WEDNESDAY
OCTOBER 8
Film
‘BUS 174’
Brilliant filmmaking—literally—José Padilha’s feature uses a reality TV analogue to The Taking of Pelham One Two Three to illuminate an entire social order. People actually die before our eyes, yet the movie never has the exploitation feel of an amoral carnage-fest like City of God. Tense, engrossing, and superbly structured, Bus 174 is not just an unforgettable drama but a skillfully developed argument. HOBERMAN
Opens today, Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, 212.727.8110
Music
DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER
The finest jazz singer of her generation is also the most entertaining, with her megawatt smile, theatrical flair, sexy affect, and improvisational brio, which extends to comedic raps as well as to lightning romps through “Cherokee” or “Cape Verdean Blues.” Her recent album of Kurt Weill songs is a triumph, but you have to see her to get the full effect—one reason 2000’s Live at Yoshi’s is an unqualified success. GIDDINS
Through Sunday, at 8 and 10:30, Blue Note, 131 West 3rd Street, 212.475.8592
‘HIEROGLYPHICS FULL CIRCLE TOUR’: DEL THA FUNKEE HOMOSAPIEN+SOULS OF MISCHIEF +CASUAL
Back when it wasn’t cool to get dropped from your label and go indie, the Hiero massive realized that that was the secret to success for artists with college pedigrees. Thus was born the underground, even if it hasn’t always benefited these talented forebears. Nevertheless, Casual remains one of the game’s most vicious spitters, Del one of its great eccentrics, and Souls of Mischief a crew that retain their well-earned earnestness. Also: Pep Love, Little Brother, Encore. CARAMANICA
At 9, S.O.B.’s, 204 Varick Street, 212.243.4940
Theater
‘THE SOUND OF OCEAN’
Traditional Chinese drumming and martial arts meet contemporary Western image theater in this piece by Taiwan’s U Theater, headed by actress-founder Liu Ching-Ming. The subject is that source of sustenance and, more recently, worldwide contention—water. As this is the company’s New York debut, we can’t tell you more. Just go with the flow. FEINGOLD
Through Saturday, BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, 718.636.4100
‘THE NIGHT HERON’
Two unemployed gardeners in the Cambridgeshire fens wait for job opportunities, not Godot; instead, a mysterious woman arrives to complicate their lives. Jez Butterworth’s play, his second outing with the Atlantic Theater Company, is staged by artistic director Neil Pepe, with a cast that includes company regulars Mary McCann, Clark Gregg, and Jordan Lage. FEINGOLD
Through November 9, Atlantic Theater, 336 West 20th Street, 212.645.1242
THURSDAY
OCTOBER 9
Books
PAUL AUSTER+DON BYRON
To kick off the fifth annual CooperArts festival, Brooklyn novelist Auster reads from his work—perhaps previewing his December release, the eerie Oracle Night. His unexpected collaborator is genre-gulping jazz clarinetist Don Byron. PARK
At 7:30, Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7th Street at Third Avenue, 212.279.4200
Music
JEAN GRAE+CANNIBAL OX
If there’s hope, this is it. Jean Grae continues to slyly insinuate herself into unexpected places (opening for Kanye West? You go girl) and bring brimstone on the mic. The mighty mystics of Can Ox have been slow to return after their debut epic, The Cold Vein, but have been recording new material that will doubtlessly secure their status as rap visionaries nonpareil. CARAMANICA
At 9, Knitting Factory Main Space, 74 Leonard Street, 212.219.3006
RADIOHEAD
No way you’re getting into their Tuesday-night gig at BAM, so note simply how freaking heartening it is that the Best Stadium Rock Band Currently Operating is art-driven and audacious enough to be playing for Merce Cunningham’s dance company. And that they have enough skepticism about the trappings of being the B.S.R.B.C.O that they’ve intensified their struggle against doing things the easy way. WOLK
Today and Friday at 8, Madison Square Garden, 31st Street and Seventh Avenue, 212.465.MSG1
Photo
LYLE ASHTON HARRIS
For this series of Polaroid self-portraits, the artist, wearing nothing but a jock strap, plays a badly beaten boxer. Open-mouthed and spewing blood, he reels backward, his arms thrown out wide, and looks at the viewer in stunned disbelief. If Harris imagines himself a martyr to his art, there’s nothing romantic or redemptive about that martyrdom. But by standing his ground, however shaky, the artist pulls triumph from defeat. ALETTI
Through October 18, CRG Gallery, 535 West 22nd Street, 212.229.2766
FRIDAY
OCTOBER 10
Art
TOBIAS PUTRIH
This young Slovenian sculptor, who has shown widely in Europe, pits Frederick Kiesler (a rocking egg made of gallery cards) against Bucky Fuller (a geodesic trash-bag-tie ghost) in his first solo here. With a corrugated cardboard monument that slyly alludes to topography and cinema, and a classical ruin that’s nothing but egg crates, eggshells, and slapdash paint, it’s a tour de force of ingenuity and lighter-than-air weightlessness. LEVIN
Through November 1, Max Protetch, 511 West 22nd Street, 212.633.6999
Books
‘A KENNETH KOCH CELEBRATION’
More new music in the language of poetry”: Koch’s summary of Marianne Moore’s “To a Steamroller” also applies to the poetic career of Koch, who died last July. The event includes readings, screenings of films he made with Rudy Burckhardt, and, of course, music. Originally to be hosted by George Plimpton, the celebration will now be doubly poignant. SWARTZ
At 8, Miller Theatre, 2960 Broadway, 212.854.7799
Film
‘KILL BILL VOL. 1’
Revenge, Quentin Tarantino reminds us, is a dish best served cold, and his movie-mad action flick is one massive icebox raid on every chopsocky spaghetti western yakuza blaxploitation flick he’s ever seen. The struggle between all-powerful Bill and his betrayed Bride (Uma Thurman) belies a subtext the filmmaker is too cool to explore—which is why this fun, smart series of martial arts set pieces and sight gags feels a mite thin. HOBERMAN
Opens today
‘ANDY WARHOL: I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING’
Maybe he didn’t, but that’s why there is scarcely any aspect of other people’s movies Warhol’s works did not call into question. You can see for yourself in this series of mid-’60s “Silver Age” Factory films, some of them newly discovered—with a few movies and documentaries about Warhol thrown in for good measure. HOBERMAN
Through October 28, BAM Rose Cinema, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 718.777.FILM
Music
BETH GIBBONS & RUSTIC MAN
The voice of Portishead sometimes got short shrift from beat-heads, who thought the group was the sum of its samples. To them, Beth Gibbons might have been interchangeable, but they were way, way wrong. Better than Tricky’s Martina, Gibbons had the voice that embodied the emotional ethic of trip-hop (forgive the phrase), and her new album, Out of Season, is a vivid reminder of a fugue state gone by. CARAMANICA
Today and Saturday at 8, St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street, Brooklyn, 718.643.1118
YO LA TENGO+SUN RA ARKESTRA+THE AISLERS SET
Put the two opening acts together, and you’d have something like the headliners’ aesthetic. YLT aspire to the high friction, deep pulse, and cosmic ambition of the Arkestra—cf. their giddily charming cover of Ra’s “Nuclear War.” Their natural gifts, though, are in line with the Aislers Set’s raw-honey tunes and arrangements to sweeten bitter thoughts, and a vinyl collector’s mastery of historical pop strategy. WOLK
At 8, Warsaw, 261 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, 718.387.0505; Sunday at 9, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey, 212.533.2111
SATURDAY
OCTOBER 11
Art
RICHARD SERRA
Pushing the outer limits of massive bulk and space-warp geometry, this master of heavyweight minimalism presents four enormous new works: a double torus, a back-to-back torus, a hull-like toroid maze into inner space, and a floor piece. Their undulations are breathtaking. So are the velvety, rusty, Kieferesque surfaces. If their imposing spatial presence doesn’t awe you, maybe the 30-ton weight of each steel plate will. LEVIN
Through October 25, Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street, 212.741.1111
Music
FRAN LANDESMAN
Hipper-than-thou wordsmith in from London with current writing partner, Simon Wallace. Some tunes will be by her former sidekick, Tommy Wolf, like tear-jerky “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” and one-time nitery staple “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.” Also on hand will be vets Bob Dorough and Jackie Cain in her first Manhattan appearance since hubby-partner Roy Kral died. FINKLE
Today and Sunday at 7 and 9:30, Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, 212.239.6200
Photo
HARRY CALLAHAN
This shrewdly edited show of early experimental work is full of small marvels. Callahan’s shivering double exposures, jazzy riffs of repetition and variation, playful light drawings, and studies of telephone wires, scarred concrete, dried leaves, and a twig on trampled snow feel intuitively, effortlessly right—never precious, never arty. Throughout, Callahan balances abstraction and figuration with such ease that at the beginning of his career, he already looks like a master. ALETTI
Through October 18, Pace/MacGill Gallery, 32 East 57th Street, 212.759.7999
SUNDAY
OCTOBER 12
Theater
‘SMASHING’
A young American writer’s ex-lover, victim of a lurid portrait in his latest novel, seeks her revenge in London in Brooke Berman’s intriguing comedy. The cast is headed by David Barlow, lately seen Off-Broadway as Nijinsky, and the director is Trip Cullman, who won plaudits for his work on Last Sunday in June. FEINGOLD
Opens today, Intar 53 Theater, 508 West 53rd Street, 212.868.4444
MONDAY
OCTOBER 13
Theater
‘GOLDA’S BALCONY’
That lady on the balcony was Israel’s prime minister in the decisive years from 1969 to 1974, and much of the criticism of her tactics then was echoed when William Gibson’s play (revised from his 1979 play Golda) opened Off-Broadway last spring. Enthusiasm for Tovah Feldshuh’s performance suggested that a less contentious alternate title might be Tovah‘s Triumph. Whether that will reoccur on Broadway, we’ll know shortly. FEINGOLD
In previews, opens October 15, Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, 212.239.6200
TUESDAY
OCTOBER 14
Dance
MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY
Still leading the pack, Cunningham closes his 50th-anniversary season with two local premieres: Split Sides, to new music by Radiohead and Sigur Rós, in which his longtime chance procedures get a very public airing, and Fluid Canvas, which incorporates music by John King and computer technology by Shelley Eshkar and Paul Kaiser that captures the motions of a choreographed hand. ZIMMER
At 8, and October 16 through 18 at 7:30, Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 718.636.4100
AKRAM KHAN COMPANY
He’s 29, was born in London to Bangladeshi parents, and has studied Kathak dance since he was seven. Other influences include Michael Jackson videos and performing with Peter Brook in Mahabharata. His young ensemble presents a fusion of Kathak and modern styles, Kaash, powered by the spirit of Shiva, to music by Nitin Sawhney and with visual design by Anish Kapoor; both are Indians raised in Britain. ZIMMER
At 8, and October 15 through 19, Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, 212.242.0800
Music
RAPHAEL SAADIQ+TONY! TONI! TONÉ!+JOI
In the wake of Saadiq’s solo album stiffing, a Tony! Toni! Toné! reunion seems not only smart but worthwhile, particularly since the trio was the heart of mainstream r&b’s best live band from the last decade. Joi is commercially doomed and artistically blessed, both in the fine cult-hero tradition. WALTERS
At 8, S.O.B.’s, 204 Varick Street, 212.243.4940
SHANIA TWAIN
Since she’s given fans the option of hearing her songs in pop, country, world music, and dancefloor arrangements, will Twain somehow split herself and the Garden in four? Or will she one-up the Flaming Lips and hand out Walkmans that enable concertgoers to simultaneously hear different accompaniments? And can any live band pull off Up!‘s ingenious ABBA-Def Leppard fusion? Find! Out! WALTERS
At 8, Madison Square Garden, 31st Street and Seventh Avenue, 212.465.MSG1
Theater
‘THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN’
Shakespeare only wrote acts I and IV, but you don’t get to see three acts by John Fletcher that often, either. This revival, staged by Darko Tresjnak, marks the New York Shakespeare Festival’s first acknowledgement of their rarely produced joint work, a recycling of Chaucer’s story of Palamon and Arcite. (Riddle: Which current star of a Broadway musical played the Clown in the New York premiere of this obscure opus?) FEINGOLD
Previews begin today, opens October 19, Joseph Papp Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, 212.239.6200
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