). For information and ticketing, click here.

The Invisible Dog
51 Bergen Street (between Smith and Court Streets), Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Have you seen the latest Google doodle?

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 08 May 2013 05:54:10 PDT

Don't miss today's Google doodle in honor of the 93rd birthday of the late graphic designer and filmmaker, Saul Bass (1920-1996). Click here and enjoy!

Colgate University will return Aboriginal art to Australia

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 08 May 2013 05:35:17 PDT

Aboriginal Artworks to Return to Australia
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, May 7, 2013

Sonia M'barek performs at World Nomads Tunisia fest

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 08 May 2013 05:30:52 PDT

Tradition Performed With a Twist
Sonia M’barek at the French Institute Alliance Française
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, May 7, 2013