GILLES PETERSON TUES., NOV. 9 A FEW WEEKS back, many music fans ...
SON
TUES., NOV. 9
A FEW WEEKS back, many music fans were saddened by the passing of veteran BBC radio jock John Peel. At 65, Peel continued to champion new music in a number of genres on his show, the Peel Sessions. Like many record geeks in the States, his show was introduced to me by a few savvy collectors who had managed to get their hands on some recorded cassettes. Mixing live performances with far-out records from obscure indie labels, Peel resembled a music fanatic of the highest order. But you could tell by listening to his show that, mostly, he was just as much a fan as you were. And he felt lucky to be there.
The internet made his sessions available to the world. And that has helped his successor, Gilles Peterson, to gain a broader audience as well. With his show, Worldwide, Peterson continues to play classics, lost gems and plenty of the new while also hosting live in-studio performances. His spin has been to stay urban by keeping the groove flowing with the sounds of jazz, soul, Latin, house and hiphop. Whereas Peel might have been most famous for introducing the world to punk, Peterson made a name by hoisting the flag for acid jazz.
Tonight, he comes to the Canal Room for a four-hour set of Brazilian flavors, taking in the country's funky and soulful slices of the 60s and 70s chopped up with today's newness. It's all in part to promote his new CD on Ether Records, named aptly, Gilles Peterson in Brazil. Pasty people might not be able to dance, but they sure have great collections that make everyone else dance.
Canal Room, 285 W. B'way (Canal St.), 212-941-8100; 10, $15.
DAN MARTINO
LULU SANTOS
SAT., NOV. 13
DURING THE EARLY 80s in Brazil, a growing number of rock acts made it onto the airwaves after the repressive military regime began to give way to a democratic state. (Presidential elections were ultimately held in 1989 after a 30-year hiatus.) Many proved to be one-hit wonders, while others, such as Paralamas do Sucesso and Titas, are still going strong today.
Among these talented and lucky few is Rio de Janeiro-born Lulu Santos, a gifted musician credited for bringing rock guitar back to center stage in the realm of Brazilian pop. (Years of disco had relegated it to a lesser status.) His first single, released in 1982, was a Portuguese-language remake of the Beatles' "Get Back" (with lyrics by Rita Lee and Gilberto Gil). The song's solid guitar riffs backed by a surf-rock format hit the spot with Brazilian fans. Santos also proved his song-writing chops with songs such as "Como Uma Onda" ("Like a Wave"), "Não Vá" ("Don't Go") and "Adivinha o Quê" ("Guess What"-in which a philandering lover swears sexual fidelity to his mate). These pop hits are considered classics today.
As a guitarist, Santos was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys and the Beatles (he would also score a hit with a Portuguese remake of George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun"), yet Santos is also tuned into the present. When most of his contemporaries were shunning remixes, in 1995 he released Eu e Meme, Meme e Eu, which offered both old and new songs under the production of fellow carioca DJ Marcelo "Meme." The work relied heavily on samples and electronic sounds, and helped uplift Santos' career after a couple of unsuccessful albums. Others followed suit.
On this current tour, which also includes dates in Boston and Miami, Santos promotes his latest live album, Lulu Santos MTV ao Vivo, which has earned platinum status in his native land. Expect him to offer the greatest hits along with several new songs.
Palacio Europa, 280 New York Ave. (betw. Lang & Pulaski Sts.), Newark, NJ, 973-589-8999; 11, $45.
ERNEST BARTELDES
TOTIMOSHI/HELMET
SUN., NOV. 14
YOU WILL COME to see the mighty Helmet. (Please note that I'm saying all this in a really big, booming voice in league with the dire seriousness of what Helmet has meant to y'all.) I know you shall seek Page Hamilton's mountains of crucially uneven tunings and time signatures. I understand that their new, long-past-bust-up CD, Size Matters, has become the lost stanza in the gospel of avant-metal majesty. Even if it's only good, and not great, and Hamilton's voice sounds uncomfortable singing these well-oiled muscles of melody?well, that's showbiz.
But you should get over Helmet, just for a minute, so to hear me, hear me roar, for Totimoshi, a trumped-up munk for guys who think the Melvins are getting soft, for men who like their drill-core drumming and their teeth-clinched growling accomplished with the precision of a diamond cutter. Hello singer and guitarist Tony Aguilar. Yet, despite the muddled sludginess of their heavy, heady sound, there's nothing sloppy about the Oakland-based trio. It's big, even hypnotic, riffage. But what's magical about their fuzzed, feedbacking sound is that Totimoshi manage the same clarity and avant-ness that Helmet (I mean, Helmet!!) once had, yet with their own, personal groove. Not funk. Just this thick, forever-propelled groove. Hello bassist Meg Castellanos. For all of Helmet's once wildly obscure tunings and changes, Totimoshi is so much freer.
Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111; 9; $20.
A.D. AMOROSI
ROBYN HITCHCOCK
SAT., NOV. 13
NO ONE WEARS the hat of the "English eccentric" quite like Robyn Hitchcock. In fact, I'm fairly certain that Hitchcock would admit to actually having a chapeau in just that size and shape. Over the course of almost 30 years and dozens of recorded and filmed works (including the too-forgotten docu-concert, Storefront Hitchcock, filmed by Jonathan Demme), Hitchcock has made mincemeat of any normal thought process, made heroes out of animals and made monkeys out of mere men, maintaining always an insect's view of the world and the bugged-out whimsy that should come with it.
For all the talk of his lyrically oblique strategies and the oddball images they may or may not conjure, few melody makers have the immediacy or directness that Hitchcock has at his command. Even if you count the buzzing psychedelia of his Soft Boys from the early 80s or his earliest solo studies in Lennon/Reed/Barrett pastiche (Globe of Frogs, Fegmania!), Hitchcock the lyrical eccentric has always given heed to his greatest talent-that of delectably divine song-crafting. With the heart of a blues-based folkie at his command, his simplest (or maybe, more spare?) recordings like the all-acoustic I Often Dream of Trains and the raw, rootsier Moss Elixir have a bold, blunt force that combats the croaked willow of Robyn's voice.
That winnowing creekiness and cutting blues musicality is in fullest effect on his latest CD, Spooked. Recorded quite quickly (six days) in Nashville with Gillian Welch, Joey Spampinato and David Rawlings, Spooked is Hitchcock's snarlingest, gnarliest record in some time-a live-sounding, acoustic guitar-driven record with slips and slivers of sitar, dirtball swamp slides and low-key choirs meant to accentuate the lonely romanticism of its allegorical lyrics. Still as silly as he's been in the past-albeit in a quieter fashion-Hitchcock croons pleas to inanimate objects like "Television" that in his telling, are lent an eerie humanity. I said his melodies were blunter-not his thought process.
Southpaw, 125 5th Ave. (betw. St. John's & Sterling Pls.), Park Slope, 718-230-0236; 7:30, $15.
A.D. AMOROSI
GIANT SAND
THE HANDSOME FAMILY
THURS., NOV. 11
TWENTY-TWO YEARS into his motocross curve-filled career, Howie Gelb is still fighting, twitching and switching. Like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, he's shocked the aliens within the indie underground with his (at first swallow) over-adoration of Neil Youth. I mean, Young before Young was heroic to that crowd. Then he tricked the natives at the major labels by getting raw and weird on their asses. From the hillbilly grunge of Valley of Rain to the experimental screech of Long Stem Rant to the make-nice pop of Swerve and the mood-swung Glum, there's been more Gelbs than one would know what to do with.
Calling his newest CD for Thrill Jockey Giant Sand Is All Over the Map isn't just some coy way of making a mess. It prepares its listeners for Gelb's most encouraged, focused excursion into songcraft. The quietly reptilian "Classico," the epic "Les Forcats Innocents," the churlish rocking melodicism of "Flying Around the Sun with Remarkable Speed"-of all his albums and all his un-subtle songs, these are the some of the sneakiest Gelb has ever come up with. And despite its mish-mash of styles, Giant Sand Is All Over the Map's purpose is to unite you solidly under the decades-old, still-grunging garrulousness of Gelb's best intentions.
As for the duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks, the husband and wife behind the Handsome Family-I don't know if I trust them. Though they've turned murder ballads marvy and bluegrass green and shiny, I still can't wrap my chaps around their alt-country punkishness. But I promise to try again.
Southpaw, 125 5th Ave. (betw. St. John's & Sterling Pls.), Park Slope, 718-230-0236; 8, $15.
A.D. AMOROSI
HIJACKING GENDER
THURS., NOV. 11
CONSIDERING LAST WEEK'S election, one might reasonably assume that much of the country-mostly the middle-is stuck in the past. God made men, god made women. And he made them all straight. An art exhibit pushing the binary gender construct, then, isn't just wrong-but unnecessary.
What of the rest of us? 65 Hope Street Gallery, a Williamsburg ceramic studio and exhibition space, questions how progressive we are in their new-and final-exhibit Hijacking Gender. Curator Nicco Beretta, a photographer with a transgender-focused lens, attempts to broaden the gender spectrum by redefining "what it means to be a 'man' and to be a 'woman' in our public and private bodies." Beretta and seven other artists hijack gender by interpreting the not-so-new concept of transgender to reconstruct the current system.
Starting with the belief that "gender is a vehicle that holds and carries us with false safety," the artists attack the vessel in a wide variety of mediums. Photographer Raechel Legakes puts the viewer on the spot, confronting them with male and female versions of the same subject, forcing them to determine which is "right." Sculptor Stacia Potter creates intricate shapes and objects "that oddly gender themselves." Alison O'Connel, named one of GONYC's "Top Ten Up and Coming" women artists of 2004, broadens gender by including the dichotomy of "femme" and "FtM," or female-to-male stereotypes in its definition.
65 Hope Street was founded 10 years ago to promote the diverse emerging voices of traditional-format visual artists while connecting them with dancers, filmmakers, musicians and writers. Sadly, it will close at the beginning of next year, reverting back to its primary use as a studio. As the final exhibit, perhaps "Hijacking" will get the extra support it deserves in considering the transformations made by trans-indentified persons and by reflecting on the alterations, permanent and temporary, they make in the name of belonging.
65 Hope Street Gallery, 65 Hope St., 2nd fl. (betw. Havemeyer & Marcy Sts.), Williamsburg, 718-963-2028; reception at 6, free [through 1/2].
SARAH SHANOK
LALI PUNA/THE GO FIND/STYROFOAM
TUES., NOV. 16
GOING FROM MUFFLED-SHINE solo act to supergroup-accompanied ambie-pop to full-out electro-band can't be easy for Valerie Trebeljahr. But that's been the career trajectory of the Munich-based singer/semi-socio-conscious lyricist since Lali's start. If album one, Snooze, was a mumbled, bumbling lo-fi affair of vintage synths and blimpish bass loops, the follow-up with Notwist guitarist Markus Acher and drummer Christoph Brandner showed off the group's diagram for detritus-spilling electropop. Much less abstract (musically) than the melted Moogy groovy dub of Notwist, that CD, Scary World Theory, sounded (vocally) like Stereolab with purpose-its intertwined tales of mutants and monsters, imagined and politicized, running rampant through Trebeljahr's floaty but formidably throaty vocals.
Still, little prepares you for Faking the Books. Lingering, hookish melodies with Heroes-like grandeur lends Trebeljahr a weight you can't get from mere laptop pop. Beyond the misery-strewn, anti-corporate zeitgeist, Trebeljahr looks into truth of moral minority with tenderness and cautious care. Oh, and tricky string sounds and enough vocal fx to appeal to the Neptunes freak in you.
Opening for Lali are two other Morr Music label pals, the Go Find and Styrofoam. Go Find's Dieter Sermeus (a Belgian) also has a more chipper way with laptoptronics, having made his debut album, Miami, an open, airy guitar-pop excursion. And Styrofoam (aka Arne Van Petegem) has joined forces with friends in Death Cab for Cutie and American Analog Set for a shimmering electronic vibe with a decidedly States-bound jangle in its step.
Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston St. (betw. Ludlow & Essex Sts.), 212-260-4700; 8, $15.
A.D. AMOROSI
RANDALL EXON: RECENT PAINTINGS
THROUGH SAT., NOV. 20
ANYONE TRYING TO identify the solitary coastline depicted in so many of Randall Exon's paintings needn't bother. Although inspired in part by the Irish seaside where the artist spends his summer, the 30-odd paintings in this exhibit are more accurate in portraying memories of a place-hazy with recollection-than they are in representing realist details. The lonely scenes depicted-farm houses and stretches of beach, sheets blowing in the wind-"don't really exist outside my painting," Exon has said, and it's not hard to see why; if one man's daydreams of a rural childhood could be captured by oil on canvas, then this is what they would look like.
On a more practical level, Exon, a professor of studio arts at Swarthmore, is concerned with the interplay of light on objects and the intersection of rural landscapes with modest homes. Bay Window, one of the centerpieces of the show, looks out from the shadows of a beach house's living room over a bright panorama of water. The house's subdued interior pales in contrast to the light of day outside, beckoning the viewer forward into the picture. Exon's best pieces manage to conjure a sense of activity that is worth more than the sum of the mostly lifeless details contained therein. Camille, the most arresting picture in the exhibit, depicts four surfers lounging on rocks, their black wet-suits turned at various angles to the viewer, their surfboards splayed across the sand. Even though their faces are blurred, you know what they're thinking: calm surf and dreary days in the sun.
Exon is less successful in his smaller studies, which often seem little more than exercises in technique. The four separate images of a sheet blowing on a laundry line seem cursory at best and fail to evoke the same sense of remembered impressions that the exhibit as a whole is able to achieve.
Hirschl & Adler Modern, 21 E. 70th St. (Madison Ave.), 212-535-8810; Tues.-Fri. 9:30-5:15, Sat. 9:30-4:45, free.
TRAVIS ST. CLAIR
HILTON RUIZ
SAT., NOV. 13
PIANIST HILTON RUIZ swings wide at both the keyboard spectrum's liveliest ends, bringing impeccable bop cred to a Latin fuerza that keeps him among the drivingest, swankiest musicians on the scene today. With a stellar small combo behind him at Columbia's Miller Theater, Ruiz gets a prime platform to ride smart, fleet sabor at its tight outer edge.
Born in the 50s into New York's blazing jazz and Latin scenes, Ruiz learned at the bench with the inestimable Mary Lou Williams, swung out early with multi/simultaneous reeds innovator Rhasaan Roland Kirk, then went on to record with the likes of Mingus and vocalist Betty Carter, whose band sprang more savvy leaders than just about anybody short of Art Blakey. Ruiz was honing killer Latin chops all the while, flaunting skill and meter keyed to the clave that had him at sessions with both great percussion maestros, Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria. Fronting his own jazz combos by the mid-70s (check out '77's New York Hilton on steeplechase), Ruiz has hit fine, tight dates on Novus and Telarc through the 90s, with last year's Enchantment (Arabesque Jazz) updating his superb form.
Sidemen both enhance and testify to a leader's fluency and verve (Puente, the King of Mambo himself, paid Ruiz back some respect guesting on vibes and timbales for the pianist's Manhattan Mambo), and for this Miller date, the inscrutable bass of Andy Gonzalez pairs Steve Berrios' astonishingly deft, nuanced drumming to nail down Ruiz's rhythm section. Gonzalez and Berrios lynchpin the brilliant Fort Apache Band, the apex of post-bop, hyper Latin force and flavor-and they both played with Ruiz and Ft. Apache boss Jerry Gonzalez before that legendary outfit even had a name, on the spirited late-70s jazz/Latin burner, Ya Yo Me Cure. And among the evening's guests will be Dave Valentin, bringing Pan Piper taste and startling animal vigor on flute, and seasoned trumpeter Lew Soloff.
Miller Theater, 2960 B'way (116th St.), 212-854-7799; 8, $25.
ALAN LOCKWOOD
ALTOIDS CURIOUSLY STRONG COLLECTION
THROUGH SAT., NOV. 20
THE EXHIBITION STATEMENT reads, "innovative works by some of the most talented emerging artists of our time." Those are curiously strong words. But then, this is the Altoids Curiously Strong Collection we're talking about. The show is now on display at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
The 23 artists featured were chosen by a committee of 10 that included former winners and museum curators. Despite the claim of innovation, only well-established trends were included, with several artists adapting the styles of famous predecessors. The show's handout, for example, features a Peter Max-like image of Yoko Ono by Eli Sudbrack on its cover.
Entering the gallery, you're greeted by Aida Ruilova's poorly filmed DVD, which provides the show's soundtrack. Starring a scruffy man humping an amp, we hear static and a monotone voice that repeats again, and again, "You're pretty. You're pretty. You're pretty."
Moving on you see a work that is, in fact, pretty. Ann Craven's small painting Pecker on Pink shows a fierce little bird balancing against the wind. Craven's loose strokes of thick, colorful paint are emotionally descriptive. Another highlight is Daniel Zeller's Isolated Output. A meticulous graphite drawing made up of tiny undulating hatch marks, this abstract resembles a topographical chart. Squiggly lines like rivers or veins create borders, and finely sketched ropes stitch or bridge fleshy bits together. Referencing animals, plants, minerals and maps, Zeller's piece reveals their similarities, interdependency and manipulation by humans.
Cynicism and adherence to recognized styles are the show's strong points. Critiquing the American dream, Conrad Bakker has created a static wooden replica of an exercise bike. Terence Koh's Untitled 8, a switchblade covered with fake diamonds and the word "Grease" suggests the glamorization of violence. And Liza Kereszi's amusing photo Joe's Junkyard documents American culture through the signage and debris that clutters the office of an old junk collector. Art dealing with mixed-race confusion, architectural abstracts and photos of youthful derelicts are also included.
Altoids sent its collection on a five-city tour-New York is the last stop. Good marketing, yes, but also great for artists. Judge it good, bad or indifferent; we need a national dialogue to keep new art viable. So suck their mint and see their show.
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 556 W. 22nd St. (11th Ave.), 212-219-1222; 12-8, $6, $3 st./s.c.
JULIA MORTON
HELL MEETS HENRY HALFWAY
THROUGH SUN., NOV. 21
HELL MEETS HENRY HALFWAY pits Philly's Pig Iron physical-theater squad with Riot Group's Adriano Shaplin, in a romp along the serrated wit of Polish exile and '68 Nobel runner-up Witold Gombrowicz. Hell spins off from Possessed, the novelist/playwright's pseudonymous serial thriller in which weird science at Castle Myslotch mashes with a tennis courtship's identity fusion, in a Shaplin rewrite that director Dan Rothenberg says has "been simplified and essentialized, then adds a completely different ending."
Hell shards the fiction-just as La Mama did in 2000 with Ferdydurke, Gombrowicz's best known novel-into antic stagecraft utilizing his acerbic banter, linguistic spoofs and provocative pre-WWII assaults on maturity that foreshadowed our day's youth fetishism. And the production's U.S. tour raises hopes for long-overdue productions of Gombrowicz's own plays: Ivona, Princess of Burgundy and its subverbal heroine are in the rep of Bergman's National Theater of Sweden, while The Marriage dredges life's battlefield, the nightmare of awareness and Oedipal pomp into a lurid three acts that would've made Genet gloat.
Hell is a highlight of Gombrowicz Autumn, the Polish Cultural Institute's hand in celebrating Poland's centenary of their most international and outlandish writer. Born with fading blue blood, Gombrowicz lobbed Ferdydurke into the vibrant 30s avant-garde, earning enmity then making fast friends with Bruno Schulz (Street of Crocodiles) and Witkacy, the absurdist theater maven Ignacy Witkiewicz. The Nazi invasion hit during a journalistic lark aboard a liner to Buenos Aires, where Gombrowicz remained in productive obscurity for 24 years, his work banned by fascists then by communists and not openly available in Poland until 1986.
Festival events have included film adaptations at Anthology in October (Jan Jakub Kolski's Pornography earned splash at NYFF last year, tacking irrelevant motivations and a glowing talisman to a harsh novel lambasting collaborators, insurgents and Polish manor tales) and a Yale conference (an exhibition continues at the Beinecke Rare Books Library through January). Yale Press just published Polish Memories (Gombrowicz's three-volume Diary holds some of his best writing, and some of last century's sharpest commentary) and late, snide lectures titled A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes, with Archipelago releasing the first English edition of the seminal story collection Bacacay. CUNY TV broadcasts two Andrzej Wolski docs on the writer at month's end, and Yale's authoritative Ferdydurke by Danuta Borchardt is out in paperback with a forward by big fan Susan Sontag, having replaced a chopped translation in 2000. His dual blast from the 60s, though-Cosmos, wickedly funny and awarded the International Prize for Literature two years before Gombrowicz's death in '69, and the thorny Pornografia-are lean, mean and even harder hitting.
Ohio Theater, 66 Wooster St. (betw. Spring & Broome Sts.), 212-868-4444; call for times, $20-$25.
ALAN LOCKWOOD
SEONNA HONG: ANIMUS
THROUGH SAT., DEC. 4
IS IT ANIMATION, illustration or fine art? If it's good work, who cares?
Seonna Hong's first New York solo exhibition Animus so touched collectors with its emotional insight that the show at 5BE Gallery sold out before it even opened.
Hong, an Emmy-winning animator, has allowed her commercial training to influence her fine art. Unlike 60s pop artists who used the comic-book esthetic to create abstracts or critique consumerism, Hong embraces its storytelling abilities. In a series of 16 small paintings, she narrates a young girl's battle with fear.
That sounds sentimental, yet Hong's use of symbolic color, stark graphics and body language are psychologically compelling. Fear is embodied in a large vicious dog, which lunges, growls and intimidates the girl, even in her dreams. Each picture works independently. Some show the child trying to befriend the animal, while others have her avoiding the problem altogether. In the end, the girl and dog, each painted on their own canvas, stand calmly face-to-face.
"It is not a morality tale," Hong explains. She describes the piece as "a response to aggression...a journey toward emotional resilience." Living in Pasadena, Hong's pictures are a good example of the West Coast's intuitive approach to new art, which tends to choose humanism over conceptualism.
As you move around the gallery, painted an earthy brown and decorated with paint and paper trees, you piece together the non-linear tale. Hong uses collage elements to give her paintings the look of a 3-D pop-up book. And a book featuring her series is planned; the mock-up is on display. When it's finally published, I'm guessing it too will sell out.
5BE Gallery, 504 W. 22nd St., 2nd fl. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-255-0979; 11-6, free.
JULIA MORTON
THE ART OF FRIEDL DICKER-BRANDEIS
THROUGH SUN.,
JAN. 16, 2005
BORN IN VIENNA in 1898, Dicker-Brandeis' artistic abilities were recognized early. In 1919 she entered the Bauhaus, where she flourished under teachers such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Johannes Itten. The Bauhaus preached a utopian philosophy and taught students a wide range of disciplines from art to craft to industrial design. This Renaissance approach is evident in Dicker-Brandeis' youthful works, which include paintings, tapestries, book design and costumes. A self-portrait from this period shows her to be sure-handed, pensive and wide-eyed with intensity.
In 1923, Dicker-Brandeis set up house and started a design business in Berlin with her lover, Franz Singer. On display are the everyday objects they turned into art following the Bauhaus model. Book covers, toys, textiles and set designs are displayed along with a few snapshots of the young couple. In 1925 they moved to Vienna, this time starting an architectural firm. Plans and drawings are all that is left to show the practical esthetics they employed in building schools and sports clubs. However, several pieces of furniture are displayed, including stackable chairs and an arty daybed.
While their success grew steadily, so too did the power of the fascists. Dicker-Brandeis had become a communist; collaged posters she created highlight the failures of democracy. Then, in 1934, she was jailed by the Nazis for hiding papers. She documented her interrogations in two paintings and a drawing. They show her from behind as a small hunched shape. Facing her, a large man bares his teeth, while behind her a typewriter snaps away. This was also a time of personal sorrow, as she and Singer broke up, and Dicker-Brandeis moved again, this time to Prague.
Mellowed by age, or perhaps holding on to happier memories, Dicker-Brandeis now created beautifully arranged color studies and still-life paintings of flowers surrounded by children's toys. Her portraits were also telling. In Fuchs Spanish Studies, we see a friend who's contemplating going to Spain to fight the fascists. "Should I stay or should I go?"-It's a question many around Dicker-Brandeis were asking in 1938. Recently married to a second cousin, she had been given a visa, but he had not. She stayed.
The couple went into hiding in the Czech countryside. Drawing everything at her disposal, she captures the sleeping cat, her naked husband, her friends, her view out the window, a vase of fall leaves. One can feel a strain of boredom and anxiety.
The end finally came in 1942, and the couple was shipped to Terezin, where many imprisoned artists went on creating despite the situation. For her part, Dicker-Brandeis taught art to terrified children orphaned by the concentration camps. One of the show's last pastels depicts a set of keys lying next to a vase of flowers. The flowers were a birthday present given to her by the children; they represented hope, the keys privacy and security. The children's simple, emotive drawings are displayed alongside hers.
Not long after, at age 46, Dicker-Brandeis was moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave. (92nd St.), 212-423-3200; call for times, $10, $7.50 st./s.c.
JULIA MORTON
BIG APPLE CIRCUS
THROUGH SUN.,
JAN. 9, 2005
THE BIG APPLE CIRCUS is presenting its 27th edition under the big top at Lincoln Center, and this year's show is an absolute must-see. Entitled Picturesque, the show is a tribute to the many great artists who have derived inspiration from the vigor and immediacy of the circus arts. Degas, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Chagall, Picasso and Calder all paid homage to the unique beauty and wonder of the circus, and Big Apple does a magnificent job of returning the favor in this lavish spectacle.
As is par for the course with Big Apple, the music, lighting, sets and costumes are top-notch, in keeping with their stated mission of bringing Broadway-musical production values under the big top. This is costume designer Mirena Rada's third show for the company, and she has truly outdone herself with this year's joyful explosion of color. Guy Simard's bold chiaroscuro lighting design is a striking new addition to the show's palette.
The acts are terrific. There isn't a dull moment or a weak point anywhere in this presentation. Particularly noteworthy are Svetlana Shamsheeva's birds, dogs and cats, a flamboyant act involving a series of highly unlikely interactions between the three animal species; bare-faced clown Vallery's genuinely ridiculous antics with balls, boomerangs, and buckets of water; and the jaw-dropping finale featuring the teeterboard aerial acrobatics of the 13-person Kovgar Troupe from Russia.
Tickets range in price from $37 to $74 for Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday, and holiday shows; $28 to $64 for weekday evenings and afternoon matinees; and from $18 to $30 for 11:00 a.m. weekday matinees. You can bypass Ticketmaster by purchasing the tickets directly from Big Apple's box office, located in front of the big top in Damrosch Park, right next to the Metropolitan Opera. The show runs through January 9, and yes, the big top is heated. Special pricing applies to the New Year's Eve show, where you and yours can join the troupe in the ring after the countdown to 2005 and guzzle free champagne.
Having a little circus in this life is the perfect response to the daily terror alerts and the collapse of empire, and the ultimate antidote to despair and ennui. Go clowns!
ALAN CABAL