Modigliani biographer loves a challenge

Meryl Secrest on the life of Modigliani
by Deborah Feller, DeborahFeller.com, April 3, 2011

Ai Weiwei, Chinese dissident artist, detained

China Takes Dissident Artist Into Custody
by Andrew Jacobs, The New York Times, April 3, 2011

US visa policies hurt artists

Why Does the Obama Administration Hate the Arts?
by Jeremy M. Barker, Culturebot, April 2, 2011

Reker's "People Get Ready"

Tonight’s your last chance to see People Get Ready, a performance named for Steven Reker’s tribe of indie musician/dancers, at The Kitchen. So listen up.

Musically, Reker’s mixtape certainly has appeal. What starts off with Reker’s very low-key singing and plinking guitar notes and the gang stomping out the rhythm like trained horses counting with their hooves quickly expands into this primal heartbeat--full-force, deliciously melodic, deeply layered rock. One drawback to totally loving it is, at least in this setting, the indecipherable lyrics. (”a Squandering,” sung very deliberately and clearly, is the exception.) It’s all quite danceable, although the group’s collective and often whimsical choreography and awkward, ineffectual way with video and props--usually manipulating unorthodox light sources--shows no evidence of confidence in the overall design.

But, dance-wise, People Get Ready has high points. The energetic Reker, a well-loved stalwart of “downtown” performance, provides some of that interest in Red Skeleton where he performs a kind of meditative, stop-motion hip hop while plastered against the back wall, a white hipster suspended against its charcoal bricks as if stuck by Velcro. And there’s that boyish smile. Microphone’s dance--a swinging-corded-microphones-like-lassos number choreographed by Reker and his drummer Luke Fasano--has strong, uncomplicated visual impact but wastes it by going on too long and abusing people's tolerance for grating noise. Side Saddle brings together the kickass women of the troupe--Jen Goma, Jessica Cook and Megan Byrne as Reker’s backup singers, perhaps deliberately arranged in line with him, not behind him, for chorus moves that, for the first time, happily align with the pumping, pounding, expansive waves of Reker’s music.

Other members of the troupe include musicians James Rickman and Eddie Crichton who, though generally integrated into the flow of things, mostly stick to making music on the sidelines.

People Get Ready concludes its run tonight at 8pm. For tickets, click here.

Sample songs by People Get Ready on Myspace.

Sample a 2009 performance of People Get Ready at The Kitchen.

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

horribly good

oh, the horror of it. what madeline best and shawn irons and lauren petty and brian rogers have put together. called the horror the horror (I have plenty of energy to drive over there). if it drives you to abrons arts center tonight or tomorrow, i truly hope you get in. not too many seats there and what they have of them all up in the balcony, confined to its central section, so you get this awesome (a word i don't use reflexively) panoramic view down into the stage and across the first panels of walls to either side of the stage where video artists irons and petty splash their stunningly beautiful, alternately hypnotic and hallucinogenic imagery. rogers’s soundscape first lures you into a perfectly reasonable environment of road traffic and bird song then snares you the way a really nasty, grasping dream can do and, before you know it, you’re wondering if you’re hearing the passing roar of one of those 9/11 planes and later you’re recoiling from that mel gibson rant, you know, where he berates and threatens oksana and calls her everything but a child of god, only rogers has electronically manipulated this already scary thing to the extent that the madman’s pants and exclamations come out like the unearthly rasp of the beast outta hell. and then there’s best, who goes from being this slight, perfectly ordinary, pleasant-looking young woman drifting across the stage to this try-brid--simultaneously, a shadow, a live creature and a huge, lipsticked, thrashing head video-projected in this environment of creepy/violent sound and sight, transformed from second to second. all of this plus a heartstopping visitation from rachmaninoff. it's genius.

the horror the horror (I have plenty of energy to drive over there). See it tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm. Tickets.

Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Manhattan
(directions)

Are you a cultural omnivore?

In Praise Of Cultural Omnivores
by Linda Holmes, Monkey See, NPR, March 16, 2011

Old media still valuable to Oregon's dancers

Portland dancers hold fundraiser, prepare to publish newspaper
by Marty Hughley, The Oregonian, March 24, 2011