The Dog Days of August are upon us! New York City is hot, steamy, sweaty and half naked-which means it’s “hot fun in the summertime”. Here are a few of the many events happening in the city that never sleeps guaranteed to keep you Out and About.
Huma Bhabha has been selected to create a site-specific installation for The Met’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, the sixth in a series of commissions for the outdoor space. Bhabha’s work addresses themes of colonialism, war, displacement, and memories of place. Using found materials and the detritus of everyday life, she creates haunting human figures that hover between abstraction and figuration, monumentality and entropy. The exhibit runs now thru October 18, 2018
The Roof Garden Commission 2018: Huma Bhabha
The Jim Henson Exhibition features a broad range of objects from throughout his remarkable career. It reveals how Henson and his team of builders, performers, and writers brought to life the enduringly popular worlds of The Muppet Show, the Muppet movies, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. It also includes material from Henson’s experimental film projects and his early work, presenting him as a restlessly creative performer, filmmaker, and technical innovator. This is an ongoing exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image.
Constantin Brancusi carved his work directly from wood or stone, or cast it in bronze. Simultaneously, he rejected realism, preferring that his sculptures evoke rather than resemble the subjects named in their titles. Brancusi made bases for many of his sculptures, themselves complex constructions that became part of the work. The exhibit runs from July 22 through February 18, 2019 at MOMA.
The Face Of Dynasty: Royal Crests From Western Cameroon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sept. 3). In the African wing, a show of just four commanding wooden crowns constitutes a blockbuster in its own right. These massive wooden crests — in the form of stylized human faces with vast vertical brows — served as markers of royal power among the Bamileke peoples of the Cameroonian grasslands, and the Met’s recent acquisition of an 18th-century specimen is joined here by three later examples, each featuring sharply protruding cheeks, broadly smiling mouths and brows incised with involute geometric patterns. Ritual objects like these were decisive for the development of Western modernist painting, and a Cameroonian crest was even shown at MoMA in the 1930s, as a “sculpture” divorced from ethnography. But these crests had legal and diplomatic significance as well as aesthetic appeal, and their anonymous African creators had a political understanding of art not so far from our own.
INSITU Site-Specific Dance Festival (August 4 and 5) is the second annual edition of this free and unusual two-day celebration of contemporary and urban dance, 20 choreographers and groups—including Douglas Dunn + Dancers, House of Ninja, Alice Gosti, Sarah Elgart/Angry Elbow, Renegade Performance Group and Canada’s Fleuve-Espace dance—descend on four Long Island City parks with performances designed for playgrounds, stairways, shorelines, piers and other cityscapes. Audiences are led through continuous performances on the Western Queens waterfront several times throughout day. Visit the festival website insitudancefestival.com for schedule details.
Momix at the Joyce Theater through August 12, 2018. Moses Pendleton and his dancer-illusionists, renowned for their lovely scenic effects, return with another mesmerizing multimedia production. The mixed bill includes favorite works from the company’s long history (including the flower-themed Marigolds and the Southwestern warrior trio Pole Dance) and the New York premieres of three pieces: Daddy Long Leg, Light Reigns and Paper Trails.
MOMIX
Dance Theatre of Harlem begins a year-long celebration of the company’s 50thanniversary with a panel discussion and performance on Saturday August 4. 50 Years of Dance Theatre of Harlem: a panel discussion at the New York City Public Library For The Performing Arts, Bruno Walters Auditorium with current and former Dance Theatre of HarlemCompany members. Panelists including Sheila Rohan (1970s), Keith Saunders (1980s), James Washington (1990s), Akua Noni Parker (2000s),Da’ Von Doane (2010s). Followed by a performance by DTH at Damrosch Park/ Lincoln Center Outdoors on Saturday August 4 at 7:30pm. The performance will includeLondon-born, Paris-based singer-songwriter ALA.NI, who brings the spirit of Billie Holiday and Judy Garland to her jewel box of intimate songs.
Kizuna Dance presents both full works and excerpts from pieces in its current touring cycle, on August 4, 7pm at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Harbor View Lawn, all inspired by aspects of the Japanese culture. The works span the company’s four year history and are rooted in topics such as Buddhism, salarymen, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the visual art of Manabu Ikeda.
Mark Morris Dance Group returns to the Mostly Mozart Festival August 9- 12 at the Rose Theater (at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th St.) with the world premiere of The Trout, set to Franz Schubert’s Trout Quintet. Filling out the bill are two earlier Morris works: Love Song Waltzes (1989), set to Johannes Brahms’s Liebeslieder-Walzer, and I Don’t Want to Love (1996), set to yearning late-Renaissance madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi.
Mission Impossible:- Fallout finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team (Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) along with some familiar allies (Rebecca Ferguson, Michelle Monaghan) in a race against time after a mission gone wrong. Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, and Vanessa Kirby also join the dynamic cast with filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie returning to the helm.
The Darkest Minds: When teens mysteriously develop powerful new abilities, they are declared a threat by the government and detained. Sixteen-year-old Ruby, one of the most powerful young people anyone has encountered, escapes her camp and joins a group of runaway teens seeking safe haven. Soon this newfound family realizes that, in a world in which the adults in power have betrayed them, running is not enough and they must wage a resistance, using their collective power to take back control of their future.
Christopher Robin: Winnie-the-Pooh and friends reunite with old pal Christopher Robin — now an adult.
Jay-Z + Beyoncé dubbed OTR II (a nod to their 2014 On the Run tour), will perform at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on August 2 and 3. The concert showcases music’s ultimate power couple at the peak of their craft.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the five-time GRAMMY-winning a cappella group, makes a welcome return to NJPAC on August 5, 3pm. The group has been dubbed “South Africa’s Cultural Ambassadors to the world”.
Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller, returns to NYC at Stage 42 422 W 42nd St, the Grammy® Award-winning and Tony Award®-nominated smash, made history as Broadway’s longest-running musical revue. Featuring 40 of the greatest songs of the past century, including showstopping classics like “On Broadway,” “Stand by Me,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Hound Dog,” “Love Potion No. 9,” “Spanish Harlem,” “Yakety Yak” and “Charlie Brown,” it celebrates the music of the legendary songwriting duo, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Their generation-defining songs provided hit after hit for icons like Elvis Presley, Ben E. King, The Coasters, and The Drifters.
Pass Over at Claire Tow Theater 150 W 65th St. For many black men, living in a country that was built on slavery and still struggles with ingrained notions of white supremacy feels absurd, dispiriting and paralyzing. Playwright Antoinette Nwandu has devised an ingenious and unsettling way to dramatize that terrifying state of existence by fusing the Exodus story with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The result is Pass Over, an intimate political play that grapples with epic themes and is likely to leave you shaken.
First Fridays House Music Edition at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library 515 Malcolm X Blvd on Friday 3 from 6pm through 10pm. In honor of legendary DJ Larry Levan, guests at our 5th annual House Music Edition of will jam all night long to house music! Levan was a house music pioneer in New York City, best known for his decade-long residency at the popular New York City nightclub Paradise Garage. Levan’s cult followers refer to his hours-long sets as “Saturday Mass,” as he experimented with drum machines and synthesizers, popularizing an electronic, post-disco sound that launched the house music movement. Our host for the night will be Dhalimu from Dhali’s Closet and Lee Soulja for NYC Black Pride, who’ll entertain the crowd as our deejays DJ Missy B, Craig Nice, and DJ Frankie Paradise will have you moving your feet in the Langston Hughes Lobby.
caribBEING in Brooklyn- Brooklyn Museum: Target First Saturday from 6pm- 10pm. For twenty years, Target First Saturdayshave been the freshest place to kick off the month, thanks to great programming and our great community. Events include:
Movement workshop: Fiyah Fit With Jessica Phoenix 5–6 pm Choreographer Jessica Phoenix leads a dance and fitness workshop that introduces the basics of multiple Afro-Caribbean dance forms. All are welcome; no experience required.
CaribBEING House 5–10 pm Stop by mobile art center caribBEING House, which amplifies Caribbean voices through art and activations, and experience cultural production from across the diaspora.
Hands-On Art 6–8 pm Create and decorate your own noisemaker using festive colors inspired by the West Indian Day Parade and by our collection of instruments in Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas. 330 free tickets in Hands-On Art line at Admissions at 5 pm.
Dance: Brooklyn Dance Festival 6–8 pm Brooklyn Dance Festival presents performances that showcase diverse dance styles from across the English, Spanish, and French Caribbean. Featuring Dance Caribbean Collective, The Sabrosura Effect, Project of ContempoCaribe, KaNu Dance Theater, and Bloodline Dance Theatre. Followed by a Q&A with dancers. 330 free tickets in Auditorium line at Admissions at 5 pm.
Drink And Draw 6:30–9:30 pm Grab a drink and sketch from live models from traditional and contemporary mas camps as they show off the diasporic costume traditions that have found a home in Brooklyn. With sounds provided by Rodney Hazard.
Pop-Up Gallery Talks 6:30–7:30 pm Teen Apprentices host ten-minute talks highlighting Caribbean art and stylistic influences in our American Art collection.
Music: Alex Mali 7 pm Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Alex Mali plays modern R&B with reggae-infused pop that pays tribute to her Jamaican and Trinidadian roots.
Pop-Up Poetry: Cave Canem 8 pm Enjoy readings by Caribbean-identified poets Rico Frederick, Erica Mapp, and Camille Rankine. Presented in partnership with Cave Canem Foundation, committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of Black poets.
Music: Pan Evolution Steel Orchestra 8:30–10 pm Brooklyn-based Pan Evolution Steel Orchestra celebrates the contemporary possibilities of the steel pan while bringing together youth to advance the art form.
Community Talk: Organizing Caribbean Communities In Brooklyn 8:30–10 pm Learn about the political impact of people of Caribbean descent in New York and ways to get involved in supporting our Black immigrant neighbors from Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America with Ernest Skinner, Dr. Waldaba Stewart (Medgar Evers Caribbean Research Center), Ninaj Raoul (Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees), and Albert Saint Jean (Black Alliance for Just Immigration). 330 free tickets in Auditorium line at Admissions at 7:30 pm.
Aloha Nights– Head to the New York Botanical Garden for an evening of tropical delights. Take an after-hours look at the garden’s new exhibit, Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai‘i, learn how to hula, watch lei-making demos, explore installations by Hawaiian-Chinese sculptor Mark Chai, listen to live music and fuel it all with a poke bowl and a cup (or two) of Passiflora Punch. Now through Saturday August 18 2018.
We look forward to seeing you Out and About