Writing a blog about visiting a city like New York is a bit unnerving. I mean, how is it possible to describe even just a few of the overwhelming exeriences with a few words and pictures? Well, one thing that I have learned in New York is that anything goes if you put your mind to it. So, here goes…
Fela! - the musical
Nike and I went with our NY hosts, Tony Karon and Jann Cheifitz, to see the excellent Broadway production Fela! at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. The show is about the life and music of Fela Kuti, who gave the world Afrobeat in the 1970s, and bravely challenged the Nigerian military dictatorship throughout his life, with songs like ‘International Thief Thief’ and ‘’Coffin for the Head of State’.
Sahr Ngaujah gives a magnificent performance as Fela Kuti (photo: Monique Carboni, from official Fela! website www.felaonbroadway.com)
(photo: Monique Carboni, on official Fela! website www.felaonbroadway.com)
(photo: Monique Carboni, from official Fela! website www.felaonbroadway.com)
The music in Fela! is played by the Brooklyn-based Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, which have done much in the past decade to revive the Afrobeat sound, a fusion of jazz, funk, rock and traditional West African chants and rhythms. It was a real treat to see them play live.
We went to see Fela! the same day that Julius Malema, ANC Youth League leader, shockingly called BBC journalist Jonah Fisher a ‘small boy’, ‘bastard’, ‘bloody agent’ and more at a press conference at Luthuli House in Johannesburg (Malema’s TV tantrum) and then chucked him out. I wonder what Fela Kuti, who constantly fought against abuses of power, would have made of Malema’s increasingly reactionary populist rhetoric and bullying behaviour? Probably similar to what he thought of the Nigerian military, which he parodied in his hit song ‘Zombie’.
For many years, New York, like many US cities, has tended to define ‘urban life’ in terms of the motor car. One of the concerns raised when parts of Times Square and Broadway were made more pedestrian-friendly in recent years was that these spaces would lose their ‘urban character’, i.e. the roar of traffic. Fortunately, attitudes are changing fast, no more so in the Flatiron District, as the success of providing more car-free spaces for people becomes apparent.
People enjoy the warm spring weather in the middle of what must be one of the busiest intersections in New York: 5th Avenue, Broadway and 23rd Street
The Flatiron/ 23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District is one of 64 BIDs in New York and has done much to revive the neighbourhood
In 2007, British sculptor Antony Gormley launched a public art project in London entitled "Event Horizons." It consisted of 31 life-size nude sculptures of himself installed on bridges, rooftops and streets along the bank of the Thames. Gormley's statues are now on display throughout the Flatiron district, three of them at street level in and around Madison Square Park, one on the public plaza at the intersection of 23rd Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and 27 on rooftops and parapets.
“In observing the works dispersed over the city viewers will discover that they are the centre of a concentrated field of silent witnesses; they are surrounded by art that is looking out at space and perhaps also at them. In that time the flow of daily life is momentarily stilled.” – Antony Gormley, Event Horizon, March 2010
“Isolated against the sky these dark figures look out into space at large asking: where does the humanity fit in the scheme of things?” – Antony Gormley, Event Horizon, March 2010
"An architects-in-residence programme brought together five interdisciplinary teams to re-envision the coastlines of New York and New Jersey around New York Harbour and to imagine new ways to occupy the harbour itself with adaptive infrastructures that are sympathetic to the needs of a sound ecology"
A stylised model of 'dolosse', a porous concrete breakwater designed to dissipate wave energy, on display at MoMA. Not many people know that these were an invention of South African harbour engineer Eric Merrifield in 1963, after a violent storm had destroyed part of the harbour. Free of patents, this Eastern Cape design is today used on breakwaters, harbours, jetties and coastlines across the globe.
An innovative solution for the area of the highly polluted Gowanus Canal (Brooklyn), Governor's Island and the waters in-between: revitalisation of a long-lost oyster bed through a field of piles and a web of 'fuzzy rope', known as 'Oyster-tecture'. It is envisaged that the oysters would then stimulate the growth of other marine life
The pace of urbanisation and globalisation in China was a topic of another project at MoMA:
'Collective Subconsciousness' by Yin Xiuzhen, 2007, is one of a series of hybrid of vehicles Yin has made in the past few years using a bisected minivan and a patchwork fabric made from used garments.
A room with a view - inside the modified minivan (photo: Nike Romano)
New York is so many things and more. Its easy to go on and on trying to capture yet another detail, another experience. One of the best songs in recent times that sums up the New York attitude is the anthemic Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys. Its a good way to end this blog – check it out!
Empire State Building - detail
Empire State Building - detail
Empire State Building - detail
