Walter’s World: Weekend Picks Art Uptown and Dance Downtown

By Walter Rutledge

This weekend we have free arts events and activities for the entire family taking place at the Studio Museum uptown, while dance is in full step downtown at the intimate Joyce SOHO. Here are just a few of the many events taking place in our community and around the city.

 Gallery Tour: The Bearden Project (144 West 125th Street) March 11, from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM at the Studio Museum in Harlem. This event is part of the Kids & Family Programs, Target Free Sundays series, which is free to the public. Enjoy an interactive and informative tour of The Bearden Project led by a knowledgeable Museum educator. The Bearden Project brings together new work by contemporary artists who have all been influenced by twentieth-century master Romare Bearden. The tour will have something for everyone: adults, families and kids of all ages are welcome! RSVPs are required.

The Studio Museum is also offering Hands On: Prevalence of Ritual Prints on Sunday Mar 11, from 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM in Workshop B. This is an introductory workshop on printmaking. Inspired by Romare Bearden’s Prevalence of Ritual series, participants will create unique stamps to make a multi-colored print using cardboard, foam, and ink. This workshop is also free and requires an RSVP. To participate in these two events RSVP at www.studiomuseum.org

 Malcolm Low/Formal Structure presents COLLAPSING GIANT at Joyce SoHo, located at 155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince St) on Friday, March 2, and Saturday, March 3, 2012 at 7:30pm. COLLAPSING GIANT features original text by Low and the dancers, and addresses stories about love, loss, and memories from home to show the human condition through Low’s eyes.  This emotionally and physically demanding work will focus on those things we do while on this earth: we live, we love, we fight, and we gain knowledge, all while time continues to push forward.  Working with lighting designer Gregory Bain and visual artist Gautam Kansara, Low will create a new world vision. Low is a 2011 fellowship award recipient of the New Directions Choreographic Lab at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Tickets are $18 general, $12 students/seniors, $25 benefit (March 2^nd only). Tickets may also be purchased online at joyce.org, via phone at 212-242-0800, or in person at The Joyce Theater at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street Mon-Sun, 12noon-6pm. Joyce SoHo’s onsite box office is only open one half-hour prior to performance time to sell tickets exclusively for that performance.

As Always thank you for letting me share my world with you.

 Images 1) Pittsburgh Memories Redux, 2011 by Glenn Ligon 2) The Bearden Project (installation view), 2012 Photo: Adam Reich 3) In the Garden from the Prevalence of Ritual Suite, (1974) Romare Bearden (Image courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum) 4) Malcolm Low