UPCOMING
IN JANUARY
Dance, New Plays, Comedy, a Pow-Wow
and a new International Theater Festival
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| Joseph
Mills performs in the "Icarus Aspires" section of "Questions
About Angels." Sculpture by Alan Boeding. Photo by Jeff Greenberg. |
JANUARY
13 TO 22
"QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS" BY JOSEPH MILLS
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
Veteran dancer/choreographer Joseph Mills, known for his work with
MOMIX, Eric Hawkins Dance Company and Heidi Latsky Dance, has returned
to New York and formed his own company, MILLS/works.
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| Xu
Xiubing and Nicole Bilbao in "On the Head of a Pin"
section of "Questions About Angels." Photo by
Jeff Greenberg. |
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It will debut
in "Questions About Angels," his evening length suite of
four dances on what's angelic: their asexual purity, power, wrath,
vengeance and yes, even their sexyness. With five dancers (including
Mills and John-Mario Sevilla, who is mostly known for his work with
Pilobilus).
Mills is also
a visual artist and he designs his own works deliberately and intricately.
The physical setting will integrate yards of voluminous fabric, first
as costume and then as a scenic element. Since angels are often described
as beings of pure light, the dancers will often be clothed in garments
of light and dance among reflective surfaces.
COMPLETE
INFO
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| Conor Williams regrets his shortcomings in Kids
'N Comedy's "New Year's Resolution Show." photo by Jonathan
Slaff |
JANUARY
15
KIDS 'N COMEDY "NEW YEARS RESOLUTION SHOW"
GOTHAM COMEDY CLUB
Kids 'N Comedy, New York's leading presenter of young comic talent,
will present "The New Year's Resolution Show," a one-of-a-kind
show of original standup material by teenage comedians, January 15
at Gotham Comedy Club, 208 West 23rd Street. A new year means it's
time for new beginnings and a renewed sense of hope for the future.
It also means it's time to start making promises to yourself you'll
never, ever keep. By mid-January, you've already fallen short, but
you can at least remember the resolutions you aren't keeping. Funny,
isn't it? Not to your parents, who never seem to understand these
lapses. So Kids 'N Comedy decided to dedicate its January 15 show
to the whole phenomenon, featuring Conor Williams, Charley Bardey,
David Thompson, Jake Sidransky, Daniel Laitman, Andrew Vatier and
more.
COMPLETE
INFO
JANUARY
16 TO 22
TIMES SQUARE INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL
LITTLE TIMES SQUARE THEATRE AND THEATRE 500
300 WEST 43RD STREET
The Roy Arias Studios & Theaters, located in the Times Square
Arts Center at 300 West 43rd Street, will present the first Times
Square International Theater Festival, featuring 15 fully
staged works, of which two are world premieres and five are New York
premieres. Coinciding with this festival, the complex is addressing
shortage of flexible, experimental, curated performance venues in
Midtown by recommissioning its fourth floor theater space (74 seats)
as the Little Times Square Theatre and its fifth floor Off-Broadway
theater (136 seats) as Theatre 500.
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| Left: John
Sowle in "Horripilation!" (US/India), photo by
Steven Patterson. Right: László Kocsis and Mo Ahmadi
in "Match" (Garmany/Hungary). Photo by Thilo Hofer. |
The festival is
produced by Roy Arias and Stalin Urbano and curated by noted director
Alfred Preisser and Irma Bello. The festival is dedicated to work
that challenges the status quo, exhibits artistic excellence and manifests
invention and innovation in all of its aspects. Its mission is to
provide an affordable venue for an assortment of plays and performance
pieces that will not otherwise be seen in the doorstep of Broadway,
offering companies of reduced budget but great artistic merit the
opportunity to show their art in the heart of the theater capital
of the world.
COMPLETE
INFO
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| Left: Victor
Attar and Ilana Cohen in "The Lady and the Peddler."
Right: Howard Rypp in "Gimpel the Fool." |
JANUARY
19 TO 29
"THE LADY AND THE PEDDLER" AND "GIMPEL THE FOOL"
LA MAMA E.T.C.
These two plays are based upon stories by Nobel Prize Laureates. "The
Lady and the Peddler" by S.Y. Agnon, adapted by
Yosefa Even-Shoshan and directed by Geula Jeffet Attar, is a dance
theater piece featuring actor Victor Attar as the Peddler and dancer
Ilana Cohen as the Lady. "Gimpel
the Fool," a monodrama from the story by Isaac Bashevis
Singer, is adapted for the stage, directed and performed by Howard
Rypp.
COMPLETE
INFO
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OPEN REHEARSAL -- In an absurdist play about a chaotic family
that pretends to be a chaotic rehearsal, an electrician (top)
prepares to electrocute the entire cast. |
JANUARY
19 TO FEBRUARY 5
"OPEN REHEARSAL" BY LAZARRE SEYMOUR SIMCKES
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
"Open Rehearsal" by Lazarre Seymour Simckes, author of "Seven
Days of Mourning," "Ten Best Martyrs of the Year,"
and "Nossig’s Antics," is a Pirandellian farce in
which a play about a chaotic family pretends to be just a chaotic
rehearsal. The playwright is an award-winning author whose plays usually
confront difficult questions of Jewish history with absurdist logic.
This is his fourth production at Theater for the New City and his
first time directing his own work.
COMPLETE
INFO
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| Carlos
Ponce/Eagle Feather (Mayan) meets a young audience member.
Photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation. |
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Hoop
Dance. Photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation. |
JANUARY
27 - FEBRUARY 5
THUNDERBIRD AMERICAN INDIAN DANCERS 37th ANNUAL DANCE CONCERT AND
POW-WOW
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
This is Thunderbird American Indian Dancers' 37th annual Dance Concert
and Pow Wow at Theater for the New City. The troupe's appearances
benefit college funds for needy Native American students. These Pow-Wows
have been presented annually as a two-week event by TNC since 1976,
with the box office donated to these funds. There will be dances,
stories and traditional music from the Iroquois and Native Peoples
of the Northwest Coast, the Southwest, the Plains, and the Arctic
regions. Between 15 and 20 dancers will assemble for the event.
COMPLETE
INFO
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| Andres Chulizi
Rodrigues plays a pair of brothers in "Growing Up Gonzales."
Photo by Jonathan Slaff. |
JANUARY
26 TO FEBRUARY 25
JAN HUS PLAYHOUSE, 315 E. 74TH ST.
"GROWING UP GONZALES"
"Growing Up Gonzales" by Felix Rojas, performed by Andres
Chulisi Rodriguez, was performed April 17 to June 12, 2011 at the
Sixth Street Playhouse in Alphabet City to full houses, but little
notice. This "sleeper" play has taken the leap to Off-Broadway
and will be presented January 26 to February 25 at the Jan Hus Playhouse,
351 E 74th Street. Playwright Felix Rojas is a former member of the
historic Family Repertory. Performer Andres Chulisi Rodriguez is a
gravelly-voiced comedian, playwright and member of the comedy troupe
"Lose Control." The play is a bittersweet comedy of two
brothers growing up the Puerto Rican section of the Bronx, whose coming
of age is marked by the untimely death of their father. One actor
plays both parts. The play is filled with the hearty characters, flavors
and textures of The Bronx in the 70's and displays a very witty understanding
of life.
COMPLETE
INFO
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| Eric Kurn in "The Philosophy Show."
Photo by Eva Ostrowska |
JANUARY
29
KIDS 'N COMEDY IN "THE PHILOSOPHY SHOW"
GOTHAM COMEDY CLUB
Kids 'N Comedy, New York's leading presenter of young comic talent,
will present "The Philosophy Show," a one-of-a-kind show
of original standup material by teenage comedians, January 29 at Gotham
Comedy Club, 208 West 23rd Street. The teenage years are filled with
alienation, self-doubt, conformity, senseless athletics and facial
outbreaks. What better way to deal with it all than by weighing Hegel
against Kierkegaard? The teen comics will crack books to prepare for
this one. With: Leo Frampton, Val Bodurtha, Lee Wolfowitz, Eric Kurn,
Zach Rosenfeld and more.
COMPLETE
INFO
FOOTLIGHTS
YARA ARTS
GROUP EARNS DESIGN GRANT, PLANS "DREAM BRIDGE" AND PREPS
FOR JANUARY FESTIVAL.
Yara
Arts Group
recently received the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement
Fund grant from ART/NY for projections by Mikhail Shraga
for Yara’s next show at La MaMa, “Dream Bridge.”
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| “Dream
Bridge”-- Andrew Colteaux (R) and actors from Kyrgyz theatre
during workshop of piece to premiere La Mama April 26-May 13,
2012. Photo by Baird Cornell. |
Alla Zagaykevych
during rehearsals for Yara's "Raven" in Kyiv. Photo
by Vitaly Horbonos. |
From April 26
to May 13, 2012, La MaMa will present Yara in "Dream
Bridge," an original, experimental theatre piece
featuring Yara artists from New York together with actors from Kyrgyzstan
and Ukraine. The production, created by Virlana Tkacz,
is based on a Ukrainian poem "Dream" by Oleh Lysheha and
fragments from Shakespeare’s "Midsummer Night’s Dream"
(which is mentioned in the poem), as well as the dreams and nightmares
of the participants. It features Kyrgyz traditional music as well
as an electronic score by Kyiv composer Alla Zagaykevych.
Alla Zagaykevych
is a world-renowned Ukrainian compser of electronic music and will
appear in Yara's "Re-Imagine: Ourselves,"
a festival of new arts, music, poetry, performance and video this
month, January 27 to 29 at the Ukrainian Institute
of America, 2 E. 79th Street. Yara Arts Group will fly off to Kyiv
in March to workshop "Dream Bridge." For more info visit
the company's website.
AMERICAN
VIDEO PIONEERS INTERACTIVE WINDOW DISPLAYS FOR BLOOMINGDALE'S
Did you see the
snazzy new holiday windows at Bloomie's this year? They contained
a new level of interactivity thanks to American
Video, which is headed by video maestro Gregory
Sherman.
Jack Hruska, executive
VP, creative services and Harry Medina, Bloomingdale’s Windows
Visual approached American Video to design an interactive store widow
display for this year's Bloomingdale’s Christmas Windows. The
results spoke for themselves as throngs of people took turns from
Thanksgiving Day to January 2 at three created window displays at
Bloomingdale's on Lexington Avenue, where they posed for pictures
that were then displayed on Bloomingdale’s Facebook page. The
pictures could then be uploaded to the picture taker's own Facebook
page.
The technology
involved custom "stars" on the inside of the window display
which, when pressed, acted as the switch to activate a picture taking
countdown. The photograph, taken in high resolution, was displayed
on three overhead display screens before being uploaded to the Bloomingdale’s
Facebook page. Single pictures or group family pictures were taken.
Seven licensed special application softwares were used.
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| Interactive display by American Video at Bloomingdale's,
2011. Lighted star at right is interface for onlookers to add
their photos to Bloomingdale's Facebook page. |
This developed
technology can be applied to various types of interactive window displays
involving the customer as more than a mere observer of the display.
No longer are window displays only visually interesting and informative,
now they have become a point for customer interaction.
The Bloomingdale’s
windows electronics were developed and installed by Tyler Erdman,
Lee Erdman, David Sherman, Gregory Sherman and Abram Ward. The windows'
design was based on previous years' Bloomingdale’s Christmas
Bags as redesigned by Harry Medina of Bloomingdale’s Windows
Visual and built by Spaeth Design.