Tap artist Kazu Kumagai and friends rock 92Y

92Y's Dig Dance series hit big last night with Kazu Kumagai: HEAR/HEAR, an intimate yet full-on performance by the 2016 Bessie-winning Kumagai and friends in the Y's Buttenweiser Hall. The show featured Kumagai's talents in tap, music and poetry, and he was accompanied by bass player Alex Blake, guitarist Masa Shimizu and singer, Sabrina Clery, whose heartbreaking voice always leaves me wanting to hear more of it. Special guest Ted Louis Levy--multiple award winner and nominee for work on Broadway and television--turned up the heat with his amusing stories, unique jazz vocals and smooth dancing.

Kumagai is anything but smooth in intent or execution, but even his tuning up on the wood platforms sounded good. Brushing the wood, pecking at it with one knee locked, going quieter, he's a man always in search of the right sounds to channel his concerns. He'll find it with the inside edge of a foot, or drop his heels with thwacks you feel like repeated jolts to the chest, or fire off a steady fusillade of beats while Shimizu weaves around him. While he might pivot to one or another direction once in a long while, maybe facing the musician with whom he's dialoguing, he tends to root himself somewhere on the wood and drill it...earnestly. The relative stationary nature of his dancing underscores his role as musician playing the instrument of tap against surface. We can appreciate, even more, what he's doing to create sound. A lot of power in his game, but his technical control can also takes us to quiet, thoughtful places.

So much of his poetry is about searching--for the authentic self, for someone who can be there for one's search for the self, for authentic expression that sometimes takes an artist to the edge. ("I want to know if you'll stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.") He's a man on a mission and one with much on his mind.

Levy's sunnier, funnier, Mr. Show Biz approach stands in contrast, but the two guys together? They can take it from delicate trading of tiny gestures on the wood all the way to thunder, Levy bringing out the spark and charm and, yes, the aggression in Kumagai.

"I'm not an improvisationalist," the not-even-nearly-winded Levy said afterwards, "But you made me look good!" Yes. He did.

It was nice to hear Levy invoke tap icons like Chuck Green, Buster Brown and Dianne Walker in his solo as he danced away as if it were the most natural thing in the world to teach an audience while beguiling them. I loved his unconventional vocalizing of "Nature Boy," the classic song first recorded and most associated with Nat King Cole, and Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" which offered the two men--one Black, the other forever revering the Black mentors in his life--the perfect opportunity to take a knee.

If you were not in the house last night, I hope you already have your ticket for tonight. For this evening's show, Kumagai will be joined by acclaimed tap artist, educator and mentor Brenda Bufalino.

Kazu Kumagai: HEAR/HEAR concludes with an 8pm show tonight.  For information and tickets, click here.

92Y (Buttenweiser Hall)
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Tap dancer Kazu Kumagai and friends at 92Y

Kazu Kumagai
(photo: Leslie Kee)

Kazu Kumagai--newly-minted Bessie winner for Outstanding Performance--has grown ever more soulful over his years in tap dance. His show for yesterday's Fridays@Noon at 92Y--shared with bassist Alex Blake, vocalist Sabrina Clery, guitarist Masa Shimizu and dance colleague Gabe Winn--should leave no doubt that Japan-born Kumagai's a hoofer in bearing, technique and feeling, a solo artist with something deep and urgent to say and the feet to say it.

Speak with Your Feet: Tap Dancer Kazu Kumagai and Guests Soliloquize is a mouthful and tongue-twister of a title, but the show proved to be a smooth, swift run through popular music from Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changin'" to Sting's "Fragile."

Kumagai opened with a dance to Maya Angelou's "Touched by an Angel," read by Clery. Angelou speaks of love's power to challenge and embolden the fearful, a love that "costs all we are and will ever be." Rippling his feet and slicing his toe along an amped oak wood platform, Kumagai seemed to test out newfound freedom before getting down and digging in. Finding that love real, reliable, he picked up this note of hope again, easing up a bit for "People Get Ready" (Curtis Mayfield) and, later, "Three Little Birds" (Bob Marley) where "every little thing gonna be alright." And even when things were very much not all right with this damaged world of ours, as in Ben Harper's confrontational "Excuse Me Mr.," Kumagai pulled us with him into the concentrated, confident energy he had steadily built. Ending "Excuse Me Mr.," he returned to that slicing toe, this time as sassy, triumphant punctuation.

The rapidity, steely clarity and array of his improvised footwork--so many points of impact, foot to wood; so mercurial these flips from rhythm to rhythm to rhythm--demonstrated numerous mental weapons at the ready. Yet Kumagai is decidedly a man of peace. His face-off with the young Gabe Winn was less a battle than a meeting of exhilarated minds sharing space, Winn starting quietly with a delicate filligree of sound, occasionally striking the edge of the platform for an accent. But both revved up, teasing out more and more saucy inventiveness from each other--two superb dancers in flight, head over heels for their art.

Speak with Your Feet was livestreamed for 92Y by Tisch School of the Arts Dance and New Media, and the video will be available here.

Check out Fridays@Noon's upcoming events here.

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Harkness Dance Festival: Keely Garfield Dance in "POW"

Molly Lieber and Keely Garfield
in Garfield's POW
(photo: Julie Lemberger)

The dancing body is exposed to the golden wind and shines through.

--Keely Garfield

Keely Garfield calls POW--presented this weekend at 92Y's Harkness Dance Festival--"a 'Frankenstein' of a dance made from scraps of fear and loathing that are boldly transformed, sutured, amplified and left to run amok, creating a brave new version of events."

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein character was the creator, not his creation, the monster. Maybe, in some sense, that's relevant, too.

POW does seem, like Frankenstein's poor monster, a fragile, vulnerable construction, one with a look of intense, obsessive labor about it. The hour-long ensemble work--a trio plus pianist/singer Matthew Brookshire--might inspire the viewer to zoom out to consider every contour and suture of the whole production, observing how beauty and disturbance lie a mere thin veil away from each other. On the other hand, particular imagery and energies, here and there, might ensnare you, a valid way to respond to the too-muchness of it all.

Garfield's opening solo
(photo: Julie Lemberger)

Garfield first presents herself as a woman precariously striding about and rocking her hips in a sheer mesh unitard--a cross of white tape covering one nipple--and firetruck-red, fringed stillettos. This reads, immediately, as extravagance crossed with eccentricity, and get used to the fact of much matter-of-fact crisscrossing in POW and little by way of explanation for it.

There might be a reason for dancers Paul Hamilton and Molly Lieber to show up in matching black leotards that read "I Only Got Ice For You." Or there might not be. But molding these two bodies into the space--frequently evoking un-theatrical but full-out movements of champion athletes, frequently testing power of statuesque balance against gravity--illustrates Garfield's interest in the commitment and heroism of dance/the body in the face of ultimate extinction, exposed to the golden wind. Much of POW alludes to extremity and the eternal in ways that seem squeezed between the cornball and the genuinely moving. Just try pulling them in one direction or the other. They won't budge.

Garfield and Hamilton
(photo: Julie Lemberger)

Some things, for me, did not resolve. I resisted Brookshire's intermittent role in the performance even as I got it. But one section of the work absolutely gripped me--Garfield and Hamilton crawling, rhythmically lumbering across the floor to (and with) Rihanna's stunning reggae-pop song "No Love Allowed."

Like a bullet your love me hit me to the coreI was flying 'til you knocked me to the floorAnd it's so foolish how you keep me wanting moreI'm screaming murderer, how could you murder usI call it murder, no love allowed

No coincidence, I take it, that Hamilton is a Black Jamaican and Garfield white and British-born and that she ultimately mounts his back and presses his body to the floor. We see that and cannot un-see it, cannot un-think its implication.

Without warning, Garfield drops her audience into the mess of race, societal and domestic violence, white privilege, all of that while producing the kind of movement that, against our will, rocks our insides. As if that's not enough, the two dancers also cram their heaving bodies against the legs of a couple of people in the front row as if to say, "You think you're not part of this, but you are. Take what is yours, too."

POW continues through Sunday with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Buttenwieser Hall

92nd Street Y

Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street, Manhattan

(map/directions)

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Claudia Rankine, at 92Y, on the psyche under racism

Claudia Rankine

Poet Claudia Rankine's multiple award-winning Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) artfully documents the experience of being Black and embattled by racist aggressions, both macro and micro. Some of these aggressions can be so very, very subtle as to make the person on the receiving end wonder if she is imagining things. In a society in deep, purposeful, willful denial about the legacy and continued pervasiveness of racism, Black people walk around with original trauma compounded, on the daily, in numerous ways that can tear at our overall well-being. Rankine brings all of this out in her book, and it was exciting to see this literary hero in person and hear her read passages from Citizen last night in an Unterberg Poetry Center event at 92Y.

Billed as "a conversation on art, trauma and social justice," the evening opened well with Rankine's introductory remarks and reading but took an odd turn as Cleonie White and Sarah Stemp, clinicians from the William Alanson White Institute for Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology, joined the author onstage. That might have seemed a reasonable pairing, given Rankine's concern for the way that racism threatens the health of individuals as well as societies. However, it turned awkward, particularly as Stemp delivered a long, labored statement before the increasingly restive audience.

Rankine betrayed no impatience, but the multigenerational, largely white crowd voiced displeasure several times, yelling "Ask questions!" at Stemp and even criticizing one another when, after something like 75 minutes, the floor was finally opened for their own questions. Even before the outbursts, though, you could sense an unhappy vibe around the hall. It felt less like a dignified literary event and more like a music gig where the crowd realizes it isn't getting what it came for.

At one point, Rankine mentioned the concept of "ethical loneliness"--that undercurrent of isolation--when you live in a society diametrically opposed to your ethics. Her observation was not only intellectual, it had a personal feeling tone that reached me. I got my pen out and made a note just as Rankine took matters further, adding how hard it is, in that situation, "if you don't have people...or you can't pay for people."

That got White's attention. She quickly responded that the Institute accepts sliding scale, a defensive rejoinder that seemed to come from out of nowhere. How had White envisioned this event, then? As a marketing tool?

I turned to the friendly woman on my right and whispered, "This is just not gelling. I don't know what's going on here." She agreed--"It's like they didn't communicate beforehand"--and made an early exit. I hung on but left a little bit into the audience Q&A.

So, what to tell you? Read Citizen: An American Lyric. Just read it.

For information on upcoming events at 92Y, click here.

92nd St Y
Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

Colleen Thomas Dance: Looking beyond the blueprint

Samantha Allen of Colleen Thomas Dance
in Her(e) Repetitive Blueprint
Photo: Alex Escalante

"We see what we think we know, not what stands before us," Colleen Thomas writes, introducing Her(e) Repetitive Blueprint, presented by 92Y Harkness Dance Center's new Dig Dance weekend series.

An artist's handiwork gets complicated, re-imagined and completed by what the individual observer brings to it. In the shifting gloom of 92Y's Buttenwieser Hall, we encounter Thomas's sensibilities, ideas and decisions, bringing "the stories we keep telling ourselves" about ourselves and about everything else. As she writes further, "Life is here, this moment. Now....and now...and now."

With the exception of composer John McGrew, who performs his score live, every single one of the men in Her(e) Repetitive Blueprint--Ehizoje Azeke, Marc Mann, Nathan Trice and the striking Orlando Hunter--are Black. Startled to notice this, I returned to Thomas's words and wondered if anyone else had experienced a similar jolt.  (Tamara Joy Clarke, also Black and also a dancer, passes through and around the space. But in this work, she's primarily serving as vocalist.) Thomas and the other women dancers--Samantha Allen, Jenna Riegel and Jessica Stroh--are white, and we had just watched them, stationed across the space, scaring us with images of obsessive self-grooming, as if they wanted to rub every bit of clothing, hair and flesh away from their inflamed bodies. And then, BLACKOUT. And now, these four men--each one grand and vulnerable.

Knowing of Thomas's concern with how we get ensnared in "the web of perceived social, gender and racial narratives," I felt she'd just dropped a grenade in our midst. We have seen multicultural dance ensembles; Thomas, herself, has danced with some of them. But the demographic makeup of Her(e) Repetitive Blueprint--and the balance of prominence and power within it--are rare in contemporary dance.

Tricia Toliver's preternatural lighting turns this hall--a dimly-lit space with a heavy, heavy feel--into a camera obscura or chamber of hallucinations, the perfect setting for the stark and fiery choreography. We're made aware of an outside--a black drape gets pulled aside; an opened door emits a blast of white light--to this tense and murky inside. Toliver takes the simple facts of folks--Have you seen dancers when they are off-duty?--and splashes harsh light across bodies, turning them spooky or monumental.

We can't trust our eyes. Or maybe sometimes we can. But it's important, first of all, to make the effort to look. For "life is here, this moment. Now....and now...and now."

Her(e) Repetitive Blueprint continues tonight at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm.

92nd St Y (Buttenwieser Hall)
Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

Legendary dance artist Blondell Cummings passes

RIP, Blondell Cummings

This morning, our dance community is reeling from the news that a beloved veteran artist and advocate for social justice, Blondell Cummings, has died. Few people were aware that Blondell had pancreatic cancer.

I hope to have more information for you later today. For now, here is a recording of her most recent appearance as moderator of a roundtable discussion at 92Y's Fridays at Noon program. The event opened with a performance of Manufacturing Consent by Edisa Weeks.

Blondell Cummings--Point of Reference

March 27, 2015

Wanda Sykes interviewed by Judy Gold at 92Y

Wanda Sykes
(photo: Malcolm Jason Low)

If the delightful, Emmy-winning Wanda Sykes were to be offered Jon Stewart's Daily Show, would she take it?

After all, wouldn't it be great to have a woman--and, way better still, an out, activist lesbian of color--running with the late-night wolves?

Wanda Sykes
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

With Judy Gold at right, Wanda Sykes greets fans at 92Y.
(photo: Malcolm Jason Low)

The Daily Show correspondent Jessica Williams, touted all over social media as a top choice, has recently asserted that she does not want this challenge. A nation--well, a nation of women of color--might well turn their lonely eyes to Sykes who, for a short time, did host her own late-night talk show on Fox.

She's not saying yes. But she's not exactly saying no. At least, during her 92Y conversation last night with Emmy-winning colleague Judy Gold, she seemed to keep a fan's hope alive.

"How can you follow Jon Stewart? He was so good," Sykes first responded to the question. "Who knows?"

After citing family priorities, though, she added, "But if they asked me, how could you not?"

Pay attention to that last sentence. "But If they asked me" is far from a casual line with this particular talent. As Sykes outlined her pathway in the entertainment business--as multifaceted comedy writer and performer--it became clear that she's consistently approached and invited by folks like Chris Rock and Larry David who know she's right for their projects. Listening carefully to Sykes's history, Gold noted, with a flicker of envy and shade, that Sykes seems to never have had to audition for a part. The industry knows her worth. Even the Obamas know her worth, tapping her in 2009 to be the featured entertainer at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner--a first for a Black woman or anyone queer.

Gratitude is a big operating principle for Sykes, as it should be, given the blossoming of her career, love life and family life as wife to Alex and co-mom to their twins. If truth be told here, Sykes has got to be one of the luckiest people in showbiz.

Although it might be inscribed "in the US Constitution," as the two comics joked, that late-night talk shows have to hosted by white men, surely it's time for a new amendment to that constitution.

Visit Wanda Sykes's Web site here, and Gold's site here.

Keep up with happenings at 92Y by clicking here.

Save the date to honor Clark Center's history: April 17

Celebrate the historic Clark Center for the Performing Arts--
founded by Alvin Ailey in 1959 in New York as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic arts community--at Fridays at Noon at 92Y.

For 30 years Clark Center trained dancers, encouraged emerging companies and developed new choreographic talent. Among the choreographers and companies that performed there are Alvin Ailey, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Eleo Pomare, Anna Sokolow, Mimi Garrard, Donald McKayle, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Meredith Monk, Laura Dean, Ballet Hispanico, Chuck Davis, Sounds in Motion, Senta Driver, Bill T Jones, May O’Donnel, Gus Solomons, Capoeiras Bahia, Doug Varone and Urban Bush Women.

This afternoon event will include live dancing, film, photographs and a panel discussion.

Live streams of each Fridays at Noon performance are available at www.tischdanceandnewmedia.com/live. The live streams of the Fridays At Noon performances are part of an educational collaboration between 92Y Harkness Dance Center and NYU’s Tisch Dance and New Media Program.

Friday, April 17, 12pm

Purchase tickets in advance online or at the 92Y Box Office (lobby).

For information, click here.

92Y (Buttenweiser Hall)
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
, Manhattan
(map/directions)

Novelists Edward P. Jones and Yiyun Li read at 92Y, April

92Y

welcomes novelists

Edward P. Jones and Yiyun Li

Thursday, April 10, 8:15 pm

Edward P. Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for The Known World. “It’s difficult to think of a contemporary novel that rivals its sweep, its humanity, the unvarnished perfection of its prose and its ultimately crushing power,” wrote Dave Eggers.

Yiyun Li’s new novel is Kinder Than Solitude. “Li is extraordinary, a storyteller of the first order,” wrote Junot Díaz. She “inhabits the lives of her characters with such force and compassion that one cannot help but marvel at her remarkable talents.”

Ticket information

92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan
(map/direction)

Behind the scenes with Gelsey Kirkland

92nd Street Y 

presents

BEHIND THE SCENES:

THE GELSEY KIRKLAND ACADEMY OF CLASSICAL BALLET

Wed, Jul 31 (12pm)

Go behind the scenes as acclaimed ballerina Gelsey Kirkland conducts a demonstration with an advanced class at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet in Tribeca.

After the demonstration, join Michael Chernov, the Academy’s co-founder and co-artistic director, for a reception and Q&A about how he and Ms. Kirkland groom the next generation of dancers.

Gelsey Kirkland began her storied career in 1968 at New York City Ballet, where she rose to principal dancer. At the American Ballet Theatre she danced with Baryshnikov, receiving worldwide acclaim for performances in title roles in Giselle, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and others.

Michael Chernov has been an actor, dancer, director, classical ballet teacher and choreographer. 

Meet at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy, 355 Broadway (between Grand and Leonard Streets in Tribeca), 2nd floor.

Admission: $38

Information and registration

Thank gods, it's Friday and hula is alive!

92nd Street Y's 

Friday's at Noon program 

presents

HULA IS LIFE

Curated by John-Mario Sevilla and Halawai

Friday, May 3 (12 pm)

Hula honors nature, gods, royalty, significant geographical sites, historical events and meaningful relationships. This program explores the diversity of hula and presents both ancient (kahiko) and contemporary (auana) styles of dance. The groups performing include Pua Ali’i ‘Ilima ‘O Niuoka, Na Lehua Melemele, Halai Hula O Na Mele ‘Aina ‘O Hawaii and The Gracious Ladies. Live music will be performed by Claudia Goddard, Chris Davis, Kristabelle Muson, Jason Poole, Tommy Cheng and Andy Wang. Plus, guest artist Kaina Quenga.

Please note: Tickets are now required for all Fridays at Noon performances. You can pick up a ticket at the box office downstairs. Pay what you can or come for free – but you need a ticket either way.

For tickets and information, click here.

92nd Street Y (Buttenweiser Hall)
1395 Lexington Avenue (between 91-92nd Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Dance as a sustainable art: a panel at 92Y

92nd Street Y

presents

MovementTalks: 

Sustainable Arts - Policy, Practice and Programing

Lise Brenner, Paul Nagle and Judy Hussie-Taylor

moderated by Edward Henkel

Friday, April 5 (8pm)

Let’s talk about artistic communities as tangible social assets, both for the artists themselves, and the role that protecting art-making plays in the daily life of our neighborhoods. What does maintaining the possibility for arts production (i.e. studio space, affordable housing, etc) give to the city? What do small business incentives, producing and curating contemporary dance, zoning laws, ConEd electrical rates for non-profits, and planting street trees have in common? This will be a discussion about choices and the creative ecology that results.

Program and ticket information

92nd Street Y (Buttenwieser Hall)
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

Also: See Dance and the American Sacred Cows: Meat and Money, May 31, with Carrie Ahern and Zefrey Throwell

Novelist Jamaica Kincaid to read at 92Y

Jamaica Kincaid

a reading from her new novel, See Now Then,
and a conversation with critic Darryl Pinckney

Monday, February 25
8:15pm

presented by 92Y's Poetry Center 

in collaboration with The Paris Review

Her writing is a shared plenitude, a promise of more where that came from....[A] writer of boldness and encouragement who keeps on showing us the ever-dawning possibilities in writing and in the world. -- Ian Frazier

Ticket information

92nd Street Y (Buttenwieser Hall)
Lexington Avenue at 92nd St, Manhattan
(map/directions)

Flamenco's Leilah Broukhim to return to 92Y [UPDATE]

About a year ago (see blog post here), I advised you to keep watch for flamenco artist Leilah Broukhim who had shown an impressive preview of her developing work, Traces--a blend of Jewish, Iranian and gitano traditional culture--at 92Y. I've just gotten word that Broukhim plans to bring the completed work, now titled Dejando Huellas (Traces), to 92Y on February 25, 2012 as part of Flamenco Festival USA.

Broukhim writes:

Dejando Huellas (Traces) tells the story of a Sephardic woman through time and fuses flamenco with Sephardic and Persian music. We premiered the show to a sold-out audience at this year's Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow and just returned from another successful performance in Paris at the Museum of Art and History of Judaism. For a taste of what to expect on February 25, take a look at the show's promo video.

UPDATE: For information and 92Y ticketing, click here.

Talk about NYC's nonprofit dance

Dance/NYC
invites you to

State of NYC Nonprofit Dance: A Town Hall Meeting

Monday, September 12, 5:30-7pm

at the 92nd Street Y

Join Dance/NYC to discuss preliminary findings from the forthcoming research study, State of NYC Nonprofit Dance, made possible by leadership support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and The New York Community Trust. Based on the first-ever New York State Cultural Data Project data on NYC nonprofit dance groups, this report will provide a snapshot of a vital segment of the NYC dance industry and its activity, audiences, finances and resources. Led by cultural researcher Catherine Lanier and Anne Coates, new Vice President, Research and Special Projects, The Municipal Art Society of New York, we will in this discussion open up our investigation to the field and mine the data on dance for opportunities for policy, funding and management, working together to move NYC forward.

92nd Street Y
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan
(directions)

RSVP here

Women I admire

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made
--Robert Browning ("Rabbi Ben Ezra")

So the legendary Diana Nyad, now 61, didn't make it all the way from Havana to Key West, stymied by an injury and her first-ever attack of asthma (Diana Nyad Puts Early End to Cuba-to-Florida Swim--Don Van Natta, Jr., The New York Times, August 9, 2011). She's still an exemplar of courage and human potential, of staying vital and claiming your power as you embark upon what Jane Fonda calls the Third Act. Since I'm heading in that direction--the Third Act not, unfortunately, Key West--I went to 92Y last evening to find out what Fonda, the mega-accomplished 73-year-old glamour-puss-with-moxie, might have to share.

Turns out she had a lot to share in what she called her "virgin speech" about her book, Prime Time: Love, health, sex, fitness, friendship, spirit--making the most of all of your life, just out from Random House. Baby-boomers like Fonda are "pioneers in this new landscape of aging," she said. "There's no roadmap." So, she created one.

Jane Fonda

"When you're inside oldness instead of looking at it from the outside, it's not bad at all," she said from the vantage point of her own aging as well as copious research and interviews with experts and the aged. In one treasured moment, a 104-year-old guy quipped to her, "When I was born, the Dead Sea was only sick!"

While go-go American society tends to think of aging as a process of decline, Fonda prefers the metaphor of an ascending staircase, "where our souls and our minds can be evolving upward." Because this is Jane Fonda, you'll find lots in her book about physical fitness and healthy eating and the joy of sex--"Doing the research was really fun!"--but what impressed me most about her talk and Q&A was the breadth and depth of her insight into human vulnerability and emotional well-being. Her project, now, is happiness and, like me, she's a big sharer. If she's happy, like the old song would have it, she wants you to be happy, too.

Hindsight works to the benefit of people over 50.

"We've survived things," says Fonda, remembering youth as, typically, a time of stress and hypervigilance. "We learn that this too shall pass, and we see commonalities more than differences. There is compassionate detachment."

Aside from being gorgeous, charming and very funny, at 73, Fonda really does seem to have evolved a self, one eager for reality and honesty. No longer the no-there-there "chameleon" her daughter once slyly called her, she took time to deeply examine her relationships--from her famous dad to her famous ex, Ted Turner, still a dear friend--to find out how to no longer be that woman who would dissolve and disappear into someone else's life.

"Intimacy becomes easier when you get older," she said, after a necessary period of reviewing and reinterpreting your life when you can "bring your whole self to the table, not just the part that you think is perfect."

Fonda loves the word generativity, defined by Merriam-Webster thus:

a concern for people besides self and family that usually develops during middle age; especially: a need to nurture and guide younger people and contribute to the next generation—used in the psychology of Erik Erikson

and she talks about how Katherine Hepburn took her under her wing and mentored her during the filming of On Golden Pond. Passing on wisdom and tools--that's what Fonda chooses to do now, as she glories in her Third Act, and it's a role I choose to emulate.

Besides, you gotta love this woman. She teaches that to keep our brains healthy, to capitalize on their natural plasticity, we must keep learning new things. And what does she want to learn now?

"I saw Anything Goes last night. So now I'm going to learn tap dancing!"

About Prime Time

Prime Time on Amazon.com

Click here for more 92Y programs and events.

Sapphire and Alexie scheduled for 92Y

Authors Sapphire and Sherman Alexie will share an evening of prose and poetry readings at 92Y.

Monday, November 21, 8pm

Sapphire’s new novel, The Kid, is a sequel to Push, which was adapted into the film Precious in 2009. Her “characteristic intensity mixes with classical as well as experimental forms, excavating dreams, memory and history,” wrote Brenda Shaughnessy. “Expressing the difficult locus where revelation meets revolution is her signature fusion, a fierce combination of confessional and metamorphoses.”

Sherman Alexie’s recent collection of stories and poems, War Dances, won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2010. “Few other contemporary writers seem willing to deal with issues of race, class and sexuality as explicitly as Alexie,” wrote Anthony Swofford. “He never tells the reader how to think; rather, he shows how others think and behave in both flawed and beautiful ways.”

Click here for more information and tickets.

Kaufman Concert Hall
92nd Street Y
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan
(directions)

Jump back into that box!

Remember that wonderful advice about thinking outside the box? You do?

Well, forget it.

Creativity researcher Jacob Goldenberg, Ph.D. says creativity flows more freely, more effectively, within a "closed world."

"Getting outside of the box is not a useful idea," says Dr. Goldenberg, professor of marketing at the School of Business Administration at Hebrew University, Jerusalem and visiting lecturer at the Columbia Business School. "It could be used as a metaphor for a creative idea but not for the creative process itself. There is a box--the closed world--and the solution is inside it, not outside of it."

Solutions to practical and aesthetic problems can often be found within the problems themselves, he says. Constraints actually increase creativity because they restrict unnecessary distractions that can take us far off track or a myriad of choices that can confuse us. What's more, the popular practice of brainstorming with others actually generates fewer original ideas than do individuals working alone because of the likelihood that an individual's ideas will be ignored or discounted before they have had a chance to develop and show their potential.

While Dr. Goldenberg's interesting presentation at 92Y last Wednesday drew on examples of inside-the-box innovation within commercial product development and marketing--from Betty Crocker instant cake mix to the iPod Shuffle--a few writers in attendance questioned how his ideas could be applied to the creative arts.

This is clearly not Dr. Goldenberg's area of concern and expertise. But the questions made me think about poet friends and teachers who greatly enjoy working forms like sonnets or haiku or villanelles or the various game-like OULIPO structures. (Here's a fun OULIPO example.) The closed world of formal structure and technique obviously holds great significance in dance--from ballet to sacred hula and salsa dancing--and provides firm ground, to varying degrees, for the flow of creativity in movement style and performance.

So, here are a few questions for contemporary artists who work outside of traditional technical or cultural structures:

Have restrictions ever enhanced the creativity and effectiveness of your solutions? What constitutes your closed world? What structures do you like to have in place for creativity to flow?

Feel free to drop your comments below!

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