Real Virtuality
Architect Thomas Lesser’s redesign has doubled the size of the Museum of the Moving Image and expanded the museum’s capacity to present screen culture in all its forms. Currently on view is the special exhibition “Real Virtuality” featuring 6 boundary-blurring experiments in art and interactive digital technology. These works allow visitors to enter simulated and imagined environments and provide observers with multiple perspectives on worlds both unfamiliar and familiar. At the same time, the museum has updated its permanent exhibition – Behind the Screen – which covers every phase of moving image production, promotion and presentation. The exhibition incorporates approximately 1400 artifacts from the museum’s collection. Visitors can see how moving images are made and also participate in interactive displays that let them try their own hands at making movie magic.

The Noguchi Museum’s 25th Anniversary
It’s just a short subway ride from the Museum of the Moving Image to the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City. The museum is marking its 25th anniversary with an exhibition that explores Isamu Noguchi’s ties to key figures in modern art, theater, design and architecture. The exhibition uses artworks and documentary materials to focus on the period between 1922 and 1960 when Noguchi worked with many creative individuals across a number of fields. He established strong friendships with other visual artists like Marion Greenwood, Frida Kahlo and Arshile Gorky. His relationships also extended to theatrical partnerships with choreographers george balanchine and martha graham in his design of set elements. He also established productive partnerships with other designers and architects.

The Diary of a Madman
From the world down under, “The Diary of a Madman” features Academy, Emmy and Tony Award-winner Geoffrey Rush. The US premiere of the show comes to the Brooklyn Academy of Music straight from a sold-out engagement at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre. “The Diary of a Madman” is based on Nikolai Gogol’s darkly comic short story. Set in the repressive era of Nicholas I, it tells the tale of a lowly civil servant yearning for a senior officer’s daughter. He is driven mad by the state bureucracy he labors under. The play follows the protagonist whose descent into madness reaches both comic and tragic heights.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company at City Center
In dance, old favorites and new wonders take to some familiar stages. The Paul Taylor Dance Company returns to City Center with works from the repertory spanning nearly the entire length of Taylor’s six-decade career. Highlights include the long-awaited revival of Orbs, set to Beethoven’s late string quartets, as well as classics like Esplanade and Cloven Kingdom. Audiences can also catch the New York premieres of two other works, Phantasmagoria and Three Dubious Memories. The Paul Taylor Dance Company season at City Center runs from February 22 to March 6.

Dark Habits at the Joyce
Across town, the Joyce Theater welcomes back Keigwin and Company for the world premiere of a new, evening-length work. Choreographer Larry Keigwin’s provocative, witty and engaging dances combine kinetic physicality with theatricality. His latest is inspired by the worlds of fashion and drama and will be performed to live, original music. Keigwin and Company will present Dark Habits at the Joyce March 8 through the 13th.

Guitar Heroes
It’s all about the guitar at two of New York’s most venerable art institutions. The Museum of Modern Art focuses on Pablo Picasso’s innovative guitar sculptures — from his first, cobbled together out of cardboard, paper, string and wire, to its durable sheet metal twin. The exhibition brings together collages, constructions, drawings and mixed-media paintings that situate Picasso’s modest yet revolutionary guitars within his broader studio practice between 1912 and 1914. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also celebrates the guitar. “Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York” features the extraordinary guitars of John D’Angelico, James D’Aquisto and John Monteleone. It situates these modern-day master craftsmen in a long tradition of stringed instrument-making that reaches back to Stradivari. They are renowned for their hand-carved stringed instruments, particularly their archtop guitars. Instruments by these makers have been used by some of the most influential guitar players of the 20th Century through the present day.