Sometimes you wonder – prominent art website announces fall line up for “art adjacent” events in NYC.

What is mentioned? Dance at the Whitney. Edges of Ailey will include over 90 live dance performances, classes, and engaging talks held in the museum’s third-floor theater, honoring the legacy of the legendary choreographer. Here is a blurb from the museum website about one of the performances I would no doubt want to see, if I still went into theaters…

DEATHBED: Trajal Harrell remembers the African American choreographer, dancer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham (1909–2006), who toured the world in the 1940s and ’50s and developed a technique based on dances from African and Afro-Caribbean cultures as well as Vodun, ballet, jazz, and modern dance. Harrell wonders about Dunham’s relationship to the Japanese choreographer and dancer Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986), who is known today as one of the founders of the postwar Japanese dance Butoh and has been a major influence on Harrell’s work.

Art or Art adjacent: Dance?

Images from the Whitney terrace where Ailey’s work will be performed.

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Next up: a Procession of Angels for Radical Love and Unity, organized by the photographer, performance artist and 2023 MacArthur Genius Grant recipient María Magdalena Campos-Pons, will happen on September 20. Artists and the public will walk through Manhattan with stops at sites significant to Black, Cuban, and Cuban American communities, ending at Madison Square Park with a concert by Daymé Arocena. Here is a clip of her singing in Havana, Cuba, and here a longer concert from 5 years ago, best listened to without looking at the screen I find, too distracting a background. She has a phenomenal voice. Lots of poets performing during this march as well, so I ask:

Art or Art adjacent: Poetry?

Images from the African Burial National Monument on Duane St. As I have written elsewhere about this site that memorializes the dead slaves of NY, the second larges slave holding city after Charleston, SC:

15,000 to 20,000 in a “Negroes Burial Ground” then,  and what do you see now?  A strange little memorial, that does not really evoke the horrors of slavery and untimely death (scientists analyzed the bones of the 400 + skeletons they unearthed and found severe malnutrition, wounds from violence and for women childbirth to be the grim reaper. ) What was evoked for me, instead, was disgust when contrasting the modesty of this site with the close-by extravaganza of the 9/11 memorial. The burial ground plaza feels cowering under the surrounding buildings with an artificial quietness as if it does not want to complain loudly.  The use of very reflective materials means that the present day world imprints itself on the monument speckling it with harsh light and reflections, as if full blackness cannot be tolerated.  But at least the fight for declaring coveted Manhattan real estate as a National Monument was won.

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Last but not least: Film scores played live by the New York Philharmonic, while the movies are shown – John Williams, of course, wouldn’t you’ve guessed it? Jaws will attract plenty of visitors keen on reliving the blockbusters of their youth, as will The Empire strikes Back. Lure with the familiar, rather than truly amazing unfamiliar music made for films that never had the impact as those blockbusters. They could have chosen Ennio Morricone’s score for the 1986 film The Mission, here played by Yo-Yo Ma. Ok, I’m a fan of Morricone. What about The Power of the Dog? Here’s the soundtrack, composed by (Radiohead’s) Johnny Greenwood, with clear echoes of his fascination with Krzysztof Penderecki. Beautiful music. Disquieting too, like so much in that film. (I reviewed the film here.)

Art or Art adjacent: Music?

Images from Harlem, with various theaters and the Langston Hughes House.

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And to top it off: in the middle of Art Net’s fall recommendations pops up a shout out for a soon to be opened bakery on 1, Ludlow St: Elbow Bread.

Art adjacent: pastries!

In any case, lots of exciting things coming up. Photographs from my old haunts relevant to some of the communities called upon to participate in the Procession. Wish I could be there with my friends.