16 THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 25, 2019
ILLUSTRATION BY MATT CHINWORTH
When the annual Germany-based festi-
val Time Warp last visited New York, four
years ago, its all-techno-all-the-time ap-
proach led to a surprisingly variegated
weekend. Its return—at the New York
Expo Center, Nov. 22-23—is well timed,
as dance-music festivals increasingly
focus on specific styles and as younger
fans discover the rough joys of techno.
Friday features the genre’s Old Guard,
with a formidable selection that includes
the producer Ricardo Villalobos—who,
at the 2015 event, shocked the crowd by
cutting his swampy techno with bawdy
hip-house—and the duo Pan-Pot, whose
sets are tonally kaleidoscopic. The second
day spotlights a new and friskier gener-
ation, from the chugging grooves of the
playful d.j. and vocalist Peggy Gou to the
shamelessly anthem-heavy d.j. Amelie
Lens.—Michaelangelo Matos
TECHNO
1
NIGHT LIFE
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead
complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in
advance to confirm engagements.Patricia Nicholson Benefit
The Clemente
An indefatigable presence in New York’s im-
provisatory music-and-arts scene, Patricia
Nicholson is best known as the mind behind
the annual Vision Festival. Such stalwarts
as John Zorn, Matthew Shipp, Oliver Lake,
Ingrid Laubrock, and Nicholson’s husband,
William Parker, gather to salute her tireless
drive, unflagging political activism, and em-
bracing populist spirit as she turns seventy
years old.—Steve Futterman (Nov. 19.)Kwesi Arthur
Chelsea Music Hall
The Ghanaian rapper Kwesi Arthur was eying
a career in security, but, after hearing Drake’s
début studio album, he was inspired to give
music a serious shot. On “Live from Nkru-
mah Krom, Vol. 2: Home Run,” from April,
his blend of melodic hip-hop and Afro-fu-
sionsounds drenched in sunshine, but his lyr-
ics, which he spits in both Twi and English,
incorporate the lows of his upbringing and a
resounding sense of pride. As his West African
country welcomes people of the diaspora for its
Year of Return, Arthur helps bring Ghana to
the world.—Briana Younger (Nov. 20.)FKA twigs
Kings Theatre
It had been three years since the English
artist FKA twigs last released music when,
in April, she dropped the crushingly beau-
tiful video for her single “cellophane.” In it,
she steps onto a celestial stage and proceeds
to pole dance toward the heavens, her mus-
cles glistening as aching chords spill out
of a piano. The performance is gorgeous,
entrancing, and frighteningly exposed—a
preview of the surreal live shows she’s
planned in support of her exquisite new
album, “MAGDALENE.”—Julyssa Lopez
(Nov. 20-21.)Daryl Sherman
Birdland Theatre
Daryl Sherman, with her low-key charm and
chirping voice, might not be the first singer
you would think of to honor Louis Arm-
strong, the gregarious gravel-toned father of
modern American vocalizing. But Sherman’s
wit, taste, and dedication to choice reper-
toire—not to mention her just-right piano
accompaniment—give her an unimpeachable
edge.—S.F. (Nov. 21.)The Abyssinian Mass
Rose Theatre
Large-scale composition, among many other
outsized gifts, has long seemed as natural
as breathing to Wynton Marsalis. Commis-
sioned eleven years ago to commemorate
the bicentennial of the Abyssinian Baptist
Church, in Harlem, the eponymous Mass
incorporates a seventy-piece gospel choir and
the mighty Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra,
with the trumpet-playing leader in tow.— S. F.
(Nov. 21-23.)Angel Olsen
Brooklyn Steel
From the moment Angel Olsen arrived on
the indie-music scene, circa 2010, the sing-
er-songwriter has sounded so fully formed
and resolute in her musical proposition that
it seemed impossible to imagine her divert-
ing from that style. But that’s exactly what
she did with her latest album, “All Mirrors,”
from October: on it, she built new dimen-
sions through stunning string sections and
orchestral arrangements as she discovered
herself through reinvention.—J.L. (Nov.
21-23.)Jasmine Infiniti
Basement
The New York-based techno producer and
d.j. Jasmine Infiniti has risen to clubland
prominence in a very short time—her first
release, the “SiS” EP, came out last year.
Her blend of experimental electronics and
straightforward beats is often ominous, but
Infiniti is also an expansive and highly play-
ful selector, cannily veering between wildly
disparate tempos and moods, from kitten-
ish R. & B. to blithering breakbeats.—Mi-
chaelangelo Matos (Nov. 22.)for the Times and a leading Cunningham
expert, will discuss “August Pace,” a seldom
seen work from 1989, with Patricia Lent of
the Merce Cunningham Trust. Their talk
will be intermixed with excerpts from the
dance, which contains a series of strikingly
original male-female duets.—M.H. (Through
Nov. 22.)
Darrah Carr Dance
Irish Arts Center
The fiddler Dana Lyn and the guitarist Kyle
Sanna are first-rate, versatile musicians and
also concerned environmentalists. Their sec-
ond album, “The Great Arc,” was organized
around the idea of species extinction, and
their latest, “The Coral Suite,” focusses its
attention on fragile reefs, with a sequence
of traditional Irish songs subtly arranged
to evoke events in coral life. Last year, they
performed “The Great Arc” with the addi-
tion of Darrah Carr’s modern Irish dancers;
now they do something similar with “The
Coral Suite.” The dancers respond to the
musical rhythms amid video projections of
Lyn’s drawings of the endangered ecosys-
tems.—B.S. (Nov. 23-24.)
“Works & Process”
Guggenheim Museum
In the second of two Merce Cunning-
ham-themed events this week, a group of
dancers who took part in the epic “Night of
100 Solos”—a compilation of Cunningham
solos performed simultaneously in three cit-
ies this past April—will reprise their roles in
the small theatre tucked beneath the Gug-
genheim. This selection, curated by the for-
mer Cunningham company member Dylan
Crossman, will be followed by a medley of
Cunningham duets performed by Crossman
and his former colleague Jamie Scott.—M.H.
(Nov. 24-25.)