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Ubu roi
Cheek by Jowl’s UBU ROI is a brilliant contradiction. It is austere and messy, infantile and wise, ego and id, beautiful and repulsive. It hangs together and falls apart. Lasts long and ends soon. Grosses out and achieves epiphany. It is not to be missed and – no, it is not to be missed. Not,…
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Druid Shakespeare
Death, in DRUID SHAKESPEARE: THE HISTORY PLAYS, is an invading parasite. Crosses accumulate on grave mounds like sprouts from bulbs, lives owed, as someone says, to God, payment, with interest, for birth in the world. The plays essayed by this Irish company are four in seven hours – the tetralogy of Richard II, Henry IV…
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Ariel Ardit
Trim but stout looking, with a widow’s peak the curves of which seem to raise the eyebrows on his armadillo face, giving him a look not of surprise but of perpetual sympathy and amusement, the tango singer Ariel Ardit could be a clown or comedian were it not for his consummate posture and deportment, strong,…
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The Lost Lectures
The filmmaker Josephine Decker (pictured) was second up Friday at THE LOST LECTURES NY, the “secret” location of which turned out to be the Agger Warehouse at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. She followed the writer Jon Ronson, who had delivered a disquisition on the Justine Sacco affair, in which the lightning spread of a single…
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Malena Muyala
Malena Muyala is, at age 43, a distinctive tango vocalist who just might be generationally defining. She advances a view of time that has little, if anything, to do with nostalgia. This distinguishes her, by way of comparison, from two of the innovative female vocalists who came before her. Adriana Varela, two decades older, is…
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Spanish Wine and Cheese
I enjoyed the cheese and Spanish wine tasting on Monday night at City Winery, which was co-sponsored by Murray’s Cheese. It was my first time in the place’s actual winery, as opposed to the concert venue next door. We were loomed over by the stainless steel vats in which they make their own wine-on-tap (it’s…
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Harmony in Process
Among the visual artists producing work to the music of the Gabriel Alegría Afro-Peruvian Sextet at HARMONY IN PROCESS Saturday night at ShapeShifter Lab was Patti Maciesz, who sat center stage and made little illustrated tags for the audience in response to what she was hearing and seeing. This is the one she handed to…
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La ruta de Lorca
On June 5, the birthday of the great Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, I joined LA RUTA DE LORCA EN NUEVA YORK, a walking tour of some of the poet’s haunts in the vicinity of Columbia University. We gathered at the university gate, bearing as our standard a rendering of Lorca’s face, composed,…
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Istanbul Meets New York
FADA is a friendly bistro in Williamsburg with tango on Tuesdays, live music on Fridays, a good Sunday brunch, and excellent French food. The restaurant has a Turkish connection too, which was celebrated Monday evening with ISTANBUL MEETS NEW YORK. There were mezes (small or shared plates), traditional with an occasional twist, from food artist…
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South American Festival
Monday night at the Zinc Bar, the Lilihouse Agency presented the first annual NYC SOUTH AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL. Four hours, four artists and their bands, four from the bar to lighten the heat. First up: Juancho Herrara (top), a Colombian born Venezuelan, with a precise, insistent and sardonic sound, streetwise and urban in tone; his…