DanceNOW, A BETTER HOLIDAY & More Among Joe's Pub December Events

Joe's Pub has announced the following upcoming events: 

DANCENOW FESTIVAL ENCORE

December 5 at 7:30pm 
$15 Advance / $20 Door 
Following a sold-out, four evening run at Joe’s Pub, DanceNOW is thrilled to announce the addition of an encore performance to its annual festival series. The one-night-only performance features eleven of the top works from over forty presented in the 2011 festival (October 19–22, 2011). All of the choreographers who presented work at the 2011 festival were given the DanceNOW Challenge to create a clear and concise artistic statement in five minutes or less. The encore performance will include works by the 2011 DanceNOW Challenge winner, Iain Rowe, and audience challenge winners, Claire Porter and John-Mark Owen, among others. The evening will also include a preview performance of Monica Bill Barnes’ Snow Globes, which will be presented at Joe’s Pub in February of 2012. The audience will be invited to vote for a Challenge winner for the Encore Performance as well.

 

A BETTER HOLIDAY

A CONCERT TO BENEFIT THE IT GETS BETTER PROJECT

FEATURING Rebecca Naomi Jones, Dee Roscioli, Andrew Rannells, Tituss Burgess, Max von Essen, Michael Arden, & Nellie McKay

December 5 at 9:30pm 
$50 Reserved / $125 Premium
This concert features the talents of performers from stage and screen including Rebecca Naomi Jones (American Idiot, Passing Strange), Dee Roscioli (Wicked), Andrew Rannells (Book of Mormon), Tituss Burgess (Guys & Dolls, The Little Mermaid), Max von Essen (Les Miserables), Michael Arden and Nellie McKay and more performing songs of hope to celebrate the season. Proceeds from the performance will benefit the It Gets Better Project, an organization created by Dan Savage and Terry Miller in September 2010 in response to the number of LGBT youth who took their lives after being bullied in school.

 

HAHN-BIN
December 6 at 7:30pm

December 13 at 7:30pm

$20
Hahn-Bin, whose name means ‘the shining star’ in Korean, launched The Renaissance of Classical Music in Spring 2010, an undertaking he calls “an all-encompassing project which aims to bring the quarantined genre into the mainstream pop culture.” The latest installment in The Renaissance of Classical Music is Till Dawn Sunday a "hybrid music theater work where a gender defying storyline meets a genre-defying musical kaleidoscope," says Hahn-Bin. Weaving together the music of over 20 composers and set to a narrative written by Hahn-Bin himself, Till Dawn Sunday takes the audience on a voyage through the fullest spectrum of emotions with its four distinct episodes. "I want to be the Botox for the wrinkles and dents of the human heart," says the dynamic violinist Hahn-Bin, who has become a revolutionary force for classical music in the two short years following his Carnegie Hall debut. In a genre of his own — one he calls avant-pop classical — the bold young virtuoso’s theatrical performances give rise to his strikingly personal tales about “love, fear, beauty, and terror.” The Seoul-born New Yorker, whose early artistic influences include Pedro Almodóvar, Maria Callas and Liza Minnelli, made his international debut at age 12 at the Grammy Awards in 2000, drawing a standing ovation from the legendary Isaac Stern. His groundbreaking Carnegie performance in October 2009, preceded by a decade of study with the preeminent Itzhak Perlman at The Juilliard School, was lauded by The New York Times as “inspired, innovative and bracing” — but for the Seoul-born New Yorker, it was no time to rest on his laurels.

Bridget Everett & THE TENDER MOMENTS 
December 6 at 9:30pm 
$20 
Bridget Everett has been dubbed “Wynona Judd meets Melissa Etheridge, via the local bar floozy, on a rocket ship out of Twin Peaks” by The Village Voice’s Michael Musto. Having grown up in Manhattan, Kansas, Bridget received her degree in vocal performance at Arizona State University. Soon after, she promptly abandoned it all to move to New York, sing karaoke and work as a waitress. Bridget has most recently been collaborating with Kenny Mellman (Kiki and Herb) and Michael Patrick King (“Sex and the City”) on At Least It’s Pink. At Least It’s Pink has played at Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and the Aspen United States Comedy Arts Festival. Bridget played Lynn Chenney in Taylor Mac’s Red Tide Blooming at P.S.122.

 

HAPPY ENDING MUSIC & READING SERIES & YADDO

PRESENTING: WALTER KIRN, JESSE BROWNER, HELEN SCHULMAN, MUSICAL GUEST MARK EITZEL
December 7 at 7:00pm
$20
The consistently sold out, Happy Ending Music and Reading Series, chosen by New York Magazine and NY Press as the best reading series in NYC, and singled out by the New York Times Magazine for helping to "Keep downtown alive," features the most interesting storytellers, writers, musicians, raconteurs and personalities, and requires the readers to take one public risk, while the musicians, who perform two short sets with their original, lyric-driven music, are required to play one cover song and try to get the audience to sing along. Called the “most vital authors’ series in the city,” by Time Out NY, and known for its consistently good taste, Happy Ending has launched careers and proudly, ended none.

 

THE BARR BROTHERS

WITH SPECIAL GUEST JOCIE ADAMS

December 7 at 9:30pm

$12
Brothers Andrew and Brad Barr had spent most of the 90s criss-crossing North America, playing music with their spirited, improv-based rock trio, The Slip. In the spring of 2004, the band was playing a small club in Montreal, QC when a fire broke out in the venue. They grabbed a few guitars/drums and rushed out onto the rainy street with the rest of the concert goers. As the club's mezzanine was swallowed by flames, Andrew offered his coat to one of the waitresses from the bar. One year later, Brad and AnDrew Barr were living in Montreal. That waitress is now one of their managers. 

In his first apartment in the new city, Brad shared an adjoining wall with Sarah Page, a classically trained harpist from Montreal, whose melodies would seep through the cracks of the wall and into the music Brad was writing. From this nebulous relationship, a friendship developed and the brothers, with Sarah, began recording and performing around Montreal. Soon, their friend and multi-instrumentalist Andres Vial was brought in to lend his wide array of expertise to the outfit, playing keyboards, bass, vibes, percussion, and singing. They called themselves The Barr Brothers.

THE LOSERS LOUNGE

TRIBUTE TO Diana Ross & The Supremes

December 8 at 7:00pm

December 9 at 7:00pm & 9:30pm

December 10 at 6:30pm & 9:00pm
$25
Loser's Lounge is a bi-monthly tribute show based in New York City where local talent pays homage to the pop music greats of the past. Loser's Lounge was started in 1993 by session keyboardist Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs, The Ramones, Ryan Adams) and psycho-cabaret singer Nick Danger. Originally a piano sing along night at the Pink Pony Cafe on Ludlow Street, the Loser's Lounge debuted at the Fez nightclub with A Tribute To Burt Bacharach. House band the Kustard Kings joined the show in June 1994 for the Mancini tribute and have been the ace backup band ever since. In any given show, the Kings backup over 20 different singers culled from the always-exploding NYC music scene. For this run of performances, Losers Lounge pays homage to Diana Ross & The Supremes.

 

MICHAEL KIWANUKA

December 8 at 9:30pm
$15

With Michael Kiwanuka, it?s all about the voice. A voice that he describes as “hitting straight through to the core” with direct, emotional songs about love, yearning, comfort and belonging. Its a voice that built him a following via MySpace and small London gigs, and led Paul Butler from The Bees to invite him to the band?s Isle of Wight studio to lay down these introductory tracks from what promises to be a major new British singer/songwriter. Which makes it all the more strange, really, that what Michael originally set out to be was a session guitarist who maybe wrote the odd song for other people.

Growing up in North London, he struggled at times to see where he fitted in. An avid England and Spurs fan, he found it hard to imagine a day when a name like Kiwanuka could sit comfortably on the back of a football shirt here. Nonetheless, when his parents took him and his brother back to Uganda to visit family, he and his brother were immediately recognized as British tourists. Like most of his schoolmates, he liked bands like Nirvana, Radiohead, Offspring and Blur, but it was only when he discovered that Jimi Hendrix was black that he understood he had a place playing rock guitar.

 

WAX POETIC

PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH NUBLU’S JAZZ FEST

December 8 at 11:30pm
$15
Wax Poetic’s newest album “No Escape” is set for release in March 2012.  It marks a definitive and vibrant new direction for the collaborative project headed by Ilhan Ersahin while also remaining true to the heart of what Wax Poetic has always been—an exceptional blending of musical styles and influences. Growing out of the transnational East Village music scene of the late 90s, Wax Poetic was the brainchild and collective creation of polymathic musician Ilhan Ersahin.  At its core, it is the product of Ersahin, who has now recruited singer and lyricist Sissy Clemens and multitalented musician Gabriel Gordon on vocals, Shawn Pelton on drums, Jesse Murphy on bass, Zeke Zima on guitar and Ersahin himself on keyboards. 

It flows in a familiar vein that may appeal to a somewhat wider audience than some of the jams Nublu is known for, but it’s not quite “pop” in the strictest sense. The band is headed in a bright new territory while still retaining the distinctly organic vibe that is known as Wax Poetic.

 

FORRO IN THE DARK

PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH NUBLU’S JAZZ FEST

December 10 at Midnight
$15
For those who don’t already know, forró is the hip-swiveling, dancefloor-filling, rural party music of Brazil’s northeastern states. And Forró in the Dark is the collective of four New York-based Brazilian ex-pats –Mauro Refosco (zabumba drum and vocals) Davi Vieira (percussion and vocals) Guilherme Monteiro (guitar and vocals) and Jorge Continentino (pifano flute, sax and vocals) - who are updating this traditional sound for the 21st century. “In Brazil, forró literally means party,” says Mauro. “It’s a gathering, a good time. The objective is to make people dance.” Which is exactly what Forro In The Dark have been doing since 2005 at their weekly residence at East Village nightspot Nublu, where their signature blend of down home forró and urban cool have made them one of the city’s must-see buzz bands.

 

NORA YORK: SWERVE

December 11 at 7:00pm
$20
Nora York called “one of the most original musicians on the current scene.” by the New York Review of Books, returns to Joe’s Pub December 11th with Swerve. York is challenging herself to write a New Group of songs during the three month interval between September 11, 2011, and her Pub concert December 11th 2011.  Swerve promises to reflect York’s varied approach to musical genre – from pop to opera, singer songwriter to art song -- as much as her passionate love of the world and it’s pains and it’s pleasures.  York is joined by her Amazing Band -- Jamie Lawrence on piano, Dave Hofstra on bass, and Steve Tarshis on guitar.  Don’t miss this first listen to a unique concert. 

 

PAM ANN

NEW YORK CITY LAYOVER: GETEM BITCH

December 11, 12, & 13 at 9:30pm

December 21 at 9:30pm

December 22 at 7:30pm & 10:00pm

December 23 at 9:30pm
$30
Pam Ann is the alter-ego of Australian comedienne Caroline Reid.   Reid’s portrayal of the outrageous air hostess has been featured in advertising campaigns for British Airways and Sky Team.  In fact, she is the celebrity spokeswoman of Sky Team Terminal 4 at Heathrow; featured on all in-flight video programming and seen on CNN and CNBC. Pam Ann has appeared in promotions for KLM/Air France, JetBLue, Lufthansa, British Airways, Qantas, SAS and even low cost British carrier EasyJet uses her videos in their training. Buckle Up! Adventure Calls bitches! Pam Ann, the original queen of the skies - who has toured with Cher and crewed private jets for Elton John - is back in New York and this time, she means business.  She aims to knock the plastic smiles off the imposter hostesses on TV’s Pan Am in her raucous new production.  So shut the F**k up, sit the F**k down, lock your seats in the upright position and prepare to take off for the ride of your life.