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BY RANIA RICHARDSON
The decline of a parent can be devastating — so why would a filmmaker turn a camera on his mother as she falls prey to Alzheimer’s disease? “It’s a project to tell your mom that you love her,” director Banker White says to his mother during the course of “The Genius of Marian.”

Lovingly, White and his co-director and wife, Anna Fitch, trace the evolution of Pam’s affliction (the same one that took hold of her own mother, Marian, who was institutionalized because of the disease).

Marian was a home-schooled painter who captured her family in oils, and we see images of Pam as a playful child and as a beautiful young woman on the beach. The stunning artwork adds a joyful aspect to a sad story of disease as legacy, in a Kennedy-like family.

A comfortable home in the Boston suburbs, a caring family and a sacrificing husband barely lessen the tragedy of confusion, memory loss and increasing debilitation after Pam’s diagnosis at age 61. She kept her disease a secret as long as she could, but soon was calling macadamia nuts “acamanias.”

Longtime friends suggest that since lovely, popular Pam was the best at everything she did, she had farther to fall from the Alzheimer’s. Taking a leave from work to care for her full-time, husband Ed (obviously still in love) is the hero of the film.

A poignant contrast is made with two sequences. When Pam was a pretty, young model she appeared in a commercial for Arrid deodorant. More recently, unable to apply deodorant on herself, Ed swipes some under her arms before performing his daily ritual of dressing her.

The film may have the look and feel of home movies, but archival and new footage and shots of Marian’s paintings are edited masterfully together to tell the story of a vibrant life and a much-loved woman.

Directed by Banker White & Anna Fitch

Documentary

84 minutes

Screening at the Tribeca Film Festival

4/21 at 7:30pm, 4/23 at 6:45pm and 4/26 at 3pm

At Clearview Cinemas Chelsea (260 W. 23rd St., btw. 7th & 8th Aves.)

For tickets & info, call 646-502-5296 or visit tribecafilm.com/filmguide

Emmanuelle Devos, as Alix. Photo by Céline Nieszawer.

BY SAM SPOKONY  | Now this is romance. The knowing glances, the swells and falls, the awkward moments, the utter silence. It’s always nice to experience a piece of fiction in which the depth of emotion is really shown rather than told, and “Just a Sigh” follows that old mantra of narrative in all the right ways. Jérôme Bonnell puts it all out there, displaying — with supreme confidence  — an invigorating ability to navigate the folds of both tense social interaction and quiet introspection, while never losing his sense of humor and sheer imaginative spark.

During a break from a theatre performance in Calais, 43-year-old French actress Alix (played by Emmanuelle Devos) is on her way back to her home in Paris to relax and spend some time with her boyfriend. But while riding the train into the city, a somewhat older British man (Gabriel Byrne) sitting in a nearby seat catches her eye. She catches his eye. It’s cute. And so on. They speak briefly, but there’s an interruption, and the connection is lost…for the moment.

From this point, it could have devolved into pure cheese, but it didn’t. Instead, it’s where (all innuendo aside) Bonnell really gets it in.

It turns out that this handsome, nameless man is on his way to a church. But when Alix suddenly has an impulse to follow him, she soon realizes that Mr. Mysterious isn’t there for fun. He’s there for the funeral of a dear colleague (he’s a literature professor), and one for whom he had strong (yet unconsummated) romantic feelings.

This is where it gets interesting. As Alix realizes that her own boyfriend is nowhere to be found (and, better yet, that she might even be subconsciously avoiding the guy, for reasons we find out later), these two characters just sink into each other — heaping upon each other the unbridled passion they’ve apparently both been bottling up. And it’s gripping stuff.

As the film goes on, it’s one joy and folly after another, as Alix sorts out her demons — familial, professional, and otherwise — on the streets of Paris, while never losing the thought of this one strangely awesome guy who’s been thrust into her life.

Meanwhile, Bonnell sprinkles the whole thing with generous helpings of vibrant color, classical music, absurdly funny coincidences and mistakes (and a strong narrative line that never lets us forget why we walked in the door). Devos and Byrne are both wonderful. They’re constantly outdoing one another with moments of intensity, longing and loss — but at the same time, they’re a perfect complement.

If you’re looking to get hit right in the feelings, folks, then check this one out. In the end, it really is just a sigh, nothing more — but that’s why it’s good.

Directed by Jérôme Bonnell

Runtime: 104 minutes

English, French with subtitles

Screening at the Tribeca Film Festival

4/21 at 10pm and 4/25, 10pm, at Clearview Cinemas Chelsea (260 W. 23rd St., btw. 7th & 8th Aves.)

4/28, 2:30pm, at AMC Loews Village 7 (66 Third Ave., at 11th St.)

For tickets & info, call 646-502-5296 or visit tribecafilm.com/filmguide

Chris Schoeck, bending a horseshoe in his storage unit. Photo by Ryan Scafuro

BY TRAV S.D.  |  “Bending Steel” is an unexpectedly moving documentary by director Dave Carroll about a guy with the quixotic dream of becoming an old-time circus strong man.

Chris Schoeck, the film’s subject, is a 43-year-old physical therapist and self-professed loner who literally spends all of his spare time in a storage room straining to bend pieces of metal. To be more precise, he actually accomplishes this seemingly impossible feat routinely.

Before the camera, we watch him twist horseshoes straight like taffy, bend a pipe wrench over double and transform a thick steel bar into a “U” shape. When he says “That’s a good kind of nail to work on,” he’s not talking about carpentry — it’s either for bending in half or driving into a board using only his fist. And when he gets tired of metal, Schoeck tears phone books and decks of playing cards in half with his bare hands. Schoeck, by the way, only weighs about 150 pounds.

It turns out that accomplishing such feats of strength is not only a matter of brute force, but of willpower. To help him realize his dream, Schoeck hires a Pennsylvania-based consultant, Chris “Haircules” Rider — so named because of his long, flowing mane, and the fact that he is able to pick up heavy weights that have been tied to it using his mighty scalp-strength. It’s Rider’s job to help Schoeck build his confidence by teaching him about performance, inspiring him and psyching him up.

The film follows the two as they make a pilgrimage to the home of a legend in their field, Slim the Hammer Man (whose specialty is lifting sledgehammers). Slim’s garage, in turn, is a shrine to the memory of sideshow star The Mighty Atom (Joseph L. Greenstein). At a gathering of a club called the Steel Nuts, Schoeck is encouraged by one of the members to attempt to bend a quarter on his teeth — and he does, chipping one in the process.

This is a group of friends founded on machismo, yet Schoeck is able to find more sensitivity, acceptance and understanding with them than he does from his own parents (whom ironically, are the only thing holding him back). Dismissive, truly horrible people, they can’t be bothered to support him or even pretend to take an interest in what he does, gazing unimpressed when he bends a steel bar an inch and a half thick in front of them in their back yard. (The father suggests that it might be a trick bar, and then points out that the son is out of breath).

The climax of the film is Schoeck’s debut at the Coney Island Olde Time Strongman Spectacular, where he hopes to surprise everyone by bending a steel bar that is two inches thick. Even the experts tell him he won’t be able to pull it off. In the front row are two empty seats reserved for his parents.

You won’t get any spoilers here but I will reveal that the outcome affected me greatly on an emotional level. Far from a silly topic, this is one man’s existential journey, and it packs a punch — right to the solar plexus.

Directed by Dave Carroll

Runtime: 93 minutes

Documentary

Screening at the Tribeca Film Festival

4/24 at 3pm and 4/27 at 10:30pm, at Clearview Cinemas Chelsea (260 W. 23rd St., btw. 7th & 8th Aves.)

For tickets & info, call 646-502-5296 or visit tribecafilm.com/filmguide

From left: Sumrit Warin as Toma, Sitthiphon Disamoe as Ahlo, Thep Phongam as Purple, Loungnam Kaosainam as Kia and Bunsri Yindi as Taitok. Photo by Tom Greenwood

BY SCOTT STIFFLER  |  Australian filmmaker Kim Mordaunt’s 2007 documentary “Bomb Harvest” charted the decades-long impact of unexploded wartime ordinance strewn throughout Laos. Of an estimated 260 million bombs dropped by the United States from 1964-1973 (in an attempt to render the Ho Chi Minh Trail unusable), some 80 million failed to explode on impact. They’ve been taking lives, and land, ever since.

Mordaunt returned to that rapidly developing nation (“the most bombed country, per capita, on the planet”) for his first work of narrative fiction. Starring mostly non-professional actors, “The Rocket” is no mere rookie effort — thanks largely to its cast of naturals and a familiar yet engaging storyline. Mordaunt’s observational style is a smart choice that pays off, from mythical beginning to fairy tale end. The stark contrast between lush rural beauty and hardscrabble existence, tradition and progress, harsh reality and magical realism all benefit from the filmmaker’s confident and, yes, documentary-like restraint.

Optimistic, determined little Ahlo may or may not be bad luck. There’s no way to tell for sure, since his twin brother died at birth. “One is blessed, the other carries a curse,” says the midwife/mother-in-law who, sworn to secrecy by Ahlo’s doting mother, will always regard the child with a suspicious eye.

During Ahlo’s tenth year, the family is forced to relocate, so their farmland can be flooded — a necessary concession for the construction of a huge hydroelectric dam, whose uninvited presence comes with promises from the government that life will improve overnight (in the form of plentiful water and electricity in their new homes). That sets the stage for one of the film’s most memorable sequences, in which village residents sit through an animated presentation touting their bright future while Ahlo dives into a catchment area. As air from his exhaled breath bubbles to the surface, he swims past recently flooded houses and grand stone religious statues that are already forgotten relics of an idealized past.

When the family pulls up roots, Ahlo’s stubborn refusal to abandon his fishing boat leads to a tragic accident, and his twin status is revealed. “I’m not cursed,” he insists, after a series of unfortunate happenings seem to indicate otherwise.

Fleeing from the squalor of their new home (scrap metal lean-tos improvised when the pre-fab dwellings never show up), Ahlo befriends some new allies and announces he’s going to win a rocket festival that takes place in a drought-stricken village. First prize will buy enough land to prevent his father from moving the family to the big city and taking a factory job — and allow Ahlo the opportunity to plant a mango seed that will grow in tribute to a loved one whose death he feels responsible for.

Everyone dismisses him, of course, except for an equally resourceful little girl and her uncle — a James Brown-loving, purple suit-clad alcoholic whose military past holds the key to Ahlo’s sky-scraping, rainmaking, award-winning, life-changing rocket. This being a classic hero’s journey, that’s no more of a spoiler than noting that the dragon in a knight’s tale will be slayed. But the particular way in which Ahlo proves himself is what makes “The Rocket” soar. Mordaunt takes the deadly weapons of “Bomb Harvest” and turns them into agents of positive and lasting change, when placed in the right hands.

Written & Directed by Kim Mordaunt

Runtime: 112 minutes

Screening as part of the Tribeca Film Festival

4/24, 8:30pm, at Clearview Cinemas Chelsea (260 W. 23rd St., btw. 7th & 8th Aves.)

For tickets & info, call 646-502-5296 or visit tribecafilm.com/filmguide

Ted Fielding (Will Forte) and Vanetia Casey (Maxine Peake) make a run (and jump) for it. Photo by Karina Finegan.

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN | Directed by the Academy Award-nominee Steph Green, “Run and Jump” follows the moving story of an Irish family in the wake of a tragedy. First, we encounter the mother, Vanetia Casey (excellently played by Maxine Peake). On a rainy day, she is picking up her husband Conor (Edward Macliam) from a hospital to bring him home, where their two young children and in-laws await them eagerly.

The narrative reveals that Conor, who is only in his late 30s, has had a stroke. His survival is considered somewhat of a miracle, but it has left him mentally disabled and fundamentally changed. Most importantly, he is not able to recognize his family members, nor his relationship to them — and he seems incapable of feeling any emotions towards humans, be it his wife, parents or children.

As the optimistic and spirited Vanetia is struggling to re-establish a sense of normalcy, a foreign houseguest further complicates matters. He arrives in the form of the quiet American doctor Ted Fielding, (played by “Saturday Night Live” alum Will Forte). Fielding had received a research grant to document every step of Conor’s reintegration and consequently takes up a room in the Casey’s home. It is his grant that provides the family with some crucial financial aid, as they soon realize that Conor will not be able to assume his role as breadwinner.

Although Vanetia first somewhat resents living under Ted’s scientific supervision, she soon comes to see him as a calming friend. She tells him about the family’s happy life before Conor’s stroke and it is her infectious lust for life that makes Ted fall for her. The situation becomes the more dramatic the more everyone (the audience included) realizes that Conor will never recover.

“Run and Jump” is somewhat of a hybrid. It is a portrait of a family facing tragedy, the story of human relationships and an unconventional romance. It is Green’s fine balance of light and devastating moments that leave the film to shake, move and soothe us. As much as “Run and Jump” makes you realize that life as we know and love it might be over in a heartbeat, it also serves as a pledge that there is always much to live for.

Directed by Steph Green
102 Minutes

Screening at the Tribeca Film Festival
4/22 at 3:45pm and 4/23 at 8:30pm, at Clearview Cinemas Chelsea (260 W. 23rd St., btw. 7th & 8th Aves.)
4/26 at 6pm, at AMC Loews Village 7 (66 Third Ave., at 11th St.)

For tickets & info, call 646-502-5296 or visit tribecafilm.com/filmguide

Our critic’s top gallery picks

ELENA SISTO: BETWEEN THE SILVER LIGHT AND ORANGE SHADOW

Sisto’s first solo show with the gallery serves as the final venue for the traveling museum exhibition of the same title. For the last three years, Sisto’s paintings have explored the formative years of young women artists. Most show three-quarter profiles of women against the backdrop of the studio or while partially hidden behind the canvas. These intimate depictions offer deep insight into the psychology of each sitter. Though abstracted, Sisto’s subjects maintain unique personalities and dispositions that hint at the possibility of narrative.

Through May 25, at Lori Bookstein Fine Art (138 10th Ave., btw. 18th & 19th Sts.). Hours: Tues.-Sat., 10:30am-6pm. Call 212-750-0949 or visit loribooksteinfineart.com. 

Installation Shot courtesy of The Drawing Center, photo by Cathy Carver. This vitrine contains various Giosetta Fioroni drawings, including some from her childhood as well as images representing a performance she did in 1968. On view through June 2, at The Drawing Center.

GIOSETTA FIORONI: L’ARGENTO

Curated by Claire Gilman, this exhibition is Fioroni’s first solo show in North America. It features over 80 works by the Italian artist, dating from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. In her drawings, paintings, films, theater designs and illustrations, Fioroni responded to the increasingly commercial culture of her time. However, in contrast to the American Pop artists, her focus remained on hand-rendering images rather than deriving them from commercial advertisements. Born in 1932, Fioroni was the only female member of the Scuola di Piazza del Popolo — a group of artists that emerged in Rome during the 1960s. She continues to live and work in Rome.

Through June 2, at The Drawing Center (35 Wooster St., btw. Broome & Grand Sts.). Hours: Wed, Fri.-Sun., 12-6pm. and Thurs., 12-8pm. Call 212-219-2166 or visit drawingcenter.org.

Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Sara VanDerBeek: “Roman Women VIII” (2013, 2 Digital C-Prints, 20 x 16 inches–each image size; 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 20 1/2 x 16 3/8 inches (each frame size), 52.1 x 41.6 cm. Edition of 3.

Sara VanDerBeek

In her first solo show with the gallery, VanDerBeek presents new photographs and sculptures that explore the translation of memory into image and form. Her research stems from recent travels to Paris, Rome and Naples — where she explored archeological sites and museum collections of classical and neoclassical sculpture. Largely inspired by ancient female figures, VanDerBeek has created, among others, a group of photographs of large marble and metal female figures, colorized with blue and pink Plexiglas, that are seen opposite a colonnade of rectilinear modular forms.

Through June 8, at Metro Pictures (519 W. 24th St., btw. 10th & 11th Aves.). Hours: Tues.-Sat., 10am-6pm. Call 212-206-7100 or visit metropicturesgallery.com.

Courtesy of Feature Inc., New York Dike Blair: “Dance Dance Dance” (2011; paint on wood, framed mixed media on paper; 72 x 55 x 216”).

DIKE BLAIR: SCULPTURE

Blair’s sculptures are assemblages. They are comprised of painted wooden shipping crates, which in the past have contained framed gouache paintings or objects like Noguchi lamps. While the abstract geometric aspects of Blair’s work evoke a range of modernist movements, including the De Stijl, it remains very much rooted in the here and now. Conceptually, these sculptures address notions of storage, furniture and the human body. They bring attention to the banal and transitory details of everyday life, feeling both personal and mediated.

Through June 2, at Feature Inc. (131 Allen St., btw. Delancey & Rivington Sts.). Hours: Wed.-Sun., 12-6pm. Call 212-675-7772 or visit featureinc.com

–  BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN

Photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

MEET THE NEW PARK CHIEF: Sarah Neilson, above, the new administrator of Washington Square Park and director of the planned Washington Square conservancy, if it can actually be called that (see below), introduced herself at the Wed., May 1, meeting of C.B. 2’s Parks and Waterfront Committee. Because the expressive-matter vendors issue, which was also on the meeting’s agenda, was expected to have copious discussion, the committee decided to put off its consideration of the so-called conservancy — also expected to be a lengthy and intense subject — until its next regularly scheduled  meeting, on June 5. Initially, we were hearing, however, that it wasn’t clear if the committee would actually take any position on the conservancy issue, as in passing a resolution for or against the idea. That clearly wouldn’t go over well with many community members. So we asked C.B. 2 Chairperson David Gruber about it, and it sounds like things are still a bit in flux. “That needs to be discussed in Executive Committee,” he told us, adding, “I’ll have to weigh in on that.” Gruber then made a quick call to Rich Caccappolo, the Parks and Waterfront Committee’s chairperson, then reported right back to us. It actually will not be a conservancy registered with the Parks Department, Gruber explained, but a “friends” group, so C.B. 2 conceivably might not feel it has to weigh in on the issue with a resolution. “Talk to Rich,” Gruber urged us. Caccappolo told us, “We may do a resolution based on what we hear, i.e. concerns and risks and fears raised that should be mitigated, pledges and promises, agendas and goals, etc. My understanding is that there will be no formal agreement, e.g. a license, between the Parks Department and this organization.”

Photo by Bob Krasner

MAGICAL MYSTERY TRICKS: A small but enchanted crowd gathered around David Blaine, above, on a quiet Tuesday night in the Village, as he was being filmed doing card tricks on MacDougal St. The world-famous magician declined to say what the footage would be used for. But he was gracious enough to stick around to pose for photos with some very happy fans.

EARLIER SUNDAY EYE-OPENER? We hear from Bob Gormley, Community Board 2 district manager, that the city is proposing changing the opening time for sidewalk cafes on Sundays to 10 a.m. Currently, sidewalk cafes legally aren’t allowed to open on Sundays before noon, due to the prohibition on serving alcohol until that hour on the traditional church-going day. Under the proposal, from what we understand from what Gormley told us, not only sidewalk cafes, but obviously, bars and restaurants, in general, would be allowed to start serving booze at 10 a.m. on Sundays. Gormley, and other representatives of several other Manhattan community boards, were down at the City Council earlier this week when the proposal was being discussed. He told us that, generally, the board reps were O.K. with allowing sidewalk cafes to start serving at 10 a.m. However, since this might mean a bit more morning noise under residents’ windows during these two added hours, Gormley advocated for cutting back the Sunday night closing time for sidewalk cafes by two hours from the currently mandated midnight. “We recognized it’s very helpful to Sunday brunch,” he said of the outdoor Bloody Mary-in-the-morning-enabling proposal. “But we asked the Council to link the 10 a.m. opening time to a 10 p.m. closing time.” David Rabin also attended the Council discussion, representing the restaurant industry.

DORIS DOES REHAB: The C.B. 2 district manager also brought us up to date on board member Doris Diether, who is rehabilitating at VillageCare, on Houston St. between Sixth Ave. and Varick St. The octogenarian activist should be out by May 16, Gormley said. Although she’s recuperating from a broken hip and broken shoulder, the biggest issue for her might be the fact that one of her vocal cords is damaged, preventing her from speaking above a loud whisper, he said. “I heard someone say it was possibly paralyzed,” he noted. “There’s a shot that can restore her voice for a few months, but it would only be temporary.”

IN THE POLE POSITION: The “Mosaic Man,” Jim Power is giving it another go, as he’s ratcheting up (yet again) his legendary “Mosaic Trail” project, this time with a little help from Indiegogo. He’s aiming to raise no small sum — $80,000 — which would pay for the renovation of half of his trail of tile-encrusted lampposts throughout the East Village. You can give $5 “and Jim will love you forever,” the site promises. For $25, you get an official Mosaic Trail sticker. For $100, you — yes, you! — can become a part of the trail, with your face on a tile, on a lamppost, on the most famous public art trail in history. And, no, it doesn’t stop there. For $250, you get a T-shirt with one of Power’s mosaic designs from the trail. For $500, you’ll get a one-of-a-kind, wearable-art, Mosaic belt buckle. For $1,000, you will receive an original 8-inch-by-8-inch mosaic artwork by Power. And — drumroll, please — finally, for $2,500 you can “Adopt a Light Pole,” with your name, business or brand featured on a lamppost along the trail. For more information, go-go online to Indiegogo at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/385985/emal/3004188 . It certainly sounds like an extremely ambitious undertaking for any mortal man. We recently visited “Mosaic Man” at The Lee supportive-housing facility on E. Houston St., and he declared to us that he is ready to completely “dominate” St. Mark’s Place like it’s never been dominated before, sprucing up his poles there. He badly needs a hip operation, though, and told us he might get it in June, so we certainly wish him well with that, as well. Apparently, the idea of a Mosaic Scooter has been scrapped. “Been a longtime coming. All of this,” said “Mosaic” helper Matt Rosen. “The efforts we’ve done over the last year or two have all been leading up to this. Basically, Jim had an audience. We just needed to curate it.”

Anthony Rodriguez with some of his artwork in his current exhibition at the Clayton Gallery & Outlaw Art Museum.

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | One of the greatest blessings I have received in life is connected to my archive. How fortunate and blessed I have been to have been able to document such a wide cross-section of the people, places and events, the life and heart beat of the Lower East Side, before so much of the community was lost and destroyed by gentrification.

Celebrity photography is where the glamour, fame and money are. Much of my work is closer to the street and of those people and events that tend to be off the monetary radar. In my archive, I have photos of individuals that are among the only existing images of them.

One of the artists I have documented over the years is Anthony Dominguez, and currently, he has an art show at my place on Essex St.

I first met Anthony in the late 1980s. This was a period of great political turmoil. The short version is that much of the political struggle was centered around real estate. Property values were going up, and our politicians worked hard to undo many of the rights and laws that protected the average tenant from being gouged by landlords.

People were being forced out of their homes, mom-and-pop businesses could not keep up with the escalating cost of doing business. The courts and the police became the muscle, the driving force behind the evictions and the displacement of people.

New York City had a homeless crisis on its hands. Tompkins Square Park was fully occupied with a Tent City. New York City had not had this kind of homeless takeover of public land since the Great Depression, when Hooverville was constructed in Central Park.

Anthony Dominguez was one of the homeless artists who had found a place to fit in and be accepted, a place to show his art and be a part of the Lower East Side culture scene. It’s now 19 years later, and he is still one of the city’s homeless. To clarify: Anthony does not consider himself homeless, he considers himself free. He does not receive or seek any kind of social support or handouts. He is not addicted or dependent on drugs or alcohol, and works hard at living a moral and spiritual life.

Over the years, Anthony has stopped by a number of times to visit me. Usually his visit is connected to some sort of police or community harassment. Anthony has delicate features, is soft-spoken and appears somewhat meek and humble. He explains that the police and other community enforcement types label him a male prostitute or accuse him of being some sort of “homosexual pervert,” which he feels puts his life in danger. He sees this harassment as a subtle — not physically violent, but psychologically threatening — tool the authorities use to make his life too uncomfortable to be in the area where he is living.

One of the ways Anthony deals with these threats is by keeping a few trusted friends informed of his situation. He sees this as a form of protection. His way of communicating his problem is to write notes or longer letters detailing this harassment. I have several of these communications.

Mild-mannered or not, Anthony lives a hard life. No question, at times, his is a very dangerous lifestyle. The city has all the appearances of a civilized society. But make no mistake, especially for the homeless or the free, there are still sections with no rules, or few rules, or rule by force, or muscle, or gun, or crew, or posse, or gang, or psychotics, or by crackheads, or whatever.

Often in the places on the street where the homeless find shelter, there can be more than one exceptionally crazy, out-of-the-box, off-the-radar character lurking in the foreground. And as the city becomes more gentrified, the police are pressured to move out the homeless.

But no matter what hardships or adversity Anthony is faced with, he has never stopped making art.

In the earlier days, he produced wonderful patch-like bleach prints. His method and tools were simple: Find some black, heavy fabric, like black denim; get a piece of thin, sturdy cardboard, or possibly a piece of thin rubber; draw the image on the material; using an X-Acto knife, cut out the image; and now you have a stencil that can be used to make multiples.

Just place the stencil on top of the black fabric. Using a bunched-up, dampened cloth or a sponge dipped in bleach, press it onto the stencil, and the end result are these beautiful images.

Because he has no steady place to call home and must travel light, Anthony carries everything in a small backpack. By making a few design changes to his backpack, he has figured out an ingenious way to carry his art, his art supplies and the necessities he needs to keep himself clean and alive.

His art, like his backpack, tends to be neat and organized. In the winter he goes to the public library and uses one of the reading cubicles to paint in. Again, he is very neat and tidy.

In the last few years, he has been painting on the white, heavy canvas used to make store awnings and the industrial, outdoor photo billboards stuck on the sides of buildings. He cuts the canvas into strips about 8 inches wide, with the height up to around 15 inches long. These pieces roll up and fit into the backpack. His palette tends to be limited to black, white and red acrylic paint. His tools are a ruling pen and a small selection of brushes, charcoal and pencils.

His work is somewhat graphic in appearance, tightly painted, with figures that can include cops, hobos and workers. Some are abstract designs with titles like “Puzzle,” “Empty Full” and “The Ungrateful Hour Glass Man.” Some of his pieces include his original music scores and the lyrics he writes.

He made a flute out of a half-inch piece of PVB pipe that sounds much like a wooden recorder. He can play the tunes he writes.

For those who desire a taste of the old Lower East Side, I would suggest making an appointment and discovering this amazing artist’s work.

Clayton Gallery & Outlaw Art Museum, 161 Essex St. (between Houston and Stanton Sts.), 212-477-1363.

Photo courtesy of the artist and La MaMa Kid Lucky, at the 2011 La MaMa World Block Party.

Kid Lucky and La MaMa celebrate ‘the art of human noise’

BY TOM TENNEY | In a 1913 letter to the composer Francesco Balilla Pratella, Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo declared, “The variety of noises is infinite…today we have perhaps a thousand different machines, and can distinguish a thousand different noises, tomorrow, as new machines multiply, we will be able to distinguish ten, twenty, or thirty thousand different noises, not merely in a simply imitative way, but to combine them according to our imagination.”

This letter, which became a known as “The Art of Noises,” advocated a new sonic vocabulary through the imitation of machines — and became one of the most important manifestos in the history of sound.

As technological advances at the turn of the century paved the way for a revolution in mass media, they also created new possibilities for individual expression. By mid-century, the computer had opened new sonic territory by permitting an unprecedented extension of sounds and scales, pushing the boundaries of music beyond what the Futurists ever imagined.

In 1983, 70 years after Russolo’s letter, a British avant-garde electronic group that called itself The Art of Noise (after the manifesto) released a song that mixed sampled sounds of car engines and industrial machinery with time-warped drum beats and orchestral stabs. This song would become one of the most influential instrumentals in the world of hip-hop, sampled by artists from X-Clan to Marky Mark. The name of that song was “Beat Box.” A year later, an 18-year-old rapper from Harlem by the name of Doug E. Fresh pioneered the art of imitating electronic drum machines using only his voice. The art of “beatboxing” was born, and the verity of Russolo’s vision was, once again, affirmed. As do all musical genres, beatboxing has evolved in the intervening three decades, spawning a variety of techniques — including the “human turntable” (a style invented by Wise of the group Stetsasonic) and “mouth drumming” (developed by Wes Carroll).

From May 24-26, the Third Annual American Human Beatbox Festival at La MaMa Theatre will give New Yorkers the opportunity to sample some of the most eclectic beatboxing styles by artists who make percussive rhythms with the human voice.

This three-day exhibition of performances, workshops and film kicks off on Friday night with a battle, not of beatboxers, but beatrhymers — performers who beatbox and rhyme at the same time. Beatrhyming was developed and popularized by the festival’s curator, Kid Lucky, who coined the term, and who characterizes the new style as one that allows the performer to move beyond simply providing a beat. Beatrhyming adds language — poetry, rap, song, spoken word — to the vocal effects, freeing the piece to take off in new directions.

“Beatboxers listen to the beat,” Lucky explains, “Emcees listen to the words. With beatrhyming, we listen to the whole concept of the song.” Kid Lucky isn’t the first to beatrhyme, and readily acknowledges those who went before him — like Biz Markie, Darren Robinson of the Fat Boys and Rahzel of the Roots, who astonished hip-hop audiences by beatboxing and singing the chorus simultaneously on “If Your Mother Only Knew.”

For the most part, however, Lucky has seen beatboxers use beatrhyming mainly as a musical machination, a trick for cheap applause. Lucky, who began beatrhyming in the mid-90s, saw the potential to elevate the style into an art form in its own right. “People used beatrhyming as a trick, or a gimmick,” he says, “I saw it as something much more than that. I saw the possibilities to take the concept and push it beyond the boundaries of what anybody else is doing. That’s how you move from gimmick to art.” He’s also quick to point out that beatrhyming doesn’t necessarily mean rapping, but can include a number of vocal styles (such as singing and spoken word).

When La MaMa approached Kid Lucky to curate the first beatboxing festival in 2010, he saw an opportunity to challenge traditional notions of beatboxing, and bring his innovations to a wider audience, many of whom still maintain rigid definitions of beatboxing as a human emulation of technology.

While he recognizes the cultural roots of beatboxing as “man-imitating-machine,” Lucky sees beatrhyming as an opportunity to reintroduce the human element, or “soul,” back into the art. “Beatboxing, which began by imitating the Roland 808 drum machine, is more concerned with the electronic aspect,” he explains, “but as beatboxing moves further, it emphasizes the soul and the feeling as opposed to the technical aspect of it.”

For Kid Lucky, the next step in the advancement of beatrhyming is handing his skills down to a new generation of performers. He teaches weekly beatrhyming workshops at Midtown’s famous Funkadelic Studios, and plans to develop them into a school of what he calls “Mixed Vocal Arts” — an institution that will teach not only his signature style, but also an entire array of vocal techniques including humming, whistling, scatting, vocal sound effects, singing, spoken word, yodeling, rapping and Tuvan throat singing.

The concept of the school was born of Lucky’s frustration with the limited number of styles represented in universities and professional training schools. Scat singing, for example, a uniquely American form of jazz vocalization popularized by Ella Fitzgerald in the 1950s, isn’t taught at most universities. “With scatting, Ella Fitzgerald became a whole entire instrument right there, and people went crazy,” Lucky said. “Why would you stop doing that? Why would you stop pushing that type of situation forward?”

Those who wish to experience this “pushing forward” in person should check out the beatrhyming battle on May 24, where the performers will include D-Cross, Kid Lucky, Kaila, Graffiti, Richard, Esalaah, Kenny Urban, Mandibul, Menyu and Baba Israel. Saturday morning, bring your baby beatboxers to the Kids Beatbox Workshop, and then come back for the emcee/beatboxer team battles at 10pm. Sunday offerings include “Nos States” — a documentary about French beatboxer Princeps, followed by a tribute to the late Steve Ben Israel. It’ll be a unique celebration of music, beats, words and the art of human noise.

Tom Tenney is a performer, producer, sound artist and founder of the annual RE/Mixed Media Festival in Brooklyn, NY (remixnyc.com). He currently teaches media theory at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. Follow him on Twitter at @tomtenney, or follow his blog at
inc.ongruo.us.

AMERICAN HUMAN BEATBOX FESTIVAL 2013

Fri., May 24, 10pm: Beatrhyme Battle Sat., May 25, 11am: La MaMa Kids: Beatbox Workshop
Sat., May 25, 10pm: Vocal Wars: Hip Hop Team Battle
Sun., May 26, 5:30pm: “Nos States” (film)
Sun., May 26, 8pm: Baba Israel and Playback NYC: Tribute to Steve Ben Israel

At La MaMa The Club, 74A E. 4th St. (btw. Bowery & 2nd Ave.).
May 25 Workshop, 2nd floor of The Annex (66-68 E. 4th St.)

Tickets: $10 in advance, $20 at door
($15 for students/seniors)
Workshop: $10 per family (in advance & at door)
Film: $10 (in advance & at door)
Reservations: 212-475-7710
or lamama.org