There is such an wealth of culture in New York, particularly in the fall season, that it’s often difficult for presenters to make their offerings stand out. French Institute (FIAF), however, with its Crossing the Line festival (video here), has managed to both expand its genres and refine its mission to create a sort of core sample of contemporary French culture. This year, that includes culinary arts—so integral to France—in addition to many other events, most of which elude genre pigeon-holing. They blend varying strands of dance, art, film, and performance with one certain element—French essence. The festival is curated by Lili Chopra, FIAF’s artistic director, and Simon Dove, director, School of Dance at Arizona State University.
Festivities kick off in Central Park on Saturday, Sep 12 with Le Bal NYC, a mash-up of choreography, audience participation, and picnic outing. French choreographers (“established and emerging”) will teach short dances to the public, which gets a first-hand look at the dance performing process. Meanwhile, chefs—including NY’s David Chang and Wylie Dufresne, reportedly—will be prepping bento boxes of edible treats. read more
In terms of sheer depth of talent, the Twelfth Night that opened at the Delacorte Theater last week is probably the closest thing to the Public Theater’s now-legendary production of The Seagull back in the summer of 2001. But despite countless Tony-winners, TV stars and one blushing recent Oscar-nominee, at the final preview the buzz before curtain was mostly about the rainy weather—and the biggest reaction during the show was when a raccoon unexpectedly ran onto the stage. Such are the unexpected thrills of live theater in Central Park.
It was daring of the Public to mount Shakespeare’s finest comedy given the strong memories New York audiences have of two imported productions from London earlier this decade (Sam Mendes’ Donmar staging which featured the mesmerizing Malvolio of Simon Russell Beale and Declan Donnellen’s raucous all-male, Russian-language version) not to mention that it’s only been only seven summers since their last Twelfth Night—a meandering production (directed by Brian Kulick) notable less for its star turns (most of all, a dull Julia Stiles) and mainly for its songs set to music by a pre-Spring Awakening Duncan Sheik.
Kulick envisioned the fictional island of Illyria as a futuristic waterslide park; this time round, Sullivan paints a pastoral, 18th century Scotland. read more
No, a UFO has not landed in Central Park. It’s just Mobile Art, Chanel’s Contemporary Art Container plopped on Rumsey Playfield. It is Zaha Hadid’s first edifice in New York, a swooping futuristic nautilus that feels like a sci-fi movie come true. Chanel commissioned a group of contemporary artists to create work taking the company’s famous boxy 2.55 handbag as a starting point, which some did literally, some conceptually.
When the Mobile Art project was conceived a while back, and even when it bowed in Hong Kong in February 2008, it was likely incomprehensible that the state of the national and world economies would be where they currently are. Some visitors may view it as if it were a year ago – as a celebration of a top purveyor of luxury leather goods enshrined in a similarly haute setting by one of the world’s most admired avant-garde architects.
Others may feel that it’s a time stamp on a period of unlimited greed and profligacy which ended with a restructuring of the big financial institutions, and resulting in the most precarious financial state since the Great Depression. As well as a frivolous confection that takes up real estate in the park. read more
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