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Friday, January 31, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Alvin Curran: Shofar Rags XXL
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2020
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/alvin-curran-shofar-rags-xxl/
Longtime sonic explorer Alvin Curran continues his series of pieces putting the ancient sound of the Hebrew ram's horn through digital processes. Except for his prior Shofar Rags, you've never heard anything like this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Spectacular pita and good toppings at Bedouin Tent.
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Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 9:00 PM
-
Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 8:30 PM
Concrete Temple Theatre: Packrat
THEATER
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 & FEBRUARY 1, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 14)
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Streeet, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$19 advance; $22 door; students/seniors $17 advance; $20 door
http://dixonplace.org/performances/packrat-2020/
Puppets explore humanity's relationship with nature by following the exploits of a desert packrat. But forget about that: the point here is that this piece looks like it will be visually stunning.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm in the mood for Cantonese. So let's walk over to the current kingpin, Green Garden Village.
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Friday, January 31, 2020, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
-
Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 9:00 PM
-
Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 6:00 PM
Object Collection: You Are Under Our Space Control
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 30 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020*
8:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/space-control/
A political sci-fi fantasia that is totally nuts (I mean that in the best way possible) — but that most certainly has a point.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You know that Nowon isn't your everyday Korean spot when you learn that their most famous dish is an umami-laden cheeseburger.
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Thursday, January 30, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Stephe Cooper & Ensemble
MUSIC
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2020
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Manhattan
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/stephe-cooper-ensemble/
Stephe Cooper, bassist of this List's beloved dance-rock revivalists Guerilla Toss and leader of the art-rock band Cloud Becomes Your Hand, presents new and old compositions for an electric chamber ensemble.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Grand Army Bar: really great cocktails, food that is much much better than you'd ever expect.
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Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 9:00 PM
Matthew Bourne: Swan Lake
DANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 30 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 9)*
8:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
7:30 PM SUNDAY
New York City Center
131 West 55th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$35-$150
https://www.nycitycenter.org/pdps/2019-2020/matthew-bournes-swan-lake/
Wow, it's been 25 years since Matthew Bourne's canny all-boy-swan production of Swan Lake became an international sensation. It's still a new and gratifying experience to see a version of this romantic warhorse that isn't deeply stupid.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This is a long show. But Donburiya will still be slinging their delicious Japanese rice bowls and other great dishes long after it's over.
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Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 8:30 PM
-
Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 7:30 PM – Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 8:30 PM
New York City Ballet: New Combinations
DANCE
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 & 31, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 12)*
7:30 PM THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY
David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35-$200
https://www.nycballet.com/Season-Tickets/19-20-Season-Page/Winter-2020/NEW-COMBINATIONS.aspx
The main draw from this List's perspective is a new piece by Alexei Ratmansky, almost certainly the leading ballet choreographer right now, whose differing combinations of classical and modernist tendencies can run from the fascinating to the infuriating. Intriguingly, this time he's setting music by the electroacoustic multi-media composer Peter Ablinger (who has his own concert at the Austrian Cultural Forum on Tuesday) — much more modern than Ratmansky usually goes. This will be interesting. Among the other pieces on the bill is Justin Peck's Bright, which readers of this List will want to know sets music by the NOW Ensemble's Mark Dancingers. It's another of those rather slight pieces that makes you wonder whether the perpetually promising Peck is frittering away his considerable talent. Speaking of disappointing careers, the program also includes Christopher Wheeldon's Polyphonia (on Ligeti!): if, as time goes on, this looks like it's the only great ballet Wheeldon ever has and perhaps ever will make, it's still great. In these two shows, it's being given by an all-star cast, including Your Compiler's future wife Lauren Lovette (although if you wait till later in this program's run, you can see Lovette dance the bill's remaining piece, Jerome Robbins's Opus 19/The Dreamer, in a dream duo with the ineffable Taylor Stanley: that will be SOMETHING).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Bar Boulud is a good French bistro, for somewhere across the street from Lincoln Center.
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Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 4:00 PM
Wooster Group: A PINK CHAIR (In Place of a Fake Antique)
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 30 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020
7:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Skirball Center, NYU
566 LaGuardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$35-$50
https://nyuskirball.org/events/the-wooster-group-a-pink-chair/
The Wooster Group do their non-linear low-tech multi-media thing with the legacy of the legendary Polish avant-garde theater director Tadeusz Kantor. Never gets old.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's just ignore the fact that you're never going to get into Nikkei sensation Llama San.
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Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 4:00 PM
Theodora Skipatares: The Transfiguration of Benjamin Banneker
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 30 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020
7:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/benjamin-banneker/
A puppet play about a self-educated free black man in late-18th/early 19th Century America who made important astronomic discoveries and became a noted participant in the country's intellectual life. Students from a Clinton Hill high school named after Banneker participate, both as musicians as contributing authors.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It may not be saying much, but Malai Marke is probably the best spot on the 6th Street Indian Strip.
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Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 5:00 PM – Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 10:00 PM
Talya Chalef, Christopher Ross-Ewart, Jess Kaufman, David Blackman, Johanna Kasimow: Assemble
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 27 & 30 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020
5:00 – 9:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) MONDAY & FRIDAY – SATURDAY
6:00 – 9:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) THURSDAY
5:00 – 9:15 PM (at 15-minute intervals) SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Super Secret Location, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A big-box store becomes a site for worlds, fantasies, and meditations as the members of the audience are given an app to download and set loose to wander, creating their own guided adventures that somehow cumulatively have to do with the experience of turning 40. You get the location and assembly point after you buy a ticket.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I don't know where this is! (I have my suspicions.)
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Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
MUSIC / DANCE / THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see Ghost Train Orchestra do Moondog for $15 or $20 — and even Matthew Bourne tops out at $150? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whtever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 9:00 PM
underlords: BLOODSHOT
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 1, 2020
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Exponential Festival
Target Margin's The Doxee Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
$20-$25
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/bloodshot
A neo-noir set in a world subject to rampant mass insomnia. Is it a coincidence that this mass inability to sleep, and the anomie that followed, would have started around the time of the inauguration of the current administration? Only the underlords know. But are they telling?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If, as I do, you consider Cantonese food one of the supreme achievements of human culture, then you'll love King's Kitchen as I do.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 9:00 PM
Thomas Frances: They Need a Horse
THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 1, 2020
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Exponential Festival
Patch Works
98 Moore Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/theyneedahorse
Another account of love and need among the Youngs. Except playwright Thomas Frances is actually funny.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Ho hum, might as well go up the street to Roberta's.
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Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 9:00 PM
James & Jerome: The Conversationalists
THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 1, 2020
8:00 PM
The Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/the-conversationalists
The enchanting performance duo James & Jerome do their first full-scale theater piece, with an ensemble of actors, music, characters, a plot, the whole shebang. It supposedly plays as a movie, described onstage but actually playing inside the audience's head.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Homey delicious Nigerian at Hills Kitchen.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Anna Webber: Idiom VI
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020
7:00 PM
John Zorn's Stone Commissioning Series
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/anna-webber
Reeds-player/composer Anna Webber is one of the ornaments of the Brooklyn jazz scene (meaning that she has a toe dipped in contemporary classical and avant-garde experimental as well). Tonight she premieres a new work for large ensemble.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Still in love with the fresh version of Xi'an food served at Xi'An Town.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2020, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Deerhoof
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020
9:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$20 advance; $25 day of show
https://www.elsewherebrooklyn.com/events/2020-01-28-deerhoof/
Art-punks Deerhoof continue to be one of this List's very favorite bands. (And I hope yours.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: And you know where to eat before the show (HINT: it's in the same building).
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Tue, Jan 28, 2020, 8:30 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 9:30 PM
Kris Davis: 40th Birthday Celebration!
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, JANUARY 28 – FEBRUARY 1, 2020
8:30 PM
The Stone Residencies
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php?month=1
Jazz pianist/composer Kris Davis has been very good for a while. But last year, she had her breakthrough with her skewed masterpiece (original usage) Diatom Ribbons, which lifts her up there with the greats: an original, angular conception, incorporating elements of hip-hop and experimental music, beautifully realized. Just in time for her turning 40! Go any night.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Victoria Blamey's revivification of the Gotham Bar & Grill remains the place to eat around here. I continue to prefer the simpler bar menu to the more complicated dishes on the dining room menu — and also continue to urge you look at the end of the wine list for the natural wines section instead of at the preceding pages of overpriced and underaged unnatural wines.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Tuesday, January 28, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
International Contemporary Ensemble feat. Jörg Widmann
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020
7:30 PM
Zankel Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$35-$45
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2020/01/28/International-Contemporary-Ensemble-Jorg-Widmann-Conductor-and-Clarinet-0730PM
Poor Jörg Widmann. He's become a target for everybody who's sick of Mainstream European Modern Classical Music. In a way, it's unfair: he's a good enough composer. In another way, it's warranted: this music is boring and rather played out; not at all fun like what's produced in Brooklyn (or Iceland for that matter). ICE will make the most persuasive case possible for Widmann's music — and aside from conducting, he'll also play clarinet, at which he is simply fabulous.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The endless Cuban party at Guantanamera will supply all the fun the concert might lack.
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Tue, Jan 28, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 8:30 PM
Simon Stone aft. Euripides: Medea
THEATER
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 28 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (continuing through MARCH 8)
7:30 PM
BAM Strong Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY $35-$185; $45-$195 thereafter
https://www.bam.org/medea
Simon Stone made a big impression here with Yerma at the Armory last year. Having hit it with Lorca, now he goes back to one of the most intense Greek tragedies, Eurpides's Medea. I guess Stone is attracted to depictions of fraught mother/children relationships — although in this case, unlike in Yerma, for most of the play the children actually exist. If you're the kind of person who needs stars to motivate him or herself to go to the theater, this one has Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale (partners with children IRL — but we're not gonna think about that).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sure Jason and Medea liked to sit down for beers and sausage before things went south: Black Forest Brooklyn.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Saariselka / Lea Bertucci
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020
7:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$17.25
https://dice.fm/partner/public-records/event/7omdb-saariselka-lea-bertucci-28th-jan-public-records-new-york-tickets?_branch_match_id=355459898100475391
Saariselka's dreamy keyboards-vocals/pedal steel music is, not to put too fine a point to it, gorgeous. Lea Bertucci's sonic explorations are harsher, but if anything even more fascinating.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can totally drink at the venue. There's food there — but it's kind of vegany for my gross tastes, and in any event is in a separate room from the music. Instead, I'll note that the the snacks at the exceedingly pleasant Black Mountain Wine House have the inestimable advantage of still being served after this show. (Before the show, go to Claro for the kind of high-quality Mexican — Oaxacan, in this case — that places like Oxomoco only purport to serve. You might be able to make it after if you step lively.)
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Tuesday, January 28, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Peter Ablinger: Voices and Piano
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020
7:00 PM
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
https://www.acfny.org/event/voices-and-piano/
Electronic musician Peter Ablinger (in town for his new New York City Ballet piece later this week) has, over the last 20-something years, developed a corpus of pieces he calls Voices and Piano, in which famous recorded voices are accompanied by live piano. Tonight he premieres a new one, featuring the indelible voice of Diamanda Galás. If that isn't enough for you, he'll also present prior pieces in the series featuring the respective voices of, among others, Agnes Martin, Ezra Pound, Nina Simone, Hannah Schygulla, and Cecil Taylor. And if that isn't enough for you, the live piano is played by Eric Wubbels.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I personally am very excited about the homey new bar menu at Aquavit. Of course, if you want something fancier, you can eat from the lovely dinner menu in the dining room.
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Monday, January 27, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Mon, Jan 27, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 9:00 PM
Bernstein: West Side Story
THEATER
MONDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 27 – FEBRUARY 1, 2020 (indefinite run currently scheduled through SEPTEMBER 6, 2020)
8:00 PM MONDAY- SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Broadway Theater
1681 Broadway, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$229
https://westsidestorybway.com/
When the world's leading avant-garde theater director, Ivo van Hove, teams up with the world's leading avant-garde choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, for a Broadway production of West Side Story, there are only two possible (and mutually consistent) responses: what the fuck?????????????, and "I need to see this!"
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Russian Samovar: more fun that a barrel full of matryoskas.
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Monday, January 27, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Talya Chalef, Christopher Ross-Ewart, Jess Kaufman, David Blackman, Johanna Kasimow: Assemble
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 27 & 30 – FEBRUARY 2, 2020
5:00 – 9:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) MONDAY & FRIDAY – SATURDAY
6:00 – 9:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) THURSDAY
5:00 – 9:15 PM (at 15-minute intervals) SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Super Secret Location, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A big-box store becomes a site for worlds, fantasies, and meditations as the members of the audience are given an app to download and set loose to wander, creating their own guided adventures that somehow cumulatively have to do with the experience of turning 40. You get the location and assembly point after you buy a ticket.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I don't know where this is! (I have my suspicions.)
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Sunday, January 26, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
John King & Mick Rossi
MUSIC
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020
5:00 PM
Protestival: A Festival of Political Music
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
These are two musicians who know how to mix it up. Guitarist/composer John King occupies many precincts in the NYC/global musical avant-garde. Pianist Mick Rossi moves between jazz, pop, and contemporary classical. Tonight they reconfigure spirituals, hollers, and work songs.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Adorable New American Vinegar Hill House for Sunday dinner, with a stop at the Kings County Distillery Gatehouses for (very) local whiskey along the way.
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Saturday, January 25, 2020, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
-
Saturday, January 25, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
New York Baroque Incorporated: Reflecting Lully
MUSIC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020
8:00 PM
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$30-45; $25-$38 senior; $18-$27 students & under 25
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/new-york-baroque-incorporated
Here's a nice historical irony for you: composer Jean-Baptiste Lully emigrated from Italy to France, where he established a French Baroque musical style that went to musical war with the contemporary Italian style — until a synthesis was achieved by subsequent generations. In this interesting program, the crack New York Baroque Incorporated ensemble plays a little bit of Lully and then traces the music that came after in various countries, via Muffat, Handel, Mondonville, and Telemann.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm going to keep pushing Atlas Kitchen, which has a much more interesting Chinese menu than you might expect in these parts.
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Saturday, January 25, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Meaghan Burke
MUSIC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020
7:00 PM
Protestival: A Festival of Politcal Music
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
No idea what cellist/vocalist Meaghan Burke has planned for this "political music" festival. Or whether it'll be on her Alt Classical side or her Jazz-Pop side. But whatever it is, it's bound to be good.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cajun crab boil at Cap't Loui.
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Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:00 PM
-
Friday, January 24, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Benjamin Hochman & Friends: Moodrunk & Erotic Obsession
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2020
8:00 PM
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$25
https://www.92y.org/event/benjamin-hochman-and-guests
Benjamin Hochman is a really good pianist, and what's more he has very good friends — among them Lucy Shelton, one of the great vocalists of our time (if only the person who titled this program had matching parallel-construction skills). On this program, we get two song cycles that represent peaks of that literature in the last century: Schoenberg's almost unbearably evocative (you will hear the Moon) Pierrot Lunaire (and trust me, you don't lightly pass up a chance to hear Lucy Shelton sing that) and Janáček's Diary of One Who Disappeared (which, just so you know, isn't about political incarcertation but rather erotic obsession) (and trust me, hear it once and you'll wonder why it isn't played all the time).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kaia for South African food and wine.
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Friday, January 24, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:00 PM
FEATURING . . . Exponential at The Brick
THEATER / DANCE / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 & 25, 2020
8:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/featuring2020
Semiotics! Comedy! Dance! Fake science experiments! Sci fi! Snacks! A quartet of provocative pieces.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hanon is still almost certainly the only udon spot in New York co-owned by a condom manufacturer.
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Friday, January 24, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Friday, January 24, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Kingdoms: Pan-American / Benoit Pioulard
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2020
7:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Place, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$17.25
https://dice.fm/partner/public-records/event/anyx7-kingdoms-pan-american-benoit-pioulard-24th-jan-public-records-new-york-tickets?_branch_match_id=355459898100475391
Dub-glitch soundscaper Pan-American has now taken to adding some rootsy blues and folk to the mix: a winning combination in the past for the folktronica folks and for Moby with Play, and a winning combination now. Benoit Pioulard does immensely appealing trippy melancholic guitar-based stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OK, now that Haenyeo has opened in Park Slope, Insa is no longer the best Korean in Brooklyn. It'll have to settle for merely being great in itself — and right close to Public Records. As usual, I strongly advise you to forgo the dining room for the bar/lounge: on the downside, you lose the barbecue from the menu; on the upside, you also lose a lot of noise — and gain much better ambiance and decor.
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Friday, January 24, 2020, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Drumxdrum: A Festival of Polyrhythms
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2020 (other show on JANUARY 31)
6:00 PM
H0L0
1090 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
$20
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/drumxdrum-a-festival-of-polyrhythms-tickets-88429469925
Three successive Friday nights exploring polyrhythms, curated by one of the most though-provoking percussionists extant, Susie Ibarra. Tonight's line-up includes, among others, the great percussion trio Tigue, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Brian Chase doing his drone thing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nowadays: beer, Japanese snacks — and an all-night dance party!
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Thursday, January 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Scott Johnson feat. Contemporaneous
MUSIC
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/scott-johnson-with-contemporaneous/
Scott Johnson was ahead of the curve in formulating a style of classical music incorporating pop usages but still sounding like something other than extremely cleverly constructed pop music. In this show, he plays with some of his heirs (not least cellist Ashley Bathgate and the Contemporaneous chamber orchestra).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can do a lot worse than the Bacchus bistro.
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Thursday, January 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, January 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:00 PM
David Neumann & Marcella Murray: Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed
PERFORMANCE / THEATER / DANCE
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 – 25, 2020
8:00 PM
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$21
https://www.abronsartscenter.org/program/distances-smaller-than-this/
Two people on the stage of a talk show talk about race, astronomy, and time.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There's a reason Basque taverna Ernesto's is the hottest new restaurant in New York: it's great (and great fun).
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Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 6:00 PM
Object Collection: You Are Under Our Space Control
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 23 – 26, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 2)*
8:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/space-control/
A political sci-fi fantasia that is totally nuts (I mean that in the best way possible) — but most certainly has a point.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You know that Nowon isn't your everyday Korean spot when you learn that their most famous dish is an umami-laden cheeseburger.
-
Thursday, January 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, January 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Launch Party!
MUSIC
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020
8:00 PM
Mise-En_Place
341 Calyer Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Free (R.S.V.P. recommended)
https://www.facebook.com/events/3262007513869910/
New music venue Mise-En_Place and its Ensemble Mise-En celebrate their move from Bushwick to Greenpoint with a party featuring a recital of new electro-acoustic music.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There'll be free drinks at the party, but one assumes they'll be modest. For more substantial (God knows) fare, walk over to Raizes Churrascaria.
-
Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 9:00 PM
Matthew Liner & David Steele: Trash
THEATER
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, JANUARY 23 & 24, 2020
8:00 PM
Exponential Festival
Vital Joint
109 Meserole Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/trash
Two guys in a Las Vegas hotel room blow off preparing a power point presentation by talking and drinking.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Join the line at New York's hottest Taiwanese spot, Win Son. Who knows, you might even get in.
-
Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 4:00 PM
underlords: BLOODSHOT
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 23 – 26, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 1)
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Target Margin's The Doxee Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
$20-$25
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/bloodshot
A neo-noir set in a world subject to rampant insomnia. Might it have something to do with the Big Pharma company that manufactures the cure? Only the underlords know.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If, as I do, you consider Cantonese food one of the supreme achievements of human culture, then you'll love King's Kitchen as I do.
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Thursday, January 23, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Benjamin Bagby: Beowulf
MUSIC
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020
8:00 PM
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$25
https://www.92y.org/event/benjamin-bagby
Benjamin Bagby's performances of Beowulf – singing and reciting (in Anglo-Saxon) (with titles: don't worry) and accompanying himself on harp — are enthralling and transporting, making you think that the past isn't just another country, but another planet (albeit one that's a lot of fun to visit).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Maybe Café d'Alsace (where a very young very French waiter once responded to my suggestion that the reason most of the food there has what he had apologetically characterized as "funny names" is that Alsace was once part of Germany by exclaiming, "That's impossible! Alsace was never German!" Bismark would be surprised to hear that).
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Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 4:30 PM
Wooster Group: A PINK CHAIR (In Place of a Fake Antique)
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 23 – 26, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 2)
7:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Skirball Center, NYU
566 LaGuardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$35-$50
https://nyuskirball.org/events/the-wooster-group-a-pink-chair/
The Wooster Group do their non-linear low-tech multi-media thing with the legacy of the legendary Polish avant-garde theater director Tadeusz Kantor. Never gets old.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's just ignore the fact that you're never going to get into Nikkei sensation Llama San.
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Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 8:00 PM
Theodora Skipatares: The Transfiguration of Benjamin Banneker
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 23 – 26, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 2)
7:00 PM THURSDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/benjamin-banneker/
A puppet play about a free black man in late 18th-/early 19th-Century America who taught himself mathematics and astronomy, and made important astronomic discoveries. Students from a Clinton Hill high school named after Banneker participate, both as musicians as contributing authors.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It may not be saying much, but Malai Marke is probably the best spot on the 6th Street Indian Strip.
-
Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 5:00 PM – Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 11:00 PM
Talya Chalef, Christopher Ross-Ewart, Jess Kaufman, David Blackman, Johanna Kasimow: Assemble
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 20 & 23 – 26, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 2)
5:00 – 9:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) MONDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY
6:00 – 10:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) THURSDAY
Exponential Festival
Super Secret Location, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A big-box store becomes a site for worlds, fantasies, and meditations as the members of the audience are given an app to download and set loose to wander, creating their own guided adventures that somehow cumulatively have to do with the experience of turning 40. You get the location and assembly point after you buy a ticket.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I don't know where this is! (I have my suspicions.)
-
Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Bobby Previte's Blueprints
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2020
8:30 PM
h0l0
1090 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
$10
https://www.h0l0.nyc/
Percussionist Bobby Previte has long been a fave of Your Compiler, as much for his quirky compositional style as for his fabulous drumming. In his Blueprints project, he takes fragments of favorites of his compositions, loads them onto a laptop, assembles a group of likeminded musicians, and projects the fragments in a spontaneously ordered sequence for the musicians to play on sight. Think Carl Stalling — only more so.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: When gypsy brewer Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø decided to settle down his Evil Twin Brewing in Ridgewood — with a taproom! — it was a pretty huge deal for local beer-lovers.
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Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:00 PM
James & Jerome: The Conversationalists
THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 22 – 25, 2019 (continuing through FEBRUARY 1)*
8:00 PM
The Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/the-conversationalists
The enchanting performance duo James & Jerome do their first full-scale theater piece, with an ensemble of actors, music, characters, a plot, the whole shebang. It supposedly plays as a movie, described onstage but actually playing inside the audience's head.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Homey delicious Nigerian at Hills Kitchen.
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Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Berg: Wozzeck
OPERA
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2020
8:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$20-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/wozzeck/
Berg's taut, fast-moving, and just plain moving account of class degradation is surely one of the greatest of all operas. (The opera was such a huge hit at its 1925 premiere in Weimar Germany that Berg worried it wasn't avant-garde enough!) The South African multi-media expressionist William Kentridge showed that he was an adept Berg director with Lulu a few years ago. And I, for one, can't wait to hear what Met Music Director Yannnick Nezét-Séguin — who has a way of bringing out things you've never heard before in familiar pieces — does with this gripping score. Playing the downtrodden soldier Wozzeck we have Peter Mattei, who I'm comfortable calling the best mainstream operatic singing/acting baritone now on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that Austro-German angst, the sunny Mediterranean food at Boulud Sud.
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Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
MUSIC / DANCE / THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 22 – 26, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like Beowulf or James & Jerome for $25? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jason McMahon: "Odd West" Record Release
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2020
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/jason-mcmahon-odd-west-record-release/
On his new album, guitarist/composer Jason McMahon fuses odd detuned roots music with experimental post-pop in way that makes for a very compelling listening experience. Tonight he and his band play stuff from the album.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'll get tired of sending you to Kind of Soul when I get tired of going there myself. I.e., no time soon.
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Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:00 PM
Richard Maxwell: Queens Row
THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 22 – 25, 2020
8:00 PM
New York City Players
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$25
https://thekitchen.org/event/richard-maxwell-queens-row
Richard Maxwell's deadpan, militantly anti-technique theater is just the kind of the thing I like in film and music. So I've had a hard time discerning why I dislike it so much on stage. But that shouldn't stop you from giving it a try. This piece is set in a dystopian near-future America (the only kind of near-future America most of us can imagine).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: People are absolutely loving the fresh Palestinian food at Qanoon.
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Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:00 PM
Saints of an Unnamed Country: Police in the Wilderness
THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 22 – 25, 2020
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Exponential Festival
Patch Works
98 Moore Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/policeinthewilderness
Imagining a dystopian future (can anyone imagine any other kind of future?) where burying the dead is illegal, an edict enforced by a body known as The Order.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The highly appealing Apollonia for Mediterranean fare.
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Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Phylis & Aristotle / Angela Morris's Medium Low
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2019
8:00 PM
The Mendoza Pavone Winter Music Series
Happylucky No. 1
734 Nostrand Avenue, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.happyluckyno1.com/happenings/2020/1/22/the-mendoza-pavone-winter-music-series
Key Brooklyn musicians Jessica Pavone and Ava Mendoza kick off this season's set of concerts they curate at Happylucky No. 1 with a really great one. Phylis & Aristotle is a duo comprising Judith Berkson — almost certainly the best cantor–avant-garde vocalist/instrumentalist/composer in New York, if not the world — and Franke Vogl, once a stalwart of the fabled DC hardcore scene (and if you don't find that an immensely interesting combination, you probably should be reading another List). Saxophonist Angela Morris — one of the jewels of the Brooklyn jazz scene (which means she has her toes dipped into avant-jazz, New Music, and pop) — leads a new (at least to me) ensemble.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Peppa's Jerk Chicken: it's REALLY good.
-
Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Decoda
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2020
7:30 PM
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
154 West 57th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$32-$38
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Events/Carnegie-Hall-Presents#calendar
This crack chamber ensemble plays works by a set of personal List fave composers who write/wrote in wildly disparate styles, but all characterized by brightness and accessibility: Missy Mazzoli, William Bolcom, Steven Mackey, Brad Balliett, and Martinu.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Burger Joint, "hidden" in the lobby of the Parker New York Hotel.
-
Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Tuesday, January 21, 2020, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Sarah Cabral
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2020
9:00 PM
LunÀtico
486 Halsey Street, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
$10 suggested donation
https://www.barlunatico.com/calendar/2017/3/1/sarah-cabral-with-vitor-gonalves
Sarah Cabral does updated versions of classic Brazilian pop songs, informed by jazz and contemporary classical and experimental (Brazilians do things like that — it's how their pop culture works). You can tell I'm crazy about her.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You're in a bar with food. And they're not even charging you a set cover fee. There's only one decent thing to do.
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Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 8:30 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:30 PM
Jen Shyu
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, JANUARY 21 – 25, 2019
8:30 PM
The Stone Residencies
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
This List has made no secret of its admiration of Jen Shyu: vocalist, composer, pianist, master of a myriad of Asian string instruments. We most frequently see Shyu these days in evocative music-theater pieces she devises; but these Stone residencies usually emphasize improvised music, so we can expect these shows to be something of a return for Shyu to her jazz(-based) roots. If forced to choose, I'd probably pick Wednesday's show with a trio featuring genius pianist Kris Davis.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Victoria Blamey's revivification of the Gotham Bar & Grill remains the place to eat around here. I continue to prefer the simpler bar menu to the more complicated dishes on the dining room menu — and also continue to urge you look at the end of the wine list for the natural wines section instead of at the preceding pages of overpriced and underaged unnatural wines.
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Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:30 PM – Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 8:30 PM
-
Tuesday, January 21, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 8:30 PM
Simon Stone aft. Euripides: Medea
THEATER
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 21 – 25, 2020
7:30 PM
BAM Strong Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$35-$185
https://www.bam.org/medea
Simon Stone made a big impression here with Yerma at the Armory last year. Having hit it with Lorca, now he goes back to one of the most intense Greek tragedies, Eurpides's Medea. I guess Stone is attracted to depictions of fraught mother/children relationships — although in this case, unlike in Yerma, for most of the play the children actually exist. If you're the kind of person who needs stars to motivate him or herself to go to the theater, this one has Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale (partners with children IRL — but we're not gonna think about that).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sure Jason and Medea liked to sit down for beers and sausage before things went south: Black Forest Brooklyn.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2020, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Lauren Cauley
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2020
6:00 PM
Pop-Up Concerts
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Free
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/lauren-cauley
I'm always good for a recommendation of Miller Theater's Pop-Up Concerts — for free you get to sit on stage and listen to well-chosen performers, while drinking beverages that are also free — but this show by Lauren Cauley is objectively good in its own right. This violinist is an ornament of the New York New Music scene, and she's playing a set of recent music for solo violin by a bunch of usual suspects we all know and like.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: As usual, the early end-time of the show permits you to get to Manna's Soul Food's wonderful steam-table buffet before the painfully early closing.
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Monday, January 20, 2020, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
-
Monday, January 20, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Mur: Experiments 20: Trees
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC / DANCE
MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 2020
8:00 PM
La MaMa Galleria
47 Great Jones Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$15 advance; $20 door
http://lamama.org/experiments-trees/
Sure, performance artist/composer Mur can be kind of twee — and the subect matter of the inner lives of trees might exacerbate that. But let's give him a chance.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Stumble across the street for comfort food at The Jones.
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Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:00 PM
Bernstein: West Side Story
THEATER
MONDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 20 – 25, 2020 (indefinite run currently scheduled through SEPTEMBER 6, 2020)
8:00 PM MONDAY- SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Broadway Theater
1681 Broadway, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$229
https://westsidestorybway.com/
When the world's leading avant-garde theater director, Ivo van Hove, teams up with the world's leading avant-garde choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, for a Broadway production of West Side Story, there are only two possible (and mutually consistent) responses: what the fuck?????????????, and "I need to see this!"
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Russian Samovar: more fun that a barrel full of matryoskas.
-
Monday, January 20, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Talya Chalef, Christopher Ross-Ewart, Jess Kaufman, David Blackman, Johanna Kasimow: Assemble
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 20 & 23 – 26, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 2)
5:00 – 9:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) MONDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY
6:00 – 10:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) THURSDAY
Exponential Festival
Super Secret Location, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A big-box store becomes a site for worlds, fantasies, and meditations as the members of the audience are given an app to download and set loose to wander, creating their own guided adventures that somehow cumulatively have to do with the experience of turning 40. You get the location and assembly point after you buy a ticket.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I don't know where this is! (I have my suspicions.)
-
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Sequentia: Words of Power: Charms, Riddles and Elegies of the Medieval Northlands, 8th – 11th Centuries
MUSIC
SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2020
4:00 PM
Music Before 1800
Corpus Christi Catholic Church
529 West 121st Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$10-$55
https://mb1800.org/concert/sequentia-2/
Under the leadership of Benjamin Bagby, the vocal/instrumental ensemble Sequentia makes medieval music come alive, both "high" and vernacular. This program of chants, songs, and spoken riddles focuses more on the vernacular.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Ertirean again? Massawa.
-
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Berg: Wozzeck
OPERA
THURSDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 & 19, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 22)
8:00 PM THURSDAY
1:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$20-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/wozzeck/
Berg's taut, fast-moving, and just plain moving account of class degradation is surely one of the greatest of all operas. (The opera was such a huge hit at its 1925 premiere in Weimar Germany that Berg worried it wasn't avant-garde enough!) The South African multi-media expressionist William Kentridge showed that he was an adept Berg director with Lulu a few years ago. And I, for one, can't wait to hear what Met Music Director Yannnick Nezét-Séguin — who has a way of bringing out things you've never heard before in familiar pieces — does with this gripping score. Playing the downtrodden soldier Wozzeck we have Peter Mattei, who I'm comfortable calling the best mainstream operatic singing/acting baritone now on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that Austro-German angst, the sunny Mediterranean food at Boulud Sud.
-
Saturday, January 18, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Saturday, January 18, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Saturday, January 18, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Hotel Elefant / Bearthoven
MUSIC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2020
7:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Payment discretionary
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
The composer/musician chamber esemble Hotel Elefant doing a double bill with the piano trio Bearthoven isn't quite like the Beatles doing a show with the Stones — but for the kind of music this List focuses on, it's sort of the same idea. Tonight they switch off in showcasing the work of Fjóla Evans and Leaha Maria Villareal, two young composers who aren't afraid to get visceral.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's take a walk to the ever-delightful California food-and-wine bar Coast and Valley.
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Saturday, January 18, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Saturday, January 18, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
niCHi douglas: where love lies fallow
THEATER
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2020
7:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/where-love-lies-fallow/
Four black woman drink wine and talk about love and personal histories. Then, as West African spiritualities are invoked, things turn into a dance party.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After this show, you should definitely go to Bessou, for homey, lovely, just wonderful Japanese home-style cooking.
-
Friday, January 17, 2020, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
-
Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 10:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 7:30 PM
Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral: ANDARES
THEATER
MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 15 & 17 – 19
8:30 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY
10:00 PM FRIDAY
9:00 PM SATURDAY
5:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/andares/
Indigenous Mexican music and myth inform this narrative theater piece opposing the efforts to wipe indigenous Mexican culture out. Could be great, if it isn't too earnest.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Throwback central Knickerbocker Bar & Grill will be open both before and after each of these shows.
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Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 9:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 6:00 PM
Brendan Drake: Community Exercises for Sanctuary Spaces
DANCE
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 17 – 19, 2020
9:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Chez Bushwick, Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation
304 Boerum Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$20; $10 students
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/communityexercises
Iconography and worship in designated queer spaces — based on the Catholic mass(?) — shapes queer identities. Brendan Drake shows you how.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Japanese ramen chain in Brooklyn, Ichiran.
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Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
Julian Wachner: REV. 23
OPERA
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 17 & 18, 2020
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
PROTOTYPE Festival
Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 West 59th Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$35-$75
http://prototypefestival.org/shows/rev23/
A newly-composed additional "chapter" of Revelation takes us on a trip through our collective unconscious.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Israeli out of the massive oven at Taboon.
-
Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
-
Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
Shawn Escarciga: Very Real and Legitimate MFA Thesis Show from an Accredited University
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 17 & 18, 2020
8:00 PM
Exponential Festival
Vital Joint
109 Meserole Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/veryrealandlegitimate
A critique of academia and the Art World.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Join the line at New York's hottest Taiwanese spot, Win Son. Who knows, you might even get in.
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Friday, January 17, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Friday, January 17, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
James Young & Tyrone Page, Jr.: True Florescent Skeleton / Luke Stewart
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
8:00 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
A night of spacey solo instrumental music. True Florescent Skeleton is set of short pieces composer James Young wrote for saxophonist Ty Page; the pieces are detailed, inventive — and push the instrument beyond what you thought were its limits. They are also extremely engaging — which this kind of music often isn't. Luke Stewart — a real stalwart of the D.C. music scene — augments his bass with electronics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cajun crab boil at Cap't Loui.
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Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 5:00 PM
Ricky Ian Gordon: Ellen West
OPERA
TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 14 – 15 & 17 – 19, 2020
8:00 PM TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
PROTOTYPE Festival
Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center
29 Jay Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
TUESDAY BENEFIT: $65-$150; WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY $35-$75
http://prototypefestival.org/shows/ellen-west/
An "operatic poem" inspired by one of the earliest cases of existential analysis, showing a woman at war with her body. I've always found composer Ricky Ian Gordon's music to be too much like Broadway without the tunes — but mine seems to be a minority view. The two-person cast – Jennifer Zetlan and Nathan Gunn — is pretty starry by this at least formerly alternative festival's standards.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Attractive Mediterranean food in attractive surroundings at Celestine.
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Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:30 PM
Zlatne Uste Golden Festival
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 17 & 18, 2020
7:30 PM FRIDAY
6:00 PM SATURDAY
Grand Prospect Hall
263 Prospect Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
FRIDAY: $35; $30 students
SATURDAY: $55; $45 students
https://goldenfest.org/
Two nights of the stompingest dancingest funnest music there is, Balkan music, trad and mod. If you don't have a good time here, you just can't have a good time.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There are Balkan snacks, wines, and drinks on sale at the Festival. Beforehand, get your Balkan thing going at Korzo.
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Friday, January 17, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Piehole: Disclaimer
THEATER
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
7:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/disclaimer/
If, as its materials promise, this company, with this piece, invites viewers to "fix our relationship with Iran while surrendering to an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery", its job just got a lot harder. Sold out; look for cancellations and a wait list.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How about some nice (with a bite) Thai seafood at Fish Cheeks?
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Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 4:00 PM
-
Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 6:30 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 7:30 PM
Aleshea Harris: What to Send Down When It Goes Up
THEATER
WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 15 & 17 – 19, 2020
3:00 & 7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
6:30 PM FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:30 PM SATURDAY
2:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/what-to-send-up-when-it-goes-down/
A colorful ritualized examination of racialized anti-black violence — and its failure to quell black culture. Sold out; look for cancellations and wait lists.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Jones, all-day comfortish food.
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Friday, January 17, 2020, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
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Friday, January 17, 2020, 12:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Winter Jazzfest Marathon Brooklyn
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
Various Times
Various Venues in Brooklyn
$35-$75
https://www.winterjazzfest.com/brooklyn-marathon
A truly staggering selection of excellent jazz. Amazing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I have no idea which of the participating venues you'll be at when, so you'll have to make your own fun.
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 11:00 PM
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 9:30 PM – Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 10:30 PM
Rizo: Losing the Lady
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, JANUARY 16 & 17, 2020
9:30 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Joe's Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/rizo/
A cabaret show that's not only gender-fluid, but identity-fluid.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Drink your minimum at Joe's Pub. Then (or before, if you must), go to Kenka for Japanese snacks.
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Thursday, January 16, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Berg: Wozzeck
OPERA
THURSDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 & 19, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 22)
8:00 PM THURSDAY
1:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$20-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/wozzeck/
Berg's taut, fast-moving, and just plain moving account of class degradation is surely one of the greatest of all operas. (The opera was such a huge hit at its 1925 premiere in Weimar Germany that Berg worried it wasn't avant-garde enough!) The South African multi-media expressionist William Kentridge showed that he was an adept Berg director with Lulu a few years ago. And I, for one, can't wait to hear what Met Music Director Yannnick Nezét-Séguin — who has a way of bringing out things you've never heard before in familiar pieces — does with this gripping score. Playing the downtrodden soldier Wozzeck we have Peter Mattei, who I'm comfortable calling the best mainstream operatic singing/acting baritone now on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that Austro-German angst, the sunny Mediterranean food at Boulud Sud.
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
James & Jerome: The Conversationalists
THEATER
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 16 – 18, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 25)
8:00 PM
The Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/the-conversationalists
The wonderful, enchanting performance duo James & Jerome do their first full-scale theater piece, with an enemble of actors, music, characters, a plot, the whole shebang. It supposedly plays as a movie, described onstage but actually playing inside the audience's head. I can't wait.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Homey delicious Nigerian at Hills Kitchen.
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 6:00 PM
Benjamin & Mason Rosenthal + Alex Romania: Tent (Skin)
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 – 19, 2020
8:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
4:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
The Woods
1826 Palmetto Street, Ridgewood, Queens
$15
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/tentskin
A pseudo-psychodrama (and thank God for that "pseudo"!) set in and around a 120–square foot tent.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delightful Nepalese at While in Kathmandu. (N.B.: cash only.)
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
Aki Sasamoto: Phase Transition
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 16 – 18, 2019
8:00 PM
Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22
http://www.danspaceproject.org/calendar/
Installation artist Aki Sasamoto sets up an air circulation system creating a wind/weather climate inside the Danspace/St. Mark's sanctuary. She will then give a performance/lecture while her movement-artist accomplices modify elements of the installation. Phase transition, a chemical concept, emerges as a "playful metaphor" for life transitions, aging, and motherhood — three topics I don't find playful at all.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Haven't been to the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant in a while, have we?
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Thursday, January 16, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, January 16, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Sabine Weyer
MUSIC
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
From this List's perspective, the draw of pianist Weyer's recital is a chance to decide whether contemporary French composer Nicolas Bacri is a fresh extender/reviver of the Neoclassical tradition or an uninspired pasticheur who doesn't even provide the melodic pleasures he promises. We can also decide whether Miaskovsky's piano sonatas are second-string Prokofiev or fifth-string. Scriabin's merits are less controversial (at least to this listener).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sending you to LA-style Mexican Oxomoco cuz it's very popular. Not cuz I think it's so very good. Cuz I don't.
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Thursday, January 16, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: New Milestones: Electronic Chamber Music in a New Form
MUSIC
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2020
7:30 PM
Stanley H. Kaplan Playhouse, Juilliard School
165 East 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35
https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/nyc/events/upcoming/new-milestones-january-16-2020/
This looks like a very good recital. So perhaps it's churlish of me to use it as an occasion to fulminate about the programming practices of mainstream classical musical institutions. I used to hate it that such institutions would create New Music ghettos like this recital, blocking off programing of such music into separate series rather than mixing it up on their main programs. But I'm no longer so sure. The main alternative — and even such famously a progressive institution as the LA Phil does this (you have to navigate back from the links to the main calendar page to see it) — seems to be to bury New Music on mixed programs, so you get a world premiere of a major new work, yet the concert is listed on the institution's schedule as something like "Bronfman Plays Beethoven". Unless you otherwise knew the new piece was being played, you couldn't easily find out about it (BLATANT PLUG: that's why you need this List!). After all, the mainstream classical music institutions don't want to scare away their subscribers! Then, if you actually find out about the concert and rouse yourself to schlep uptown for it, you have to endure hearing everyone sitting around you deride the new piece, since after all they're all there to hear a World Famous Soloist play a Pre-Certified Masterpiece that their brain-dead selves can pretend is sonic wallpaper rather than the challenging, engaging music that much of the standard rep actually is. The conventional wisdom has been that putting new music next to old music invigorates the old music — but is that what's really happening, when the mainstream classical music institution's primary audience doesn't want to listen hard to either, but only to take a Bourdieuan milk bath in Pre-Certified empty "beauty"? It makes me think that the mainstream classical music institutions would do better to stick to the warhorses, so I can go when I'm in the mood for that kind of thing — and on the more usual nights when I want to engage with something current, something that actually speaks to my own concerns and esthetic disposition, I can go to some warehouse in Brooklyn where the audience is attuned to, and eager to engage with, the music (and, when the concert is over, I'm in a neighborhood I actually want to hang in, rather than one I can't wait to get out of). So, tonight, on this admirable program of electro-acoustic music, the "New Form" promised in the title is a (truly great) piece by Stockhausen from the late 1950s. Can you imagine if someone referred to pop music from that time, however good, as "New"?! Also on the program, to be sure, is a genuinely newish piece by Thomas Meadowcroft — and Kaija Saariaho's gorgeous (mid-'90s) Trois Rivières: a piece that would convince the Chamber Music Society's mainstream audience that they don't have to be afraid of New Music, if only they would listen to it. So I guess I'm back on the fence about mixed programming.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I continue to think Lincoln Ristorante under its second chef, Shea Gallante (who can do much better), is anodyne and rote (kind of the culinary equivalent of mainstream classical music programing). But I also think it's right across the street from the venue.
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Thursday, January 16, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Fire Over Heaven: Luisa Muhr / Wendy Eisenberg Duo // Darius VanSluytman
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2020
7:30 PM
Outpost Artists Resources
1665 Norman Street, Ridgewood, Queens
$10-$15https://withfriends.co/event/3563119/foh_luisa_muhr_wendy_eisenberg_duo_and_darius_vansluytman
Fire Over Heaven (curated by 75 Dollar Bill's Che Chen) is proving itself to be a really great series for lovers of sonic exploration — and tonight's is one of their most compelling bills yet. Multimedia–performance artist/dancer Luisa Muhr teams with out-there guitarist Wendy Eisenberg to take the audience on multisensory voyages. Darius VanSluytman started out in alt rap/Afropunk, but now does electronics that are somewhat more contemplative (if no less visceral).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: When gypsy brewer Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø decided to settle down his Evil Twin Brewing in Ridgewood — with a taproom! — it was a pretty huge deal for local beer-lovers.
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 3:30 PM
Michael Chan, Mark Deans, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, & Sonia Teuben: The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 13 & 16 – 19, 2020
4:30 PM MONDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY
6:00 PM FRIDAY
1:00 & 5:00 PM SATURDAY
1:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/the-shadow-whose-prey-the-hunter-becomes/
A show cast as a public meeting at which such issues as mass food production, human rights, and the social impact of automation are discussed. It's meant to be a reminder of what our country would be like if it were a democracy rather than a proto (by now maybe it's crypto)-fascist state.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Given the range of times this is offered, I've got to repeat my Atla recommendation: you need something all-day.
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:30 PM
Dmitri Barcomi: Others
THEATER
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 16 – 18, 2020
7:30 PM
Exponential Festival
Loading Dock
170 Tillary Street, Bridge Plaza, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/others
A multi-disciplinary theatrical adaptation of a Weimar silent movie that was the first gay-rights film ever released, featuring vignettes of gay life in Weimar-era Berlin along with its story of blackmail.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pollo D'Oro is a small Peruvian spot that nobody seems to have heard of. You'll wonder why.
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 6:30 PM
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:00 PM – Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 9:00 PM
Ann Marie Dorr & Paul Ketchum: Good and Noble Beings
THEATER
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, JANUARY 16 & 17, 2020
7:00 & 8:00 PM THURSDAY
12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00 & 8:00 PM FRIDAY
Exponential Festival
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/goodandnoblebeings
Ann Marie Dorr and Paul Ketchum (who's written a manifesto that exactly states this List's beliefs about theater*) started out trying to do a theatrical adaptation of Deleuze and Guatarri's A Thousand Plateaus, a postmodern, post-structuralist disquisition on captialism and schizophrenia. But they ended up encapsulating their personal lives instead. Or is there a difference? Each day's performance is continuous; you can stay as long after your ticketed entry time as you want. Thursday's performance is followed by a party; Friday's by a kareoke party.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The thick-crusted Roman pinsa pizzas at Montesacro are phenomenal, just unbelievably good.
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Thursday, January 16, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 4:00 PM
Komuna//Warszawa: Cezary Goes to War
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 – 19, 2020
7:00 PM THURSDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/cezary/
An absurdist musically-driven queer fantasia on toxic masculinity, militarism, and nationalism.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It may not be saying much, but Malai Marke is probably the best spot on the 6th Street Indian Strip.
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Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 6:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 7:00 PM
Talya Chalef, Christopher Ross-Ewart, Jess Kaufman, David Blackman, Johanna Kasimow: Assembly
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 – 19, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 2)
6:00 PM – 7:15 PM (at 15-minute intervals) THURSDAY
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM (at 15-minute intervals) FRIDAY - SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Super Secret Location, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A big-box store becomes a site for worlds, fantasies, and meditations as the members of the audience are given an app to download and set loose to wander, creating their own guided adventures that somehow cumulatively have to do with the experience of turning 40. You get the location and assembly point after you buy a ticket.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I don't know where this is! (I have my suspicions.)
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
Deniz Khateri: The Cello's Diary
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 15 – 18, 2020
8:00 PM
Exponential Festival
Patch Works
98 Moore Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/thecellosdialogue
Deniz Khateri enacts multimedia exploration of the plight of a woman who immigrates to America from the Middle East (the entire creative team is Iranian-American) who unexpectedly finds herself pregnant. Puppets, animations, projections, creative use of space — and music by a good electroacoustic composer, Bahar Royaee.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The highly appealing Apollonia for Mediterranean fare.
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
David Neumann & Marcella Murray: Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed
PERFORMANCE / THEATER / DANCE
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 15 – 18, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 25)
8:00 PM
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$21
https://www.abronsartscenter.org/program/distances-smaller-than-this/
Two people on the stage of a talk show talk about race, astronomy, and time.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There's a reason Basque taverna Ernesto's is the hottest new restaurant in New York: it's great (and great fun).
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
Richard Maxwell: Queens Row
THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 15 – 18, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 25)
8:00 PM
New York City Players
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$25
https://thekitchen.org/event/richard-maxwell-queens-row
Richard Maxwell's deadpan, militantly anti-technique theater is just the kind of the thing I like in film and music. So I've had a hard time discerning why I dislike it so much on stage. But that shouldn't stop you from giving it a try. This piece is set in a dystopian near-future America (the only kind of near-future America most of us can imagine).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: People are absolutely loving the fresh Palestinian food at Qanoon.
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
MUSIC / DANCE / THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 15 – 19, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like Varispeed for $20 or Daydream Tutuorial for $25? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 4:00 PM
David Commander / Rob Ramirez: Fear in the Western World
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 15 – 19, 2020
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Target Margin's The Doxee Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
$20-$25
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/fearinthewesternworld
Sometimes a broad description in a show's promotional materials is all you need to make you feel like you're dying to see it: "a digital puppetry performance that examines gun control and fear in contemporary America, while blending horror movie tropes like Amityville Horror with Greek mythology". I'm THERE!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If, as I do, you consider Cantonese food one of the supreme achievements of human culture, then you'll love King's Kitchen as I do.
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:30 PM
-
Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 8:30 PM
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 7:30 PM – Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:30 PM
Danielle Birritella & Zoe Aja Moore: Magdalene
OPERA
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY, JANUARY 13 & 15 – 17, 2020
7:30 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
6:30 PM THURSDAY
PROTOYPE Festival
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$30-$75
http://prototypefestival.org/shows/magdalene/
This piece sets poems by Marie Howe that take the audience into the interior world or Mary Magdalene. But what makes it perhaps the most exciting entry in this year's PROTOTYPE New Opera festival is that the score is by a galaxy of really good young (female) composers, people whose work you just want to hear. Just to cherrypick from a totally distinguished list: Ellen Reid, Kamala Sankaram, Emma O'Halloran, Molly Joyce, Gabrielle Herbst, Bergrun Snæbjörnsdóttir. Irresistible.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Café Altro Paradiso around either show.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Rosa Feola & Iain Burnside
MUSIC
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13 & 15, 2020
7:30 PM
Board of Officers Room, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$75
http://armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/recital_series_rosa_feola
Rosa Feola has all the Opera Queens going apeshit over her lyric soprano, so that's one reason to attend this appealing recital. The other, though, is repertoire: it consists entirely of non-operatic Italian vocal music, a very rewarding body of work that gets too infrequent airings. The focus is on the Generazione dell'Ottana that brought Early Modernism to Italy (albeit in a very concervative and melodic way). But I'm plugging this recital for some pieces by their mentor, Martucci, who's sort of a lesser-known Fauré (how's that for obscurity?). Also, Rossini's La Regata Veneziana is a hoot.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Donahue's again. Sorry. (Did you know they're about to open up a branch on the West Side?)
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 7:30 PM – Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:30 PM
Garrett Fischer: Blood Moon
OPERA
WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY, JANUARY 15 – 17, 2020
7:30 PM
PROTOTYPE Festival
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$30-$75
http://prototypefestival.org/shows/blood-moon/
Composer Garrett Fischer continues his series of operas based on Noh plays, which have heretofore included much truly attractive and dramatically effective music. This one has the benefit of a libretto by Ellen McLaughlin and direction by Rachel Dickstein — two names that should by themselves raise the interest of habitual New York theatergoers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am pleased to introduce you to Veronika, mega-restaurateur Steven Starr's new grand cafe in the Fotografiska Museum. It supposedly apes grand cafes in Northern France, Austria, and Central Europe — a combination that I, for one, find irresistible. As chef, Starr has brought in Robert Aikens, an Englishman who some New Yorkers fondly recall for his work as the opening chef at The Peacock — a restaurant that was good only as long as Aikens was running the kitchen. Let's hope he stays put here for a good long time.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Shayok Misha Chowdury & Kameron Neal: MuhkAgni
THEATER
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2019
7:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/mukhagni/
A live/video show that is both an intimate account of a relationship and a consideration of what happens to bodies after death.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before or after, Sakagura's scruffy younger brother Decibel for sake and snacks.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
SORA Quartet
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2020
7:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
Bartók's string quartets are some of the best things in Western music (and the closest classical music comes to sounding like late-'60s Stones). No. 1, being played tonight, might be the best of them — but being not the best of a very great lot is still really something. Anyway, it's not like you get to hear any of these amazing pieces every night. Philip Glass's string quartets are near the top of Glass's enormous ouvre (and accessible to people who normally don't enjoy Glass) (if there are any of them left); No. 5, played tonight, is one of the best of them (and also one of Glass's least typical pieces). The local SORA Quartet is new to me; let's see how they do in this remarkable music.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nice cocktails, nice food at Esme.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Aleshea Harris: What to Send Down When It Goes Up
THEATER
WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 15 & 17 – 19, 2020
3:00 & 7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
6:30 PM FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:30 PM SATURDAY
2:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/what-to-send-up-when-it-goes-down/
A colorful ritualized examination of racialized anti-black violence — and its failure to quell black culture. Sold out; look for cancellations and wait lists.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Jones, all-day comfortish food.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral: ANDARES
THEATER
MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 15 & 17 – 19
8:30 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY
10:00 PM FRIDAY
9:00 PM SATURDAY
5:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/andares/
Indigenous Mexican music and myth inform this narrative theater piece opposing the efforts to wipe indigenous Mexican culture out. Could be great, if it isn't too earnest.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Throwback central Knickerbocker Bar & Grill will be open both before and after each of these shows.
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Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 1:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 9:00 PM
Laurie Anderson & Hsin-Chien Huang: To the Moon
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 13 & 15 – 19, 2020
FROM 2:00 PM MONDAY
FROM 1:00 PM WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
FROM 3:00 PM THURSDAY
FROM 12:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$15
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/to-the-moon/
Laurie Anderson and media artist Hsin-Chien Huang provide a 15-minute "experience" at various times throughout the day in which the audience is made to feel that it rockets to the moon and hangs out there, with strange things happening. You know you need to do this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Whenever you go, all-day Mexican café Atla will complement your experience.
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Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 8:00 PM – Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 9:00 PM
Ricky Ian Gordon: Ellen West
OPERA
TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 14 – 15 & 17 – 19, 2020
8:00 PM TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
PROTOTYPE Festival
Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center
29 Jay Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
TUESDAY BENEFIT: $65-$150; WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY $35-$75
http://prototypefestival.org/shows/ellen-west/
An "operatic poem" inspired by one of the earliest cases of existential analysis, showing a woman at war with her body. I've always found composer Ricky Ian Gordon's music to be too much like Broadway without the tunes — but mine seems to be a minority view. The two-person cast – Jennifer Zetlan and Nathan Gunn — is pretty starry by this at least formerly alternative festival's standards.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Attractive Mediterranean food in attractive surroundings at Celestine.
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Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Suguru Yamamoto: The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood
THEATER
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020
7:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Japan Society
333 East 47th Street, Turtle Bay, Manhattan
$35
https://www.japansociety.org/event/the-unknown-dancer-in-the-neighborhood?utm_source=thepublictheater&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=perfarts
How do you describe the work of Suguru Yamamoto? Like Scott Pilgrim (the comics, not the movie), only 15 years younger, abstract, serious not jokey, and in Japan? OK, so it's NOT AT ALL like Scott Pilgrim. Anyway, I love this stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am incapable of sending you anywhere other than Sakagura,* the no-holds-barred izakaya hidden off a Midtown office lobby.
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Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Panoply Performance Lab: Protagony
THEATER
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020 (also on JANUARY 21)
7:30 PM
Exponential Festival
Vital Joint
109 Meserole Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/protagony
High school debate format meets "Theatrum Mundi" meets king drag meets you the audience member. Who's the protagonist?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Speaking just for myself, I could not be more excited about the credentialed new Venezuelan at Casa Ora.
-
Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:30 PM
Simon Stone aft. Euripides: Medea
THEATER
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 14 – 18, 2020
7:30 PM
BAM Strong Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$35-$185
https://www.bam.org/medea
Simon Stone made a big impression here with Yerma at the Armory last year. Having hit it with Lorca, now he goes back to one of the most intense Greek tragedies, Eurpides's Medea. I guess Stone is attracted to depictions of fraught mother/children relationships — although in this case, unlike in Yerma, for most of the play the children actually exist. If you're the kind of person who needs stars to motivate him or herself to go to the theater, this one has Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale (partners IRL — but we're not gonna think about that).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sure Jason and Medea liked to sit down for beers and sausage before things went south: Black Forest Brooklyn.
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Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 8:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 14 – 19, 2020
7:00 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race (not to mention our old friends sex and gender — but in relation to race) in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
-
Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Suguru Yamamoto: The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood
THEATER
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020
7:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Japan Society
333 East 47th Street, Turtle Bay, Manhattan
$35
https://www.japansociety.org/event/the-unknown-dancer-in-the-neighborhood?utm_source=thepublictheater&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=perfarts
How do you describe the work of Suguru Yamamoto? Like Scott Pilgrim (the comics, not the movie), only 15 years younger, abstract, serious not jokey, and in Japan? OK, so it's NOT AT ALL like Scott Pilgrim. Anyway, I love this stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am incapable of sending you anywhere other than Sakagura,* the no-holds-barred izakaya hidden off a Midtown office lobby.
-
Monday, January 13, 2020, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral: ANDARES
THEATER
MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 15 & 17 – 19
8:30 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY
10:00 PM FRIDAY
9:00 PM SATURDAY
5:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/andares/
Indigenous Mexican music and myth inform this narrative theater piece opposing the efforts to wipe indigenous Mexican culture out. Could be great, if it isn't too earnest.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Throwback central Knickerbocker Bar & Grill will be open both before and after each of these shows.
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Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:00 PM
Bernstein: West Side Story
THEATER
MONDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 13 – 18, 2020 (indefinite run currently scheduled through SEPTEMBER 6, 2020)
8:00 PM MONDAY- SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Broadway Theater
1681 Broadway, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$229
https://westsidestorybway.com/
When the world's leading avant-garde theater director, Ivo van Hove, teams up with the world's leading avant-garde choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, for a Broadway production of West Side Story, there are only two possible (and mutually consistent) responses: what the fuck?????????????, and "I need to see this!"
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Russian Samovar: more fun that a barrel full of matryoskas.
-
Monday, January 13, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Monday, January 13, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Artemis / Eubank Evans Experience / Allison Miller Boom Tic Boom
MUSIC
MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2020
7:30 PM
Winter Jazzfest
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$25 advance; $35 door
https://www.winterjazzfest.com/artemis
A great triple bill. Artemis is a supergroup led by pianist Renee Rosnes and including Ingrid Jensen on trumpet, Anat Cohen on clarinet, Melissa Aldana on sax, Norico Ueda on bass, and Alison Miller on drums (just to make you feel bad, sometimes it features Cécile McLorin Salvant on vocals — but not tonight). Miller also plays with her band Boom Tic Boom, as interesting an esemble as there is in current jazz. And then: is an all-Philly duo of guitarist Kevin Eubanks and pianist Orrin Evans good enough for you?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nice Southwestern food at The Banty Rooster.
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Monday, January 13, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Danielle Birritella & Zoe Aja Moore: Magdalene
OPERA
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY, JANUARY 13 & 15 – 17, 2020
7:30 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
6:30 PM THURSDAY
PROTOYPE Festival
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$30-$75
http://prototypefestival.org/shows/magdalene/
This piece sets poems by Marie Howe that take the audience into the interior world or Mary Magdalene. But what makes it perhaps the most exciting entry in this year's PROTOTYPE New Opera festival is that the score is by a galaxy of really good young (female) composers, people whose work you just want to hear. Just to cherrypick from a totally distinguished list: Ellen Reid, Kamala Sankaram, Emma O'Halloran, Molly Joyce, Gabrielle Herbst, Bergrun Snæbjörnsdóttir. Irresistible.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Café Altro Paradiso around either show.
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Monday, January 13, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Rosa Feola & Iain Burnside
MUSIC
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13 & 15, 2020
7:30 PM
Board of Officers Room, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$75
http://armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/recital_series_rosa_feola
Rosa Feola has all the Opera Queens going apeshit over her lyric soprano, so that's one reason to attend this appealing recital. The other, though, is repertoire: it consists entirely of non-operatic Italian vocal music, a very rewarding body of work that gets too infrequent airings. The focus is on the Generazione dell'Ottana that brought Early Modernism to Italy (albeit in a very concervative and melodic way). But I'm plugging this recital for some pieces by their mentor, Martucci, who's sort of a lesser-known Fauré (how's that for obscurity?). Also, Rossini's La Regata Veneziana is a hoot.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Donahue's again. Sorry. (Did you know they're about to open up a branch on the West Side?)
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Monday, January 13, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Monday, January 13, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Monday, January 13, 2020, 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Michael Chan, Mark Deans, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, & Sonia Teuben: The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 13 & 16 – 19, 2020
4:30 PM MONDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY
6:00 PM FRIDAY
1:00 & 5:00 PM SATURDAY
1:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/the-shadow-whose-prey-the-hunter-becomes/
A show cast as a public meeting at which such issues as mass food production, human rights, and the social impact of automation are discussed. It's meant to be a reminder of what our country would be like if it were a democracy rather than a proto (by now maybe it's crypto)-fascist state.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Given the range of times this is offered, I've got to repeat my Atla recommendation: you need something all-day.
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Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 4:30 PM – Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:30 PM
Sinking Ship Productions: A Hunger Artist
THEATER
MONDAY – SATURDAY, JANUARY 13 – 18, 2020
4:30 PM MONDAY
12:00 PM TUESDAY
8:30 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$35-$50; $25 students/seniors/artists
https://www.sinkingshipproductions.com/a-hunger-artist/
This one-man, several-puppets dramatization of Kafka's great short story about artistic futility (or maybe just futility, period) (also I hope all the Keto and voluntarily gluten-free people are watching to see that eventually no one will care about their dietary meshugas) has been applauded around the world (by which I guess I mean the U.S., Edinburgh, and Norway). Now we get another chance to applaud it, too.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Katz's will be open both before and after all of these disparately scheduled shows. (Although just try sitting still and staying awake for even a short performance after one of those sandwiches!)
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Monday, January 13, 2020, 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
-
Monday, January 13, 2020, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
-
Monday, January 13, 2020, 2:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Laurie Anderson & Hsin-Chien Huang: To the Moon
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JANUARY 13 & 15 – 19, 2020
FROM 2:00 PM MONDAY
FROM 1:00 PM WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
FROM 3:00 PM THURSDAY
FROM 12:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$15
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/to-the-moon/
Laurie Anderson and media artist Hsin-Chien Huang provide a 15-minute "experience" at various times throughout the day in which the audience is made to feel that it rockets to the moon and hangs out there, with strange things happening. You know you need to do this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Whenever you go, all-day Mexican café Atla will complement your experience.
-
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Shayok Misha Chowdury & Kameron Neal: MuhkAgni
THEATER
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2019 (also on JANUARY 15)
9:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/mukhagni/
A live/video show that is both an intimate account of a relationship and a consideration of what happens to bodies after death.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before or after, Sakagura's scruffy younger brother Decibel for sake and snacks.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Sean Dorsey: BOYS IN TROUBLE
DANCE
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 14)
8:30 PM
Live Artery
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$15; $12 students/seniorshttps://newyorklivearts.org/event/boys-in-trouble-live-artery/
Transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey deals with all the issues that being transgender (and white) entails.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wine and snacks at the Chelsea Bar Veloce.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Sarah Hennies & Mara Baldwin: Come 'Round Right
OPERA
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020
7:00 PM
FERUS Festival
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/sarah-hennies-mara-baldwin
An "opera with no characters", because it's about a deserted Shaker community whose inhabitants have all died or left (the utopian socialist Shakers demanded celibacy — and now there are only two of them left in the world). The Shakers have left us beautiful artifacts, though — proto-Minimalist furniture and hymns — and one assumes this piece will feature them properly. Composer Sarah Hennies writes unpredictable-but-followable Minimalistish percussion-based music (as you'd expect from someone who's also a rock band drummer). Visual artist Mara Baldwin provides the visuals.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Small hike over to Ops offshoot Leo for more great pizza: slices this time — and other solid foods (lasagna!) as well.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Kris Davis's Diatom Ribbons feat. Terri Lynne Carrington & Val Jeanty / Tony Malaby & Trevor Dunn feat. Harish Raghaven
MUSIC
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020
7:00 PM
Winter JazzFest
The Sultan Room at the Turk's Inn
234 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$20 advance; $25 day of showhttps://www.winterjazzfest.com/kris-davis-terri-lyne-carrington-val-jeanty-trevor-dunn
Kris Davis, one of the most interesting minds in jazz (with a mean pianistic technique) has formed an intriguing trio with drummer Teri Lynne Carrington and electronics expert Val Jeanty. Their album is excellent. Also on the bill is what appears to be two basses playing behind saxophonist Tony Malaby.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, you're in Turk's Inn. So you might as well enjoy the truly fabulous dining room and pretend the Middle-Eastern food (and let's be honest, the beverage program) are better than they are.
-
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Rebecca Richardson: Will Sing for WIne . . . Live!
MUSIC
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020
5:30 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$20 advance; $25 day of showhttps://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4453158
A vocal recital — with wine pairings!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: What isn't delightful about Vietnamese charmer Di An Di: NOTHING.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Aleshea Harris: What to Send Down When It Goes Up
THEATER
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 & 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
9:00 PM FRIDAY
5:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/what-to-send-up-when-it-goes-down/
A colorful ritualized examination of racialized anti-black violence — and its failure to quell black culture. Sold out; look for cancellations and wait lists.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Jones, all day comfortish food.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
niCHi douglas: where love lies fallow
THEATER
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020 (also on JANUARY 18)
5:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/where-love-lies-fallow/
Four black woman drink wine and talk about love and personal histories. Then, as West African spiritualities are invoked, things turn into a dance party.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After this show, you should definitely go to Bessou, for homey, lovely, just wonderful Japanese home-style cooking.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Longleash: Beethoven Reflections
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 & 12, 2020
7:30 PM FRIDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
5 Borough Music Festival
FRIDAY: Flushing Town Hall
137-35 Northern Boulevard, Flushing, Queens
SUNDAY: Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church
921 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
FRIDAY: $25; $15 seniors; $10 students
SUNDAY: $25; $20 students/seniors
http://5bmf.org/longleash/
The questing piano trio Longleash plays two Beethoven piano trios and responses to each of them by, respectively, Downtown wildman John Zorn and Exemplary Modernist Reiko Füting (the latter a world premiere). The Sunday show has Ches Smith sitting in on percussion, which would make it the clear choice — if the food near the Friday show weren't so infinitely better.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: FRIDAY, the marvels of Flushing dining are boundless, so my singling out of the great Sichuan at DaXi (on the second floor — NOT in the food court — of the New World Mall) is almost random. SUNDAY, the drudgery of Upper East Side dining is bottomless — but Flora Bar in The Museum f/k/a The Whitney, run by the folks who run Estela downtown, is a welcome exception.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Simon Stone aft. Euripides: Medea
THEATER
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020
3:00 PM
BAM Strong Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$35-$185
https://www.bam.org/medea
Simon Stone made a big impression here with Yerma at the Armory last year. Having hit it with Lorca, now he goes back to one of the most intense Greek tragedies, Eurpides's Medea. I guess Stone is attracted to depictions of fraught mother/children relationships — although in this case, unlike in Yerma, for most of the play the children actually exist. If you're the kind of person who needs stars to motivate him or herself to go to the theater, this one has Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale (partners IRL — but we're not gonna think about that).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sure Jason and Medea liked to sit down for beers and sausage before things went south: Black Forest Brooklyn.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
-
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko: Chameleon
PERFORMANCE
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020
11:00 AM
Live Artery
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10; $8 students/seniorshttps://newyorklivearts.org/event/chameleon-live-artery-installments/
A Nigerian-American performance artist's multimedia exploration of "the fugitive realities and shapeshifting demands of surviving at the intersection of Blackness, feminism, and queerness in contemporary America". Perfect for a Sunday morning! Sold out; call the box office to be put on a waitlist.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I don't know about you, but the only time I see 11 AM on a Sunday is when I've been making a night of it. After this show, though, you can stop in for a bite at Shorty Tang Noodles — successor to the place that claims to have introduced Cold Sesame Noodles to the United States.
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Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 11:59 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 12:59 AM
Rizo: Losing the Lady
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 9 & 11, 2020
7:00 PM THURSDAY
12:00 AM SATURDAY (really SUNDAY)
Under the Radar Festival
Joe's Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/rizo/
A cabaret show that's not only gender-fluid, but identity-fluid.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Drink your minimum at Joe's Pub. Then (or before, if you must), go to Kenka for Japanese snacks.
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Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:00 PM
LIT: anti-APAP 2020
DANCE
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 & 12, 2020
9:00 PM
100 Grand Dance
100 Grand Street, Soho, Manhattan
$15
https://lit100g.bpt.me/
A buncha Downtown dance regulars give the finger to the producers' convention. Party to follow.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can eat or drink before OR after (no matter how late this show goes: the place is open 24 hours) at Soho Diner in the Soho Grand Hotel.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
-
Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 1:00 PM
Molly Lieber & Eleanor Smith: Body Comes Apart
DANCE
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 & 12, 2020
9:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 PM SUNDAY
Live Artery
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$15; $12 students/seniorshttps://newyorklivearts.org/event/body-comes-apart-live-artery/
Abstract response to trauma, female identity, and (on a brighter note) love and commitment.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pleasant reliable French bistro at Le Singe.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Lucy Dhegrae: A Barely Arching Bridge
MUSIC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2020
8:00 PM
The Processing Series
FERUS Festival
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25https://nationalsawdust.org/event/lucy-dhegrae-2
This series by mezzo Lucy Dhegrae, a key person on the New York music scene if there is one, deals with processing trauma. Which is all very well, but the big news tonight is a brand new piece by Eve Beglarian, a pop-savvy alt-classical composer who could be a poster girl for the kind of music this List champions. Additional pieces by such personal faves of Your Compiler as Poulenc, Machaut, and Aperghis don't hurt.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In keeping with its location in a (nice modern spa-like) bathhouse, Bathhouse restaurant purports to serve Northern and Eastern European cuisine — but healthy versions. Good luck with that, guys!
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Decoder / Catherine McCrae / Cushions
MUSIC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2020
8:00 PM
The Collapsible Hole
155 Bank Street, West Village, Manhattan
$10https://mailchi.mp/9eab84b50de0/restless-nycmallory-catlett-fall-2019-news-3082701?e=7b15519c4e
Decoder takes a night off from being an insane surrealist music/theater company to be an insane surrealist music band. Joining them on the bill is Cushions, an art-ska band drummed by none other than Kristen Worrall, pastry chef and star of the ab fab Nature Theater of Oklahoma theater piece Life and Times. I frankly don't know who Catherine McCrae is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: As I said the last time I recommended something at The Collapsible Hole, one of the Big Secrets of NYC dining is that West Village Austrian Walsé is still very good. If you're feeling less hungry, less spendy, and more casual, you can go to their wine bar next store (although I caution it isn't nearly as good). Also, don't forget to walk by The Spotted Pig and spit on it.
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Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 5:30 PM
Danielle Birritella & Zoe Aja Moore: Magdalene
OPERA
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 & 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 17)
7:30 PM SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
PROTOYPE Festival
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Domiinick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$30-$75http://prototypefestival.org/shows/magdalene/
This piece sets poems by Marie Howe that take the audience into the interior world or Mary Magdalene. But what makes it perhaps the most exciting entry in this year's PROTOTYPE New Opera festival is that the score is by a galaxy of really good young (female) composers, people whose work you just want to hear. Just to cherrypick from a totally distinguished list: Ellen Reid, Kamala Sankaram, Emma O'Halloran, Molly Joyce, Gabrielle Herbst, Bergrun Snæbjörnsdóttir. Irresistible.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Café Altro Paradiso around either show.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 7:30 PM – 10:30 PM
Jen Shyu: Zero Grasses
MUSIC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2020
7:30 & 9:30 PM
The Jazz Gallery
1160 Broadway, NoMad, Manhattan
$30-$40http://jazzgallery.nyc/shows/
Jen Shyu — mistress of various Asian string instruments (and also a mean pianist) (she sings and, of course, composes, too) — creates these pieces that are more theatrical presentations than recitals. And they really draw you in. This one deals with, on the heels of her 40th birthday, the death of her father and her patronage of a fertility clinic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good thin-crusted pizza and other stuff at Danny Meyer's Marta.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Abby Z and the New Utility: Radioactive Practice
DANCE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2019
7:30 PM
Live Artery
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10; $8 students/seniors
https://newyorklivearts.org/event/radioactive-practice-live-artery/
Abby Zbikowski abstracts various vernacular dance styles to come up with something quite new and compelling — and physically kind of amazing. For this piece she brings on Senegalese dance artist Momar Ndiaye as dramaturge.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I haven't been to Irish pub Peter McManus Cafe since the mid-'80s. I don't expect it's changed much.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
James "Blood" Ulmer / Harriet Tubman
MUSIC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2020
7:00 PM
Winter JazzFest
The Sultan Room at the Turk's Inn
234 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$25 advance; $30 day of showhttps://www.winterjazzfest.com/james-blood-ulmer-harriet-tubman
Fans of blues-inflected psychedelic free-jazz guitar know where they have to be tonight. James "Blood" Ulmer virtually invented the style (and the the extent he didn't, he solidified it). The band Harriet Tubman — featuring guitarist Brandon Ross — is carrying it forward (and boy is their most recent album great!).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, you're in Turk's Inn. So you might as well enjoy the truly fabulous dining room and pretend the Middle-Eastern food (and let's be honest, the beverage program) are better than they are.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Exponential Variety #3
PERFORMANCE / DANCE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2020
7:00 PM
Exponential Festival
Para\\el Performance Space
104 Meserole Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$5-$10 suggested donation
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/exponentialvariety3
A night of wildly mixed performance pieces, with the occasional dance piece. I went to an Exponential Variety show last year, and it was a blast.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Join the line at New York's hottest Taiwanese spot, Win Son. Who knows, you might even get in.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
-
Saturday, January 11, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
-
Saturday, January 11, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Piehole: Disclaimer
THEATER
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2019 (also on JANUARY 17)
5:00 PM
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/disclaimer/
If, as its materials promise, this company, with this piece, invites viewers to "fix our relationship with Iran while surrendering to an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery", its job just got a lot harder. Sold out; look for cancellations and a wait list.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After the show, how about some nice (with a bite) Thai seafood at Fish Cheeks?
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Kathy Westwater: Rambler, Worlds Worlds a Part
DANCE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2020
2:00 PM
Live Artery
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10; $8 students/seniorshttps://newyorklivearts.org/event/rambler-worlds-worlds-a-part-live-artery/
Kathy Westwater brings back her wrenching exploration of pain and bliss — set to the even more wrenching music of the great emo-Minimalist Julius Eastman.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, a lunch (let's not use the "Br" word). I've never stopped into the Lamano tapas bar — but every time I walk past, I think how nice it looks.
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Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 3:00 PM
Garrett Fischer: Blood Moon
OPERA
THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 11 & 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 17)
7:30 PM THURSDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
PROTOTYPE Festival
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$30-$75http://prototypefestival.org/shows/blood-moon/
Composer Garrett Fischer continues his series of operas based on Noh plays, which have heretofore included much truly attractive and dramatically effective music. This one has the benefit of a libretto by Ellen McLaughlin and direction by Rachel Dickstein — two names that should by themselves raise the interest of habitual New York theatergoers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am pleased to introduce you to Veronika, mega-restaurateur Steven Starr's new grand cafe in the Fotografiska Museum. It supposedly apes grand cafes in Northern France, Austria, and Central Europe — a combination that I, for one, find irresistible. As chef, Starr has brought in Robert Aikens, an Englishman who some New Yorkers fondly recall for his work as the opening chef at The Peacock — a restaurant that was good only as long as Aikens was running the kitchen.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Berg: Wozzeck
OPERA
TUESDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 8 & 11, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 22)
8:00 PM TUESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$20-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/wozzeck/
Berg's taut, fast-moving, and just plain moving account of class degradation is surely one of the greatest of all operas. (The opera was such a huge hit at its 1925 premiere in Weimar Germany that Berg worried it wasn't avant-garde enough!) The South African multi-media expressionist William Kentridge showed that he was an adept Berg director with Lulu a few years ago. And I, for one, can't wait to hear what Met Music Director Yannnick Nezét-Séguin — who has a way of bringing out things you've never heard before in familiar pieces — does with this gripping score. Playing the downtrodden soldier Wozzeck we have Peter Mattei, who I'm comfortable calling the best mainstream operatic singing/acting baritone now on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that Austro-German angst, the sunny Mediterranean food at Boulud Sud.
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Saturday, January 11, 2020, 11:00 AM – 11:00 PM
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Friday, January 10, 2020, 9:45 PM – 10:45 PM
J Hoard: Late Night
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2020
9:45 PM
Under the Radar Festival
The Library, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
Freehttps://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/under-the-radar-late-night/
Brooklyn Nu-R&B comer J Hoard sings for free patrons haning out at the Public Theater's restaurant-bar, The Library, after Under the Radar shows tonight.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You're listening to free music in a bar. With food. You've GOT to eat and drink there, no matter HOW mediocre the food might be.
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Friday, January 10, 2020, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Aleshea Harris: What to Send Down When It Goes Up
THEATER
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 & 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
9:00 PM FRIDAY
5:30 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/what-to-send-up-when-it-goes-down/
A colorful ritualized examination of racialized anti-black violence — and its failure to quell black culture. Sold out; look for cancellations and wait lists.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Jones, all day comfortish food.
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Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:30 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:00 PM
-
Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM
Jeremy Schonfeld: Iron & Coal
OPERA
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 & 11, 2020
8:00 PM
PROTOTYPE Festival
Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 West 59th Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$35-$75http://prototypefestival.org/shows/iron-and-coal/
Uh-oh: a rock opera! About the relationship between a father and a son in the shadow of the Holocaust (the composer's own father having been a survivor). The participation of the ineffable Rinde Eckert and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus as performers, and the invaluable David Bloom not only as conductor of his crack New Music chamber orchestra Contemporaneus but as Music Director and arranger, are good signs (well, the need for an arranger is a bad sign). But if this is anything like the hit single Jeremy Schonfeld wrote a couple of years ago, we may be in for a long night.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Israeli out of the massive oven at Taboon.
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Friday, January 10, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Charmaine Lee / C. Spenser Yeh
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2020
8:00 PM
Microscope Gallery
1329 Willoughby Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$10; $8 studentshttps://microscopegallery.com/charmaine-lee-c-spencer-yeh/
God forbid I should fail to recommend a local show by Charmaine Lee, whose voice can do anything and whose mind can think of things for her voice to do that you cannot believe. Especially when she's sharing the bill — a solo set each and then joint set — with C. Spenser Yeh, who extends his extended techniques to the violin as well as the voice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Tortilleria Mexicana Los Hermanos' tacos might not be quite as spectacular as its most ardent fans claim — but they're solidly good. Which is saying a lot for tacos in this town.
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Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM
Eliza Bent: Toilet Fire
THEATER
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 & 11, 2020
8:00 PM
Exponential Festival
Vital Joint
109 Meserole Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/tf2020
I just spent several minutes trying to decide whether the best word for Eliza Bent is "wacky" or "daffy", but you get the idea. (I just decided it's "wacky".) If anyone is set to mine the acts of excretion and defecation for all their humorous worth (in a meaningful way, of course), it's her.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hot Tawainese Win Son, credentialed Venezuelan Casa Ora, and Mediterranean Apollonia kind of rule around here. But since they're all otherwise Listed this week, I'll mention that Champs Diner is one of Brooklyn's premier vegan spots, if you're in need of one.
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Friday, January 10, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Friday, January 10, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gray Spaces — Rally
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2020
8:00 PM
SFX Festival
Wild Projects
195 East 3rd Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/10495146
A night of promising-looking performance pieces curated by Lisa Clair, a playwright/performer much liked by this List. Just go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Momofuku Ko Bar is such a spectacularly good place to eat (and drink) that it's almost a relief it isn't more broadly known: this tiny space is hard enough to get into as it is.
-
Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM
-
Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:30 PM
-
Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 8:30 PM
Eleanor Robb & Kirsten Harvey: Venus in Gemini
THEATER
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 -12, 2020
7:30 PM
Exponential Festival
Loading Dock
170 Tillary Street, Bridge Plaza, Brooklyn
$15https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/venusingemini
Two women train for the first government mission to the surface of Venus, gradually learning that the mission is not what it seems. The Loading Dock likes to put on plays about female space travel, doesn't it?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pollo D'Oro is a small Peruvian spot that nobody seems to have heard of. You'll wonder why.
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Friday, January 10, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Longleash: Beethoven Reflections
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 & 12, 2020
7:30 PM FRIDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
5 Borough Music Festival
FRIDAY: Flushing Town Hall
137-35 Northern Boulevard, Flushing, Queens
SUNDAY: Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church
921 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
FRIDAY: $25; $15 seniors; $10 students
SUNDAY: $25; $20 students/seniors
http://5bmf.org/longleash/
The questing piano trio Longleash plays two Beethoven piano trios and responses to each of them by, respectively, Downtown wildman John Zorn and Exemplary Modernist Reiko Füting (the latter a world premiere). The Sunday show has Ches Smith sitting in on percussion, which would make it the clear choice — if the food near the Friday show weren't so infinitely better.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: FRIDAY, the marvels of Flushing dining are boundless, so my singling out of the great Sichuan at DaXi (on the second floor — NOT in the food court — of the New World Mall) is almost random. SUNDAY, the drudgery of Upper East Side dining is bottomless — but Flora Bar in The Museum f/k/a The Whitney, run by the folks who run Estela downtown, is a welcome exception.
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Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 2:00 PM
Suguru Yamamoto: The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood
THEATER
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 - 12, 2020 (also on JANUARY 14)
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
1:00 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Japan Society
333 East 47th Street, Turtle Bay, Manhattan
$35https://www.japansociety.org/event/the-unknown-dancer-in-the-neighborhood?utm_source=thepublictheater&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=perfarts
How do you describe the work of Suguru Yamamoto? Like Scott Pilgrim (the comics, not the movie), only 15 years younger, abstract, serious not jokey, and in Japan? OK, so it's NOT AT ALL like Scott Pilgrim. Anyway, I love this stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Late shows, I am incapable of sending you anywhere other than Sakagura,* the no-holds-barred izakaya hidden off a Midtown office lobby. For the matinée, maybe slipped-but-none-gone Turkish Sip-Sak?
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Friday, January 10, 2020, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Sister Sylvester: The Eagle and the Tortoise
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2020
7:00 & 9:30 PM
FERUS Festival
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25https://nationalsawdust.org/event/sister-sylvester
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/sister-sylvester-2
Sister Sylvester, based in the US and Turkey, makes suggestive theater pieces using multiple media and human and non-human (cyborg and animal) performers. This one treats the story of a Turkish woman who became a leftist ICON through her experience as an armed militant, prisoner of war, and proxy solidier in the American war against ISIS.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Le Crocodile, the brasserie the Chez Ma Tante guys have opened in the Wythe Hotel, is just dandy.
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Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 12:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 11:00 PM
Winter JazzFest Marathon Manhattan
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 & 11, 2020 (continuing in Brooklyn on JANUARY 17)
Various Times
Various Venues in Manhattan
3-Day/2-Borough Pass $145; 2-Day Manhattan Pass $105-$165; 1-Day Manhattan Pass $55https://www.winterjazzfest.com/manhattan-marathon
A truly staggering selection of excellent jazz. Amazing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I have no idea which of the participating venues you'll be at when, so you'll have to make your own fun.
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Thu, Jan 9, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:00 PM
Kate Kremer: Term of Art
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 9 - 12, 2020
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
JACK
18 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$18http://www.jackny.org/term-of-art.html
A Kafkaesque look at immigration and drone policy — quoting actual Supreme Court transcripts.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Italian, extremely charming premises, at Locanda Vini e Olii.
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Thursday, January 9, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
WISE: Women Innovating Sound Experience
MUSIC
THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2020
8:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15https://www.aretevenue.com/events
A night of experimental sound: handmade electronics and instruments, live coding, sound objects, audiovisuals. The performers are Thessia Machado, Melody Loveless, Viola Yip, and Roberta Michel.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's milk the Winter by eating lots of Polish food. Karczma is closer — bit its sibling Krolewskie Jadio is little bit better (but — WARNING — closes earlier, at 10).
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Thursday, January 9, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Rachel Karp & Joseph Amodei: Packing and Cracking
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2020
8:00 PM
SFX Festival
Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/10495145
An exploration of gerrymandering, one of the ways democracy is being/has been killed in America right before our eyes, as our country slides into fascism while we all live our lives without paying attention, just like that large part of my family who were complacent enough to fail to leave Austria in the '20s and '30s and were all eventually murdered by the state . . . oops, sorry, got carried away there. This show involves audience participation: YOU get to gerrymander!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Georgian at Oda House.
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Thursday, January 9, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Garrett Fischer: Blood Moon
OPERA
THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 11 & 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 17)
7:30 PM THURSDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
PROTOTYPE Festival
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$30-$75http://prototypefestival.org/shows/blood-moon/
Composer Garrett Fischer continues his series of operas based on Noh plays, which have heretofore included much truly attractive and dramatically effective music. This one has the benefit of a libretto by Ellen McLaughlin and direction by Rachel Dickstein — two names that should by themselves raise the interest of habitual New York theatergoers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am pleased to introduce you to Veronika, mega-restaurateur Steven Starr's new grand cafe in the Fotografiska Museum. It supposedly apes grand cafes in Northern France, Austria, and Central Europe — a combination that I, for one, find irresistible. As chef, Starr has brought in Robert Aikens, an Englishman who some New Yorkers fondly recall for his work as the opening chef at The Peacock — a restaurant that was good only as long as Aikens was running the kitchen.
-
Thu, Jan 9, 2020, 7:30 PM – Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:30 PM
-
Thursday, January 9, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Thu, Jan 9, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 8:00 PM
Wang Chong & Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental: Nick Payne's Constellations
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 9 - 12, 2020
7:00 PM THURSDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30http://lamama.org/constellations/
Remember what a smash Nick Payne's play Constellations was on Broadway? Well, in this Chinese production you lose Jake Gyllenhaal and spoken English (there are English titles) but gain live video and a hamster. Seems very hard to resist.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It may not be saying much, but Malai Marke is probably the best spot on the 6th Street Indian Strip.
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Thursday, January 9, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Rizo: Losing the Lady
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 9 & 11, 2020
7:00 PM THURSDAY
12:00 AM SATURDAY (really SUNDAY)
Under the Radar Festival
Joe's Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/rizo/
A cabaret show that's not only gender-fluid, but identity-fluid.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Drink your minimum at Joe's Pub. Then (or before, if you must), go to Kenka for Japanese snacks.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 9:30 PM – Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:30 PM
-
Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 8:30 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 1:30 PM
Faye Driscoll: Thank You for Coming: Space
DANCE / THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, JANUARY 8 - 11, 2020
8:30 PM WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
12:00 PM SATURDAY
Live Artery
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$15-$30https://newyorklivearts.org/event/thank-you-for-coming-space-live-artery/
Faye Driscoll reprises the final installment of her Thank You for Coming trilogy, exploring the space between performers and audience. This one takes place in an installation with wires and pullies, so that the dancers hold each other up with their own weight. The whole run appears to be sold out; call the box office to be put on the waitlist.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Socarrat for paella.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 8:30 PM – Thu, Jan 9, 2020, 9:30 PM
Lydia Mokdessi & Jason Bartell: DEVOTION DEVOTION
Xalvador Tin-Bradbury: Bernie Sanders Wants to Take Away My Fire Island Time Share
DANCE / MUSIC / PERFORMANCE / THEATER
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, JANUARY 8 & 9, 2020
8:30 PM
Exponential Festival
Honey's
93 Scott Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$10https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/knacked
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/catalyze
On this double bill, Mokdessi and Bartell combine physical and sonic drones. Tin-Bradbury presents a theatrical fantasia showing how gay men have adapted to late-stage (we can only wish) capitalism by subsuming their queer identity to neoliberalism (I hate to tell him, but it isn't just gay men).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I was skeptical of the mead they specialize in at the venue, Honey's — until I drank it. It's great. Vietnamese funhouse Bunker is next door.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM
Savannah Reich: Caveman Play
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, JANUARY 8 - 11, 2020
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Exponential Festival
Patch Works
98 Moore Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/cavemanplay
The two cavepeople who invented agriculture and the first domesticated animal give a presentation to all us other cavepeople about agriculture's advantages.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Around the Saturday matinée, stop in at Win Son Bakery for red-hot (metaphorically, not physically) Taiwanese pastries and light food. You could also stop in then at Apollonia for Mediterranean light food — or go there before or after the evening shows for more substantial Mediterranean fare.
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Wednesday, January 8, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Paul Pinto: "I Wonder if She Can Tell I'm Hard Right Now . . . Hmm" and Other Classics
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2020
8:00 PM
SMUSH Gallery
340 Summit Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey
$12https://www.smushgallery.com/current-and-upcoming
Crazy-like-a-fox vocalist/performer/composer Paul Pinto, one of the very best and most entertaining performers on the current New York scene, curates a salon of music (and other kinds of sound), dance, performance, and whathaveyou. I can almost guaranty a good time!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OK, I'll admit it: this venue isn't near anything I know in Jersey City. So I'm going to tell you to take a cab to the show from Bread and Salt, a Pittsburgh transplant whose Roman-style pizza (not to mention meatballs) has people singing Hossanah on high.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM
Richard Maxwell: Queens Row
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, JANUARY 8 - 11, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 25)
8:00 PM
New York City Players
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$25
https://thekitchen.org/event/richard-maxwell-queens-row
Richard Maxwell's deadpan, militantly anti-technique theater is just the kind of the thing I like in film and music. So I've had a hard time discerning why I dislike it so much on stage. But that shouldn't stop you from giving it a try. This piece is set in a dystopian near-future America (the only kind of near-future America most of us can imagine).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: People are absolutely loving the fresh Palestinian food at Qanoon.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 4:00 PM
Lisa Fagan: Catches No Flies
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, JANUARY 8 - 11, 2020
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
10:00 PM FRIDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Exponential Festival
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/catchesnoflies
Another of Lisa Fagan's highly conceptual, very funny, highly allusive (somewhat illusive), and pop-culture-savvy dance pieces, this one involving, she says, "bad ventriloquy, a dolphin trainer living her dream, inclement weather, and a sardine escaped from the can." Party after the Friday late show!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pinsa Romana are like individual pizzas, except the crust is airy and, on the outside, brittle rather than thin, dense, and chewy — with varied, non-tomato-sauce-based toppings. You can get them at Montesacra.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:00 PM
David Commander / Rob Ramirez: Fear in the Western World
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 8 - 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Target Margin's The Doxee Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
$20-$25https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/fearinthewesternworld
Sometimes a broad description in a show's promotional materials is all you need to make you feel like you're dying to see it: "a digital puppetry performance that examines gun control and fear in contemporary America, while blending horror movie tropes like Amityville Horror with Greek mythology". I'm THERE!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If, as I do, you consider Cantonese food one of the supreme achievements of human culture, then you'll love King's Kitchen as I do.
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Wednesday, January 8, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Berg: Wozzeck
OPERA
TUESDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 8 & 11, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 22)
8:00 PM TUESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$20-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/wozzeck/
Berg's taut, fast-moving, and just plain moving account of class degradation is surely one of the greatest of all operas. (The opera was such a huge hit at its 1925 premiere in Weimar Germany that Berg worried it wasn't avant-garde enough!) The South African multi-media expressionist William Kentridge showed that he was an adept Berg director with Lulu a few years ago. And I, for one, can't wait to hear what Met Music Director Yannnick Nezét-Séguin — who has a way of bringing out things you've never heard before in familiar pieces — does with this gripping score. Playing the downtrodden soldier Wozzeck we have Peter Mattei, who I'm comfortable calling the best mainstream operatic singing/acting baritone now on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that Austro-German angst, the sunny Mediterranean food at Boulud Sud.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
MUSIC / DANCE / THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 8 - 12, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like Come 'Round Right for $25? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:00 PM
Michael Chan, Mark Deans, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, & Sonia Teuben: The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 8 - 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY
4:30 PM THURSDAY
6:00 PM FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SUNDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/the-shadow-whose-prey-the-hunter-becomes/
A show cast as a public meeting at which such issues as mass food production, human rights, and the social impact of automation are discussed. It's meant to be a reminder of what our country would be like if it were a democracy rather than a proto (by now maybe it's crypto)-fascist state.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Given the range of times this is offered, I've got to repeat my Atla recommendation: you need something all-day.
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Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 3:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 2:00 PM
Laurie Anderson & Hsin-Chien Huang: To the Moon
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 8 - 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
FROM 3:00 PM WEDNESDAY
FROM 12:00 PM THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
FROM 2:00 PM FRIDAY
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$15https://publictheater.org/productions/season/1920/utr/to-the-moon/
Laurie Anderson and media artist Hsin-Chien Huang provide a 15-minute "experience" at various times throughout the day in which the audience is made to feel that it rockets to the moon and hangs out there, with strange things happening. You know you need to do this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Whenever you go, all-day Mexican café Atla will complement your experience.
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Tue, Jan 7, 2020, 7:30 PM – Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 10:30 PM
Darius Jones Quartet: Live Recording
MUSIC
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7 & 8, 2020
7:30 & 9:30 PM
The Jazz Gallery
1160 Broadway, NoMad, Manhattan
$15-$25
http://jazzgallery.nyc/shows/
Alto saxist Darius Jones is one of my favorite horn players. I'm not sure I'd say he's avant-gutbucket so much as inherently soulful; but if you like your jazz to be fresh and inventive but solidly informed by the tradition, he's your man. This quartet — being recorded for a live album — swaps in the outstanding Young Lion Joel Ross on vibes for the usual piano.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Friends swear the Texas barbecue at Hill Country is still really good. Who knows?
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Tuesday, January 7, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Panoply Performance Lab: Protagony
THEATER
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 21)
7:30 PM
Exponential Festival
Vital Joint
109 Meserole Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/protagony
High school debate format meets "Theatrum Mundi" meets king drag meets you the audience member. Who's the protagonist?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Speaking just for myself, I could not be more excited about the credentialed new Venezuelan at Casa Ora.
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Tue, Jan 7, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 5:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 7 - 12, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
7:00 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race (not to mention our old friends sex and gender — but in relation to race) in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Tuesday, January 7, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Metropolis Ensemble: Ciranda
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2020
7:00 PM
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$10-$35https://metropolisensemble.org/all-events/ciranda
A very attractive program of Latin-American contemporary classical music, including two pieces featuring Brooklyn's favorite harpist, Bridget Kibbey, written by the fantastic Brazilian guitarist (who it turns out is also a composer: I can't wait!) Joāo Luis Rezende. Kibbey is also featured in a piece by the terrific Bogata-to-Astoria percussionist Samuel Torres. Also, a new-to–New York concerto for violin and bandoneon by New York's favorite bandoneonist, JP Jofre. And you couldn't have a program like this without a contribution by Brazilian-in-America composer/vocalist Clarice Assad. Throw in some old Choro and Cumbia and you've got a night!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nice Southwestern food at The Banty Rooster.
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Tuesday, January 7, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Stew & Heidi
MUSIC
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2019
7:00 PM
Joe's Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2020/s/stew--heidi/
Just Stew and Heidi, backed by the redoubtable Joe McGinty on keys — no rhythm, no band. The great rock songs should stand out all the more.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: As usual, I'll advise you to drink your minimum at Joe's Pub and eat elsewhere. Why not Il Buco, still charming (and Italian) after all these years?
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Mon, Jan 6, 2020, 8:25 PM – Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 9:25 PM
-
Mon, Jan 6, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:00 PM
Bernstein: West Side Story
THEATER
MONDAY - SATURDAY, JANUARY 6 - 11, 2020 (indefinite run currently scheduled through SEPTEMBER 6, 2020)
8:00 PM MONDAY- SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Broadway Theater
1681 Broadway, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$229https://westsidestorybway.com/
When the world's leading avant-garde theater director, Ivo van Hove, teams up with the world's leading avant-garde choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, for a Broadway production of West Side Story, there are only two possible (and mutually consistent) responses: what the fuck?????????????, and "I need to see this!"
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Russian Samovar: more fun that a barrel full of matryoskas.
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Mon, Jan 6, 2020, 7:30 PM – Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 9:30 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
MONDAY - FRIDAY, JANUARY 6 - 10, 2020
7:30 PM MONDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$55-$195http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from between the two World Wars whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Mon, Jan 6, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 9:00 PM
New Ear Festival
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 6 - 12, 2020
7:00 PM MONDAY & WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY
Fridman Gallery
169 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$20 per night/$30 Wednesday; $15 per night students/$25 Wednesday
https://www.fridmangallery.com/new-ear-festival-2020
A really great festival encompassing a lot of the different kinds of stuff you've read about here ad nauseum, from experimental multi-media to jazz on the sonic frontier. Every night there's an ongoing sound installation in the front by Aki Onda, recreating a legendary participatory radio broadcast soundwork done in Manila on New Years Day 1974. Beyond that, here are few highlight performers: Adelaide Damoah (TUESDAY), William Hooker (SATURDAY), TAK Ensemble (doing a new Brandon Lopez piece) (THURSDAY), Muyassar Kurdi and MV Carbon (SUNDAY), Susie Ibarra and her great Dreamtime Ensemble (FRIDAY), Sophia Petrides (SATURDAY), Speaker Music (SUNDAY), and . . . Black Thought of the Roots (WEDNESDAY)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Flushing skewer sensation Friendship Barbecue has opened a branch on the Bowery!
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Sunday, January 5, 2020, 3:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Lisa Fagan: Catches No Flies
DANCE
SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 11)
3:00 & 8:00 PM
Exponential Festival
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/catchesnoflies
Another of Lisa Fagan's highly conceptual, very funny, highly allusive (somewhat illusive), and pop-culture-savvy dance pieces, this one involving, she says, "bad ventriloquy, a dolphin trainer living her dream, inclement weather, and a sardine escaped from the can."
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pinsa Romana are like individual pizzas, except the crust is airy and, on the outside, brittle rather than thin, dense, and chewy — with varied, non-tomato-sauce-based toppings. You can get them at Montesacra.
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Sat, Jan 4, 2020, 8:30 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 9:30 PM
Sarah Krasnow & James Ilgenfritz: Knacked
Angelica Olstad: Catalyze
PERFORMANCE / THEATER / MUSIC
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JANUARY 4 & 5, 2020
8:30 PM
Exponential Festival
Honey's
93 Scott Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/knacked
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/catalyze
A double bill of music-performance pieces. Performer/dramatist Sarah Krasnow and bassist/composer James Ilgenfritz explore the vicissitudes of being a performer and an adult by means of avant-garde theater, musical comedy, and TV commercials. Pianist/yoga practioner Angelica Olstad seeks calm and wellness by means of stories deconstructed from the classical repertoire. I may be at the bar during that.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I was skeptical of the mead they specialize in at the venue, Honey's — until I drank it. It's great. Vietnamese funhouse Bunker is next door.
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Fri, Jan 3, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 9:00 PM
Kate Kremer: Term of Art
THEATER
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 3 - 5, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 12)
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
JACK
18 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$18
http://www.jackny.org/term-of-art.html
A Kafkaesque look at immigration and drone policy — quoting actual Supreme Court transcripts.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Italian, extremely charming premises, at Locanda Vini e Olii.
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Friday, January 3, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Fri, Jan 3, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 8:00 PM
Cirque Mechanics: 42FT
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 1 & 3 - 5, 2020
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
12:00 & 5:00 PM SUNDAY
The New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$22-$69
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=10030#Order
Why does this Nouvelle Cirque show look so inviting when most of the genre is totally played out? Because these guys don't look like they take it with even a smidgen of seriousness — or slickness, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Los Tacos No. 1 around the block. You won't be sorry.
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Fri, Jan 3, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sat, Jan 4, 2020, 8:00 PM
-
Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 9:00 PM
David Commander / Rob Ramirez: Fear in the Western World
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 2 - 5, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
8:00 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Exponential Festival
Target Margin's The Doxee Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
$20-$25
https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/fearinthewesternworld
Sometimes a broad description in a show's promotional materials is all you need to make you feel like you're dying to see it: "a digital puppetry performance that examines gun control and fear in contemporary America, while blending horror movie tropes like Amityville Horror with Greek mythology". I'm THERE!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If, as I do, you consider Cantonese food one of the supreme achievements of human culture, then you'll love King's Kitchen as I do.
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Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jan 4, 2020, 9:00 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 4, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 10)
7:30 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$55-$195
http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from between the two World Wars whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Thursday, January 2, 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Berg: Wozzeck
OPERA
THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 2020
8:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$20-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/wozzeck/
Berg's taut, fast-moving, and just plain moving account of class degradation is surely one of the greatest of all operas. (The opera was such a huge hit at its 1925 premiere in Weimar Germany that Berg worried it wasn't avant-garde enough!) The South African multi-media expressionist William Kentridge showed that he was an apt Berg director with Lulu a few years ago. And I, for one, can't wait to hear what Met Music Director Yannnick Nezét-Séguin — who has a way of bringing out things you've never heard before in familiar pieces — does with this gripping score. Playing the downtrodden soldier Wozzeck we have Peter Mattei, who I'm comfortable calling the best mainstream operatic singing/acting baritone now on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that German angst, the sunny Mediterranean food at Boulud Sud.
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Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 9:00 PM
Bernstein: West Side Story
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 5, 2020 (indefinite run currently scheduled through SEPTEMBER 6, 2020)
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
7:00 PM SUNDAY
Broadway Theater
1681 Broadway, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$229
https://westsidestorybway.com/
When the world's leading avant-garde theater director, Ivo van Hove, teams up with the world's leading avant-garde choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, for a Broadway production of West Side Story, there are only two possible (and mutually consistent) responses: what the fuck?????????????, and "I need to see this!"
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Russian Samovar: more fun that a barrel full of matryoskas.
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Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 8:30 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
MONDAY - TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30 - 31, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 5, 2020
7:00 PM MONDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company / LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$61.50-$101.50
https://atlantictheater.org/production/halfway-bitches-go-straight-to-heaven/
Steven Adly Guirgis is back, this time with a play set in a women's halfway house. Expect a lot of expletives, a lot of laughs, and a lot of hidden truth.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Guirgis's plays can go on. So it's a good thing Momofuku Nishi stays open late (late for pathetic New York, anyway).
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Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 7:00 PM – Fri, Jan 3, 2020, 8:00 PM
Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610
MUSIC
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, JANUARY 2 & 3, 2020
7:00 PM
Green Mountain Project/TENET Vocal Artists
St. Jean Baptiste Church
184 East 76th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$10-$100
https://tenet.nyc/201920/green-mountain-project-finale
The Green Mountain Project (monte verde: get it?) caused quite a stir ten years ago with a 100th-anniversary performance Monteverdi's magnificent Renaissance-into-Baroque Vespers at Smoky Mary's. They've done it annually (at various venues) since — but this year's (on the UES) is to be the last. If you've seen/heard it before, you'll want to see/hear it this last time. If you've never seen/heard it, you kind of must.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nice used-to-be-standard-issue-but-now-it's-old-fashioned-enough-to-be-special French cuisine bourgeoisie at Orsay.
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Thu, Jan 2, 2020, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 8:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 5, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
8:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY
7:00 PM THURSDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race (not to mention our old friends sex and gender — but in relation to race) in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Wed, Jan 1, 2020, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 9:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
MUSIC / DANCE / THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 1 - 5, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like Sarah Krasnow, James Ilgenfritz, and Angelica Olstad for $10? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Wednesday, January 1, 2020, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Cirque Mechanics: 42FT
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, JANUARY 1 & 3 - 5, 2020
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
12:00 & 5:00 PM SUNDAY
The New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$22-$69
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=10030#Order
Why does this Nouvelle Cirque show look so inviting when most of the genre is totally played out? Because these guys don't look like they take it with even a smidgen of seriousness — or slickness, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Los Tacos No. 1 around the block. You won't be sorry.
