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Showing posts with label PBS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PBS. Show all posts

Friday, March 1, 2013

Reflections from Lieutenant Uhura

Makers: Women Who Make America: Nichelle Nichols 

Meet the actress and singer who, as Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura played, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “the first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a black woman in television history."

And did you know also had a background in dance? Or that she became a recruiter for NASA? So cool!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

The enchanting Angelique Kidjo on PBS



Angelique Kidjo sings 'Batonga"--the song that gave the name to her Foundation in her PBS Special Spirit Rising featuring the Kuumba Singers, Christian McBride, Dianne Reeves, Josh Groban, Branford Marsalis and Ezra Koenig


Watch it tonight, 10:30pm, on Channel 13 in New York!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Honest Bill

Finding out quite late in the game about the 2nd Annual DOC NYC film festival, I was only able to get to one screening, but I chose well!
 
A Good Man--directed by Bob Hercules and Gordon Quinn is a ravishing and bracing documentary about two years in the making of Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray, the Bill T. Jones masterwork and meditation on the life of Abraham Lincoln, his complexity and his possible significance for American democracy in the current age. As Jones prepares this commissioned piece for premiere at the Ravinia Festival, we're taken behind the scenes. We become privy to his thought processes, his doubts and his often volatile working relationships with dancers and creative collaborators. This is an unflinching, warts-and-all portrait of one of dance's true superstars and geniuses but also an extraordinarily generous portrait of the talented individuals who support his visions, even under heavy fire, and bring them to powerful life.

After watching A Good Man, I tried to figure out why dance isn't the most popular and most rewarded art form in the United States. Okay, maybe it's just me, but who wouldn't want to spend quality time in a theater with these gods and goddesses who are also, as we see all too clearly, real live human beings? That duality--reflected in Jones, as in the Lincoln he was taught to admire--comes across through the sensitive and handsome work of Hercules and Quinn and their Director of Photography, Keith Walker.

A Good Man looks and sounds fantastic on the big screen, but you can catch it on American Masters (PBS) on Friday, November 11 at 9pm ET/PT (check local listings).

DOC NYC runs through next Thursday, November 10, at the IFC Center and New York University, with a fascinating range of programming. Get complete schedule and ticketing information here.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Monday, November 22, 2010

"LENNONYC" airs tonight on PBS

Don't forget the PBS premiere of LENNONYC, a wonderful documentary by Michael Epstein, airing tonight on PBS (check local listings). I reviewed the New York Film Festival presentation of LENNONYC back in September, and you can find that review here.

PBS interview with filmmaker Michael Epstein

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Lennon: Some Time in New York City

2010 New York Film Festival
Film Society of Lincoln Center

LENNONYC (written/directed by Michael Epstein) USA. 2010. 115 minutes.

Two Lefts Don't Make A Right Production, Dakota Group LTD and THIRTEEN's American Masters in association with WNET.ORG for PBS

Documentary director/producer Michael Epstein's latest work for the PBS American Masters series explores the final decade in the life of John Lennon, from the turbulent, creative 1970s through his murder in December of 1980. Epstein selected this period--Lennon's arrival in New York City, his disastrous exile in LA and his return to New York and redemptive reunion with Yoko Ono--because he wanted to avoid rehashing already well-covered material about Lennon's youth and the Beatles era. "I wanted to give you a John you hadn't heard before," he said in a post-screening Q&A. "I wanted people to feel they were a fly on the wall in the studio."

The film probes a time of intense possibility and equally intense pressure for Lennon and Ono. With American students rising to protest the Vietnam War, the peace-loving, outspoken couple found themselves increasingly at the forefront of activism. As long as their contributions might make a difference, Lennon said, "we were willing to be the world's clowns," tuning artistry to politics and politics to theater, inspired by radical colleagues like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Threatened by the prospect of an eloquent, charismatic celebrity of Lennon's magnitude at the helm of an increasingly militant movement, Nixon's administration and the FBI tracked the couple's every move, even spying on their musicians (Elephant's Memory). A four-year fight against an order of deportation ensued, taking its toll on Lennon's emotional health and his marriage.

LENNONYC, for most of its two hours, is a fast-swirling flood of sound and footage, occasionally enhanced by Brian Oakes's simple line graphics that recall Lennon's own love of doodling. The editing, by Ed Barteski and Deborah Peretz, is fierce; the film moves faster than you might expect from a documentary, and it rocks, too, with a selection of music that's just right, never obvious. There's pleasure for the eye as well, both in some of the original footage and photography and in the transformative arrangements of these materials.

You're guided through all this heady stuff by numerous interviewees who worked with and revered Lennon or whose own work or activism brought them into close contact with him. Friends and associates like Elton John, photographer Bob Gruen, producer/engineer Roy Cicala, radio host Dennis Elsas, television host Dick Cavett, and the guys from the rollicking, down-and-dirty Elephant's Memory offer insights into Lennon's creativity, disappointments, alcoholism and relationship with Ono and with their son, Sean. These clips never feel like talking heads interviews. Each one contributes essential, sometimes quite entertaining parts of the story.

Ono, who is also interviewed, gave full blessings to this project, and it depicts her, as both person and artist, with respect and compassion. Epstein did consult with her and accept suggestions, he says, but Ono exerted no control over his film--something that would greatly surprise her many critics. The film's interpretation of Lennon and Ono's bond is generous, to be sure, yet it can't help but raise questions about the addictive, medicating and yet potentially healing qualities of romance.

LENNONYC loses some steam towards its end with the victorious resolution of the couple's legal problems and the birth of Sean. In a way, this makes sense. "Hard times are over," as Ono sang on Double Fantasy (1980). There's no more conflict or dysfunction to propel the narrative. Lennon evolves into a sober, loyal and feminist husband, a loving dad who stays home, bakes bread, teaches his son to swim and is as content as can be. Ono, for her part, has developed business skills because Lennon is simply no good at that sort of thing. New York is a wondrous place to live, to be in love, to raise a kid.

We know the rest of the story. Epstein touches on the tragedy through the anguished faces of people holding vigil outside the Dakota and through interviews with Ono and Lennon's friends. He omits, however, the murderer's name and avoids dwelling on the particulars of his heinous act, refusing to dignify him with more attention than he has already received. At the Q&A, he called that "part of the shitty fame machine."

Epstein's closing remarks left us to wonder how Lennon--courageous and clever activist--might have addressed the current political flare-up around immigration in the US.

'John's story is an example of what makes America special," he said. "We don't share a common past, but what we share is a common vision for our future."

Public screenings:

Saturday, September 25, 9pm
Alice Tully Hall, 65th Street (Broadway/Amsterdam), Manhattan

Saturday, September 25, 10:30pm
Walter Reade Theater, 65th Street (Broadway/Amsterdam), Manhattan

PBS premiere: Monday, November 22, 9pm ET (Check local listings.)

Information and ticketing

Complete NYFF information (September 24-October 10)

Friday, March 27, 2009

Tavis Smiley hosts Jamison

The Tavis Smiley Show will dedicate an entire segment to a conversation with Judith Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Broadcast nationwide, this program is currently scheduled to air, in the New York metropolitan area, tonight on WNET/Ch 13 at midnight and to be re-broadcast on Monday, March 30 at 1pm.

For a preview of the interview and to check your local listings for broadcast times in your area, click here.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Jenny Holzer: Writing & Difficulty

Jenny Holzer: Writing & Difficulty
Art21, PBS

Jenny Holzer discusses her difficult relationship to writing during the installation of the exhibition "PROTECT PROTECT" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Featured works include Red Yellow Looming (2004), Lustmord (2007), Protect Protect deep purple (2007), and For Chicago (2008), among others. The exhibition will travel to the Whitney Museum of American Art in March.

More Holzer here.

Fundred: Worth a billion!

Enjoy this video about some of the students involved in FUNDRED, a project initiated by conceptual visual artist Mel Chin.

And here's an interview with Chin.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Against the grain

My job as an artist isn’t to satisfy the public. That’s not what I do. I don’t necessarily make people happy. I think the job of an artist is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception, prejudice, and convention. A big flaw in some public art schemes is that they seem to be about trying to find an artist who’s going to please everyone. That’s not interesting to me. I think it’s really important that artists have an agitational function in culture. No one else seems to.

Mark Dion, Neukom Vivarium
Art in the 21st Century, PBS

Saturday, January 19, 2008

PBS to broadcast award-winning "Water Flowing Together"

Did you miss Dance on Camera's screenings of Water Flowing Together, first-time filmmaker Gwendolen Cates's new documentary about the life, career and retirement of New York City Ballet's Jock Soto? This film is a feast. Cates goes for a collision of images that simply pop from the screen, and she incorporates a multitude of thoughtful and heartful perspectives from Soto and the people who love him and have worked beside him. You'll have another chance to see Water Flowing Together when PBS broadcasts the 60-minute version of this 77-minute film on Independent Lens on April 8. Check your local listings for the specific time.

For other InfiniteBody posts on Water Flowing Together, click here and here.

Winners of the 2008 Jury Prize at Dance Film Associations' 36th annual Dance on Camera Festival:

FLYING LESSON
Phil Harder, Rosanne Chamecki, Andrea Lerner, USA, 2007; 4:37 minutes
http://www.chameckilerner.org

WATER FLOWING TOGETHER
Gwendolen Cates, USA, 2007; 77 minutes
See trailer

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