Fall For Art
Summertime is filled with food and music festivals but, with the change in the weather comes a change in seasons. Fall brings orange leaves, pirouettes and brushstrokes. Welcome to art season in New York.
The first week in September is marked in the calendar of every lover of the arts, this season is no different. September through March minds, bodies and souls art bombarded by perfect lines and glasses of wine in Chelsea galleries on a chilly Thursday evening.
For the past five years, the Fall for Dance Festival has opened the world of dance to those who otherwise may have not been exposed at $10 price. This year’s festival, which ran from September 22 thru October 3, opened with world-renowned hoofer [tap dancer] Savion Glover performing a piece with the OTHerZ in tribute to John Coltrane, and ended with the legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, performing a revival of Ailey’s ground-breaking work Revelations. The entire festial featured several standout performances including DanceBrazil’s standing ovation for their piece Culture in Motion, which showcased the art, athleticism, and beauty of Brazil’s art form, capoeira. Performances at Fall for Dance often serve as a teaser of the season yet to come for the companies, showcasing some of their most beautiful work to patrons at the historical City Center.
Tributes to jazz greats seem to be the rage this season, as James Samuels Smith premieres his dance work, “Charlie’s Angels,“ at The Kitchen in Chelsea an homage to sax player Charlie Parker, which will run October 22nd through October 24th. Also at The Kitchen this fall will be performance artist Nancy Garcia’s piece, “I need more,“ which has an accompanying album that promises to offer “the possibility of experiencing one overarching choreography through both forms.“
Last Fall, Bill T. Jones brought AfroBeat icon Fela Kuti to the Off Broadway stage in Fela! The Musical. This month, Fela! The Musical will take Broadway by storm at its new home, the Eugene O’Neil Theater. Jones promises to bring the same energy, passion, and message to the Broadway stage, as it did a year ago when the Associated Press said, “… the resilience of Kuti, and of the human spirit, ultimately prevails, and the mood of the production is lifted again by the driving Afrobeat sounds and impassioned dancing.” I’m sure that a ticket to Fela! will be the one get this season, exposing newcomers to the revolutinon of the Nigerian musician.
Also premiering on Broadway will be David Mamet’s new play “Race,“ starring David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington, playing at the Barrymore Theater. “Race” promises to touch on a controversial subject that strikes a chord with no matter who’s in the audience. Other theater works of note include Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Deavere Smith’s one-woman show, “Let Me Down Easy,“ about health care and the body—no doubt inspired by her recent role as a hospital administrator on Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie”—as well as Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s performance opposite Jude Law, as Ophelia in Donmar Warehouse’s production of “Hamlet” opening October 6 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
BAM consistently has notable programs and exhibits throughout the year—fall 2009 is no different. Next Wave Art opened October 3 and will continue thru December 20, featuring many of Brooklyn’s most innovative artists including Nicola Lopez, Paolo Arao and Diana Al-Hadid to name a few. Running alongside BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Next Wave Art promises to bring yet another vantage point into the life and world of New Yorkers.
