saturday 04/26
[CONCERT]
Courtesy Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica at Brooklyn Center
Micheal J. Tiifillis
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PLAYING THE GAME
A digital and musical sensory overload
Ever wonder what Donkey Kong's music would sound like if played by a full orchestra? Yeah, us neither. But what the hell, Video Games Live sounds like a cool concept: the tunes you remember from classic games, played by an orchestra, full choir, and soloists, with all sorts of things happening with video screens, lighting, and special effects. Get nostalgic as you hear tracks from Pac-Man, Pong, Donkey Kong, and Mario to the more modern compositions found in Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, and Advent Rising. And there will be games to play as well, and a costume contest. You'll feel like you've won a major bonus round. At 8, the Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, 212-465-6500, videogameslive.com, $35–$75 EUDIE PAK
[DANCE]
ISLAND LIFE
Jamaican company shows its roots
Jamaica is much more than a great travel destination where you can sit in the sun and maybe, ahem, buy a little ganja on the sly: It's a country steeped in diversity and cultural richness, which are aspects we don't get to sample often—especially in the medium of dance. The National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica offers a prime opportunity to see authentic regional dances demonstrating the rituals and traditional lore of the island. For the company's 45th anniversary, choreographer Rex Nettleford includes repertoire works—as in The Crossing, a celebration of the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade—and pieces by guest choreographers such as Haiti's Jeanguy Saintus and Cuba's Arsenio Andrade-Calderon. At 8 and Sunday at 2, Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, Walt Whitman Theatre, 2900 Bedford Avenue, 718-951-4500, $25–$40 KEISHA FRANKLIN
[ART]
THE PLAYBOY SPECIAL
Sex dolls come to life in new exhibit
When the veteran artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson (who was last in town with DiNA, a talking robot with the face of Tilda Swinton) decided that she needed a sex doll for her latest exhibition, she initially tried to order one with her own measurements. No surprise that she found it cheaper to go with a super-skinny body instead, so she designed the doll in Olympia: Fictive Projections and the Myth of the Real Woman to resemble the prostitute in Édouard Manet's controversial 1863 painting Olympia. Made from a moist rubbery material, the eerily lifelike doll (who looks a lot like Sandra Bullock) beckons to you from a chaise longue as video projections of the Manet work are displayed across her body (to examine contemporary issues of projected fantasies, natch). The exhibit also includes digital prints of sex dolls in crates that appear to be emotionally involved in what awaits them upon delivery. And you can meet the artist herself at the opening-night party (tonight, at 6:30 p.m.). Through May 31, bitforms gallery, 529 West 20th Street, bitforms.com, free ANGELA ASHMAN
More than just Bob Marley
