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The Baryshnikov Arts Center has (finally!) officially purchased the 299-seat Jerome Robbins Theater adjacent to the three floors that it owns in the 37 Arts building. The closing was yesterday - thanks in part to $2.5 mil from the Jerome Robbins Foundation, matched by Baryshnikov, the BAC paid in cash! The renovated theater will open next year, featuring a mix of rentals and BAC presentations, with the Wooster Group for a resident company and lots of other creative residencies. We’re talking multidisciplinary experimentation: theater, dance, music, film and more. Hooray!

Photo by Ryan Dunn

The sale was long delayed because of a conflict between the seller and the building’s general contractor. It was then erroneously reported that the BAC was itself in financial disarray – a major PR headache for the center, obviously, but the delay led to a neat development: the Orchestra of St. Luke’s became interested in buying the two theaters that constitute the remainder of 37 Arts. The orchestra and the center arranged to buy simultaneously: the Jerome Robbins Theater will have for its neighbor the DiMenna Center for Classical Music.

I spoke with the BAC’s executive director, Stanford Makishi, last week in anticipation of the closing. What’s it like conducting a $14 million capital campaign ($4.5 million to go) during an economic meltdown, I wondered. Granted, an institution built around the most (only?) famous man in dance might not be the best test case. The center’s benefit, held last night, sold out. I got a sneak peek on Tuesday (I’m not allowed to write about it, but suffice it to say that Baryshnikov still has the best hands in the business - even when giving the finger to a fellow performer):

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Here come the cuts.

Andrew Sarris gave us a way to think about movies. Pauline Kael opened up ways to respond to movies. But it was Manny Farber more than any other American film critic who really showed us how to look at the movies.

At least that’s one way to pin down a writer whose avid, mercurial language never dead ends in cliche or boxes itself into known formulas. Farber is at once the wildest and most disciplined of critics - every fresh dip into his writing sharpens the mind and sets it spinning.

In honor of Farber, who passed away this August, the Film Society of Lincoln center has organized a wide-ranging survey of films of special interest to Farber. The series was programmed by the critic, filmmaker, and programmer Kent Jones, who was a close friend of Farber. I spoke to Kent about Manny’s special genius as a critic, and how the film series reflects his singular sensibility.

Apparently, a vote for Obama was a vote for ballet - at least, since he tapped Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois to be his chief of staff. This from a Rolling Stone piece:

“When Rahm was a boy, his mother forced him to take ballet lessons, and he threw himself into it with the same intensity he would later bring to politics, winning a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet. Friends jokingly theorize that his toughness is actually an outgrowth of being a ballet dancer: With that sort of thing on your resume, you had better be ready to fight if you hope to survive in Chicago politics. “The guy had been a ballet dancer in college,” says Bruce Reed, “yet grown men lived in mortal fear of what he might do to them if they couldn’t get the answer he wanted.”

Photographer and sculptor Corin Hewitt has set up shop in Whitney Museum’s lobby. He’s built a studio cum performance space that includes a kitchen with a fridge, a root cellar, custom storage units for moving things around, a stage, and a theatrical lighting system. What’s he doing in there? Well, he’s chopping, he’s heating, he’s canning, and he’s even composting.

The project “Seed Stage” is a still life with movement. You can hear Kabir Carter’s report over here:

Seed Stage: An Audio Slideshow

I’ve been collecting world musicky Obama for two special iterations of the radio show I do at an undisclosed location - and I’ve discovered about thirty so far. As you can imagine the quality varies, but there are some good ones.

YouTube predictably has been a popular dissemination point. The videos often incorporate montage elements from the Obama campaign - visual and sometimes audio as well. Many of the non-English songs are subtitled because the musicians want the viewer to get the message! The song titles are direct and not always the most creative - a lot of Obamas for Change or just plain Obamas. Although Japan’s Anyone Brothers Band gets special credit for their J-English title Obama is Beautiful World. Given the cause, a lot of volunteer labor has been contributed by musicians and videographers, and many of the songs are offered for free mp3 download.

The very first song on my list was by the group Extra Golden. Extra Golden is a collaboration between musicians from the eastern US with an indie rock background and musicians from western Kenya who play benga, an uptempo guitar-centered popular dance style. Extra Golden’s Obama appreciation song preceded the campaign however. It’s actually a song of appreciation because Obama helped the band secure visas for its first US tour in 2006. As an early entrant it’s one of the few Obama songs on cd, on Extra Golden’s sophomore release Hera Ma Nono.

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The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in “Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition.” Photo: Paul B. Goode.

For its September 25-October 1 issue, “Time Out New York” anointed “The New York 40.” Some readers wrote in, wondering why TONY’s list of movers and shakers was almost entirely monochromatic. The editor published a response, including the following:

“…for better or worse, that list is also a reflection of New York in the past dozen years—a city whose cultural elite have been mainly white. Our Top 40 was never meant to endorse that fact, but it can’t help but reflect it.”

That, um, didn’t go over so well. Angry emails began circulating. Some of those emails were forwarded to me, and I started thinking about the state of racial politics in the arts these days: what issues are artists of color facing, what do they think of Obama’s historic candidacy in relation to their own work, what frustrates them, what are they heartened by?

I was curious. So I asked. The artists I chose to interview aren’t meant to represent any kind of cultural elite (though “The Art.Cult Five” has a nice ring to it). In fact, they aren’t meant to represent anything other than themselves: five interesting artists whose work I admire and am intrigued by, and who I thought might have thoughtful things to say about art, race and the election.

They did. And then some. The piece I did for WNYC airs today at 5:50, I am told - I’ll publish it once the link becomes available (Here it is.) Meanwhile, below you’ll find more of these artists’ thoughts, and a few of mine - after all, I’m the token white girl …

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Every Friday should have a little Ralph Lemon:

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American Ballet Theater has quietly announced that Natalia Osipova, a fast rising star at the Bolshoi Ballet, will join the company as a guest artist in the spring.

Rumors of this have been swirling for months (I’ve heard talk of out-and-out defection from the Bolshoi, so let’s see…), and they of course heated up after the Bolshoi’s artistic director Alexei Ratmansky jilted New York City Ballet to be ABT’s artist in residence.

I am, of course, hoping for an out-and-out arms race between the rival companies. If the opera world gets Gelb vs. Mortier (assuming Mortier ever actually makes up his mind to come to New York City Opera), why can’t we have a little fun, too? Lincoln Center already looks like a war zone - all we need is a bit of bloodshed.

Couldn’t resist:

My wag of an aunt forwarded me this with the subject line “Dancing With the Stars-Winners.” Though, really, if that’s the subject, it should be Biden dancing with Obama - and McCain dancing with Palin.