The Public’s New York Now! festival starts in a week. The readings are all free. If you didn’t see The Ladies when it was at HERE in January, now’s your chance.
There is also a festival (not free, but pretty cheap) called “New Hybrids Now!” that includes several things that I highly recommend: Larry Keigwin on May 11 and The Civilians’ “Gone Missing” on May 12. I will be at both of those.
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We were very lucky to get this Gouache by James Esber at the White Columnns benefit last weekend.
James Esber
Untitled (red flower), 2000
Gouache on paper, 22 x 18 in.
He has a show up at PPOW though April 19.
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Worth Street Theater, the closest theater to Ground Zero, presents Voices of Peace & Dissent from Ground Zero.
Beginning Monday, April 7, The Worth Street Theater Compapny @ The Tribeca Playhouse presents Voices of Peace & Dissent from Ground Zero.
Voices of Peace & Dissent from Ground Zero will feature a rotating cast of actors, activists and celebrities in curated evenings of pro-peace/anti-war texts spanning history from the Ancient Greeks to the present day – featuring such political oratory as Robert Byrd’s speech to the Senate, Robin Cook’s recent resignation from the British Cabinet, as well as contributions from Eric Bogosian, Tony Kushner and other contemporary playwrights.
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Inspired by Greg Allen’s post regarding Norway’s non-violent resistant to Nazi occupation, I present a piano piece by Harald Sæverud titled “Ballad of revolt”: MP3 (3:19, 2.3MB).
The story from the composer regarding the work:
I was not in a good mood, standing there freezing, getting more and more angry as I spotted the German barracks on the hillsides, disgustingly marring our lovely scenery. My parents had not taught me to swear, but I had to make some kind of exclamation… BAM BAM… Like a shot the theme for Ballad of Revolt came to me. And this was my shot during the war
The work, written in 1943 is dedicated to “small and large Resistance fighters”, and it became a symbol for the Norwegian struggle during the war.
This performance is by Leif Ove Andsnes a beautiful and talented Norwegian pianist.
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Update: I fixed the bad link to the mp3.
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I don’t want to write only about war. Here are some recent art exhibits I’ve seen, plus a future recommendation. Some of the shows have already closed.
The future recommendation is Jules de Balincourt, opening at LFL in May. When we were there on Saturday to decide on buying a couple of works, having seen the work when visiting to see the Holly Coulis exhibit, the back was buzzing with people looking at his work. While we were there a collector/critic and a good artist stopped by to check out his work.
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The latest Village Voice has a good essay by Barbara Pollack on the history of protest art. One of my favorite paragragraphs is:
Across the Met in the Assyrian gallery, artists gathered on March 5, Moratorium Day, to stage a more contemporary version of anti-war art-making, a “Draw-In for Peace,” organized by Artists Against the War, and focusing attention to the wealth of archaeological treasures in Iraq, as well as the human life, that could be destroyed by American bombing. “If you are a serious artist, you don’t want to make work that is thought of as agitprop,” says Joyce Kozloff, one of the event’s organizers, “but now I feel that what I want is to learn to do that and fast.”
Here are links to some of the works and artists discussed in the essay:
This should be fabulous. We went to a preview reception, with a few of the songs and one of the speeches, in someone’s loft a few nights ago and it was amazing. It’s being presented by The Civilians, who did The Ladies.
Paris Commune is a workshop production of a new piece using the cabaret form and actual songs from the period to stage the 1871 revolution of Paris – the first socialist revolution in Europe. On March 18, 1871, a sudden uprising propels the Commune into power, sending the government fleeing to Versailles. During the brief 73 days of its existence, the Commune attempts to radically restructure society. Everything is brought into question – the rights of women, religion, and even whether or not bakers should be forced to labor at night. There are many different opinions on the merits of the Commune. The army’s repression of the Commune remains one of the most ruthless and horrific episodes of modern history.
It’s a workshop with only a few performances. Go here to get tickets before they sell out. We’re going with Glenn on the 6th.
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I went to see John Adams’s El Niño at BAM tonight. Ugh. I think living in California has ruined his mind. Given the current state of the world, the last thing I want to hear is a religious work about Mary and the birth of Jesus. I live in a country whose president says he is a man of faith and God wants him to bomb Iraq to make us safe. Soaking in the most anti-woman, anti-human aspects of Christianity isn’t something I want to make time for. Let’s think about it: the only woman suitable to bear Jesus is a virgin, so the only really holy woman in Christianity does something no human woman can do: bear a child while remaining a virgin.
The music isn’t even particulary interesting, with a few exceptions, and I love a lot of Adams’s work — especially Nixon in China and Death of Klinghoffer.
For a better written take on the whole thing, go read James.
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Speaking of queer culture, while getting the demo photos from my camera, I realized I had two good photos of Kiki from the March 3 performance. She really is a performance goddess.
