Synesthesia 2009
Feb. 25 through 28, Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd St. (betw. Aves. A & B), 212-228-1195; 8, $20 Is the number 4 green? Do peaches smell like plaid? If so, you are “suffering” from synesthesia, a disorder in which the senses become interwoven. Sounds pretty cool to me and so does this multimedia whisper down the lane.This season’s version—it’s in its third year—started when slam poet Aja Money opened a fortune cookie in fall 2008. Since then her work has been passed to a painter, a puppeteer group, a comedian, a graphic artist, a dramaturge, a dancer, a filmmaker, a musician and, awesomely, chocolatiers the Mast Brothers.
Who knows what this will look/smell/taste like but it’ll be interesting, and who doesn’t like chocolate? Bottom Line: If you don’t like dance there’s painting. If you don’t like painting there’s theater. If you don’t like theater there’s chocolate, and if you don’t like chocolate you are a miserable fuck.
Spanish Avant-Garde Poetry
Feb. 27, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St. (betw. Lafayette & Mulberry Sts.), 212-274-1160; 7, FREE Though almost none of the featured poets’ surnames end in a vowel, that might just be part of their avant-gardiness. From the small amount that I understand of Argentinean poet Lila Zemborain’s work, her poetry makes me Rachel Levitsky want to blush, have sex and understand Spanish better. As for Rachel Levitsky, there’s nothing Spanish about her. Her poetry, however, is pretty stellar.To wit: “They dropped/ Feathers like hawks poked by screaming pursuers in/ Black garb.” Dios mio! Bottom Line: Go, but don’t expect to understand much: It’s poetry, it’s weird and it’s in Spanish. But what you do grasp will be worth it.
Cinema 16
Feb. 25, The Bell House, 149 7th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), Brooklyn, 718-643-6510; 7:30, $12/$15 Maya Deren, filmmaker and posthumous James Merrill muse, used to not only make films in her small East Village apartment, but screen them too.These days, Molly Sumo with her Cinema 16 event at Bell House carries on the experimental film-viewing party tradition.The evening features an animated short by ethnomusicologist Harry Smith, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Robert Enrico, and two (overtly) political shorts—the Public Theater’s Pie in the Sky and Edwin Porter’s Dream of a Rarebit Fiend.The films are scored live by The Wild Yaks, a noisy rock band, for the first two and the Artanker Convoy, a funkier downbeat band, for the latter.There’s also free ice cream.
Bottom Line: That last short declarative sentence should be enough to entice you, but Harry Smith’s rarely seen experimental cinema should banish any hesitation.
Master Musicians of Jajouka with Bachir Attar
Feb. 28, The Old Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St. (betw. Church St. & Broadway), 212-219-3006; 8, $20/$25 Jajouka is a village in Morocco with a long and litigious musical history.
Brian Jones of the Beach Boys recorded an album there in the 1960s but evidently forgot to pay the traditional musicians.The history of this group, led by Bachir Attar, is equally strange, full of tales of betrayal and intrigue.
What is not a point of contention is that Bachir and his band of pipe-anddrum playing Moroccans do a mean “Freebird.” Just kidding.They do a great version of “Hamza oua Hamzine” though! Bottom Line: The plaintive wail of the ghaita, the jangle of the tebel mourn and celebrating the weird post–Knitting Factory use of this space.
A Re-Enactment of the Battle of the Pyramids
Mar. 3, Light Industry, 220 36th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), Brooklyn; 7:30, $7 Watch as mad New York City College of Technology Professor Adrianne Wortzel unleashes her army of hacked robotic toys and they wage war. As per Worzel, the piece illustrates “the tragic consequences of imperialism and the dangers, follies and sadness of a rationale for blind obedience that makes victims out of warriors.”Wortzel’s army of skinned-alive Elmo dolls are to be dug by war studies majors who will appreciate the intricate discipline of their battle formations as well as Muppet lovers who will treasure the detournement of the usually overly precious creatures.
Bottom Line: If skinned robot Elmos fighting each other doesn’t sound awesome to you, something’s gone wrong in your soul.
