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Film and the Arts
Pre-War Art Deco & Strange Sexuality at the Japan Society
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Friday, 24 February 2012 18:26
- Written by Renzo Adler
Starting on March 2nd and on the 16th, 2012, the Japan Society will feature two exhibits that, at first glance, could not be more different. But on closer examination, the two are closely and fascinatingly linked.
Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945 (the Taisho era to early Showa era) opens March 16 and examines the period in Japanese history of rapid westernization, and yet is almost completely overlooked in the west.
Long past the romanticized (read cliché) era of samurai and shogun, the 25 years between 1920 to 1945 is a curious sequence, situated at the advent of WWII. The ‘20s were an era of rapid change and modernization that prophesised many of the changes in Japanese society that are associated with the post-war era such as the rise of a distinct cinema, new technology, and a fear of an emerging sexuality, all of which are covered under the tidy, captivating phrase of “erotic grotesque nonsense.”
As described in the promotional materials, this exhibit showcases the “complex social and cultural tensions in Japan during the Taisho and early Showa periods through dramatically designed examples of metalwork, ceramics, lacquer, glass, furniture, jewelry, sculpture and evocative ephemera such as sheet music, posters, postcards, prints and photography.”
Beginning on March 2nd and running to 18th is a new film series -- smartly titled, Love Will Tear Us Apart. Over 20 films from Japan and Korea, including classics like Nagisa Oshima’s In The Realm of the Senses and the US premiere of Shinya Tsukamoto’s (Tetsuo The Iron Man) latest film, KOTOKO. Koji Wakamatsu’s Petrel Hotel is also having it's US premiere.
A Japanese cult-classic and art-house favorite, In the Realm of the Senses -- based on the true story of a torrid love affair capped off with a grisly murder -- is a particularly appealing part of this festival because it takes place during the same time period covered in Deco Japan.
The films in the Love Will Tear Us Apart series may be hard to watch for some because they don’t shy away from such themes as sex being a prelude to violence or violence being a prelude to sex. Indeed, the time period of 1920 - 1945 was practically an orgy of art, cinema, clothes and modernization, taking place just before the maelstrom of bloodshed that became the Pacific conflict.
Both exhibitions present a glimpse of Japan that is often overlooked and present some unique aesthetic judgements. How often do you get to see kimonos and Charlie Chaplin side by side?
It also offers a shocking view of gender politics and a unique pairing of art and aesthetics that is not to be missed.
For more information, go to http://www.japansociety.org/
Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945
March 16- June 10
Love Will Tear Us Apart
March 2-18
The Japan Society
333 East 47th Street
New York, NY 10017
New Dawn Day to Perform at Drinking Bone
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Thursday, 16 February 2012 05:00
- Written by Sean Cusack
Dawn Botti will be performing with her spectacular new band, New Dawn Day, this Friday, February 17th, at 8pm at The Drinking Bone.
Botti gained fame as lead singer for the popular 2000’s band, Slushpuppy, a Jagermeister sponsored and endorsed band which performed countless shows, conferences, festivals, and opening sets for some of the biggest names in the music industry until the band’s break-up in 2003.
Taking a break from recording at Rivergate Studios in Nashville, TN, where she recorded with the likes of Bobby Capps of 38 Special and Chris Henderson and Greg Upchurch of 3 Doors Down and Puddle of Mudd, New Dawn Day will finally provide the answer to Nirvana and Foo Fighters alum David Grohl’s looming question: “What happened to rock music?” Botti and her bandmates have set out to prove once and for all that rock is still alive and well, continuing to thrive in a world enveloped by a false corporate reality of emotionless oversensitivity.
With a unique and unaltered voice which hasn’t been heard since the days of Pat Benatar and Joan Jett, and a sex appeal which hasn’t been seen since Stevie Nicks and Samantha Foxx, this is one show which any rock aficionado will be loathe to miss. Scheduled to perform at Millenium Music Conference Showcase and SXSW, this Friday’s show provides a rare opportunity for an intimate performance with one of the genre’s hottest up-and-coming acts.
So come to Drinking Bone this Friday and witness rock history in the making!
New Dawn Day Performs at Drinking Bone
Friday, February 17, 2012 @ 8 pm
Drinking Bone
860 N Front St
Lemoyne, PA 17043
Musical Short Cuts: Motown and Orpheus at Carnegie; Benanti at the Allen Room
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Wednesday, 08 February 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
A Tribute to the Music of Motown
February 9, 2012
Carnegie Hall, Seventh Avenue & 57th Street, New York, NY
With a show titled “A Tribute to the Music of Motown,” there’s no way anyone can’t have a good time. And the evening’s music director Ray Chew--who also holds that exalted position on TV’s smash hit “American Idol”--has chosen a superb array of performers to sing many of the tunes he loved while he worked in his grandfather’s Harlem record store. There’s Martha Reeves, Melba Moore, Dionne Warwick, Bebe Winans and Boyz II Men, along with the promise of “very special surprise guests,” all of whom will be belting out the classics from Motown’s greatest years.
Paul Shaffer will also be on hand to, presumably, lead the house band through its paces, something that he does nightly on David Letterman’s show and at the annual Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame bash. Chew himself is looking forward to the performance: “As some might say, ‘those were the days.’ But for me, THIS is the day. And tonight is THE night.”
Orpheu
s with Jean-Yves Thibaudet
February 11, 2012
Carnegie Hall, Seventh Avenue & 57th Street, New York, NY
French piano man Jean-Yves Thibaudet just came through town to play some stellar Gershwin at the New York Philharmonic’s New Year’s Eve bash. For this concert, Thibaudet teams with trumpeter Louis Hanzlik to perform Shostakovich’s extraordinary Concerto for Piano and Trumpet, with backing from the prime (and conductor-less) ensemble Orpheus.
The remainder of the concert is a typically eclectic Orpheus mix: the curtain raiser is Michael Tippett’s barely-heard Divertimento on Sellinger’s Round, while the second half of the program comprises Arthur Honegger’s lovely Pastorale d’Ete and Tchaikovsky’s sizzling Serenade for Strings.
American Songbook: Laura Benanti
February 11, 2012
The Allen Room, Time Warner Center, New York, NY
She won a Tony for her delectable turn as Rose Lee in Gypsy, showing that Laura Benanti can hold her own against a dominating star turn by Patti Lupone. And if the NBC drama “The Playboy Club” was cancelled after only a few episodes, it wasn’t Benanti’s fault: as the show’s singing bunny, her onstage performance was easily each episode’s highlight.
For anybody unaware, this sublime Broadway star of musicals good and bad (Into the Woods, Nine, The Sound of Music, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) is also an accomplished comedienne, as her turns in Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play and Christopher Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong...and the People Who Have Love Them can attest. So Benanti’s “American Songbook” appearance unsurprisingly combines her singing and storytelling talents.
Footnote: See Under: 'Oscar Contender'
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Monday, 16 January 2012 23:17
- Written by Laura Blum
Don't miss Footnote/Hearat Shulayim when it opens this winter, for it may be another 2,000 years before Talmudic scholars return to your cineplex. Though perhaps a dozen knockoffs are being rushed into production, now that Joseph Cedar’s father-son drama, set in the hallowed halls of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, is in the running for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
