To listen to audio on Rock Paper Scissors you'll need to Get the Flash Player

log in to access downloads
Sample Track 1:
"Icarus" from Winter Solstice 2010
Sample Track 2:
"Love Is Not In Your Mind" from Winter Solstice 2010
Sample Track 3:
"Sun Singer" from Winter Solstice 2010
Sample Track 4:
"Minuit - Auld Lang Syne" from Winter Solstice 2010
Layer 2
Listing

Click Here to go back.
The New Yorker, Listing >>

Goings On About Town
Holiday Events
December 6, 2010

“RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR”

Everyone’s favorite leggy dancers are back for the annual Christmas show, first performed at the Art Deco cathedral in 1933. As always, the magic is the result of a carefully calibrated formula that combines traditional, low-tech numbers (“Living Nativity”), mechanical wizardry (an onstage re-creation of Rockefeller Center, complete with ice-skaters), and big, splashy multimedia effects. But the real glue is the wholesome sex appeal—and tireless legwork—of the Rockettes. (Radio City Music Hall, Sixth Ave. at 50th St. 866-858-0007. Through Dec. 30.)

 

“THE NUTCRACKER”

The “Nutcracker” season is hotter than ever. Alexei Ratmansky’s brand-new production for American Ballet Theatre premières at the Brooklyn Academy of Music three days before Christmas. Given Ratmansky’s rare talent for storytelling and his proven ability to work on a grand scale, the production promises to be a contender. (30 Lafayette Ave. 718-636-4100. Dec. 22-Jan. 2.) | With its skillful mix of nostalgia and sparkling, witty choreography, George Balanchine’s 1954 “Nutcracker” never gets old. Generations of New York City Ballet dancers have risen through its ranks, from candy cane to Cavalier, snowflake to Sugarplum Fairy. (David H. Koch Theatre, Lincoln Center. 212-870-5570. Through Jan. 2.) | Mark Morris’s “The Hard Nut” takes an altogether different approach: it’s irreverent, funny, and refreshingly American. But hidden under the tart coating is a soft, tender core, perfectly in tune with Tchaikovksy’s vivid score. (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Ave. 718-636-4100. Dec. 10-19.) | Urban Ballet Theatre’s multicultural “Nutcracker in the Lower” moves the action to a holiday fiesta on the Lower East Side. (Harry De Jur Playhouse, 466 Grand St. 212-352-7933. Through Dec. 4.) | This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of Francis Patrelle’s “Yorkville Nutcracker,” a love letter to fin de siècle New York. (Kaye Playhouse, Hunter College, Park Ave. at 68th St. 212-722-7933. Dec. 9-12.) | Valentina Kozlova, a former Bolshoi ballerina who went on to dance with N.Y.C.B. for many years, stages a charming “Nutcracker” every year with her students, starring her best pupil in the role of Sugarplum, and the house choreographer, Margo Sappington, as a coquettish Baroness Drosselmeyer. (Symphony Space, Broadway at 95th St. 212-864-5400. Dec. 11 at 5.) | New York Theatre Ballet presents its one-hour version of the “Nutcracker,” which has charming stage designs inspired by nineteenth-century toy theatres. (Florence Gould Hall, 55 E. 58th St. 800-982-2787. Dec. 11-19.) | The Joffrey Ballet School’s “Nutcracker” was created by Misha Chernov and Gelsey Kirkland, who once danced the role of Clara alongside Baryshnikov’s Nutcracker Prince. (899 Tenth Ave. Dec. 17-19.)

 

“PETER AND THE WOLF”

As a welcome alternative to the season’s many “Nutcracker” productions, “Works & Process” offers its staging of Prokofiev’s wonderful “Peter and the Wolf,” narrated by the ever-droll Isaac Mizrahi. The story of Peter, an adventurous boy who goes out into the meadow against his grandfather’s wishes, will be brought to life by the music of the Juilliard Ensemble and the stage designs of the young Japanese artist Rei Sato. (Guggenheim Museum, Fifth Ave. at 89th St. 212-423-3587. Dec. 11-19.)

 

TREES

A Christmas tree has been a holiday tradition in Rockefeller Center since workmen building the complex in the middle of the Great Depression brought a little seasonal spirit to the construction site. Things have changed, of course, since then, and recently, the tree—this year a seventy-four-foot-tall Norway spruce—has been strung with energy-efficient LED bulbs: thirty thousand of them, on five miles of wire. It gets set aglow near the end of a star-studded ceremony featuring the likes of Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, and Jessica Simpson on Nov. 30 at 7. (Fifth Ave. at 50th St. Through Jan. 7.) | A twenty-foot-tall blue spruce, festooned with eighteenth-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs, graces the Medieval Sculpture Hall at the Met. (Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. 212-535-7710. Through Jan. 6.) | For more than three decades, the American Museum of Natural History has been decking the boughs of its holiday tree with origami. This year’s theme is “Discovery,” with ornaments intended to conjure up a dinosaur dig, space travel, and the race to the South Pole between the explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. (Central Park West, at 79th St. 212-769-5100. Through Jan. 2.)

 

“HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW”

The New York Botanical Garden’s annual celebration is a trip back in time. Model engines and cars chug their way around the Conservatory’s replicas of more than a hundred and forty New York City landmarks, all constructed from twigs, berries, leaves, seeds, and the like. Miniature versions of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the original Yankee Stadium (1923) are featured; the newest addition is a rendition of the soaring Eero Saarinen-designed T.W.A. terminal at what is now J.F.K. and was once known as Idlewild. (Through Jan. 9. Bronx River Parkway at Fordham Rd., the Bronx. nybg.org.)

 

CLASSIC TALES

Each year, the Morgan Library and Museum exhibits the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” which was written in six short weeks late in 1843, in time for holiday publication. This year it’s also holding a family day, on Dec. 5, that ties in material from its “Mark Twain: A Skeptic’s Progress” exhibition. Actors will bring the nineteenth century to life, and there will be ragtime music by the pianist Roy Eaton, among other activities. (225 Madison Ave., at 37th St. 212-685-0008. Through Jan. 9.)

 

HANUKKAH

The Festival of Lights begins this year on Dec. 1. That evening, around 5:30, the first lamp will be lit atop the thirty-two-foot-tall menorah on Fifth Ave. at 59th St. A light will be added each night at the same time through Dec. 8, except for Friday and Saturday, when the lighting takes place at 3:40 and 8:30, respectively. Note: On the evening of Dec. 5, there will also be live music, dancing, and hot latkes. (For more information, call 718-778-6000.) | In 1988, Daniel Libeskind conceived a zigzagging sculptural structure he called “Line of Fire” to symbolize the persistence of the Jewish people through radically shifting circumstances. The architect revisits the form—and helps the Jewish Museum usher in the holiday season—using it as a base for his selection of Hanukkah lamps from the museum’s collection. (Fifth Ave. at 92nd St. 212-423-3200. Through Jan. 30.)

 

CHRISTMAS IN BALTHROP, ALABAMA

Yes, Virginia, there is a Balthrop, Alabama. The local folk-rock collective that takes its name from (and gives a name to) a fictional town in the heart of Dixie is led by the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Pascal Balthrop and his sister Lauren, a vocalist and keyboardist, both of whom grew up singing gospel and pop tunes with their family in Mobile, Alabama. On Dec. 16 at 8:30, the band will be performing standards of its own, including “Chrisma-Hanu-Kwanza-Rama-Krishna,” “Baby Jesus,” “Christmas in Jail,” and “Island of Misfit Toys.” As always, the musicians will be accompanied by the artist Michael Arthur, who draws spontaneous ink-based interpretations of the songs. The images are projected onto a screen behind the stage, in the tradition of a “chalk talk,” a lightning-fast drawing act from the days of vaudeville—practiced by such comic-strip luminaries as Winsor McKay (“Little Nemo in Slumberland”)—that was a precursor to animation. (David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Sts. No tickets necessary.)

 

WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION

Paul Winter brings his Consort to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He’ll be joined by the Armenian vocalist Arto Tunçboyaciyan, the gospel singer Theresa Thomason, and members of New York’s Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. (Amsterdam Ave. at 112th St. 866-811-4111. Dec. 16-18.)

 

“HOLIDELIC”

The songwriter, producer, actor, and dancer Everett Bradley brings his funky ensemble to Joe’s Pub for a flashy, bass-heavy retro-futuristic take on the holidays. (425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. Dec. 17-20.)

 12/06/10 >> go there
Click Here to go back.