Volume 75, Number 35 | January 18 – 24, 200
Selections
The World Wide Website
In Michael Gibson’s documentary about Craiglist.org’s sundry assortment of postings, he avoids outside narration and allows the bizarre drama of everyday life to tell its own story. His film, “24 Hours on Craigslist,” uses clips from the week of August 4th, 2003, when Gibson sent eight film crews into the world to document the lives of real-life characters who had posted messages on the site, including a woman seeking a diabetic cat support group, a man who covered his car with seashells, and other zany individuals searching for donor eggs, love, rabbis, and one-night-stands. Gibson’s film, which cost under $100,000 to make, traveled the festival and arthouse circuit across the country and Europe before opening here, January 19th to February 1st, at Two Boots Pioneer Theater. 155 East 3rd Street (212-591-0434; twoboots.com/pionner). — Rachel Breitman
Family Ties
In Galt Niederhoffer’s debut novel, “A Taxonomy of Barnacles,” Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution gets applied to a delightfully dysfunctional family on the Upper East Side. Having coddled his girls with luxury, the father — “New York’s Pantyhose Prince” —contrives a contest to force them to earn their keep, so to speak. The challenge? Whoever gets pregnant first with a male heir will inherit his entire fortune. The result is a comic series of romantic misadventures that will appeal to fans of classic, chic lit authors like Jane Austen. Niederhoffer, who runs the production company Plum Pictures, uses Taxonomy to explore “the potential consequence of spinsterhood [as] poverty…[and] the Darwinian subtext of every family—nature versus nurture.” She reads from the book January 23, 7PM, at Housing Works, 126 Crosby St. (212-334-3324; www.housingworks.org). – Aileen Torres
The Vanguard’s Keeper
Once upon a time great big bands roamed the earth, defining the popular music of an era and providing musicians with a training ground from which styles like bebop evolved. Fortunately, Monday nights at the Village Vanguard offers jazz fans an opportunity to hear a band that is both rooted in this rich tradition and dedicated to exploring and infusing qualities of a modern aesthetic. The Vanguard Orchestra was originally founded by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis who launched the group with a three-week engagement at the Village Vanguard in February of 1966. Forty years later the band remains world-renowned for their tight ensemble playing, adventurous harmonic explorations and interesting and creative soloists. $15 cover/ $10 minimum. Every Monday at the Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Ave. near 11th St. (212-255-4037; vanguardjazzorchestra.com) — Lee Metcalf
Another Side of Lou Reed
Lou Reed is a photographer? It may sound surprising, but the Velvet Underground co-founder and quintessential downtowner has two concurrent shows of his photographs, one uptown at the gallery above the Hermés shop on Madison Ave. and the other in Chelsea. Both feature — of all things — landscape photographs of New York City, often along the Hudson River, often at sunset. Once you get over the shock of seeing an edgy musician making such subdued art — though, honestly, it’s pretty hard to reconcile the two — you can see how these colorful stills pay homage to New York, like many of Reed’s songs. Through February 25. Stephen Kasher Gallery 524 West 23rd Street, near 10th Ave. (212-966-3978; stephenkasher.com).
Lights, Camera, DNA
Though 3-Legged Dog’s new performance space downtown is still under construction, it managed to find a stage for its first resident production, Troika Ranch’s world premiere of “16 [R]evolutions.” The rodeo of movement, theater and multimedia installation uses live-camera tracking to conjure real-time images inspired by 100,000 years of human evolution. The performers, members of essexdance, move in unison to evoke a human rib cage that pulsates with their collective breathing and forms one of the show’s many dramatic moments. Troika Ranch’s artistic directors, Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello, call themselves “slash” artists to describe their multi-faceted focus on “dance/ theater/media,” but ultimately, the work is about wrangling new meanings in digital dance theater. Sidle up to the show January 18-25 and 27-28 at 8 pm at Eyebeam Atelier, 540 West 21st Street, between10th and 11th Aves. (718.218.6775; troikaranch.org/tickets). — Laura Silver
