Tag: Weekend

Over the years, Rockaway Beach has earned the award as a synonym for resilience. Knowing this, Ivan Forde recently painted Seascape With the Fabulous Plant of Rejuvenation in the Abzu, a 5 by 90 meter mural on the corner of Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach 108th Street on the facade of the Rockaway Hotel. The work symbolizes “rejuvenation for NYC after the pandemic storm,” he said in a personal statement on his website.

Forde centered the cyanotype on the Mesopotamian poem “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” adding visual references to traditional healing elements associated with his own Guyanese heritage and that of the Lenape, the indigenous peoples who lived in the Rockaways centuries ago.

Created in partnership with Baxter Street CCNY and supported by the 7G Foundation and Facebook Open Arts, the Forde mural, which will be on view through the fall of 2022, is part of a series of public art initiatives the Rockaway Hotel aims to showcase to promote the feeling of renewal to pay tribute to the eventful past of the region.
MELISSA SMITH

Japan Cuts, the Japan Society’s annual survey of predominantly contemporary Japanese cinema, will again offer in-person screenings this year – at least for a handful of titles. Eight features will be shown in the theater from Friday to September 2nd. Some will be shown in the Society’s virtual cinema, film.japansociety.org, where additional titles will also be available to stream.

One possible discovery on the opening weekend is Yukiko Sode’s “Aristocrats” (screening on Saturday and August 26), a structurally surprising study of class stratification in Tokyo. Hanako (Mugi Kadowaki) wants to marry into a political family after a failed engagement.

The heart of Japan Cuts is a sneak preview of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s beautiful World War I drama “Wife of a Spy” (screening on August 27 and online from Friday). The film, which opens in September and won the directing award in Venice last year, revolves around a woman in Kobe (Yu Aoi) who suspects her secretive husband (Issey Takahashi) and his business trip to Manchuria.

For theatrical performances, those present must wear masks and provide proof of vaccination.
BEN KENIGSBERG

CHILDREN

The whole zoo is a stage

Some of the animals at the Bronx Zoo this summer are creatures you’d rather find in the local library, including a blue horse and a very famous – and very hungry – caterpillar.

They are the creations of Eric Carle, the popular children’s author and illustrator who died in May. Set at the zoo Friday through Sunday through August 29, Eric Carle’s World of Wildlife features many of the same giant, intriguing dolls that Rockefeller Productions previously featured in its anthology The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show.

Now, however, the company is presenting four stories separately, all free with zoo entry (tickets must be reserved in advance): “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” in Giraffe Corner; “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” And “The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse” in Grizzly Corner; and the American premiere of “The Very Busy Spider” at Astor Court. After the 15-minute shows, which start at 11 am and run at different times of the day – the last one starts at 4 pm – there is an opportunity to get to know the cast.

Visit on other days of the week? Be sure to see the zoo’s own Wildlife Theater troupe in shows about butterflies, bears and beetles.
LAUREL GRAVE

comedy

New name, same high jinks

The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is no longer stationary in New York, but its long-standing, popular showcase on Sunday evening, ASSSSCAT, has found a new home at Caveat, with one caveat: it is now called RaaaatScraps.

This newly named troupe enlivens ASSSSCAT’s improvisational format, inspired by anecdotes from a celebrity (when Raaaatscraps opened his residence at the Caveat on August 1st, Janeane Garofalo was his guest storyteller). Organized by Shannon O’Neill, and presented by the Squirrel Theater, the show features a rotating cast that includes two Squirrel board members – Michael Hartney and Corin Wells – and actors you can recognize by their scene-taking television roles such as Zach Cherry, Connor Ratliff and Peter Grosz.

This week’s star monologue will remain a surprise, but you can find out on Caveat or by livestreaming the performance, taped in Multicam HD, on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. door and $ 8 to access the stream. People who are present in person must show a vaccination card.
SEAN McCARTHY

jazz

An oasis of sound

Little Island, the man-made park and amphitheater off Manhattan’s Pier 55, has breathed new life into the pandemic art scene, thanks in particular to its month-long festival of public concerts titled NYC Free. While the music program is broad, the performances this weekend are full of world-class jazz talent. One of the highlights on Friday is a performance at 9.15 p.m. by Magos Herrera, a Mexican-American singer who oscillates between jazz, experimental classical music and Latin American folklore.

On Saturday at 7.30 p.m., the MacArthur award-winning saxophonist Miguel Zenón, whose quartet will perform excerpts from his homage to the famous Puerto Rican singer Ismael Rivera, as well as the virtuoso singer Cécile McLorin Salvant and the pianist Sullivan Fortner, both Grammy winners, will provide star power on Saturday playing in a duet at 9:15 a.m.

The program on Sunday includes a show by the versatile pianist Miki Hayama at 6:30 p.m. and a series of student performances from 8:45 a.m., presented by the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance. Reservation lists for certain shows are full, but there are vantage points all over the park to see the stage. Visit littleisland.org for more information.
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

The Bayreuth Festival remains a place of tradition, but the stage that Richard Wagner built for his operas is not averse to innovation. While the festival is returning to personal appearances this year, parallel digital presentations will again be accessible on Deutsche Grammophon’s DG Stage streaming platform. For people who cannot travel to Germany or who are just curious about Wagner, this is a boon.

The premiere stream of this year’s production of “The Flying Dutchman” costs just under 10 euros (approx. 12 US dollars) and is available until 6 pm Eastern Time on Sunday. The rest of the online festival – focused on productions from the last few years – is free.

If you’d like to see a production that wasn’t released on Home-Video, register to stream the controversial (and revealing) ring cycle directed by Frank Castorf, shot in 2016. Since Bayreuth doesn’t offer English subtitles, live or online, the current Penguin Classics translation of Wagner’s epic poem will come in handy. There is still time for the Castorf Route 66 journey through “Das Rheingold” (48 hours from Friday at 10 am).
SETH COLTER WALLS

Few things say summer in New York is as good as live music outdoors – even if it means braising in the sun. Whatever the weather, you can count on neo-soul singer Ari Lennox to radiate warmth when she performs in Brooklyn on Saturday. It doesn’t matter if she sings about hot hookups (shout “On It”, her song with Jazmine Sullivan, and prepare to blush), the joys of being home alone (“New Apartment”) or the tight budget become (“Broke”), Lennox’s songs make everyday life sound comfortable and sensual.

Lennox is headlining the opening night of Celebrate Brooklyn !, BRIC’s annual series – now in its 43rd season – which features live music at the Prospect Park Bandshell. She gets support from the rapper and poet Kamauu and the R&B singers Adeline and Nesta. Admission to the concert, which begins at 7.30 p.m. (admission at 6 a.m.), is free and is awarded according to the first-come-first-served principle.
OLIVIA HORN

CHILDREN

Appeal to young readers

Summer is not just about beaches and barbecues. It’s also a time of year to celebrate books – not just for kids, but by them too.

Preschool bibliophiles and grades 1-3 will enjoy the Woke Baby Book Fair, which focuses on titles on social justice issues. On Saturday from 1pm to 3:30 pm, this free event in and around Hearst Plaza at Lincoln Center features readings by authors such as Mahogany L. Browne, the centre’s poet in residence and the festival’s curator. Expect book signing, games, baby movement classes, and live banjo songs.

Through August 15, the Morgan Library & Museum is displaying 40 accordion-style volumes written by grades 3 through 12 writers. The exhibition “The Morgan Book Project” arises from an annual program of the same name, in which pupils are inspired by the library’s medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts. Using traditional materials such as gold leaf and organic pigments, students illustrate their own stories.

This year’s pick includes a magical portal that appears in Hoboken and a fairy tale king who identifies his long-lost daughter through a DNA test. You will also see a well-known villain: the coronavirus.
LAUREL GRAVE

theatre

Shakespeare on Wheels

In recent years, the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit has brought theater to underserved communities by setting up Shakespeare stores in prisons, libraries, homeless shelters, and community centers with a high-energy, space-saving approach to the classics.

After a pandemic-triggered hiatus, the program has returned in what it calls the Summer of Joy, bringing verse to outdoor spaces across town. Produced by the public and the National Black Theater, in partnership with the Department of Transportation, these free performances, currently scheduled to run through August 29, arrive at Manhattan’s Astor Place on Saturday and Sunday at 4:30 p.m., and then stop in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. (You can find locations and dates at publictheater.org.)

Each show provides the stage for Healing and Resistance from the National Black Theater, Malik Works “Verses @ Work – The Abridged Mix” and “Shakespeare’s Call and Response,” conceived and directed by Patricia McGregor. The Volksbus, a municipal initiative known as a community center on wheels, also stops at every stop.
ALEXIS SOLOSKI

Today dance is just as exciting online as it is on stage (perhaps even more so during this time of Covid-19). 92nd Street Y recognized this development a few years ago through the Mobile Dance Film Festival, which is returning for the fourth time this weekend. Three programs include 36 films by artists from around the world, all shot on mobile devices.

These are not home videos like those found on TikTok. They are cinematic, immersive, and imaginatively edited, and range from 30 seconds to more than 10 minutes. Examples are Yupei Tang’s ominous, fragmented “Inception”, Maksym Kotskyi and Elena Mesheryakova’s short but impressive “30 Seconds to Fastiv” and the mesmerizing, gold-colored “Untold Stories” by Nigerian dancer and choreographer Hermes Chibueze Iyele. Another series of student works rounds off the festival, where these programs will be premiered in person on Saturday in the Buttenwieser Halle; the films will also be available on demand until August 15th. Tickets for each program and access to the stream start at $ 10 and can be purchased at 92y.org/mobiledancefilmfestival.
BRIAN SCHAEFER

It’s always difficult to define the scope of First Look, the Museum of the Moving Image’s annual showcase of groundbreaking new films. But the line-up tends to be international, experimental and geared towards brand directors. The last edition, which opened on March 11, 2020, had to be canceled shortly after it started.

Enter First Look 20/21, which runs until August 1st. In addition to the presentation of new films, titles will be shown that did not have their New York cinema premieres at last year’s festival, including “The Viewing Booth” (on July 30th). ), a combination of a documentary and a psychology experiment in which the director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz shows footage of an American student from the West Bank, and “Searching Eva” (on July 31), Pia Hellenthal’s unassignable portrait of a web diary author. The new titles include “Zinder” (on Saturday), a documentary about gangs and poverty in Niger; the Iranian drama “180 Degree Rule” (on Sunday); and a program by Ken Jacobs (August 1st) that premieres a 3-D short film. All films are shown in the museum; some will also be available on his website.
BEN KENIGSBERG

Art museums

Scenes from Prospect Park

Who knows how long the man has been fishing on the shore of the lake in Prospect Park, standing near a thicket of lush trees and staring blankly at someone behind him: Jamel Shabazz, a photographer who took the man’s picture in 2010. For Shabazz’s latest exhibition “My Oasis in Brooklyn” there are 25 more images like this one. (Ten more will be on view in the coming weeks.) The footage, captured over the decades, honors the park’s heritage at a time when its most cherished building, Lefferts Historic House, is being restored.

Organized by Prospect Park Alliance in partnership with Photoville, “My Oasis” will be on display through December 1st on the site fence surrounding the side of the Lefferts Historic House that faces the interior of the park, behind the newly embossed Juneteenth Way . Some photos are more posed than others, but each looks like an intimate snapshot – like “The Crew, 2009” in which Shabazz shows a group of black cyclists, well-known sights of Prospect Park, arranged in an almost perfect pyramid on a staircase next to the bike path .
MELISSA SMITH

CHILDREN

Young life, adult burdens

In the television world, Sesame Workshop often stands for everything warm and fuzzy, from sunny feelings to cuddly soft muppets. But now this nonprofit educational institution, best known for creating Sesame Street, is offering a very different program: their first documentary series where American children face daunting challenges.

The project, titled “Through Our Eyes,” includes four half-hour films that premier on Thursday on HBO Max. “Apart”, directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Rudy Valdez, focuses on young people with imprisoned parents; Talleah Bridges McMahon’s Uprooted Examines Families Displaced by Climate Change; “Homefront”, directed by Kristi Jacobson, portrays the children of military veterans living with physical and psychological injuries; and Smriti Mundhra’s “Shelter” explores homelessness.

Although the portraits are sometimes annoying – from the age of 9 they should be seen with an adult – the films can also be instructive and even hopeful and show how their subjects draw strength from relatives and their peers. In “Apart”, Nnadji, 10, is asked how he would advise children like him. “You are not alone,” he says. “You are here with us. We have you We have you. “
LAUREL GRAVE

Whether you really believe that the name of the BAMF collective stands for “Bringing Artistic Music Forward” – as the advertising material suggests – or that it is a little more unusual, the truth is in the advertising. The members of this flexible group, some of whom got to know each other during their jazz studies at the Juilliard School, are among the most robust and energetic young improvisers on the New York straight-ahead scene.

The collective consists of singer Jenn Jade Ledesna, saxophonists Irwin Hall and Marcus Miller (not related to the bassist of the same name), bassists Barry Stephenson and Noah Jackson and drummers Henry Conerway III and Charles Goold.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, it held a monthly residency at Minton’s Playhouse, the historic Harlem jazz club where bebop flourished in the 1940s. After the reopening of Minton’s, the BAMF collective took back its seat. Two separate sets will be played on Sunday at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Tickets are $ 25, reservations are required, and there is a minimum of $ 30 food and drink per visitor.
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

comedy

A renewed home for improvisation groups

The Upright Citizens Brigade and Peoples Improv Theater may have closed their main Manhattan venues during the pandemic, but two of the city’s long-standing improvisation groups found new residences on the grounds of the UCB’s main base from 2003 to 2017, located below Gristedes on the West 26th Street and Eighth Avenue were taken over and repurposed by Asylum NYC, which now hosts sketch, improvisation, and stand-up comedy most nights.

The Curfew, which started at UCB in 2010, included D’Arcy Carden, Natasha Rothwell and Lauren Adams as members and to this day includes co-founders such as Jim Santangeli and Charlie Todd, who also founded Improv Everywhere. The troops will return to the Asylum on Saturday at 7.30 p.m. At 9:30 p.m. North Coast will perform her improvised hip-hop comedy, which she has directed since 2009 and which was an integral part of the PIT on Saturday night. Tickets for each show are $ 20.
SEAN L. McCARTHY

Have you ever wondered what marathoners go on in their minds during the 42.2 miles to the finish line? Then the author Melanie Jones gives you access to the thoughts of a first-time runner in “Endure”. At the location-specific performance in Central Park, viewers wear audio devices while they walk three miles (at their own pace) with a marathon runner (Casey Howes or Mary Cavett) and listen to their inner monologue.

“Literally every human experience and thought comes to life in a long race,” said Jones, who has competed in marathons and Iron Man triathlons.

Jones worked with director Suchan Vodoor for over a decade to deliver what feels like “The Loneliness of the Distance Runner” and “Eat Pray Love”.

Tickets to the show (which begins Saturday and runs through August 8) are $ 44.99; Visit runwomanshow.com for more information. And although the show is completely outdoors, it follows strict Covid-19 safety protocols. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes.
JOSE SOLÍS

Greenwich Village is as deeply anchored in music history as any other neighborhood in Manhattan; Stroll the streets and pass the places where Pete Seeger, Odetta, Bob Dylan and the like became the figureheads of an American folk revival in the 1950s and 60s.

Founded in 1987 to honor this legacy, the Greenwich Village Folk Festival once organized annual concerts to showcase established and emerging folk talent, but lost momentum in the mid-1990s. However, since the pandemic began, the practice has been revitalized with online live streams held every first Sunday of the month.

Don’t expect conventional patriotic performances at the July 4th edition, which will be streamed for free on the festival’s YouTube channel and website from 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The cast – including prolific songwriter and instrumentalist John McCutcheon; Diana Jones, whose latest album takes the migration crisis into account; and the music satirist Roy Zimmerman – rather follow the time-honored folk tradition of critical political engagement.
OLIVIA HORN

The Flux Quartet has excellent taste in American chamber music. For evidence, watch the first show in a recent series of two concerts recorded for the Library of Congress website. In this one-hour opening set, the group focuses on pieces by black composers who have also played an important role in the jazz tradition.

The saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell’s “9/9/99, With Cards” uses a notation system with which the composer also helped orchestras to improvise. The jubilant, lyrical quality of “Revival” by violinist Leroy Jenkins is reminiscent of his ability to write for string quartet. And the saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s “A Dedication to Poets and Writers” receives a gentle, winning interpretation.

While Coleman is the best-known name, the de facto star of the program is another saxophonist, Oliver Lake, whose music can be heard three times. (The pianist Cory Smythe is a guest at one of these performances.) As on the heady album by the Flux Quartet with the composer’s works from 2017, Lake sings on the saxophone for the feverish and happy “5 Sisters”.
SETH COLTER WALLS

CHILDREN

Food and facts for the fourth

Instead of celebrating July 4th with a barbecue, families can join the New-York Historical Society for a barbecue.

The organization will present Independence Day @ Home With DCHM on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern Time. (The initials stand for the DiMenna Children’s History Museum, the association’s youth department.) From their own kitchen on Zoom, participants can watch the museum directors prepare and test festive dishes – veggie burgers, pork and chives dumplings and ice cream Know everyone about vacation quizzes.

Chefs of all ages can register on the association’s website, which also lists the recipes and equipment they need. The free program will be fully interactive and allow young historians to answer multiple-choice questions such as, “Which US President was born on July 4th?”

In addition to learning the story, the children also get a foretaste of it. The menu’s dessert, orange blossom cinnamon ice cream, is based on an English recipe in a book by Ann Fanshawe. She wrote about her “ice cream” in 1665.
LAUREL GRAVE

TO DANCE

Bring the rhythm

Since the pandemic forced dance classes to go online, the Cumbe Center for African and Diaspora Dance, a studio in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has maintained a strong virtual presence. After the return of face-to-face meetings, the center continues to host a series of courses on Zoom for dancers of all levels, in addition to some new outdoor offerings.

If you want to start the holiday weekend with movement, the Cumbe Calendar has many online options. On Friday evenings, Julio Jean teaches Afro-Haitian dance for beginners and Vado Diomande leads an advanced dance class from Ivory Coast. Saturday brings Rhythm and Flow Yoga with Carmen Carriker; Orisha Dance (dances of the Yoruba deities) with Tony Yemaya; and JamDown Caribbean Dance Fitness with Jennine Hamblin, aka JennyJam. (There are no classes on this Sunday or Monday.)

Payment for most virtual courses is staggered between $ 7 and $ 25; To register and for more information, visit cumbedance.org.
SIOBHAN BURKE

Adolphus Hailstork has bridged vintage classical traditions and multiple genres of American music for half a century. In 2019, the conductor Thomas Wilkins said of the composer’s work: “It’s quite tonal, but it’s not without chromaticism. And some of the time, because he’s sort of hinting at a blues lick or a jazz gesture, we find notes that are bent or twisted.”

The Harlem Chamber Players ensemble has been among Hailstork’s most committed advocates in recent years. And its latest concert — taped and set to stream at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday at thegreenespace.org — brings the premiere of a new piece from the composer: “Tulsa 1921 (Pity These Ashes, Pity This Dust).”

The mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges stars in the work, which commemorates the Tulsa Race Massacre. And the concert may also whet appetites in advance of a New York Philharmonic program planned for the upcoming season. When the orchestra comes to Carnegie Hall in January, it will play the composer’s “An American Port of Call.”
SETH COLTER WALLS

For over a decade, the artistic collaborators Mark Dendy and Stephen Donovan have tackled social and political issues through singular, surreal dance theater: “Dystopian Distractions!” examined the military industrial complex; “Whistleblower” imagined the experience of Chelsea Manning; and “Elvis Everywhere” explored American cultural decline.

Now, for the American Dance Festival, Dendy and Donovan are presenting their debut film, “tHe aGe oF aNXieTy,” which responds to the anguish and insanity of the past year. The 40-minute work features a cast of 16 dancing exuberantly among New York City landmarks and follows the character Monsieur le Clown as he dreams of post-pandemic and post-Trump freedom. The film vividly depicts personal and collective despair but finds pockets of optimism as it celebrates the spirit and tenacity of the city and its inhabitants.

The film streams from 9 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday until 11 p.m. on June 26. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at americandancefestival.org.
BRIAN SCHAEFER

KIDS

Sounds of Hope and Unity

The makers of “All One Tribe” are promoting harmony — in every sense of the word.

Featuring 24 artists and bands, this album from Aya World Productions affirms all families’ common humanity while also emphasizing the particular achievements and goals of people of color. One of those objectives — to recognize Black voices in children’s music — gave rise to 1 Tribe Collective, the consortium that produced the project and will celebrate its release on Saturday.

At 2 p.m. Eastern time, the musicians Aaron Nigel Smith and Shawana Kemp (a.k.a. Shine) will host a free virtual concert that also honors Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating slavery’s end in America. The event, which will stream on 1 Tribe Collective’s YouTube channel (where it will remain afterward) and the YouTube and Facebook pages of the album’s distributor, Tuff Gong International, will comprise music videos, artist interviews and live performances.

Those appearing include Jessica DeShong, singing “Black People Who Change the World,” and Ms. Janis, whose poignant “Say Their Names” is an album highlight.
LAUREL GRAEBER

Theater

Bring On the Requests

When it came to keeping yourself safe from coronavirus, singing — or enjoying live music and its aerosols — had been strictly contraindicated. But with vaccinations on the rise and case loads declining, karaoke rooms and piano bars have begun a slow reopening.

Put down the knitting, the book and the broom as cabaret has come back, too. Feinstein’s/54 Below, the supper club and Broadway hangout in the depths of Studio 54, has unlocked its red door to a vaccinated, limited-capacity audience. Guests will notice some fresh décor, like plexiglass partitions between tables. As concerns the supper part, there’s a new menu from the club’s consulting chef, Harold Dieterle.

Opening weekend highlights include George Salazar, the star of “Be More Chill,” and the composer Joe Iconis doing their “Two Player Game!” act on Thursday, Friday and Sunday at 7 p.m. (with more performances in the coming week starting on Tuesday), and Larry Owens (“A Strange Loop”) offering a Sondheim tribute on Saturday at 9:45 p.m.
ALEXIS SOLOSKI

With her bruising, bawdy and boastful rhymes, Young M.A, a Brooklyn native, is a New York M.C. in the grand tradition. And as one of just a handful of openly queer women to prosper in rap’s mainstream, she’s also something of a trailblazer. Following the success in 2016 of her breakout hit “OOOUUU” — a woozy, liquor-soaked ode to stealing guys’ girlfriends — M.A has released a steady beat of rock-hard and technically tight songs, including “Hello Baby,” a recent collaboration with her fellow Brooklynite Fivio Foreign. Arguably even more compelling than her records are her freestyles — a good reason to seek out her live shows.

On Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern time, Young M.A will represent the Big Apple in Los Angeles, where she’s set to perform a livestreamed concert from the stage of the Wiltern, as part of the club’s ongoing series that also includes the rapper Freddie Gibbs and the Australian R&B group Chase Atlantic. Tickets start at $15 and are available at youngma.veeps.com.
OLIVIA HORN

Mary Mattingly grew up in a rural New York community with no access to safe drinking water. With this in mind, the artist recently organized a one-year virtual exhibition that documents the creation of the New York water supply system. In collaboration with More Art, she created a keystone project for this campaign, “Public Water,” a geodesic dome full of water filtration systems that works like this system. At the entrance to the Grand Army Plaza of Prospect Park in Brooklyn until September 7th, the piece shows what helps to supply millions of people with this natural resource despite the environmental challenges.

The artist Maya Lin shows what other dangers climate change can bring: a “ghost forest”, her installation in Madison Square Park in Manhattan, can be seen until November 14th. The work shows 49 dead cedars that Lin planted on charges of deforestation. In order to offer solutions as well, she has planned a number of public programs (listed on the park protection website) that focus on how we can help.
MELISSA SMITH

JAZZ

Celebrate the return of togetherness

There is history around them in this area. Half a century ago, not long after a group of abstract expressionist painters founded the New York School there, jazz improvisers who lived and played nearby, such as Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, showed how expressionism can be and how it can be a collective act he might sound.

Free jazz as a tradition in Lower Manhattan has never entirely gone, and after a year and a half of silence, AFA returns live this weekend with free concerts on Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. in the art space First Street Green between First and Second Avenues. William Parker will perform each day with some of New York’s best creative improvisers, including saxophonist Darius Jones, trombonist Steve Swell and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee.
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

CHILDREN

Next stop, fun and sun

Regardless of how you feel about public transportation these days, a railroad adventure remains perfectly safe: the ride the New York Transit Museum offers on Saturday.

Though the institution has not yet reopened its headquarters, a disused subway station in Brooklyn, it still holds its annual family allowance Party on Wheels over a well-known high-speed means of transport – the internet.

This free virtual excursion ($ 25 per family donation is recommended) will run on Zoom from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. After a brief tour of vintage cars, including the oldest in the museum’s collection – a Brooklyn Union Elevated car from 1904 – the married duo Dan + Claudia Zanes will present a concert on the theme of New York and Transit and participate in a short Q&A.

Join The Times theater reporter Michael Paulson in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda, see a performance of Shakespeare in the Park, and more as we explore the signs of hope in a transformed city. For a year now, the “Offstage” series has accompanied the theater through a shutdown. Now let’s look at his recovery.

One of the folk tunes they’ll be playing, the bluesy “Coney Island Avenue,” inspires the final activity. As they listen to the song, the children draw pictures that capture their own colorful visions of a trip to the beach.
LAUREL GRAVE

Film series

Back where they belong

The New York Film Festival took place on the web and in drive-in theaters in September and October. From Friday to August 26th, around 30 features can now be played indoors. Big Screen Summer: NYFF58 Redux kicks off in the movie at Lincoln Center with Steve McQueen’s “Small Ax” anthology: “Lovers Rock” (who opened the festival) plays throughout the month, and the other “Small Ax” movies (including “Mangrove” and “Red, White and Blue”) will be shown several times in the coming week.

Later in June and July, expect revivals like “Hopper / Welles” (an extended dialogue between Dennis Hopper and Orson Welles, with Welles sometimes playing a role) and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s “Flowers of Shanghai”. The program will also have some selections that did not show up at all. The eight-hour “The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin)” runs from July 16-22 in August the Polish film “The Hourglass Sanatorium” from 1973 will be shown.
BEN KENIGSBERG

Stand-up Kelly Bachman went viral in October 2019 for adapting her act when she saw Harvey Weinstein in the audience. Millions watched the clip on Twitter, and Bachman made the most of their moment by presenting the Rape Jokes by Survivors showcase at the 2019 New York Comedy Festival and participating in Hysterical, an FX on Hulu documentary that which was released in March.

In between, she developed a musical comedy hour, “Rape Victims Are Horny Too,” with Dylan Adler, another survivor and comedian of assaults. Bachman and Adler began performing in February 2020, then switched to livestreaming last year while simultaneously making a music video for one of their songs, “Tell Me I’m Hot and Don’t F *** ing Touch Me.”

Her first personal show since the pandemic is on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Asylum NYC. Tickets are $ 20, and viewers must present proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test on the same day to participate. Further performances are planned for June 24th in the Caveat and July 10th in the Asylum.
SEAN L. McCARTHY

Beauty pageants like you’ve never seen them before. Supernatural creatures from folklore. A disposable coffee cup in love.

These are just some of the themes of the KidsFilmFest, an international slate with short film adventures, which this year like last year will be shown completely online. For $ 10, families can watch the two programs presented by the Brooklyn Film Festival anytime from Friday noon until 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time on June 13th. Streaming on CineSend, each series – eight titles for children ages 3 to 7 and nine for ages 8 to 15 – followed by a recorded discussion with filmmakers.

The animated selection includes Xi Chengzhuo’s beautiful, wordless “Ballad of Musical Notes”; Catherine Chen’s “Yuan Yuan and the Hollow Monster,” in which a girl defeats a hurricane; and Susan Lim and Samudra Kajal Saikia’s “Boy Scientist” on geek romance. But the strongest love story is live action: “Finally,” Lorena Gordon’s portrayal of a gay teenager growing up – and a warm coming out.
LAUREL GRAVE

“Vienna Waltzes” is the last great spectacle that George Balanchine created for the New York City Ballet. It’s 45 minutes of waltzes that move from the forest to a rough beer hall to elegant ballrooms, erotically charged and spooky. In the end, the stage is flooded by a whirlpool of pairs of waltzes, dozens of them multiplied by mirrors.

A free performance of the 2013 work will be available on the company’s website and YouTube channel from Thursday, 8 p.m. Eastern Time through June 17. It’s a fitting finale to a strong digital season that featured a beautiful Sofia Coppola film about the company’s return to its home theater. In September the dancers will again fill the stage in front of a live audience. For the time being, “Viennese Waltz” fills the screen.
BRIAN SEIBERT

Pop rock

Outside? On-line? How about both?

While the live music slump in town begins to thaw and the virtual programming is still going strong, New Yorkers can look forward to a summer of music both outdoors and online. This weekend, the Brooklyn Museum’s flagship First Saturday program – which is still alive despite its necessarily smaller scale and new outdoor environment – provides a re-entry point for the concert disadvantaged. The free Pride-themed program from 2 p.m. offers a drag show, a set by the Peru-born DJ Undocubougie and a performance by Kalbells, the psychedelic synth-pop group around Kalmia Traver, who also participate for their spirited singing. well known is the band Rubblebucket.

Another musical offering this weekend comes from Lake Street Dive, a group of New England Conservatory graduates who have refined a retro soul sound with contemporary luster on seven studio albums. They draw on their latest “Obvious” for livestreams on Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time; Tickets start at $ 20 and are available at boxoffice.mandolin.com.
OLIVIA HORN

The composer and improviser Anthony Braxton will be 76 years old on Friday. But he will not celebrate the occasion with nostalgia.

His “12 Comp (ZIM) 2017”, which is to be released on Blu-ray audio and as a digital download, brings together a dozen set-length performances, all of which are dedicated to one of his latest concepts (“ZIM” refers to a style of composition.) based on intensity gradations). The ensembles vary from six to nine players, each with several brass specialists (from trumpet to tuba), two harpists (including Jacqueline Kerrod and Brandee Younger), and Braxton himself (on a variety of reeds).

Listening to the album every 10 hours may forbid, so start with a track; playing with density and thrift reveals an accessible form of experimental drama. “Composition No. 409 “, which is available as a preview on the Bandcamp page of the album, is majestic: It develops from a sensitive state of mysticism, in which harps glisten over accordion drones, to conflagrations that are fueled by the hot phrasing of this saxophonist still untroubled by age.
SETH COLTER WALLS

theatre

And they lived hilariously to this day

Paul Rudnick has worked on Broadway lately than almost anyone. When Nathan Lane gave a pop-up performance at the St. James Theater in April to signal the industry resurgence, he gave a Rudnick monologue and played a hardcore theater fanatic.

Carter Ogden, the less than self-confident hero of Rudnick’s lively new novel “Playing the Palace” (Bekley), is equally enthusiastic about the stage. On Valentine’s Day as a single and heartbroken, he cycles across Manhattan and imagines a musical number in which everyone else is paired. Little does he know that he is on his way to his own meeting – with Edgar, the ridiculously handsome, cute and emotionally damaged Crown Prince of England.

Comparisons with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are inevitable as Carter and Edgar see one obstacle after another. But this is a romantic comedy; The question is not whether love triumphs, but how. The answer can make you cheer.
LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES