Yesterday’s “Catch 30″ comprised 10 different dance pieces performed over an hour and a half evening. The scene at Starr Street Projects was quite a performance in itself: the space is situated in the middle of Bushwick and before the show began, an island of hipster dance spectators gathered around the entrance of the space. The general whiteness of the audience struck me, particularly in contrast with the darker faces of the neighbourhood’s residents.

I was similarly surprised by the homogeneity of the dance on show: although artists worked with different media and genres (from pure dance without sound, to mix-media puppetry and video, to more classical theatrical work) the pieces felt very close to each other in aesthetic choices. 80′s white pop culture was referenced again and again, in the choice of movement, sound and costumes. There was a large and very supportive audience and, in general, the event felt like the casual gathering of a community of friends, coming together for beers and to support artists they knew.

Shitheads on Dynamite! presented one of the most interesting pieces in the evening. The work consisted of a musician on live drums and two dancers moving in response to an edited version of “A Date With Your Family“, a 10 minute instructional film on family relations released in 1950. The piece built up slowly, the beats of the drum and the frenetic dancing of the performers eventually turning the experience of the video into a ritualistic family gathering.

Overall, “Catch 30″ gave one a glimpse of a very specific scene in the contemporary dance world of NYC. In the future, it would be great to see more difference in a program that brings together so many artists.

Saturday 7 June, 2008 @ 8pm

THE KITCHEN

512 West 19th Street (just west of 10th Ave), NYC

www.thekitchen.org FREE -

Tickets will be available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis.

With her signature bold style and acid wit, Young Jean Lee is turning her eye towards hip-hop culture and African-American identity-politics in her new show, The Shipment — an extremely awkward exploration of the experience of being black in America — an uneasy juxtaposition of hip-hop virtuosity and cultural cluelessness that raises pointed questions about ethnic appropriation and race relations that will leave you reeling.

Stick around for the post-performance talk-back — don’t miss this exciting opportunity to see new work as it’s being developed.

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Ars Nova is doing a promotion for Jollyship Whizbang by staging a “Pirate Raid” in Union Square Saturday at 1:00PM. We love pirates. I would post the picture but I’m at a friend’s crappy computer that doesn’t have any photo editing software on it.

I was walking in midtown when I passed a photo store that had this exhibit in the window:

Get your own Warhol-inspired print featuring your  loved ones!!

I wonder what Warhol would think of this. He would probably love it. Maybe.

Playing the Building: An Installation by David Byrne

Opens to the public Saturday, May 31, 12 to 6pm

Opening celebration: 6 to 8 pm

This 9,000-square-foot sound installation will be free and open to the public-Come and play it!

Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12 to 6pm

May 31–August 10, 2008

The Battery Maritime Building, 10 South Street, NYC

Click here for directions and a map. For more information on the project, and to read an interview between David Byrne and Creative Time’s President and Artistic Director Anne Pasternak, please visit www.creativetime.org/byrne

THROW YOUR INNER GOOD SAMARITAN A BONE!

There are still a few spots left on the volunteer roll call for Playing the Building: An Installation by David Byrne. Come greet visitors and give information – river views included! Click HERE for details.

Until June 1, 2008, the Dublin based Pan Pan Theatre company will perform Oedipus Loves You at PS122. According to Wikipedia, “a call of pan-pan means there is an emergency on board a boat, ship, aircraft or other vehicle but that, for the time being at least, there is no immediate danger to any one’s life or to the vessel itself. This is referred to as a state of urgency”. Whether or not Aedin Cosgrove and Gavin Quinn were thinking of this definition when they founded Pan Pan in 1991, Oedipus Loves You successfully breathes urgency and immediateness into the familiar story of Oedipus.

Pan Pan’s production follows the traditional form of Greek tragedy: events take place over the arc of a day, all violence happens off stage, characters sometimes wear masks and, most importantly, there is music and dancing. While the plot follows that of Oedipus (by Seneca) and Oedipus Rex (by Sophocles), there is nothing traditionally classical about the characters in Oedipus Loves You. Tiresias, the blind prophet played by Ned Dennehy (who also plays a naked sphinx on platforms for the opening scene of the play), is a retired rock star who wants to play percussion in Antigone’s and Creon’s indie-rock band called “Gordon Is A Mime”. Antigone, smartly played by Aoife Duffin, is a melancholic teenager divided between her love for her family and the deep desire to be left-the-fuck-alone. Uncle Creon (Dylan Tighe) sniffs coke and can hardly contain his own incestuous impulses towards Antigone. Jocasta (Gina Moxley) does not mind the plague at all- in fact, it makes her sleep better. And Oedipus…well, Oedipus can’t even cook meat right for the family barbecue. Played by Bush Moukarzel, Pan Pan’s Oedipus can hardly contain his own self-pity after he gushes his eyes out. In one of the highlights of the performance, his button down shirt completely drenched in blood, Oedipus remembers the lyrics of his own favorite childhood song: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird. He actually breaks down and cries after singing a few of the first verses.

Playing off of Freud’s writings as well as on contemporary notions of postdramatic theater, Pan Pan’s Oedipus Loves You brings wit and a healthy amount of distance to the theatrical Oedipal “super-plot”. The production is defined by a subtle dark humor that allows for the heavy tragic elements of the plot to exist in tandem with the lightness of irony and detachment. The production is also interesting in terms of set, light and sound design, all of which support the notion of a theater conscious of its theatricality yet fully entertaining, (a)live, and aware of its audience. If you have not seen it yet, don’t miss it!

Pan Pan Theatre’s

Oedipus Loves You

May 21 – June 1

Wednesdays – Sundays at 8

Saturdays at 8 and 11

Tickets from $20

$15 (students/seniors)

$10 (P.S. 122 members)

On Tuesday, May 27th, Christine Elmo and Jmy Leary presented “80′s and 90′s on Screen – Dance Relics”, an evening of dance videos from the NYC dance scene in the 80′s and 90′s. Elmo and Leary put together about 4 hours (!!!) of rarely seen videos that included performances, films, rehearsal and interviews. Although I could not make it through the whole evening, I made it through enough of the night to enjoy Elmo’s and Leary’s curatorial endeavour. Some of the first films showed a very young Steve Paxton and a ridiculously sexy Bill T. Jones experimenting with their bodies before they became established pillars of the dance community. The videos documented works by Ishmael Houston-Jones and John Jasperse (both of whom where in the audience), as well as by Meredith Monk, Scott Heron, and other exciting artists from the NYC dance community. The evening took place in the gymnasium of the Judson Memorial Church and the energy felt electric- the gym was filled with artists, dancers, musicians and, in general, people curious and interested in the rare opportunity of seeing so many dance videos from such a recent period in history. It was great to be part of an event that paid tribute to artists who are still young and working, while recognizing the importance of two decades of modern dance still too often overshadowed by the 60′s and 70′s.

“80′s and 90′s on Screen” was part of the Movement Research Spring Festival 2008, with events/performances/classes running up to June 9, 2008.

Okay, so I did an interview with WNYC this morning about things to do in the summer. There is so much stuff going on it was hard to pick only a few, I had to leave a lot off. Like free hot dogs at Metropolitan Bar on Sundays or the First Thursdays Gallery Walk in DUMBO (send an email here to get on the mailing list for DUMBO events). Or the big picnic me and my friend Amanda are going to throw in Prospect Park in July. OR….(here comes blatant self-promotion!! wait for it….) the June 6th showing of the documentary The Promise of New York at the NJ International Film Festival. It’s about the 2005 NYC Mayoral campaign and covers my run for mayor alongside Seth Blum, Christopher X. Brodeur and a bunch of other outsider candidates.

(Oh and if you managed to hear me call/email WNYC and tell them how awesome I was and how much you love me so they’ll have me back again!! If you don’t know who to email, just ask me.)

But here are some of my notes for the WNYC interview:

Mainstream things Culturebot Recommends:

1. Shakespeare in the Park – I really want to see Hair, the Public has some new “virtual ticket line” on their website, so we’ll see how that goes

2. Celebrate Brooklyn in the Prospect Park Bandshell – all the shows are great but I particularly want to see Deerhoof/Metropolis Ensemble on July 18th.

3. Lincoln Center Out of Doors – bill bragin, formerly of Joe’s Pub, once again, all shows are great but I’m definitely putting Spam Allstars- Still Black,Still Proud:An African Tribute to James Brown on my calendar for August 22.

4. Saturday Night Fever at River Flicks/Pier 54 Hudson River Park on August 6

5. Lincoln Center Festival particularly Laurie Anderson Homeland Thursday, July 24, 2008 8:00 PM @ the Rose Theater

Less Mainstream Stuff Culturebot Recommends

1. Creative Time presents David Byrne’s Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation at the landmark Battery Maritime Building FREE

2. Jellynyc’s Pool Parties at McCarren Park Pool all summer, specifically The Hold Steady June 29 – they’re just fun, great people watching, last time I was there they had a slip-n-slide.

3. The Ontological-Hysteric Incubator Series – work-in-progress showings of new and emerging downtown theater May 29-Sept 6 – starting this Thursday with Dan Safer/Witness Relocation doing “vicious dogs on premises”

4. Hey Willpower with Dynasty Handbag and Most Holy Trinity at Glasslands Gallery (289 Kent, Williamsburg) on Mon June 2nd – its presented by Earl Dax and SceneDowntown.

5. Ninjasonik, The Frail, Day For Night -Sun, 06/08/2008 – 9:30pm $6 AT THE TANK – interesting, fun, good beats, new stuff.

6. Dixon Place Hot Festival NYC 16th annual Celebration of Queer Culture – July 2 – August 25

7. Collective Unconscious present the Underground Zero Festival in July

8. HERE Arts Center has a lot of good stuff this summer as well.

9. The Summer Play Festival – its first year at the Public, $10 for all shows, its usually worth the risk.

10. Roulette’s Mixology Festival http://roulette.org/events/2008_06.html at 20 GREENE ST (btwn Canal & Grand) in Soho

11. 3rd Annual Taste of Long Island City to Benefit the Chocolate Factory Theater

http://www.chocolatefactorytheater.org/e_tasteoflic08.html

12. Soho Think Tank’s Ice Factory at the Ohio Theatre

12B. “The Future As Disruption” art exhibit at The Kitchen. FREE

Things Culturebot would splurge on:

I would love to go see SOUTH PACIFIC at Lincoln Center or maybe buy really good tickets to see PASSING STRANGE again…

But I guess it’s a sense of scale. Most of the things I go to cost between $10-$20 and in the summer there’s so much great free cultural stuff in all the parks. I think if I was going to splurge on something – in the sense of reckless, wanton, conspicuous consumption – I’d probably – and this is kind of embarrassing – I’d like to go see a big-ticket rock concert at Jones Beach. (The Police and Elvis Costello! REM and The National!) I’ve never been there and I rarely go see big, mainstream rock shows so I think it would be kind of like the most indulgent thing I could do.

What event will Culturebot leave NYC for?

I love New York but during the summer I will find pretty much any excuse to leave. I love arts and theater festivals like Edinburgh or the Philadelphia Live Arts festival in September. Two summers ago I went to the Noorderzon festival in Groningen, Holland that was fantastic.

Unfortunately I rarely have the resources to get very far. So I sometimes end up going to Fire Island for The Invasion out at Cherry Grove on 4th of July weekend. The Invasion is this kind of anachronistic throwback to the 70′s where a boatload of literally hundreds of drag queens get on a ferry boat at Cherry Grove and “invade” the next town over – The Pines. There’s really no better way to celebrate Independence Day than with a boatload of drag queens pulling into the harbor singing the Star Spangled Banner in impromptu 4-part harmony. Of course, if you’re going to go, I strongly suggest spending the night in a different, quieter, town, like, say, Fair Harbor.

So I went to see Iron Man over the weekend and it was awesome! I had been to see an arty film earlier in the weekend and it was a disappointment, so to buoy my spirits I went to see some sure-fire rock’em-sock’em entertainment. Robert Downey Jr., Cuba Gooding, Terence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, directed by Jon Favreau. Can’t miss. It rocked. And I mean, how can you not like a protagonist who builds robots and works on his hot rod while listening to Suicidal Tendencies?! One thing I noticed though was that the source of Iron Man’s power, literally the technology that keeps him alive and powers his super-power-robot-suit, is called Arc Reactor Technology. And I know that they couldn’t possibly have intended this but if you turn it into an acronym it makes A.R.T. – which I thought was kind of neat.

Actually, I have been having a lot of conversations lately about the difference between art and entertainment. It is an interesting discussion to have because it reveals a lot about the people you’re talking to. It can also reveal people’s basic misunderstanding of culture, its role in society and the value of its expressions. It has been interesting to note how many artists and aficionados of one medium may be highly critical of the art/entertainment distinction in their discipline but largely indifferent to that distinction in other forms.

So, the difference between art and entertainment. It can be a very complicated distinction and an endless conversation and probably the subject of doctoral dissertations, but for simplicity’s sake I’m breaking it down to a very basic thing. Entertainment is about certainty, Art is about ambiguity.

I was reading this article in The New Yorker about Paul Chan and he was quoted as saying “I think that art can be any number of things at once, and they can all be contradictory.”

Which is a great quote. With entertainment you know exactly what you’re supposed to feel, understand, think and take away from the experience. Its a very straightforward transaction, one in which the dominant paradigm is reinforced through well-known and reliable tropes. Of course there is well-made entertainment and poorly-made entertainment, but ultimately it is a very predictable endeavor.

Art, on the other hand, embraces ambiguity, it creates questions and contradictions, it opens up space for experiential investigations of the intangible. It requires interaction, thought and vulnerability. It is a deeper, more profound and more difficult endeavor. It is threatening to the status quo because it advocates for individual agency, it suggests deviation from the approved narrative, from the consensus-based formulations of “how things are”.

Most people take for granted that “how things are” – and the received histories we collectively acknowledge as “true” – is a fact, an eternal, persistent condition. Historians, artists and philosophers know that this is not true, that all is fungible, that beyond the tacit fact of mortality all else is questionable and subject to revision.

Anyway – I’m veering off out of my depth. The point is that art is a vital necessity for society and civilization. Its function as questioner and creator of ambiguity is what empowers us to innovate, create and evolve. It is like a gymnasium of the mind and spirit, it creates an imaginative field in which to engage with ideas bigger than ourselves. And art, like pure science, doesn’t necessarily have immediate, practical, tangible applications or answers. It must be funded as a speculative venture, as an investment in innovation, as part of a long-term strategy for the growth of humankind.

Arc Reactor Technology – probably not intentional, but a happy accident of meaning, a statement of the value of art, revealed in pop culture.

PS: On a related note, there was a great article in this past Sunday’s NY POST PAGE SIX MAGAZINE about DUMBO, the Walentas family and Zannah Mass who heads up their culture initiatives. I don’t think its available online but if you can dig up a copy, read it. (Thanks Rebecca for the tip!)

By the way, if you haven’t heard about this yet, you should definitely check out 651 Arts upcoming festival The Mississippi Delta Heritage Project which has tons of great events and performances going on in BKLYN from May 28 to June 7. (They actually had an event in early May, but I spaced. Sorry!) Personally I’m very excited about the Ping Chong/Talvin Wilks project (which I hear is already sold out) and the blues series at Frank’s Cocktail Lounge. That is going to be amazing!

Claudia La Rocco did a nice piece in the Times about Olu Dara and Dianne McIntyre who are also featured in 651′s Festival.

So if you’re looking for something different to do in the arts and culture world, here’s a great chance!