Caleb Stein’s wonderful new guide, “Down by the Hudson,” comes encumbered with textual content. His exhibition of a few of its contents at Palo, within the East Village, retains the main focus of our consideration on his black-and-white pictures, which maintain it with a way of ease that by no means undermines their moody soulfulness. Stein’s topic is the life in and round a swimming gap close to Poughkeepsie, the place the our bodies are younger, stripped down, and principally male. The environment is humid—not simply sensual however erotic—and Stein is usually shut sufficient to the touch. However his work’s energy is in its restraint, so even when he’s taking a look at gnarled tree roots, a dangling hand, or the painterly reflections on water in movement, he’s by no means distracting us. He’s filling within the particulars, pulling us nearer, and turning a present into an expertise.—Vince Aletti (By way of Oct. 3.)
Punk
For seven sensible years within the nineties, the Washington punk-rock band Bikini Kill kicked up a ruckus as pioneers of the riot-grrrl motion. “When she walks, the revolution’s comin’,” Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer, howled on “Insurgent Woman,” and the group appeared to embody that promise. Throughout six standout works (three LPs, two compilations, and an EP), the band burned vivid and livid with white-hot indignation, etching feminist commandments onto bristling songs till it disbanded, in 1997. Its members didn’t play collectively once more for twenty years, however, since 2019, they’ve reconvened periodically for exhibits honoring a timeless again catalogue.—S.P. (Music Corridor of Williamsburg; Sept. 24. Brooklyn Metal; Sept. 25. Underneath the Ok Bridge Park for CBGB Fest; Sept. 26.)
Dance
Chun Wai Chan, Sara Mearns, and KJ Takahashi in “Solitude,” by Alexei Ratmansky.{Photograph} by Erin Baiano
New York Metropolis Ballet’s season opens with a crowd-pleaser—“Jewels,” Balanchine’s evening-length exploration of French, American, and Russian ballet model—and ends with a farewell, for certainly one of its most refined dancers, Adrian Danchig-Waring. In week two, the corporate brings again Justin Peck’s “Pulcinella Variations,” a whimsical work set to Stravinsky, with fabulous, Matisse-like costumes by Tsumori Chisato. Peck will create a brand new pas de deux for the gala, on Oct. 1; the night additionally incorporates a new piece by the hip-hop-influenced choreographer Jennifer Archibald. Christopher Wheeldon’s elegant and mysterious “Continuum” returns, as does Alexei Ratmansky’s chilling “Solitude,” a response to the warfare in Ukraine.—Marina Harss (David H. Koch Theatre; Sept. 22-Oct. 18.)
