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Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 9:29 PM
MUSIC
The Stone Residencies: Simon Hanes
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 30 – JULY 2, 2022
8:30 PM
The Stone
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Here on this List guitarist Simon Hanes is mainly known as the motive force behind our beloved finta-Italopop band Tredici Bacci. But he is oh so much more.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’ll be nice to go back to the comfortable Emilia-Romagnan food at Da Andrea (do yourself a favor and start with the Tigelle Modenesi con Prosciutto).
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Thursday, June 30, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Alvin Lucier: Same and Different
THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2022
8:00 PM
Blank Forms
468 Grand Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The exploratory bassoonist Dafne Vincente-Sandoval plays what has to be one of the very last pieces by the even more exploratory composer Alvin Lucier, maker of new sonic territories for audiences and players (and himself) to explore, written for her. Vincente-Sandoval plays a series of long tones supposedly in unison with an electronically generated pure wave. But they’re not precisely in unison, they can’t be — and therein lies the fascinating sonic experience caused by their interaction.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Place des Fêtes calls itself a wine bar — but go for the seafood.
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Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 4:00 PM
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
Bread and Puppet Theater & The Boxcutter Collective: The Divinity Supply Company
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 30 – JULY 2, 2022
8:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25 advance; $30 day of; $20 students/seniors in advance; $25 students/seniors day of; $10 first 10 tickets for each performance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Boxcutter Collective, Bread and Puppet Theater’s New York auxiliary, reeks of New York City the way the parent company reeks of Vermont. This piece deals with humanity’s (pathetic) need for gods.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican insect cuisine (and they don’t even make it to escamoles) at The Black Ant.
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Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 8:29 PM
THEATER
Robert Quillan Camp: White on White
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 30 – JULY 2, 2022 (continuing through JULY 9)
7:30 PM
Hoi Polloi
JACK
20 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A peak into a White anti-racist affinity group.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I think I love the Rochester food at Brooklyn Hots even more than the Santa Fe food at Santa Fe BK.
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Thursday, June 30, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thursday, June 30, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Brooklyn Raga Massive: Colors of Raga
THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2022
7:00 PM
Fotografiska
281 Park Avenue South, Gramercy, Manhattan
$40
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Raga duets.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Steak cooked over coals, excellent cocktails and (if you make it) desserts at Hawksmoor.
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Theo Bleckmann
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2022
8:00 PM
The Atlantic BKLN
333 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Is there a more consistently interesting vocalist on the scene than Theo Bleckmann, splitting the (non-)difference between jazz and avant-classical, sounding smooth even at his most outre, full of ideas? If you find one, let me know.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cross the street to Sottocasa for nice pizza.
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Ana Roxanne/Chantal Michelle
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2022
7:30 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$33.99
TICKETS + INFORMATION
We all have our weaknesses, and one of mine is dreamy trancey electronic pop like Ana Roxanne does. (She’ll tell you it’s highly and directly self-expressive — but we can ignore that.) Chantal Michelle’s is more eventful — and none the worse for it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Oaxacan food at Claro is really good — and the backyard garden is a wonderful place to eat.
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 8:00 PM
-
Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
MUSIC
Rodrigo Amarante/Alice Caymmi
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2022
6:00 PM
Brasil Summerfest
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$31; $75 festival pass
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Brasil Summerfest kicks off with a concert that raises the musical question, why is their mainstream pop so much better than ours? My guess is that it’s cuz they let intellectuals into the mainstream and we mainly don’t (but I have a horse in that race). Rodrigo Amarante will show you what I mean (he’s based in LA now, I think — but his chart appeal is all in BR): his pop songs have musical twists aren’t allowed in big hits here. Alice Caymmi just pops (and it doesn’t hurt that she’s the granddaughter of one of the greatest Brazilian songwriters of all time).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Grill is still good. So maybe its sibling Carbone, which does for Red Sauce what The Grill does for Old American, still is, too (although I can’t help but notice that the Scotch Langoustines and occasional Carabineros in the Scampi have been replaced by “jumbo shrimp”).
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Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 2:00 PM – Sun, Jul 3, 2022, 4:00 PM
THEATER
Moliere: Dom Juan
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 29 – JULY 3, 2022 (continuing through JULY 17)
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
1:00 & 7:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
SummerScape
Fisher Center, Bard College
60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, New York
$45-$65
TICKETS + INFORMATION
When you hear that the great director Ashley Tata is helming a production of a new translation of Moliere’s Dom Juan, with music by Paul Pinto no less, you really do think you’ve got to get on up to Red Hook (the Upstate one, I hasten to specify). Expect to be amused but also kind of jolted.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A very long time ago, I saw Stiller and Meara eating at the Red Hook Diner. I was awestruck. Even if they looked like everybody’s parents.
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Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jul 3, 2022, 11:00 PM
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Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 8:00 PM – Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 9:00 PM
DANCE
Biba Bell: Cities of the Interior
TUESDAY – THURSDAY, JUNE 28 – 30, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another Pandemic-inspired dance piece (cuz how could they not be?), this one dealing with how works and their performers fit into spaces.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, nice enough bistro at Bacchus. Streaming at home, as far as I’m concerned just about every Summer cocktail could be a Paper Plane: pour 3/4 oz. each of Bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino, and lemon juice into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe.
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Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 8:00 PM – Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 9:00 PM
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Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jul 3, 2022, 3:00 PM
THEATER
Chekhov/Igor Golyak: The Orchard
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 28 – JULY 3, 2022
7:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Arlekin Players In Person & Online
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$39-$125 in person; $29 online; $49-$149 in person & online bundle
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Igor Golyak’s Arlekin Players provided some of the best online theater during The Lockdown, making imaginative use of the medium in its presentations rather than just transmitting transcribed performances. Now it’s doing its new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard both ways, in person and via a technologically mediated stream. You can see either or both. Either way, with Mikhail Baryshnikov himself playing Firs, this might be the first production in history where the family servant is the most charismatic person on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, although the characters in the play wouldn’t lower themselves, treat yourself to some absolutely delicious Central Asian food at Farida. Streaming at home, there’s nothing for it but an ice-cold straight-out-of-the-freezer Vodka.
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Tuesday, June 28, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 5:00 PM – Sun, Jul 3, 2022, 9:00 PM
THEATER
Beckett: Cascando
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 28– JULY 3, 2022
5:00, 6:30 & 8:30 PM TUESDAY – FRIDAY
1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 6:30 & 8:30 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Pan Pan Theater
Skirball Center, NYU
566 Laguardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$35
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Make a spectacle of yourself by putting on a (supplied) black cloak and a pair of (supplied) headphones and being guiding around the Village in an immersive audio-visual experience of Samuel Beckett’s radio play.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sicilian sandwiches, pastas, and snacks at Pane Pasta.
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Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Jul 3, 2022, 7:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 28 – JULY 3, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY
10:00 AM – 8:30 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Advance ticket required: $18; $12 students/seniors; free children under 12
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 8:59 PM
THEATER
Angela Hanks: Bodies They Ritual
MONDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 27 – JULY 2, 2022
8:00 PM
Summerworks
Clubbed Thumb
The Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25-$60; $20 student
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Either a cheap shot at bougies trying to co-opt Southwestern mysticism, or a perceptive exploration of the interaction between bougies and Southwestern mysticism. We’ll see.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Solid underrated seafood at Lamia’s Fish Market.
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Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 7:00 PM – Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 8:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Taylor Mac & Matt Ray: Songs from Bark of Millions
MONDAY – THURSDAY, JUNE 27 – 30, 2022
7:00 PM
Joe’s Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$55
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Three hours of new original music celebrating queer luminaries throughout history. Taylor Mac is a stone genius, transcending even drag (not that drag needs transcending).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fun Taiwanese at 886.
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Monday, June 27, 2022, 11:30 AM – 2:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: Flatbed Follies
MONDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 27 & JULY 1 – 3, 2022
11:30 AM & 1:30 PM MONDAY
5:00 PM FRIDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
MONDAY: West 182nd Street, Washington Heights, Manhattan
FRIDAY: Lowery Plaza & Bliss Plaza
Queens Boulevard btw. 40th Street & 46th Street, Sunnyside, Queens
SATURDAY: Avenue C Plaza, Kensington, Brooklyn
SUNDAY: Diversity Plaza, Flushing, Queens
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus takes it to the street!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Monday, La Casa del Mofongo is one house I’d like to live in. Friday, you will NOT leave hungry from Romanian Garden. Saturday, I’m once again going to walk you over to the delicious Austrian at Werkstaat. Sunday, you can walk over and worship at the alter of the Arepa Lady from Colombia.
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Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Jul 3, 2022, 7:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 27 – JULY 3, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Jul 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 27 – JULY 3, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, June 26, 2022, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
MUSIC
Naima Karlsson
SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2022
4:00 PM
Blank Forms
468 Grand Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
It seems unfair to Naima Karlsson, a visual artist/designer and improvising pianist in her own right, to say so, but she’s the daughter of Neneh Cherry, the granddaughter of Moki Cherry, and the step-granddaughter of Don Cherry. She’ll do a piece her grandfather wrote with Terry Riley as well as solo improvisations reflecting the influence of Julius Eastman.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Nigerian at the newly relocated (all the way across the street) and reopened Buka.
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Saturday, June 25, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Jazztopad Festival New York: Michael Bates’s Acrobat & Lutosławski Quartet
SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2022
8:00 PM
Barbès In Person & Live Stream
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$20 in person; free-$10
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Michael Bates’s Acrobat, who like to examine the music of 20th Century composers through the lens of jazz, team up with the Lutosławsi Quartet to fuck around with, of all composers, Lutosławski (did you know he had a pseudonymous side gig writing pop tunes?).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, celebrate recent events (not that I know that the owners agree) at Colombia in Park Slope. At home, have an unseasonal Szarlotka Cocktail: pour 2 oz. Żubrówka Bison Grass Vodka and 4 oz. apple juice, with a pinch of cinammon, into a rocks glass over ice. Stir.
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Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 9:00 PM
DANCE
Heather Kravas: duet/duet
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 25 & 26, 2022
8:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
River to River Festival
Studio A3, The Arts Center, Governors Island, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A dance happens in a studio looking out on a field, while another dance happens in the overlooked field. The materials suggest that it might be better to see the late shows, which happen around sunset (an impressive event from Governors Island).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Lots to eat and drink on Governors Island, with my usual shout out to the almost ridiculously scenic and pleasant Island Oyster, which doesn’t need to have food (and drink!) nearly as good as it does.
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Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme: an echo buried, buried, but calling still
THURSDAY & SATURDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 23 & 25 – 26, 2022
7:30 PM
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$15; $10 students
THURSDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
SATURDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
SUNDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme enhance their installation exhibition May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth with a live audiovisual performance. The exhibition installation collects (among other things) field recordings of beleaguered people singing and dancing in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq; this live performance supplements them with still more field samples and some visual projections, as well as live vocals and electronics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Adequate French brasserie food in what must be admitted to be pretty spectacular surroundings at La Grande Boucherie.
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Saturday, June 25, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 3:00 PM
THEATER / DANCE
Martha Clarke: God’s Fool
MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 20 – 23 & 25 – 26, 2022 (continuing through JULY 2)
7:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$60 MONDAY; THEREAFTER: $31 advance; $35 day of; $26 students/seniors advance; $30 students/seniors day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new piece by one of the great theatrical creators of our time, Martha Clarke! This one’s about St. Francis of Assisi.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Dim Sum (duh) at Dim Sum Palace (you were expecting maybe escamole?).
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Saturday, June 25, 2022, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Cirque Kalabanté: Afrique en Cirque!
SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2022
4:00 PM
Celebrate Brooklyn
Lena Horn Bandshell, Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Circus! From Guinea! With music from Guinea!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This is a family show, and Pasta Louise is a family restaurant.
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Saturday, June 25, 2022, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Flux Factory: Solstice
SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2022
2:00 PM
Colonel’s Row Building 404A, Governors Island, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In conjunction with a Solstice-adjacent exhibition of installations emphasizing light, a set of audiovisual performances also emphasizing light.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Lots to eat and drink on Governors Island, with my usual shout out to the almost ridiculously scenic and pleasant Island Oyster, which doesn’t need to have food (and drink!) nearly as good as it does.
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Friday, June 24, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Friday, June 24, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Friday, June 24, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Friday, June 24, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 6:00 PM
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Friday, June 24, 2022, 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
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Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:00 PM
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
Object Collection: Look Out Sh!^head! Episode 3
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 23 – 26, 2022
8:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25 advance; $30 day of; $20 students/seniors in advance; $25 students/seniors day of; $10 first 10 tickets for each performance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In their Look Out Sh!^ead! series — the first two episodes were of necessity streamed (and they made quite compelling use of that medium, too) — Object Collection takes off from Éric Rohmer’s Comédies et Proverbes cycle about love and desire (and morality). I love Éric Rohmer and I love Object Collection — but it’s hard to think of two esthetics more dissimilar than Rohmer’s cool talky minimalism and Object Collection’s antic theatrical maximalism. Which may be why the first two episodes produced such a piquant frisson.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican insect cuisine (and they don’t even make it to escamoles) at The Black Ant.
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Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, June 23, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thursday, June 23, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Razor-N-Tape Presents: Make a Joyful Noise
THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2022
8:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$26.17
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another of those fun nights where a Nu Jazz ensemble weaves in and out of tracks played by really good DJs.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Oaxacan food at Claro is really good — and the backyard garden is a wonderful place to eat.
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Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 7:30 PM – Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 8:30 PM
MUSIC
BMP: Next Gen
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, JUNE 23 & 24, 2022
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$39
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A half-hour vocal/instrumental piece each from the two finalists in Beth Morrison Projects’ Next Generation project; the winner, to be announced at the end of Friday’s concert, will receive a commission for a full-length opera. I’ve only heard a little by the two composers — Elizabeth Gartman and Nilou Nour — and, in keeping with BMP’s program, their music seems fresh, listenable, surprising, and well put-together.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How much am I loving the Southwestern pub grub at Santa Fe BK? Lots.
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Thursday, June 23, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme: an echo buried, buried, but calling still
THURSDAY & SATURDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 23 & 25 – 26, 2022
7:30 PM
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$15; $10 students
THURSDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
SATURDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
SUNDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme enhance their installation exhibition May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth with a live audiovisual performance. The exhibition installation collects (among other things) field recordings of beleaguered people singing and dancing in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq; this live performance supplements them with still more field samples and some visual projections, as well as live vocals and electronics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Adequate French brasserie food in what must be admitted to be pretty spectacular surroundings at La Grande Boucherie.
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Thursday, June 23, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Thursday, June 23, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:30 PM
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Thursday, June 23, 2022, 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
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Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
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Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:30 PM
MUSIC
The Stone Residencies: Louie Belogenis
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 22 – 25, 2022
8:30 PM
The Stone
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
If a saxophonist has to sound like somebody, Albert Ayler is a good choice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’ll be nice to go back to the comfortable Emilia-Romagnan food at Da Andrea (do yourself a favor and start with the Tigelle Modenesi con Prosciutto).
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Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
FujiIIIIIIIIIIta / Tomoko Hojo
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room @ Brooklyn Music School
126 St. Felix Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The new your debut of Japanese sound maniac FujiIIIIIIIIIIta — who will bring one of his unique, self-constructed, keyboardless pipe organs along for the occasion — is a big deal. But then so is a performance by Japanese sound artist Tomoko Hojo, whose work focuses on silenced voices usually female.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Beer and sausages at DSK Brooklyn.
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Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:00 PM
DANCE
Larissa Velez-Jackson: Protecting Complexity with the Star Pû Method
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 22 – 25, 2022
8:00 PM
Chocolate Factory In Person & Live Stream
38-33 24th Street, Long Island City, Queens
$20; free-$100 live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Larissa Velez-Jackson’s Star Pû Method for creating dance (originally called the Star Crap Method) involves embracing failure, anti-climax, and ordinariness. Sounds like my writing career.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Point Brazil is a bit of a hike, but here’s the thing: it’s a good enough Brazilian restaurant ordinarily, but every once in a while — most frequently on Saturdays (but not all or even many) — they serve rare specialties from Bahia that you just never see around here. Try your luck.
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Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 9:00 PM
THEATER
Jess Barbagallo: Weekend at Barry’s / Lesbian Lighthouse
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 22 – 26, 2022
8:00 PM
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$21
TICKETS + INFORMATION
More Multiverse stuff (it’s the thing right now), this time as affecting a dead-end cultural worker named Barry subsisting on cheap rent (you talkin’ to me?).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OF COURSE you’re going to Ernesto’s for great Basque.
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Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:00 PM
THEATER
Angela Hanks: Bodies They Ritual
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 22 – 25, 2022 (continuing through JULY 2)
8:00 PM
Summerworks
Clubbed Thumb
The Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25-$60; $20 student
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Either a cheap shot at bougies trying to co-opt Southwestern mysticism, or a perceptive exploration of the interaction between bougies and Southwestern mysticism. We’ll see.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Solid underrated seafood at Lamia’s Fish Market.
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Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:30 PM
THEATER
Rawya El Chab & Kelly Lamanna: The Gambler
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 22 – 25, 2022
7:30 PM
The Loading Dock
170 Tillary Street, Bridge Plaza, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I so adore everybody associated with this show that I’m going to go with their own description of it: “a two-handed clown show for adults. A tale of debauchery, inspired by a few chapters from Dostoevsky’s novel of the same name, our story follows two women, Doris and Gertie, who at the end of their lives spiral into a world of gambling and sin". Directed by the ineffable Leonie Bell.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: And wouldn’t you know it, you’re right around the corner from the wonderful Peruvian Pollo d’Oro, where the Pisco flows like water.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 8:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Justin Vivian Bond: Oh Mary, It’s Pride!
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 22 – 26, 2022
7:00 PM
Joe’s Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$55
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Forget drag, Justin Vivian Bond is one of the great cabaret performers of our time, a diseuse for the ages. And an absolute scream.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Phenomenal Shanghainese at CheLi (I can’t help but think that Viv would want you to order the Triple Soft).
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Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:30 PM – Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:30 PM
DANCE
Beth Gill: Nail Biter
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, JUNE 22 & 23, 2022
5:30 PM
River to River Festival
Federal Hall
26 Wall Street, FiDi, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Beth Gill’s dances are meticulous, suggestive, evocative. These performances are tailored to this unique space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Reliably good and interesting eclectic New American at Crown Shy.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
MUSIC
Yarn / Wire Institute & Festival 6: JACK Quartet / Ning Yu / Bent Duo
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022
3:00 PM
DiMenna Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION.
There are interludes where the participants in Yarn/Wire’s Summer Institute play their own stuff, but I’m telling you to schlep to Hell’s Kitchen to hear Bent Duo play Ben Patterson’s Paper Piece (a joyful experience) and Sarah Hennies, pianist Ning Yu play more Sarah Hennies (this List LOVES Sarah Hennies), and the peerless JACK Quartet play Catherine Lamb: an embarrassment of enjoyable, invigorating riches.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pizza and stuff (DO NOT ignore the stuff) at Longo Bros.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
DANCE
ANIKAYA / Wendy Jehlen: The Women Gather
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 23 – 25, 2022
8:00 PM
Gibney In Person & FRIDAY Live Stream
280 Broadway (entrance on Chambers Street), Civic Center, Manhattan
$15-$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Wendy Jehlen presents another of her ritualistic multi-culti pieces.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, Japanese-inflected pan-Chinese at Cha Kee. Streaming at home, have a Gin Blossom: pour 1-1/2 oz. each of Gin and Vermouth Blanc and 3/4 oz. Apricot eue-de-vie, with 2 dashes of orange bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
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Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 7:30 PM – Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Jazztopad Festival New York: James Brandon Lewis & Lutosławski Quartet
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 & 22, 2022
7:30 PM
Dizzy’s Club, Jazz at Lincoln Center In Person & TUESDAY Live Stream
10 Columbus Circle, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35 in person; $25 in person students; $10 live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
As part of this Polish jazz festival’s New York stand, New York saxophonist/composer James Brandon Lewis premieres a new piece for himself and the Lutosławsi Quartet. Also on the bill is the very fresh up-and-coming sextet led by Polish pianist/composer Kamil Piotrowicz.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, it may not be what the Downtown original once was, but Momofuku Noodle Bar still has much better food than you’d expect to find in a shopping mall. Streaming at home, have a Polish Martini: pour 3/4 oz. each of any old Vodka, Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka (which I am here to tell you is the best Vodka in the world), Krupnick, and apple juice into an ice filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Yarn Wire Festival & Institute 5: Music of Annea Lockwood
TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2022
7:00 PM
DiMenna Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Annea Lockwood started out decades ago as a radical proponent of “all sound is music” — and she hasn’t become any less rad since. If anything, she’s only extended her reach. (Questing trumpeter Nate Wooley guests!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Really great Spanish at Casa Dani.
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Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 3:00 PM
THEATER
Chekhov / Igor Golyak: The Orchard
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 21 – 26, 2022 (continuing through JULY 3)
7:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Arlekin Players In Person & Online
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$39-$125 in person; $29 online; $49-$149 in person & online bundle
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Igor Golyak’s Arlekin Players provided some of the best online theater during The Lockdown, making imaginative use of the medium in its presentations rather than just transmitting transcribed performances. Now it’s doing its new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard both ways, in person and via a technologically mediated stream. You can see either or both. Either way, with Mikhail Baryshnikov himself playing Firs, this might be the first production in history where the family servant is the most charismatic person on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, although the characters in the play wouldn’t stoop so low, treat yourself to some absolutely delicious Central Asian food at Farida (and ponder whether Kazakhstan’s next). Streaming at home, there’s nothing for it but an ice-cold straight-out-of-the-freezer Vodka.
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Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 6:00 PM
MUSIC
Vision Festival 2022, A Light in Darkness
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 21 – 26, 2022
7:00 PM TUESDAY
6:30 PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Arts for Art In Person & Live Stream
TUESDAY – SATURDAY Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
SUNDAY: The Clemente
107 Suffolk Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$350-$750 full festival pass in person; $65 per night in person; $45 per night students/seniors in person; $75 full festival pass live stream; $15 per night live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Six nights of the best free jazz there is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person Tuesday – Thursday at Roulette, nice enough bistro at Bacchus. In person Sunday at The Clemente, ramen at Ivan Ramen. Streaming at home, have a Sazerac: muddle a brown sugar cube with 2 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters and 1 dash of Angostura bitters in an Old Fashioned glass. Fill with ice. Pour in 2-1/2 oz. Rye. Stir. Coat another, chilled Old Fashioned glass with Absinthe. Strain the contents of the first glass into the chilled, coated glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022, 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
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Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 5:00 PM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 8:30 PM
THEATER
Beckett: Cascando
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 21– 26, 2022 (continuing through JULY 3)
5:00, 6:30 & 8:30 PM TUESDAY – FRIDAY
1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 6:30 & 8:30 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Pan Pan Theater
Skirball Center, NYU
566 Laguardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$35
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Make a spectacle of yourself by putting on a (supplied) black cloak and a pair of (supplied) headphones and being guiding around the Village in an immersive audio-visual experience of Samuel Beckett’s radio play.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sicilian sandwiches, pastas, and snacks at Pane Pasta.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022, 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 6:00 PM
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022, 10:00 AM – 9:30 PM
MUSIC
MAKE MUSIC NEW YORK
TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2022
10:00 AM – 9:30 PM
All over town
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Celebrate the Summer Solstice with the usual thrilling and bewildering array of musical presentations all over the City.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This is like everywhere: you’re on your own.
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Monday, June 20, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Max Johnson: Charm Factory
MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Disregarding any barriers that might mistakenly be thought to exist between jazz and classical, bassist Max Johnson presents new compositions for various chamber configurations.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, eclectic New American at As You Are. Streaming at home, have a Keeneland Breeze: pour 1-1/4 oz. Bourbon, 1/4 oz. Curaçao, and a squeeze of juice from an orange into a rocks glass over ice. Top with Ginger Ale or Ginger Beer. Garnish with an orange wedge.
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Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 7:00 PM – Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 10:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Taylor Mac & Matt Ray: Songs from Bark of Millions
MONDAY & TUESDAY, JUNE 20 & 21, 2022
7:00 & 9:30 PM
Joe’s Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An evening of new music celebrating queer luminaries throughout history. This week the shows are around 90 minutes; next week they’ll be three hours. Length matters — but short or long Taylor Mac is a stone genius, transcending even drag (not that drag needs transcending).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fun Taiwanese at 886.
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Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 7:00 PM – Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 7:59 PM
THEATER / DANCE
Martha Clarke: God’s Fool
MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 20 – 23 & 25 – 26, 2022 (continuing through JULY 2)
7:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$60 MONDAY; THEREAFTER: $31 advance; $35 day of; $26 students/seniors advance; $30 students/seniors day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new piece by one of the great theatrical creators of our time, Martha Clarke! This one’s about St. Francis of Assisi.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Dim Sum (duh) at Dim Sum Palace (you were expecting maybe escamole?).
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Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 7:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 20 – 26, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 20 – 26, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, June 19, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
I Dream a Dream that Dreams Back at Me: A Juneteenth Celebration
SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2022
7:00 PM
Lincoln Center, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Institutions like Lincoln Center are useful idiots at best. But if they’re gonna have Carl Hancock Rux put together a program that includes people like Vernon Reid and Nona Hendryx, I’m gonna happily support that.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can’t eat on premises, but it’s nice enough out to take some Charles Pan-Fried Chicken into the Park.
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Sunday, June 19, 2022, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
Archer Aymes: Lost and Found: A Juneteenth Exhibition
SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2022
3:00 PM
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Carl Hancock Rux picks up on the emblematic African-American experimental artist and writer he created in a play two decades ago, who shot to avant-garde fame as a writer in the 1950s and made avant-garde movies and was a political activist in the ‘60s before dying in prison in 1970. Now Rux “curates” a sound-and-light exhibition featuring artifacts from Aymes’s “career”, also including a song recital by no less than Alicia Hall Moran and Aaron Diehl audaciously doing songs by such composers as Puccini, Bernstein, and Weill.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You know where I’m going to send you, right?
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Sunday, June 19, 2022, 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Court Square Block Party
SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2022
12:00 – 7:00 PM
43-15 Crescent Street, Long Island City, Queens
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Can this be The Event Of The Summer when it isn’t even officially Summer yet? The Event Of The Spring for sure. Music by such as 75 Dollar Bill, one of the best bands in New York or anywhere (psych, Maximalist-Postminimalist, drone, world) and Burnt Sugar The Arkestra (still mourning their founder, the great Greg Tate). Blasts from the past including Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers et al. — and himself), Peter Zummo (Arthur Russell et al. — and himself), and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth — and himself). And more! And food by Québécois sensation M. Wells, where I had a dinner last week (after a show by 75 Dollar Bill’s Che Chen, now that I think of it) that I have to say was, to me, beyond fabulous. See you there.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You’ve got everything you need right there.
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Saturday, June 18, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Christian Wolff
SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$30 advance; $35 door
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Christian Wolff is the only surviving member of the epochal New York School of composers of the 1950s (others included John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earl Browne). At least in this City, for the kind of music I myself listen to, this is the prime influence, the Mothership, possibly exceeded by Satie, but that’s it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Eclectic New American at As You Are.
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Saturday, June 18, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
I Don’t Wanna See That: The Mannequin Play
SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2022
8:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A drag piece about the fates of the members of a community of three mannequins that are separated when the Rainbow shop in Bushwick where they are um employed is closed down.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It would really be nice to get some Neo-Cantonese at Bonnie’s after this. Too bad you can’t get in.
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Saturday, June 18, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Alex Peh
SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2022
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The excellent pianist Alex Peh makes it his mission to explore music traditions that exist, as he puts it, alongside Western Classical. So while this multimedia recital includes a brand new piece by Anna Clyne, it also contains music by U Yee Nwe and Ne Myo Aung from Myanmar, Pooyan Azadeh and Hafez Modirzadeh from Iran, Nikos Ordoulidis from Greece, and Susie Ibarra (who will play along with Peh) descending from the Philippines.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent Vietnamese at Bolero.
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Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:00 PM
THEATER / DANCE
Martha Clarke: God’s Fool
MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 13 – 16 & 18 – 19, 2022 (continuing through JULY 2)
7:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$60 MONDAY; THEREAFTER: $31 advance; $35 day of; $26 students/seniors advance; $30 students/seniors day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new piece by one of the great theatrical creators of our time, Martha Clarke! This one’s about St. Francis of Assisi.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Dim Sum (duh) at Dim Sum Palace (you were expecting maybe escamole?).
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Saturday, June 18, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
MUSIC
Raganawa
SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2022
6:00 PM
Avenue C Plaza, Kensington, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Raga meets Berber Gnawa music. You can drone on and party on!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’s a little bit of a walk, but the Austrian food at Werkstatt is worth it.
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Saturday, June 18, 2022, 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM
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Friday, June 17, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
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Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 9:00 PM
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Friday, June 17, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 8:59 PM
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
Object Collection: Look Out Sh!^head! Episode 3
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 17 – 19, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 26)
8:00 PM
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25 advance; $30 day of; $20 students/seniors in advance; $25 students/seniors day of; $10 first 10 tickets for each performance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In their Look Out Sh!^thead! series — the first two episodes were of necessity streamed (and they made quite compelling use of that medium, too) — Object Collection takes off from Éric Rohmer’s Comédies et Proverbes cycle about love and desire (and morality). I love Éric Rohmer and I love Object Collection — but it’s hard to think of two esthetics more dissimilar than Rohmer’s cool talky minimalism and Object Collection’s antic theatrical maximalism. Which may be why the first two episodes produced such a piquant frisson.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican insect cuisine (and they don’t even make it to escamoles) at The Black Ant.
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Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 5:30 PM
THEATER
Rawya El Chab & Kelly Lamanna: The Gambler
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 17 – 19, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 25)
7:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
4:30 PM SUNDAY
The Loading Dock
170 Tillary Street, Bridge Plaza, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I so adore everybody associated with this show that I’m just going to go with their own description of it: “a two-handed clown show for adults. A tale of debauchery, inspired by a few chapters from Dostoevsky’s novel of the same name, our story follows two women, Doris and Gertie, who at the end of their lives spiral into a world of gambling and sin”. Directed by the ineffable Leonie Bell.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: And wouldn’t you know it, you’re right around the corner from the wonderful Peruvian Pollo d’Oro, where the Pisco flows like water.
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Friday, June 17, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Vadim Neselovskyi: Odesa: A musical walk through a legendary city
FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2022
7:30 PM
Salamagundi Club
47 5th Avenue, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20 suggested donation
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Vadim Neselovskyi, a composer/pianist whose work sounds both in classical and jazz, pays tribute to his beleagured home city .
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I can’t get enough of places like Knickerbocker Bar & Grill. You’ll probably end up getting a steak, which is neither here nor there — but be sure to precede it with a caviar pie appetizer, and be sure to precede THAT with a Martini.
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Friday, June 17, 2022, 7:30 PM – 10:30 PM
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Friday, June 17, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 10:00 PM
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Friday, June 17, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Here and Now: Nadia Shpachenko & Lewis Spratlan: INVASION
FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2022
7:00 PM
Bargemusic
1 Water Street, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn
$35
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Lewis Spratlan writes what you might call High Modern With A Human Face. You know how, in Charles Wuorinen’s last years, everybody said Wuorinen was opening his gnarly music up, allowing for humor and even (gasp) listener enjoyment? Well, Lewis Spratlan really writes his gnarly music like that — and always has. This show previews an album of Spratlan’s music to be released later this year by the Ukrainian pianist Nadia Shpachenko. They’ll play an audiotape (OK, in 2022 it’s not really a “tape”) of INVASION, a chamber piece Spratlan just wrote for Shpachenko about guess what. And the Shpachenko will play, live, the solo piano pieces that round the upcoming album out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Now that it’s so nice out, formal New American treat The River Café — the tourist trap that isn’t one — becomes almost irresistible.
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Friday, June 17, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:00 PM – Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 6:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: Flatbed Follies
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JUNE 17 & 18, 2022
FRIDAY: 4:00 – 8:00 PM
SATURDAY: 12:00 – 6:00 PM
FRIDAY: Woodside Avenue & 77th Street, Elmhurst, Queens
SATURDAY: Marcy Avenue Plaza, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus takes it to the street!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Friday, you can make a pilgrimage to the original Birria-Landia truck, ground zero of the current birria megatrend. Saturday, Caribbean-Asian fusion at Sally’s.
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Thursday, June 16, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
THEATER
Elevator Repair Service: Takes on Bloomsday
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2022
8:00 PM
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$28; $17 age 30 and under
TICKETS + INFORMATION
You want to say the Elevator Repair Service is doing for Joyce’s 100-year-old Ulysses what they did for The Great Gatsby and other 20th Century interwar novels. But at only two hours, this will of necessity be truncated rather than a complete dramatized read-through. No matter. It’ll still be great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You really can’t do better around their than the über-Dominican at Malecon — and the supernal chivo guisado is available as a special on Thursdays.
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Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 9:00 PM
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Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 9:00 PM
THEATER
Camilo Quiroz-Vázquez & Ellpetha Tsivicos: QUINCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 16 – 19, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 26)
8:00 PM
The Bushwick Starr
419 Eldert Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$25-$45; $200 table of six
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another Quarantine hit in abridged form comes back in full form, as it was meant to be. An immersive experience showing a teen Chicana coming out to her family on the eve of her Quinceañera — sort of a Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding based on thoughtful exploration rather than broad ethnic stereotypes, and where Tony and Tina turn out to be queer.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Plausible Vietnamese at Money Cat.
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Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 8:30 PM
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
Sifiso Mabena: [sunflower]
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 16 – 18, 2022
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$18 advance; $21 door; $15 advance students/seniors; $18 advance students/seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An Afrosurrealist look at immigration and roots. Co-starring puppets!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A friend just asked me how the new Filipino-Japanese Gugu Room is. I wonder.
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Thursday, June 16, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Thursday, June 16, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
DANCE
Brontez Purnell: Invisible Trial
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2022
7:00 PM
Performance Space New York
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A very theatrical solo dance piece from someone everyone thinks of as a writer but who’s also a dancer, based (loosely) on Sylvia Plath, about hopes, fears, and agency, set in a mental health clinic (that’s how you know it’s based on Sylvia Plath).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Post-Momofuku cuisine at Nudibranch. And if you sit at the bar you can order à la carte.
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Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 9:30 PM
MUSIC
The Stone Residencies: Julian Lage
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 15 – 18, 2022
8:30 PM
The Stone
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Julian Lage brings his joyous, constantly surprising guitar to The New School for his residency.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’ll be nice to go back to the comfortable Emilia-Romagnan food at Da Andrea (do yourself a favor and start with the Tigelle Modenesi con Prosciutto).
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Black Whole
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022
8:00 PM
Zürcher Gallery
33 Bleecker Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$20 suggested donation
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Modern sounds in rhythm and blues music.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Incantevole Italian at Il Buco.
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
MUSIC
George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022
6:00 PM
Summerstage Benefit
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, Manhattan
$65-$125
TICKETS + INFORMATION
While you’re trying to think of a better popular artist than George Clinton — SPOILER: there aren’t any — I’ll start dancing and thinking to “Cosmic Slop”, maybe the best pop song of the 1970s.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You’re not gonna do better up their than walking over to J.G. Melon for a burger after a Martini.
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Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 8:00 PM – Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:00 PM
DANCE
Nami Yamamoto: Trooper’s Brother
TUESDAY – THURSDAY, JUNE 14 – 16, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A very fanciful interpretation by Nami Yamamato of her experience of treatment by the renowned breast cancer surgeon Dr. Deborah Axelrod. Including: puppets!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, nice enough bistro at Bacchus. Streaming at home, have a Sazerac: muddle a brown sugar cube with 2 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters and 1 dash of Angostura bitters in an Old Fashioned glass. Fill with ice. Pour in 2-1/2 oz. Rye. Stir. Coat another, chilled Old Fashioned glass with Absinthe. Strain the contents of the first glass into the chilled, coated glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Tuesday, June 14, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Brandon Seabrook Trio feat. Cooper-Moore & Gerald Cleaver
TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2022
7:30 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$21.55
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Brandon Seabrook on guitar-out-of-nowhere (he reportedly will be leaving his banjo-out-of-nowhere home tonight), Cooper-Moore on diddley-bow, and the highly distinctive drummer Gerald Cleaver in what one assumes will be a fierce mood: this is guaranteed to sound like absolutely nothing else.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Oaxacan food at Claro is really good — and the backyard garden is a wonderful place to eat.
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Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 8:30 PM
THEATER
Maria Vélez Meléndez: Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 14 – 19, 2022
7:30 PM TUESDAY – SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
$35 TUESDAY – SATURDAY; 99¢ SUNDAY
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A drag show about decolonization. What could possibly be more appealing?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Just about everyone disagrees with my feeling that Mena is too fussy and insubstantial. I just have lower tastes than them is all. And probably than you as well.
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Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 9:00 PM
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Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:30 PM – Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 8:30 PM
MUSIC
New York Guitar Festival 2022
TUESDAY – FRIDAY, JUNE 14 – 17, 2022
7:30 PM
The Greene Space In Person & Live Stream
44 Charlton Street, Hudson Square, Manhattan
$20 in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Four nights of guitar and nothing but, in many many styles. Nobody could like all of it — but List habitués are encouraged to take note of Gyan Riley, Vernon Reid, and Bill Frisell.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I have never been able to get into the otherwise inviting Basque restaurant Haizea. If you can, please tell me about it. Streaming at home, have a Horse’s Neck (or three): cut the longest lemon spiral you can. Put it in a tall glass (Collins or Highball) letting the tip hang over the rim to secure it, so it coils down around the inside of the glass. That is the ONLY hard part. Fill the glass with ice. Pour in 2 oz. Bourbon. Top with Ginger Ale. Shake in 2, maybe 3 if you’re feeling exuberent, dashes of Angostura bitters. Stir (OK, you have to avoid disturbing the coiled spiral — that’s a SECOND hard part).
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Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:00 PM
THEATER
Chekhov / Igor Golyak: The Orchard
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 14 – 19, 2022 (continuing through JULY 3)
7:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM TUESDAY & SUNDAY
Arlekin Players In Person & Online
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$39-$125 in person; $29 online; $49-$149 in person & online bundle
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Igor Golyak’s Arlekin Players provided some of the best online theater during The Lockdown, making imaginative use of the medium in its presentations rather than just transmitting transcribed performances. Now it’s doing its new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard both ways, in person and via a technologically mediated stream. You can see either or both. Either way, with Mikhail Baryshnikov himself playing Firs, this might be the first production in history where the family servant is the most charismatic person on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, although the characters in the play wouldn’t lower themselves, treat yourself to some absolutely delicious Central Asian food at Farida. Streaming at home, there’s nothing for it but an ice-cold straight-out-of-the-freezer Vodka.
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Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:00 PM – Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Sarah Kirkland Snider: Mass for the Endangered
TUESDAY – THURSDAY, JUNE 14 – 16, 2022
6:00 & 7:30 PM
The Angel’s Share
Green-Wood Cemetery
500 25th Street, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$85
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Sarah Kirkland Snider presents an impassioned but knowing, highly listenable Mass for the natural world. With animated visuals projected onto the walls and ceiling of the Catacombs!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The ticket price includes an open spirits tasting before the show (THAT will get you in the mood for a Requiem Mass!). Soak it up at Korzo: nothing says “Summer” like heavy hearty Slovakian food!
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Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 2:30 PM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:30 PM
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Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 8:00 PM – Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Mis-En Music Festival 2022
MONDAY – THURSDAY, JUNE 13 – 16, 2022
8:00 PM
Mis-En_Place
341 Calyer Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Four nights of rather gnarly New Music, expertly performed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Catalan-style tapas at El Born (I don’t know if they survived The Lockdown, but they used to have good special promotions on Monday and Tuesday nights).
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Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 8:00 PM – Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 8:59 PM
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Monday, June 13, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 7:00 PM – Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 7:59 PM
THEATER / DANCE
Martha Clarke: God’s Fool
MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 13 – 16 & 18 – 19, 2022 (continuing through JULY 2)
7:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$60 MONDAY; THEREAFTER: $31 advance; $35 day of; $26 students/seniors advance; $30 students/seniors day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new piece by one of the great theatrical creators of our time, Martha Clarke! This one’s about St. Francis of Assisi.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Dim Sum (duh) at Dim Sum Palace (you were expecting maybe escamole?).
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Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 7:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 13 – 19, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 13 – 19, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, June 12, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Sunday, June 12, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
MUSIC
ChamberQueer: Pride Festival
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 10 & 12, 2022
7:00 PM FRIDAY
6:00 PM SUNDAY
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
It all looks great, but let me call your special attention to Sunday’s arrangement of Julius Eastman’s galvanic Gay Guerilla for string septet by Jessie Montgomery(!).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent Vietnamese at Bolero.
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Sunday, June 12, 2022, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
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Sunday, June 12, 2022, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
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Sunday, June 12, 2022, 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: Flatbed Follies
SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2022
12:00 – 6:00 PM
La Plaza de las Americas, Washington Heights, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus takes it to the street!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Exceptional Dominican (with some Cuban holdovers) at Malecon. (And they have their supernal Chivo Guisado as a Sunday special!!!!!!)
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
MUSIC
Irreversible Entanglements
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022
9:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Are (is?) Irreversible Entanglements this List’s current fave band? Sometimes I think so. Poet/frontperson Moor Mother is sharper than sharp. And the musicians — each of them brilliant — take ‘60s-’70s New Thing/Free Jazz/Loft Jazz into the second decade of the 21st Century, playing with a nimbleness that only makes their brute force more effective.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nice Sardinian at D.O.C. Wine Bar.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
THEATER
Ariana Reines: DIVINE JUSTICE
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022
8:00 PM
Performance Space New York
150 1st Avenue, East Village, New York
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A 24-hour(!)(!)(!) durational performance piece proposing and hypothesizing the restructuring of the U.S. judicial system on the basis of Divine Love. As someone who trained in law, I have a feeling I, for one, would find it pretty naive. If you don’t have my disability, go for it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The presenters suggest you bring a picnic basket (as well as toiletries) with you. Before the show, you might want to drop into Rowdy Rooster for a sensational hot Indian chicken sandwich (expect a wait).
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Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 8:29 PM
MUSIC
Muqata’a
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 11 & 12, 2022
7:30 PM
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$10-$15
SATURDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
SUNDAY TICKETS + INFORMATION
It was a brilliant idea to conjoin Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s installation exhibition May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth, which collects (among other things) field recordings of beleaguered people singing and dancing in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, with a performance by the Palestinian electronic musician Muqata’a, who himself is an apt and interesting employer of found sounds and field recordings in his excellent music. On Saturday, Muqata’a presents music made specifically in response to the exhibition. On Sunday, he has a jam session with NYC’s own Hiro Kone.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Adequate French brasserie food in what must be admitted to be pretty spectacular surroundings at La Grande Boucherie.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Onyx Collective / duendita
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022
7:30 PM
Baby’s All RIght
146 Broadway, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The kaleidoscopic Onyx Collective harkens back to ‘60s New Thing jazz, but keeps it freshfreshfresh. And they are a stone gas live.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Onyx’s shows tend to be marathons, so grab something before. Maybe Mexico City-style Mexican at Aldama.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
OPERA
Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress
TUESDAY & SATURDAY, JUNE 7 & 11, 2022
7:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$480
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I wasn’t going to List this on the ground that, much as I love this piece myself, it’s too retrograde — a Mid-Century Modern museum piece — for what I laughingly refer to as The List Aesthetic. But having seen the first performance of this brief run last week, I realized I was wrong, as it’s exactly the kind of meta-work we regularly champion around here: a brilliant parody of the 18th Century operas I List freely, working at the same time — as all great parodies do — as a beautiful example of what it sends up; a piece that uses formalism for purposes of expression (see also, e.g., the Velvet Underground’s Loaded). Sure, it helps if you’re familiar with 18th Century opera to appreciate this. But the way Stravinsky spices up 18th Century usages with tart harmonies and spiky rhythms (this was his envoi to Neoclassicism) makes this even more accessible to contemporary audiences than the originals. And the current cast is FRESH. Too bad that Jonathan Miller’s production remains as brain-dead as ever; you’ll have to tease out the meta elements for yourself, the concept of this production seeming to be, “let’s pretend The Rake’s Progress is a normal straightforward one-dimensional narrative opera”. But you can’t have everything.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Not much open near here afterward. Before, maybe nice bistro French at Bar Boulud.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
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Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 3:00 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 4:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Aki Onda: Cassette Memories in the Lower East Side
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 11 & 12, 2022
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
6:00 PM SATURDAY
Locations on Lower East Side provided upon ticketing
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Aki Onda leads the audience on a tour of community gardens in the Lower East Side, playing cassette field recordings made at or relating to the gardens as they go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Bao go Trinidadian at The Bun Hut.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Bergsonist: As if Reality?
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022
3:00 PM
Harvestworks
Nolan Park Building 10A, Governors Island, Manhattan
$10 suggested donation
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Selwa Abd, in her Bergsonist guise, presents a musical/multidisciplinary consideration/exploration of simulation/reality. In addition to this outdoor performance, there’ll be an associated online presentation through ISSUE Project Room Friday (JUNE 10) at 8:00 PM.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Lots to eat and drink on Governors Island, with my usual shout out to the almost ridiculously scenic and pleasant Island Oyster, which doesn’t need to have food (and drink!) nearly as good as it does.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
MUSIC
Greg Wilder: Music in the Constellation: An In-Person Immersive Audio Experience
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022
2:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another workout for National Sawdust’s amazing Meyer Sound Constellation sound system with its multi-speaker (VERY multi!) array permitting pinpoint sound spacialization. Composers of the electronically realized pieces to be played include Stockhausen, Rameau, and Zappa.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great New York slice pizza at the Williamsburg branch of Joe’s Pizza.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Metropolis Ensemble: Bird Dance Party
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022
1:00 – 3:00 PM
$18; $12 students/seniors; free children under 12
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Giant bird stiltwalkers and life-sized bird puppets cavort to music by Matthew Evan Taylor, Paula Matthusen, and John Dankwa. (Also: artist-designed bird houses!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The best pancakes I, for one, have ever had in the friendliest surroundings I, for one, have ever experienced at Tom’s Restaurant.
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Friday, June 10, 2022, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
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Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 9:00 PM
THEATER
Jess Barbagallo: Weekend at Barry’s / Lesbian Lighthouse
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 10 – 12, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 26)
8:00 PM
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$21
TICKETS + INFORMATION
More Multiverse stuff (it’s the thing right now), this time as affecting a dead-end cultural worker named Barry subsisting on cheap rent (you talkin’ to me?).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OF COURSE you’re going to Ernesto’s for great Basque.
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Friday, June 10, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 9:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
La MaMa’s Squirts: Past // Present // Future
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 10 – 12, 2022
8:00 PM
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$60
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An intergenerational Queer performance festival!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican insect cuisine (and they don’t even make it to escamoles) at The Black Ant.
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Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 4:00 PM
DANCE
Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company: Curriculum II
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 10 – 12, 2022
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Peak Performances
Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University
1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey
$50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
You sit on the stage as Bill T. Jones and his fabulous dancers go through a series of Jones’s rigorous movement phrases, so familiar to us from decades of viewing, set to a ticker tape of topical concerns. This will be much better than that description makes it sound.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Gotta be the hearty New American Turtle + The Wolf, by far the best restaurant within walking distance.
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Friday, June 10, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
An Orchestral Tribute to The Notorious B.I.G.
FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2022
7:30 PM
Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center
Amsterdam Avenue & West 62nd Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
God only knows what this orchestral tribute to the great Brooklyn rapper — I mean really great — will be like. But the presence of The Originals collective of legendary NYC DJS is a very good sign.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Biggie himself would have gone back to Clinton Hill for a T-Bone steak, cheese eggs, and Welch’s grape at the Country House Diner. But we’ll stay in this area for a Cadillac Burger at P.J. Clarke’s, of which I’m sure Mr. Wallace would have fully approved.
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Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 8:30 PM
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
Sifiso Mabena: [sunflower]
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JUNE 10 & 11, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 18)
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$18 advance; $21 door; $15 advance students/seniors; $18 advance students/seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An Afrosurrealist look at immigration and roots. Co-starring puppets!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A friend just asked me how the new Filipino-Japanese Gugu Room is. I wonder.
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Friday, June 10, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Friday, June 10, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
ChamberQueer: Pride Festival
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 10 & 12, 2022
7:00 PM FRIDAY
6:00 PM SUNDAY
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
It all looks great, but let me call your special attention to Sunday’s arrangement of Julius Eastman’s galvanic Gay Guerilla for string septet by Jessie Montgomery(!).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent Vietnamese at Bolero.
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Friday, June 10, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Friday, June 10, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
MUSIC
Machine Life: Gavalán Rayna Russom/quest?onmark
THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022
10:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
Free before 10:00 PM; $14.63 thereafter
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new series putting live electronic sets next to DJ sets. And the live set is by no less than sometime LCD whiz Gavalán Rayna Russom!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Oaxacan food at Claro is really good — and the backyard garden is a wonderful place to eat.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
The Forest feat. Warren Smith & J D Parran
THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new percussion ensemble!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, great pita, good stuff to put on it at Bedouin Tent. Streaming at home, have a Billionaire: pour 2 oz. Bourbon (high proof if you have some and are feeling up to it), 1/2 oz. Absinthe, 1 oz. lemon juice, and 1/2 oz. each of Grenadine and Simple Syrup into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Garnish with a lemon wheel.
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Thu, Jun 9, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 9:00 PM
THEATER
Camilo Quiroz-Vázquez & Ellpetha Tsivicos: QUINCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 9 – 12, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 19)
8:00 PM
The Bushwick Starr
419 Eldert Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$25-$45; $200 table of six
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another Quarantine hit in abridged form comes back in full form, as it was meant to be. An immersive experience showing a teen Chicana coming out to her family on the eve of her Quinceañera — sort of a Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding based on thoughtful exploration rather than broad ethnic stereotypes, and where Tony and Tina turn out to be queer.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Plausible Vietnamese at Money Cat.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thu, Jun 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 8:30 PM
DANCE
mayfield brooks: Sensoria: An Opera Strange
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 9 – 11, 2022
7:30 PM
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors; $10 children 12 or younger; $15 wheelchair accessible
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Mayfield brooks continues his project exploring the process of the decomposition of the body of a dead whale (which, on the bright side, then goes on to feed thousands of sea creatures). The avant-garde: you can’t make this stuff up.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Still more Vietnamese at Madame Vo.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
DANCE / MUSIC
Jerron Herman & Molly Joyce: Left and Right
THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An exploration, by dancer Jerron Herman and composer Molly Joyce — two artists subject to imbalances of ability between the two sides of their bodies — of the once-held traditional distinction between the “sinister” left side of the body and the supposedly beneficent right.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hatch Chili on everything at Santa Fe BK.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
OPERA
Brett Dean: Hamlet
THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022
7:30 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$335
TICKETS + INFORMATION
What Late Romanticism was good for was dramatic expression. So I guess it stands to reason that what a composer in the High Modern idiom that is Late Romanticism’s offspring should be writing is opera. Brett Dean’s Hamlet isn’t just a hit, but a smash hit (a palpable hit, as one is almost required to say). Many reviews of its world premiere at Glyndebourne a few years ago complained of its coldness — but it sure doesn’t seem that way at the Met. I’ve rarely been so gripped by an opera performance — nor by a performance of Hamlet, for that matter.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good luck finding anywhere near the Met open after this show. Before, maybe the dependable neighborhood French at La Boite en Bois.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Sunwatchers
THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2022
7:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15.06
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The big band Sunwatchers is another of those groups whose syncretic music — world (Ethiopian jazz, Thai trad, whatever), Terry Riley minimalism, rock — shouldn’t work, but somehow gets by as much as anything on sheer exuberance. And by a sophistication that exuberance belies.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Now that it’s nice out, the Birria-Landia truck is all but irresistible.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thu, Jun 9, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 8:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Justin Vivian Bond: Mary’s Choice, Fast & Loose, or WTF?
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 9 – 11, 2022
7:00 PM
Joe’s Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$55
TICKETS + INFORMATION
How brilliant is Justin Vivian Bond? So brilliant that I couldn’t sit through Akhnaten without cracking up after what Bond and Anthony Roth Costanzo did to it in Only an Octave Apart last year. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. (Akhnaten’s still stupendous, don’t get me wrong.) This is another of Bond’s Joe’s Pub runs where they team up with unannounced surprise guests (often a surprise to Bond as well) each night — which is how the ARC partnership began, actually.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Highly regarded Japanese-inflected grilled food in douchey surroundings at Kyu.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
MUSIC
Marc Ribot: The Jazz-Beens
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022
9:00 PM
The Atlantic BKLN
333 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Master guitarist Marc Ribot relives his early experience as a guitarist in Brother Jack McDuff’s soul-jazz organ trio. But this time the organist — now Greg Lewis — doesn’t disapprove of the guitarist’s outside-the-box avant-garde tendencies.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Might as well stay on-brand and cross the street to The Soul Spot.
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
MUSIC
Nightcap: Sarah Kirkland Snyder
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022
9:00 PM
The New York Philharmonic
Kaplan Penthouse, Juilliard School
165 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$40
TICKETS + INFORMATION
As a run-up to the Philharmonic’s premiere of her new piece on Friday, a group of Alt Classical regulars plays a set of music curated by Sarah Kirkland Snyder featuring her own music and that of her Alt Classical colleagues. A good chance to hear that, for all their denials of stylistic similarities, this group of composers do have a lot in common: a certain mellifluousness, a grasp of popular rhythms and forms, and a schooled commitment to classical.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Forget having anything in the area after the show (I will note, however, that while you’re there, the concession bartender at the Kaplan Penthouse makes some of the strongest Gin & Tonics I have ever drunk). So go easy on the Martinis with your pre-show clams on the half shell (there is no “r” in June), followed of course by a Cadillac Burger, at P.J. Clarke’s.
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Wed, Jun 8, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 9:30 PM
MUSIC
The Stone Residencies: Zeena Parkins
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 8 – 11, 2022
8:30 PM
The Stone
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Downtown Harp Goddess Zeena Parkins gets a week. Each night looks great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’ll be nice to go back to the comfortable Emilia-Romagnan food at Da Andrea (do yourself a favor and start with the Tigelle Modenesi con Prosciutto).
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Wed, Jun 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 9:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Tiresias: HYPERFANTASIA
WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY, JUNE 8 – 10, 2022
8:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15-$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another case where I can’t better the promotional materials: a multi-night (different guest performers each night) “sci-fi fantasy drag cabaret about the proliferation of matter in the universe and life on planet Earth”. If THAT doesn’t get you going to Metropolitan Avenue, I don’t know what will.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It would really be nice to get some Neo-Cantonese at Bonnie’s after this. Too bad you can’t get in.
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Wed, Jun 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 9:00 PM
DANCE
Abigail Levine: Redactions
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 8 – 11, 2022
8:00 PM
Chocolate Factory
38-33 24th Street, Long Island City, Queens
$20-$35
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A sort of series of ruminations through gesture. Among the subjects of Abigail Levine’s ruminations are Fred Moten’s take on abstraction and having sex in an airplane bathroom. The higher tickt price gets you a copy of a (very) limited edition art book containing the series of drawings as which this work originated.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Point Brazil is a bit of a hike, but here’s the thing: it’s a good enough Brazilian restaurant ordinarily, but every once in a while — most frequently on Saturdays (but not all or even many) — they serve rare specialties from Bahia that you just never see around here. Try your luck.
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Che Chen: WHALE CREEK
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room @ Newtown Creek Nature Walk
329 Greenpoint Avenue (entrances from Paidge Avenue or Kingsland Avenue), Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$10 suggested donation
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Che Chen, one of the most interesting musicians in New York, stations musicians on each bank of Whale Creek in a sonic exploration of this fraught site: a pleasant nature park situated on a major pollution site that was once a rich hunting and fishing ground — and which now serves as a harbinger of waterfront gentrification. On Thursday at 8:00 PM, Chen (through ISSUE Project Room) will make an online presentation featuring studio sounds and field recordings with visuals, all relating to the site.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Extend your time overlooking Newtown Creek with some pleasant Middle Eastern-inflected food at Glasserie.
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Kate NV
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022
8:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kate NV brings her avant-pop back to NYC. It’s good to see that the new album this Russian artist is promoting is a benefit for refugees from military conflict.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A trusted friend just went to Faro for the first time post-Lockdown and said the local-grains Italian-from-the-oven was as good as ever.
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Wed, Jun 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 8:30 PM
DANCE
Akram Khan: Giselle
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 8 – 11, 2022
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
BAM Opera House
30 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$35-$150
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Can even Akram Khan turn this most warhorsey of Romantic Ballet warhorses into something Not Stupid? Only one way to find out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Some of the opening press for Saraghina Caffè misidentified its food as Sicilian. Turns out that it actually trends Milanese. Fine with me.
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
MUSIC
Kamasi Washington
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022
7:30 PM
Celebrate Brooklyn
Lena Horne Bandshell, Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Like it or not (and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t), one thing you have to give the maximalist neo-New Thing conscious jazz of Kamasi Washington: you know you’ve heard something.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Huge neighborhood Italian pasta fave Pasta Louise.
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
MUSIC
Clarion Society: Josquin des Prez Marathon
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022
3:00 PM
Fuentidueña Chapel, The Cloisters
99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan
$65
TICKETS + INFORMATION
To my ears, Renaissance vocal polyphony is one of the glories of Western cultural output, using clear structures as bases for incredibly imaginative elaboration — and attaining almost unbelievable levels of sheer, breathtaking beauty. Josquin was the undisputed master of its earlier, purest phase. The Clarion Society gives us five hours of this gorgeous enthralling music. (They’ll present a shorter sampler tomorrow night [THURSDAY, JUNE 9].)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Elsa la Reina del Chicharron towers over all other Dominican restaurants in the City to an extent that’s almost shocking. You will not believe how good this food is.
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Tue, Jun 7, 2022, 8:00 PM – Thu, Jun 9, 2022, 9:00 PM
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Tuesday, June 7, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Isabel Crespo Pardo: desbordandome
TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The transfixing vocalist/composer Isabel Crespo Pardo, backed by Lester St. Louis on cello and Henry Fraser on bass, no less. I think you’ll like this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, nice enough bistro at Bacchus. Streaming at home, have a San Martin: pour 1-1/2 oz. each of Gin and sweet Vermouth, and 1 teaspoon yellow Chartreuse, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Tue, Jun 7, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 11:00 PM
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Tue, Jun 7, 2022, 7:30 PM – Wed, Jun 8, 2022, 10:30 PM
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Tue, Jun 7, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 8:30 PM
THEATER
Maria Vélez Meléndez: Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 7 – 12, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 19)
7:30 PM TUESDAY – SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
$35 TUESDAY – SATURDAY; 99¢ SUNDAY
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A drag show about decolonization. What could possibly be more appealing?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Just about everyone disagrees with my feeling that Mena is too fussy and insubstantial. I just have lower tastes than them is all. And probably than you as well.
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Tuesday, June 7, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
OPERA
Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress
TUESDAY & SATURDAY, JUNE 7 & 11, 2022
7:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$480
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I wasn’t going to List this on the ground that, much as I love this piece myself, it’s too retrograde — a Mid-Century Modern museum piece — for what I laughingly refer to as The List Aesthetic. But having seen the first performance of this brief run last week, I realized I was wrong, as it’s exactly the kind of meta-work we regularly champion around here: a brilliant parody of the 18th Century operas I List freely, working at the same time — as all great parodies do — as a beautiful example of what it sends up; a piece that uses formalism for purposes of expression (see also, e.g., the Velvet Underground’s Loaded). Sure, it helps if you’re familiar with 18th Century opera to appreciate this. But the way Stravinsky spices up 18th Century usages with tart harmonies and spiky rhythms (this was his envoi to Neoclassicism) makes this even more accessible to contemporary audiences than the originals. And the current cast is FRESH. Too bad that Jonathan Miller’s production remains as brain-dead as ever; you’ll have to tease out the meta elements for yourself, the concept of this production seeming to be, “let’s pretend The Rake’s Progress is a normal straightforward one-dimensional narrative opera”. But you can’t have everything.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Not much open near here afterward. Before, maybe nice bistro French at Bar Boulud.
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Tuesday, June 7, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Circuit des Yeux / Faten Kanaan
TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2022
7:00 PM
Graveyard Shift
Green-Wood Cemetery
500 25th Street, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$35; $45 day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
As Circuit des Yeux, droney avant-chamber-popmeister Haley Fohr puts the “contra” in contralto. Brooklyn’s own Faten Kanaan creates sweeping soundscapes. They both should sound pretty great in a cemetery.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sea Witch will still be serving its overperforming pub grub after the show. Also: the aquarium!
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Tue, Jun 7, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 3:00 PM
THEATER
Chekhov / Igor Golyak: The Orchard
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 7 – 12, 2022 (continuing through JULY 3)
7:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Arlekin Players In Person & Online
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$39-$125 in person; $29 online; $49-$149 in person & online bundle
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Igor Golyak’s Arlekin Players provided some of the best online theater during The Lockdown, making imaginative use of the medium rather than just transmitting transcribed performances. Now they’re doing their new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard both ways, in person and via a technologically mediated stream. You can see either or both. Either way, with Mikhail Baryshnikov himself playing Firs, this might be the first production in history where the family servant is the most charismatic person on stage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, although the characters in the play wouldn’t lower themselves, treat yourself to some absolutely delicious Central Asian food at Farida. Streaming at home, there’s nothing for it but an ice-cold straight-out-of-the-freezer Vodka.
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Tue, Jun 7, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 6:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 7 – 12, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY
10:00 AM – 8:30 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Advance ticket required: $18; $12 students and seniors; free children with attending adult; weekdays pay what you can
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Mon, Jun 6, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 8:59 PM
THEATER
Gab Reisman: Spindle Shuttle Needle
MONDAY – SATURDAY, JUNE 6 – 11, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 16)
8:00 PM
Summerworks
Clubbed Thumb
The Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25-$60; $20 student
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Feminism, anti-Capitalism, and Tina Benko. What more could you want?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Solid underrated seafood at Lamia’s Fish Market.
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Monday, June 6, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
PERFORMANCE
Ensemble Connect: Ripple Effect
MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2022
7:30 PM
Resnick Education Wing, Carnegie Hall
154 West 57th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Ensemble Connect teams up with the violin/visual arts duo The Afield for what they promise/threaten will be an “immersive” presentation. There are pieces by at least two composers whom List readers are probably sick of hearing about by now, their work being so exactly what this List is about: Angélica Negrón (a world premiere!) and Lisa Bielawa. That should more than make up for the threatened audience participation.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hunanese at Blue Willow (although warning: they are really serious about their 10 PM closing time!).
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Mon, Jun 6, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 7:00 PM
MUSIC/PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 6 – 12, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Jun 6, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC/PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 6 – 12, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, June 5, 2022, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
MUSIC
The Next Festival of Emerging Artists’ Orchestra feat. Pamela Z
SUNDAY, JUNE 5, 2022
5:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20; $10 students/seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A bunch of world premieres for orchestra. We’ll focus on one by (and featuring) List Goddess Pamela Z, whose piquant mixtures of voice and electronics never fail to intrigue and entertain.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Really really good — like really good — Palestinian at al Badawi.
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Sunday, June 5, 2022, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
OPERA
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
THURSDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 2 & 5, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 10)
7:30 PM THURSDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$47-$480
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Is this the best thing the Met has done in like ages? Here at The List we sure think so!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the Wednesday show (afterwards you’ll have to travel to somewhere like Great New York Noodletown), why not a Cadillac Burger at P.J. Clarke’s? Saturday, Clarke’s for afterward; beforehand, have a sandwich (with some garlic fries!) at Pastrami Queen.
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Sunday, June 5, 2022, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
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Saturday, June 4, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Wavefield: the impossibility of nostalgia, part 2: DAWN CHORUS
SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2022
7:00 PM
DiMenna Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$20; $10 student/senior
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The big news here is a U.S. premiere by the fabulous Australian composer Liza Lim, one of the few in the Western classical tradition who can explore non-Western musics in a way that displays deep engagement rather than merely use as color (as nice as their attempts were, Debussy and Ravel couldn’t do that). But her music still never sounds anything other than her own.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Superb Spanish (really!) at Casa Dani.
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Saturday, June 4, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
DANCE
Ariel Rivka Dance: The Missing Element
SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2022
7:00 PM
Bryant Park, Midtown, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Beatbox (all music guaranteed created solely by human bodies) and breakdancing and beyond.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sichuan at Cafe China.
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Saturday, June 4, 2022, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
Flux Factory: Parade of the Species
SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2022
2:00 PM
Soisson’s Landing, Governors Island, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Visual artists, musicians, and puppeteers(!) form a procession honoring the 174 species of animals that have been observed on Governors Island. There’s an associated art exhibition in Flux Factory’s residence for the season at Colonels Row House 404A.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Lots to eat and drink on Governors Island, with my usual shout out to the almost ridiculously scenic and pleasant Island Oyster, which doesn’t need to have food (and drink!) nearly as good as it does.
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Saturday, June 4, 2022, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
OPERA
Brett Dean: Hamlet
TUESDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 31 & JUNE 4, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 9)
7:30 PM TUESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$335
TICKETS + INFORMATION
What Late Romanticism was good for was dramatic expression. So I guess it stands to reason that what a composer in the High Modern idiom that is Late Romanticism’s offspring should be writing is opera. Brett Dean’s Hamlet isn’t just a hit, but a smash hit (a palpable hit, as one is almost required to say). Many reviews of its world premiere at Glyndebourne a few years ago complained of its coldness — but it sure doesn’t seem that way at the Met. I’ve rarely been so gripped by an opera performance — nor by a performance of Hamlet, for that matter.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good luck finding anywhere near the Met open after this show. Before, maybe the dependable neighborhood French at La Boite en Bois.
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Sat, Jun 4, 2022, 12:00 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 5:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: Flatbed Follies
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 4 & 5, 2022
12:00 – 6:00 PM SATURDAY
2:00 – 4:00 PM SUNDAY
SATURDAY: Lewis Avenue Open Street btw. Fulton Street & Decatur Street, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
SUNDAY: Myrtle-Wyckoff Plaza, Bushwick, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus takes it to the street!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Saturday, delicious Southern cooking at Peaches Kitchen & Bar. Sunday, Nepalese-New York Fusion at While in Kathmandu.
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Fri, Jun 3, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Jun 4, 2022, 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Anaïs Maviel: B.A.–B.A. (Before Before & After After)
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JUNE 3 & 4, 2022
8:00 PM
JACK
20 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Anaïs Maviel makes music that is ritualistic, almost shamanistic — but that description doesn’t convey how listenable, dare I say melodic, her music is. It’s more common to see her singing and playing (piano, string instruments from the African diaspora, percussion) solo or in a duo, so this piece for a large ensemble of performers is an intriguing event.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Rochester cuisine at Brooklyn Hots. You buy wine at their Natural wine shop next door — or bring in your own Genny Cream.
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Fri, Jun 3, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 9:00 PM
PERFORMANCE
Tiresias: HYPERFANTASIA
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 3 – 5, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 10)
8:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15-$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another case where I can’t better the promotional materials: a multi-night (different guest performers each night) “ sci-fi fantasy drag cabaret about the proliferation of matter in the universe and life on planet Earth”. If THAT doesn’t get you going to Metropolitan Avenue, I don’t know what will.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It would really be nice to get some Neo-Cantonese at Bonnie’s after this. Too bad you can’t get in.
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Friday, June 3, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Xenia Rubinos
FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2022
8:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Xenia Rubinos is exactly what we like here at The List: pop-adjacent music clearly conversant with current currents in classical and jazz. Her last album leaned farther into Tropical/Caribbean than her previous work — and boy was it good.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A trusted friend just went to Faro for the first time post-Lockdown and said the local-grains Italian-from-the-oven was as good as ever.
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Friday, June 3, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Friday, June 3, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
PERFORMANCE
Anthony McCall: Line Descending a Cone
FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2022
7:30 PM
Microscope Gallery
525 West 25th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In a pioneering, indeed formative, piece of performative imageless film, 3D light effects (well, not effects, really: the light really is 3D; the things you see are there, are actually physically present) are achieved . . . well, by means of techniques that have changed over the 50 years since this piece was first developed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Memorable Spanish at Casa Dani.
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Friday, June 3, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Friday, June 3, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
OPERA
Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress
FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 11)
7:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$480
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I wasn’t going to List this on the ground that, much as I love this piece myself, it’s too retrograde — a Mid-Century Modern museum piece — for what I laughingly refer to as The List Aesthetic. But having seen the first performance of this run on Monday, I realized I was wrong, as it’s exactly the kind of meta-work we regularly champion around here: a brilliant parody of the 18th Century operas I List freely, working at the same time — as all great parodies do — as a beautiful example of what it sends up; a piece that uses formalism for purposes of expression (see also, e.g., the Velvet Underground’s Loaded). Sure, it helps if you’re familiar with 18th Century opera to appreciate this. But the way Stravinsky spices up 18th Century usages with tart harmonies and spiky rhythms (this was his envoi to Neoclassicism) makes this even more accessible to contemporary audiences than the originals. And the current cast is FRESH. Too bad that Jonathan Miller’s production remains as brain-dead as ever; you’ll have to tease out the meta elements for yourself, the concept of this production seeming to be, “let’s pretend The Rake’s Progress is a normal straightforward one-dimensional narrative opera”. But you can’t have everything.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Not much open near here afterward. Before, maybe nice bistro French at Bar Boulud.
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Friday, June 3, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Friday, June 3, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
MUSIC
Petr Kotik: Many Many Women
FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2022
6:00 PM
S.E.M. Ensemble
Life World
Address supplied upon ticket purchase, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
For all you 1970s nostalgists, a marathon performance (lasting till Midnight) of Peter Kotik’s Gertrude Stein-based durational work from the middle of that decade. Showing how much the Alt Classical of that period (though nobody called it that then) was foundational, still influencing the Alt Classical of our own time. S.E.M. emphasizes that you can come and go whenever you want over the duration of the performance.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: NO PLACE in Gowanus will be open to eat when this is over. You can have a nice early dinner from the oven at Victor.
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Fri, Jun 3, 2022, 6:00 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 5:00 PM
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Thursday, June 2, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thu, Jun 2, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 8:59 PM
THEATER
Camilo Quiroz-Vázquez & Ellpetha Tsivicos: QUINCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 2 – 5, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 19)
8:00 PM
The Bushwick Starr
419 Eldert Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$25-$45; $200 table of six
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another Quarantine hit in abridged form comes back in full form, as it was meant to be. An immersive experience showing a teen Chicana coming out to her family on the eve of her Quinceañera — sort of a Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding based on thoughtful exploration rather than broad ethnic stereotypes, and where Tony and Tina turn out to be queer.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Plausible Vietnamese at Money Cat.
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Thursday, June 2, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thursday, June 2, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Mario Diaz de Leon: Heart Thread
THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new work for synth ensemble — with visuals and Laura Cocks on flute. This List just LOVES Mario Diaz de Leon, who is able to combine the visceral excitement of EDM with the structural rigor and inventiveness of classical.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, plausible neighborhood French at French Louie. Streaming at home, have a Guadalajara: pour 2 oz. reposado Tequila and 1/2 oz. each of Fernet and agave syrup, with 2 dashes of mole bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Express a grapefruit twist into the drink and discard the rind.
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Thursday, June 2, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
OPERA
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
THURSDAY & SUNDAY, JUNE 2 & 5, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 10)
7:30 PM THURSDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$47-$480
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Is this the best thing the Met has done in like ages? Here at The List we sure think so!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the Wednesday show (afterwards you’ll have to travel to somewhere like Great New York Noodletown), why not a Cadillac Burger at P.J. Clarke’s? Saturday, Clarke’s for afterward; beforehand, have a sandwich (with some garlic fries!) at Pastrami Queen.
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Thu, Jun 2, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 6:00 PM
THEATER
Brecht: Mother Courage and Her Children
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, JUNE 2 – 5, 2022
7:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Irondale
85 South Oxford Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$30; $15 students/seniors/working artists
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Bertolt Brecht is enormously important to this List, both for his esthetics — he perfected the kind of expressionistic non-realist theater we like around here — and for his politics. A must for all my fellow Commies.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Karasu, the speakeasy izakaya hidden in the back of Walter’s.
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Thursday, June 2, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thu, Jun 2, 2022, 7:00 PM – Fri, Jun 3, 2022, 7:59 PM
DANCE
Jordan Demetrius Lloyd: Jerome
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, JUNE 2 & 3, 2022
7:00 PM
Stephen Decatur Middle School
272 MacDonough Street, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Jordan Demetrius Lloyd has danced with any number of Usual Contemporary Suspects, and his own stuff betrays a keen formal mind and a feeling for a wide range of contemporary usages, from the vernacular to the abstract (not that vernacular can’t be abstract itself). For his post-Lockdown breakout, he stages a piece in and for his ‘hood. The future is now.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’s a little bit of a walk, but I’m going to send you to the delicious, unique Caribbean-tinged pizza at Cuts & Slices. I can almost promise it’ll be your new fave.
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Wed, Jun 1, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Jun 4, 2022, 9:30 PM
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Wednesday, June 1, 2022, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MUSIC
Andrew Neumann: The Predictability of Unpredictability
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Solo analogue synth with visuals.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, good Middle Eastern on GREAT pita at Bedouin Tent. Streaming at home, have a Cooper’s Cocktail: pour 2 oz. Rye, 3/4 oz. St-Germain, and 1/4 oz. Fernet into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
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Wednesday, June 1, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
MUSIC
Robert Glasper
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2022
7:00 PM
Blue Note Jazz Festival
Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Thirty years ago, Robert Glasper was just an up-and-coming jazz pianist. Then he realized he didn’t have to maintain a wall of separation between the hip-hop he loved and the mainstream jazz he revered: hip-hop was only the latest expression of the jazz-and-blues efflorescence that started around the turn of the 20th Century anyway. So now he’s not only an excellent jazz pianist but an influential pioneer — and great to listen to to boot. (If you feel like paying a lot of money to listen to Glasper in a bougie overcrowded jazz club, he’ll be playing at the Blue Note Thursday.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Possibly bullshit — we’ll have to try it to see (LET ME KNOW) — New Israeli at Shmoné.
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Wednesday, June 1, 2022, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Wed, Jun 1, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 8:00 PM
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Tue, May 31, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 6:00 PM
THEATER
Édouard Louis: Who killed my father
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, MAY 31 – JUNE 5, 2022
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$49-$59
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Édouard Louis writes intense, piercing pieces about growing up gay. This time he has the inestimable advantage of production by Thomas Ostermeier, who refines pieces down to their emotional core.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’s totally getting to be the time of year for the views and Mediterranean food at Celestine.
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Tue, May 31, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 8:30 PM
THEATER
Maria Vélez Meléndez: Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, MAY 31 – JUNE 5, 2022 (continuing through JUNE 19)
7:30 PM TUESDAY – SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
$35 TUESDAY – SATURDAY; 99¢ SUNDAY
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A drag show about decolonization. What could possibly be more appealing?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Just about everyone disagrees with my feeling that Mena is too fussy and insubstantial. I just have lower tastes than them is all. And probably than you as well.
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Mon, May 30, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 6:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
MONDAY – SUNDAY, MAY 30 – JUNE 5, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY
10:00 AM – 8:30 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Advance ticket required: $18; $12 students and seniors; free children with attending adult; weekdays pay what you can
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Mon, May 30, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 7:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, MAY 30 – JUNE 5, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, May 30, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Jun 5, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC/PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, MAY 30 – JUNE 5, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
