Theatre Is Dead And So Are You
Jan. 15, The Connelly Theater, 220 E. 4th St. (betw. Aves. A & B), 212-982-3995; 8, $18 Kiran Rikhye’s raucous spectacle is a pastiche of dead and dying theatrical forms: song-anddance, slapstick, melodrama and old-timey conjuring. Loosely structured as a wake for a dead MC as performed by his now bereft charges, the script of Theatre Is Dead and So Are You is merely a vehicle by which this young but accomplished downtown theater company can resurrect the corpus of companies past and you, the viewer, too. Bottom Line: A Frankenstein-y send up of old theater forms performed by young, vital and warm bodies, happily proving its title wrong.
Jan. 18 & 19, Good Shepherd School, 620 Isham St. (betw. Cooper St. & Seaman Ave.), 212-567-5800, times vary, $15-$20 No you sick fucks, this isn’t a water sports festival. It’s a Balkan music festival.With the rise of faux-Balkaner Beirut, music from the Balkans is very much in vogue.This two-day festival imports Balkan musicians, gathers New York–based ones and laces it all together with arts-and-crafts and Middle-Eastern refreshments.
Bottom Line: Forego beyond popular Westernized versions of Balkan music for the real thing. Get a delicious burek while you are at it.
Jan. 14, The Tank, 354 W. 45th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-563-6269; 7:30, $7
Jan. 15, 92nd Street Y, E. 92nd St. & Lexington Ave., 212-415-5500; 8, $27 Bigwig Martin Indyk, a lovable ambassador to Israel and a senior policy maker during the Clinton administration, gets down and dirty with New Yorker editor David Remnick about what went wrong in the Middle East. Short answer: A lot. Long answer:You’ll have to go to find out. Bottom Line: This is clearly a difficult issue to wrestle with, so don’t miss a chance to hear expert opinions from (relatively) impartial sources.
Ex-Memory: waywewere
Jan. 16, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, 131 E. 10th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), 212-674-8112; 8:30, $18 The work of downtown dancer Jeanine Durning is not always easy to watch. As her muscular body tears across the stage, it’s clear she is wrestling with inner demons. In Ex-Memory, Durning and her merry band of strong dancers recreate the piece’s previous performances anew each time, editing out what they don’t like and repeating and embellishing what they do. Athletic and surprising, Durning’s movement is worthy of the repetition.
Bottom Line:There’s no better place than St. Mark’s to see this sort of intense and skilled work that mark a true choreographic talent.
Jan. 15, The Connelly Theater, 220 E. 4th St. (betw. Aves. A & B), 212-982-3995; 8, $18 Kiran Rikhye’s raucous spectacle is a pastiche of dead and dying theatrical forms: song-anddance, slapstick, melodrama and old-timey conjuring. Loosely structured as a wake for a dead MC as performed by his now bereft charges, the script of Theatre Is Dead and So Are You is merely a vehicle by which this young but accomplished downtown theater company can resurrect the corpus of companies past and you, the viewer, too. Bottom Line: A Frankenstein-y send up of old theater forms performed by young, vital and warm bodies, happily proving its title wrong.
The Golden Festival
Jan. 18 & 19, Good Shepherd School, 620 Isham St. (betw. Cooper St. & Seaman Ave.), 212-567-5800, times vary, $15-$20 No you sick fucks, this isn’t a water sports festival. It’s a Balkan music festival.With the rise of faux-Balkaner Beirut, music from the Balkans is very much in vogue.This two-day festival imports Balkan musicians, gathers New York–based ones and laces it all together with arts-and-crafts and Middle-Eastern refreshments.
Bottom Line: Forego beyond popular Westernized versions of Balkan music for the real thing. Get a delicious burek while you are at it.
Perkins 28: Testimony from the Secret Court Files of 1920
Jan. 14, The Tank, 354 W. 45th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-563-6269; 7:30, $7
Hatred for Harvard runs deep in my family. Not because we went to Yale but because we didn’t get in. After watching Perkins 28, a new documentary, I’m happy I didn’t. The film examines a secret 1920 trial ordered by then Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell to identify homosexual students and oust them. That they did: and one—a dental student named Eugene R. Cummings—committed suicide. In this version current Harvard students depict their fellow alums, using trial transcripts as their script.
Bottom Line: With overtones of Guantanamo, witch-hunts and gay baiting, Perkins 28 proves that you can be very smart and very crummy at the same time.
Martin Indyk in Conversation with David Remnick
Jan. 15, 92nd Street Y, E. 92nd St. & Lexington Ave., 212-415-5500; 8, $27 Bigwig Martin Indyk, a lovable ambassador to Israel and a senior policy maker during the Clinton administration, gets down and dirty with New Yorker editor David Remnick about what went wrong in the Middle East. Short answer: A lot. Long answer:You’ll have to go to find out. Bottom Line: This is clearly a difficult issue to wrestle with, so don’t miss a chance to hear expert opinions from (relatively) impartial sources.
Ex-Memory: waywewere
Jan. 16, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, 131 E. 10th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), 212-674-8112; 8:30, $18 The work of downtown dancer Jeanine Durning is not always easy to watch. As her muscular body tears across the stage, it’s clear she is wrestling with inner demons. In Ex-Memory, Durning and her merry band of strong dancers recreate the piece’s previous performances anew each time, editing out what they don’t like and repeating and embellishing what they do. Athletic and surprising, Durning’s movement is worthy of the repetition.
Bottom Line:There’s no better place than St. Mark’s to see this sort of intense and skilled work that mark a true choreographic talent.
