NEWS & POLITICS ARCHIVES Listings
by Village Voice
WEDNESDAY
SEPTEMBER 3
Books
HAPPY ENDING READING SERIES PREMIERE
The first evening of this new series sounds promising: A.M. Homes, Mary Gaitskill, and Nelly Reifler read from their work, while Purple America novelist Rick Moody eschews the lectern and picks up his ax to perform with his group, the Wingdale Community Singers (whose other members are also known as Hannah Marcus and David Grubbs). DE KRAP
At 8, Happy Ending Bar, 302 Broome Street, 212.334.9676
Dance
COMPAGNIE FELIX RUCKERT
An underground techno sound environment surrounds both the audience, some of whom recline in beds or inflatable chairs, and the performers, who are likely to interact with the supine viewers of Deluxe Joy Pilot, by one of Berlin’s most audacious choreographers. You can just watch, but be careful where you sit. ZIMMER
Through Friday, at 7, Saturday at 7 and 10, Dance
Theater Workshop, 219 West 19th Street, 212.924.0077
Music
BILL CHARLAP TRIO
The pianist is a key exemplar of the way mainstreamers couch progressive ideas. His most resonant moves are pointedly strategic—this music overflows with thoughtful design. Insinuation breeds vitality, but placing melody up front satisfies the audience’s entertainment jones. During individual nights of its week-long run, the band is joined by Peter Bernstein, Phil Woods, and Houston Person—lyrical masters all. MACNIE
Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 and 9:30; Friday and Saturday at 7:30, 9:30, and 11:30; Sunday at 7:30 and 9:30; Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, 212.576.2232
WHIRLWIND HEAT+KAITO
Not surprisingly, the opening band without the major-label hype machine behind it is the true star on this bill. Norwich, England’s Kaito sound and look like Elastica on speed, with their wonderfully loopy pop-punk and pre-Avril skinny ties. Headliners Whirlwind Heat are a synth-bass-drums trio that play neo-new wave that’s been done much better by bands like Numbers and Arab on Radar. PHILLIPS
At 8:30, Southpaw, 125 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, 718.230.0236
Theater
THE THIRD MAN
Written as a draft for a future screenplay, Graham Greene’s novella of post-war Vienna murder and conspiracy was meant to inspire other artists. Certainly, the work owes its great fame to Carol Reed’s wryly noir 1949 film, which features a vertiginous appearance on a Ferris wheel by Orson Welles as the supposedly murdered Harry Lime, whose strange disappearance sets in motion the puzzling geopolitical plot. Equally intriguing to us is the question of whether Godlight Theatre Company can capture the same angular suspense with its world premiere stage adaptation. MCNULTY
Through September 27, Manhattan Theatre Source, 177 MacDougal Street, 212.501.4751
THURSDAY
SEPTEMBER 4
Art
DANICA PHELPS
Keeping track of everything she spends, earns, and does, with green and red marks and doodled sketches, Phelps makes compulsive work that questions the value of an artist’s time. Now Phelps, who recently came out, tries to integrate her new sex life into her accounting system. She plans to live in the gallery with her girlfriend for the month. LEVIN
Opens today, through October 4, LFL, 530 West 24th Street, 212.989.7700
Music
ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO BENEFIT
The alt-country elder—Nuns, Rank and File, True Believers before his long solo career—is fighting hepatitis C with the usual portion of music-life medical and disability insurance, namely none. An impressive lineup that includes Lenny Kaye, Garland Jeffreys, the Star Spangles, Ivan Julian, and Jon Langford’s terrific new Ship and Pilot band will put cash he needs in his pocket. CHRISTGAU
At 8, Knitting Factory Main Space, 74 Leonard Street, 212.219.3006
Photo
PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA
DiCorcia’s “A Storybook Life,” a sequence of 76 modestly sized color photos made over the past 25 years, is this influential photographer’s most personal and engaging show so far. Like so much of his work, it shifts between artifice and naturalism, public and private, including pictures of his infant child, his former girlfriends, and utter strangers before concluding with a shot of his father in a coffin. DiCorcia has never seemed so definitively contemporary, or so irrefutably important. ALETTI
Opens today, through October 11, PaceWildenstein, 534 West 25th Street, 212.929.7000
FRIDAY
SEPTEMBER 5
Film
LATINBEAT 2003
Resurgent Mexico and Argentina are particularly well represented among the two dozen recent Latin American films—which also include the Dominican crime drama Red Passport, shot largely in New York, and Eryk Rocha’s documentary portrait of his father, cinema novo great Glauber Rocha. Sidebars include a tribute to Argentine producer Lita Stantic and a series of documentaries on Cuban music. HOBERMAN
Through September 28, Walter Reade Theater,
70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 212.875.5600
Music
MARTY EHRLICH
There’s a natural melancholy in the saxophonist’s sound. Sometimes it’s steeped by the blues, sometimes it’s European and autumnal. Always it’s a good gauge of the unusual gravitas at the center of his work. There’s a great symmetry to the music on his romantic new Palmetto disc. This quartet gig is sure to illustrate it. MACNIE
Friday and Saturday at 8, 10, and midnight, Sweet Rhythm, 88 Seventh Avenue South, 212.255.3626
Photo
SAMUEL FOSSO
In 1978, at the age of 16, Fosso began making self-portraits after-hours in his Central African Republic photo studio, transforming himself with borrowed clothes into a playful, sexy, and charmingly eccentric hipster. The results are reminiscent of early Cindy Sherman, and their naïveté only makes them more irresistible. Shown alongside recent color shots of the artist as a pirate, a sailor, and a woman, these photos make Fosso’s American solo debut one of the new season’s events. ALETTI
Opens today, through October 4, Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 West 20th Street, 212.645.1701
SATURDAY
SEPTEMBER 6
Film
THE MAGELLAN CYCLE
One of the most audacious projects in the history of movies, avant-garde filmmaker Hollis Frampton’s Magellan was intended to be shown in a year-long calendrical cycle. Frampton had completed only eight hours (less than a quarter) of his ironic, encyclopedic epic when he died in 1984; this rare presentation is
based on his last work-in-progress screening. HOBERMAN
Saturday, Sunday, and September 13 and 14, Anthology
Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, 212.505.5181
Music
THE 28TH NEW YORK SALSA FESTIVAL
For decades the stars performing under the Fania All-Star’s rubric formed a Who’s Who of the top recording talent then ruling the New York salsa circuit. Proven crowd-pleasers like Cheo Feliciano, Yomo Toro, and Ismael Miranda again rally under bandleader Johnny Pacheco’s flag, and will no doubt commemorate two recently fallen pillars of the Fania legacy: songwriter Tite Curet Alonso and songstress Celia Cruz. COOPER
At 8, Madison Square Garden, 31st Street and Seventh Avenue, 212.465.MSG1
SUNDAY
SEPTEMBER 7
Books
SEMEZDIN MEHMEDINOVÍC
Say his name several times and it starts to sound like prayer. Now spell it. Now put down what you’re doing and pick up Nine Alexandrias (City Lights), his perfectly proportioned book of poems that scan the American landscape for epiphany and Cadillacs. “The hacienda, La Castañeda, is run down/And has nothing in common with Carlos,” but that’s OK. PARK
At 4, Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, 212.614.0505
MONDAY
SEPTEMBER 8
Film
TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI
That’s “Don’t Touch the Loot!,” pal. Jacques Becker’s 1954 evocation of a Montmartre criminal demimonde paved the way for Rififi and Bob le Flambeur. Making his post-World War II comeback, Jean Gabin plays a suavely aging gangster. The print, however, is new and Touchez Pas‘s other attractions include a young, ponytail-switching Jeanne Moreau as a treacherous piece of grisbi. HOBERMAN
Through September 18, Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, 212.727.8110
TUESDAY
SEPTEMBER 9
Dance
BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY
To say this troupe is celebrating its 20th anniversary sidesteps the brilliant work Jones and Zane made in the ’70s and very early ’80s, before they formed their ensemble. In this two-week run Blauvelt Mountain (A Fiction), Duet x2, Zane’s Continuous Replay, and Jones’s talking solo Floating the Tongue will be reprised by others; Jones introduces each show and makes surprise appearances. ZIMMER
At 8, and September 10 through 13, and 18 through 20,
the Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, 212.255.5793, ext. 11
Music
ANDREW WK+HIGH ON FIRE
AWK brings his adrenaline-fueled, anthemic speed-metal-power-rock show to NYC to celebrate the release of his new album, The Wolf. The new stuff sounds a lot like the old, with “Long Live the Party” and “Your Rules” rivaling anything on I Get Wet. A couple of cheesy ballads disappoint, though. High on Fire sound like WK on 15 Valium—but their Sabbathy stoner rock is just as conducive to partying hard. With Vaux. SWITZER
Tuesday at 8, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place,
212.777.6800
THE EX+ROGERS SISTERS
Amsterdam radical crackpots the Ex have fought the good fight since 1979: chanted slogans of proletariat uprising, serrated bass-and-drums jostle, guitars gushing Andy Gill-worthy feedback. Recent history has made their new EP’s rants about art, sisterhood, labor, and Kissinger feel more timely than ever. The Bush Tetras-like Rogers Sisters are among the best of countless current Brooklyn bands whose noise and rhythm owe the Ex a beer. EDDY
Tuesday at 9, through September 10, Knitting Factory Main Space, 74 Leonard Street, 212.219.3006