Joyce "Evening Stars at Battery Park"

So last night I attended the Evening Stars at Battery Park performance, which was co-produced by Joyce Theater and the River to River Parks festival. I arrived about 15 minutes prior to the scheduled performance time at 7:30 and found a great spot to lay down my picnic blanket and await my friends and the show.

Yesterday evening's performance featured the choreography of Lar Lubovitch, and his aptly-named group, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. The performance featured white-clad dancers who pranced and pirouetted with amazing synchronized gracefulness and agility. My two friends and I meanwhile split a bottle of white wine (and I give a shout out to all the other wine-drinkers at events like this; without one of their corkscrews, we ourselves would have been "screwed") and a simple bread, fruit and cheese spread. The dancers' costumes were made of rather diaphanous, flowy material that easily caught the wind and highlighted their sculpted physiques. Seeing them up there made me feel a little self-conscious of my wine and snack consumption while sitting idly to such a majestic, coordinated performance; it also inspired me to focus on pursuing dance classes for myself, which we'll see if anything actually comes of it...

What I particularly liked about this evening was that, as a free and outdoor performance, the crowd featured a diversity of attendees, including young children and dogs, and it had a very laidback al fresco vibe. The children in front of us mostly migrated to the side of the audience and enacted their own little ballet, unconcerned with anything but their own enjoyment of the moment. This sort of non-restrictive, open ambiance is the advantageous aspect of seeing outdoor performances. On the down side: tonight's show is canceled because of the inclement weather, though tomorrow's should still go on. Read more about this and other River to River events at http://www.RiverToRiverNYC.com.

Afterwards, I went out for drinks along 14th St. with a couple of friends, stopping first at Beauty Bar, a retro bar with beauty salon stylings, free manicures, and 50's era music. We moved on To Blind Pig, the polar opposite to Beauty Bar, a wood-paneled sports bar only two doors down. Unfortunately, my friend and I ended up missing the Bunny Rabbit show. We promptly fled the dank college houseparty vibe of GlassLands to find ourselves caught in the evening rainstorm and proceeding under partial cover of my friend's picnic blanket to the nearest pizza shop. I'd say it was a successful, rain-soaked Friday night!