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by Pat Arnow
Lower East Sider Mike Rimbaud has been painting people in the neighborhood. His portraits are at the Abrons Art Center at the Henry Street Settlement on Grand St. this month (until Dec. 11). Hey, I know that pickle guy! Other faces look familiar, too. But Rimbaud doesn’t aim for photographic representation. These are painterly portraits, mostly in gouache, evocative, incisive, yet kind. Check them out.
And while you’re at it, you have a few days to see the Crown Point Festival. I didn’t understand a few things about it before I finally ventured over there this evening. But I’m glad I finally got there, and you will be, too, if you like strange and provocative performances.
What I hadn’t understood when I read about the festival was the list of each evening’s events that made it sound like there was music or theater or a movie to choose from. With a three-week event and constantly changing programs, that was more than I could face. But I had it wrong. Each evening, there’s a combination, truly mixed media, in one theater. Tuesday there was a play/dance, “The Girl Detective,” that starts with a troupe of tap dancing bank robbers. Then there was an Israeli movie about a beautiful, guilt-ridden daughter with a curious scene of a kid singing a song in Spanish just to give a little cognitive dissonance to the evening. Finally, music. There are interesting performances each evening through Saturday.
It’s cheap, it’s fun, it’s about the Lower East Side. What could be better?
Well, if the festival about the Lower East Side didn’t have a name that reminds me of a neighborhood in Brooklyn. It throws a person off.
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Why couldn’t they call the event the LES Crowne Points Festival. Makes more sense.