92nd Street Y

SHOULD YOU STRETCH BEFORE YOUR WORKOUT? Do you want to maximize...

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:50:01 -0400

SHOULD YOU STRETCH BEFORE YOUR WORKOUT?

Do you want to maximize your workout or game performance? Try a warm-up instead of a stretch.

While many of us hold the idea of pre-workout stretching as a sacred truth, recent studies say stretching before your workout can not only inhibit your performance, but the practice may also be harmful. “Warming up does more to prepare your body for physical activity than stretching can. You want to increase your body’s’ temperature, loosen your muscles and lubricate your joints before the workout,” says Michael Hughes (pictured), a group exercise instructor at the 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport. “You don’t want to force your cold body into a deep stretch. That’s a good way to invite injury,” adds Hughes.

Rose Tirado, a personal trainer at the 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport, also endorses warming-up over pre-workout stretching. Tirado says a warm-up can be performed with cardio exercise equipment such as a treadmill or elliptical trainer. “If my clients don’t have access to aerobic equipment, I tell them to perform dynamic stretching – movements that closely resemble the main activity to be performed,” says Tirado.

Classical Guitarist Plays "Kiss" By Prince

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:28:00 -0400

Benjamin Verdery, artistic director of our guitar series at 92Y, “is nothing if not steeped in the world of classical guitar, ” wrote WQXR, “But Verdery has a populist streak too.” He stopped by WQXR for their Café Concert series, before his guitar recital at 92Y tonight, where he’ll play works by Albeniz, Bach and Ezra Landerman as well as arrangements of songs by Prince and Elvis Presley! Listen to him play Kiss by Prince, above. (Start at 4:45 mark)

Join Verdery tonight at 92Y. Hear him play at 7:30 pm and enjoy a pre-concert interview composer Ezra Laderman at 6:30 pm.

Fashion industry legend Fern Mallis (she created Fashion Week in...

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:00:16 -0400

Fashion industry legend Fern Mallis (she created Fashion Week in New York City in 1993) is the commencement speaker and recipient of the President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Fashion Institute of Technology today. You can watch the live stream here.

Fern is family to us as the moderator for 92Y’s Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis series, featuring in-depth interviews with Calvin Klein, Norma Kamali, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Ford, Michael Kors, Diane von Furstenberg, Polly Mellen, Marc Jacobs, Betsey Johnson, Vera Wang, and Suzy Menkes. Here’s a YouTube playlist of highlights. On June 6, she’ll interview Oscar de la Renta at 92Y.

Congrats, Fern!

As Fresh Air said, today is Mel Brooks day. Tonight is the...

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:37:00 -0400

As Fresh Air said, today is Mel Brooks day. Tonight is the premiere of Mel Brooks: Make a Noise, part of the American Masters series on PBS (check local listings). It will be available on DVD May 21 from Shout Factory.

Last week, 92Y presented the first New York screening of it and to celebrate, Mel joined us via Skype and was interviewed with Susan Stroman, director of the hit Broadway musical The Producers, and Robert Trachtenberg, the director of the PBS biography, by Joy Behar. Watch!

Nice photo of Benjamin Verdery at WNYC’s Soundcheck...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:58:00 -0400

Nice photo of Benjamin Verdery at WNYC’s Soundcheck studios just about 30 minutes ago. Don’t worry if you missed it, they will rebroadcast the segment on May 22 at 9 pm!

You can see him at person at 92Y on May 23.

From the Poetry Center Archive—Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood To...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:21:24 -0400

From the Poetry Center Archive—Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood

To begin at the beginning …

It was sixty years ago today—May 14, 1953—that Dylan Thomas’s play Under Milk Wood had its premiere on the stage of 92Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall, with Thomas himself reading a number of roles (1st Voice and Reverend Eli Jenkins, among them). To celebrate the anniversary, we’d like to share this recording of Thomas reading the play’s opening monologue. That there exists a cherished recording of this “play for voices” with Dylan Thomas’s own voice is owed to a last-minute decision to have a microphone placed at his feet. Indeed, much about the play’s debut was down to the wire. As then-Poetry Center director John Malcolm Brinnin wrote in Dylan Thomas in America, “Twenty minutes before curtain time, fragments of Under Milk Wood were still being handed to the actors as they applied make-up, read their telegrams and tested their new accents on one another. Some lines of dialogue did not actually come into the hands of the readers until they were already taking their places on stage.”

Brinnin’s description of the performance continues:

“The stage was dim until a soft breath of light showed Dylan’s face… . One by one, the faces of the other actors came into view as the morning light of Milk Wood broadened and Dylan’s voice, removed and godlike in tone, yet pathetically human in the details upon which it dwelt, made a story, a mosaic and an aubade of the beginning movements of a village day. Expectant, hushed, and not at all prepared to laugh, the audience seemed as deep in concentration as the actors on stage until, finally, unable not to recognize the obvious bawdy meaning of some of the play’s early lines, two or three people laughed outright. But still there was a general uneasiness, an incomprehension, as if these outbursts had been mistaken laughter. Then, as soon as it became evident that this story of a village was as funny as it was loving and solemn, a chain of laughter began and continued until the last line.

When the lights slowly faded and the night had swallowed up the last face and muffled the last voice in the village, there was an unexpected silence both on stage and off. The thousand spectators sat as if stunned, as if the slightest handclap might violate a spell. But within a few moments the lights went up and applause crescendoed and bravos were shouted by half the standing audience while the cast came back for curtain call after curtain call until, at the fifteenth of these, squat and boyish in his happily flustered modesty, Dylan stepped out alone.”

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, we have begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. To access other recordings on our Virtual Poetry Center, please click here.

Some great photos from our green room last night, for An Evening...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:19:00 -0400

Mark Ethan, Sidney Poitier and Annette Insdorf at 92Y on May 13.

Sidney Poitier and Susan Engel, 92Y Director of Lectures

Some great photos from our green room last night, for An Evening with Sidney Poitier. Pictured in photo at left is Mark Ethan, Sidney Poitier and Annette Insdorf. Pictured at right is Sidney Poitier and Susan Engel, 92Y Director of Lectures. Here’s another photo from last night with Sherrod Small and Mr. Poitier, and another with his book publicist Michelle Jasmine. A lot of people took photos.

And just because it’s one of the coolest photos ever, here’s a great snap of Sidney Poitier, Tony Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr, & Jack Lemmon.

For those interested, tonight we’ll be live casting Paul Farmer with Claudia Dreifus on Haiti.

"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make."

Mon, 13 May 2013 20:03:09 -0400

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make.”

- Truman Capote (via davidkendall)

Perhaps this will be music to your ears: Truman Capote reading Breakfast At Tiffany’s at 92Y in April 1963.

Dancers with Tyron Entertainment currently rehearsing in our...

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:47:00 -0400

Dancers with Tyron Entertainment currently rehearsing in our dance studio. (via)

If you’re a choreographer, or know someone who is, learn about our Harkness Space Grant Program.

Less than 36 hours left to enter for your chance to win a Grand...

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:58:26 -0400

Less than 36 hours left to enter for your chance to win a Grand Prize that will have you meeting Jennifer Hudson at our Spring Gala, watching her perform, and having dinner & drinks on us. Enter now.

The Tokyo String Quartet has finished their last concert at 92Y...

Sat, 11 May 2013 22:20:16 -0400

The Tokyo String Quartet has finished their last concert at 92Y tonight, to an appreciative full house. In July, they will retire an extraordinary 44-year career.

The Tokyo String Quartet first performed at 92Y in 1977. It became the 92Y quartet-in-residence in 2003. In those years, they played 31 concerts and 101 works by 20 composers to thousands of fans. Tonight we bid farewell to this remarkable ensemble. Together, we thank the Tokyo for the enlightenment, insight and sheer pleasure they have brought into our lives. We look forward to welcoming them back to 92Y as individuals and friends in the years to come.

(Photo of the Tokyo String Quarter rehearsing at 92Y for the last time. May 11, 2013.)

“I had hardly begun to readI asked how can you ever be surethat...

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:53:00 -0400

“I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’t
you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write”

—W. S. Merwin from “Berryman”

Upon the publication of his Collected Poems by the Library of America, Merwin is making a rare New York appearance and will be coming out on stage at the 92Y Poetry Center any minute. (8 pm!) We’ll be live tweeting. Merwin will be interviewed by J. D. McClatchy and also read from his work.

NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel used a world...

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:13:38 -0400

NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel used a world map to take an audience at 92Y through all the global hot spots Americans should care about. Watch the video on 92Y’s American Conversation. Engel was here on April 25 with Allen Grubman, senior partner of Grubman, Indursky, Shire & Meiselas P.C.

harmoniamundiusa: Tokyo String Quartet plays 92nd Street Y in...

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:57:09 -0400

harmoniamundiusa:

Tokyo String Quartet plays 92nd Street Y in NYC this Saturday with cellist Lynn Harrell.

Don’t miss one of the last remaining US dates by the retiring quartet! Pre-order DVORAK. SMETANA. Quartets.

Tomorrow is their FINAL NY Concert. Get tickets here, listen to audio clips, and read a letter from 92Y to the Tokyo String Quartet.

Fashion Icon Suzy Menkes offers her opinion about the...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:00:29 -0400

Fashion Icon Suzy Menkes offers her opinion about the MET’s Punk exhibit, the Bangladeshi building collapse at Rana Plaza, and the kerfuffle created by her article, The Circus of Fashion. She was at 92Y on May 7 with Fern Mallis, for the Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis series.

Read more about the evening on WWD, The Daily Beast, Style and Fashionista. Watch more Fashion Icons videos on our YouTube.

Julia Guez, Eileen Myles, Raena Shirali, Timothy Donnelly, Erika...

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:23:00 -0400

Beer lovingly provided by The Brooklyn Brewery

Julia Guez, Eileen Myles, Raena Shirali, Timothy Donnelly, Erika L Sanchez and Catherine Blauvelt, at the 2013 “Discovery” / Boston Review Poetry Contest Reading at 92Y on Mon, May 6.

Congratulations to winners Julia Guez, Raena Shirali, Erika L Sanchez and Catherine Blauvelt. Beer for the evening lovingly provided by The Brooklyn Brewery.

(Photos by Nancy Crampton)

guernicamag: Q: What’s better than seeing Lynn Nottage at the...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:38:35 -0400

guernicamag:

Q: What’s better than seeing Lynn Nottage at the 92Y?

A: Nothing.

Q: What’s the second-best thing you’ve heard all day?

A: You can see her for cheaps with the discount code: GUERNICA

Lynn Nottage, renowned playwright and recent Guernica interviewee is going to be at the 92nd St Y TONIGHT. So go! Enjoy! Clap until your hands sting.

This is tonight and we hope to see you there. So does Lynn.

From the 92Y Poetry Center Archive: W. S. Merwin and John...

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:12:00 -0400

From the 92Y Poetry Center Archive: W. S. Merwin and John Ashbery

“The two most distinctive and influential voices by which American poetry has spoken in the last twenty years.” That is how J. D. McClatchy introduced an evening of readings by W. S. Merwin and John Ashbery here at 92Y on November 21, 1983—the first such occasion on which the two poets shared a stage. “Each has his own special slant of vision, his own richness of language,” McClatchy went on to say.

Merwin opens with “After a Storm”—a poem that deals both with the evening’s ostensible theme (autobiographical poetry) and McClatchy’s earlier reference “to the program which some of us saw last night and that was an understatement of what we all expect.” He was referring to “The Day After”—an ABC-television film about the consequences of nuclear war—that aired on Sunday, November 20, and was viewed by more than 100 million Americans.

“Not the least sickening thing about that movie was the discussion that followed it,” said McClatchy. “It was the sound of [the politicians’] rhetoric that sickened; the sound, even, of language itself after such images. No poet is more sensitive to the ambivalence of language itself, at once our most delicate and our most imprecise instrument, than W. S. Merwin. The changes in his style over the years are a record of his wariness and of his devotion. A record, too, of the ferocious moral integrity that is the hallmark of Merwin’s work.”

Merwin returns to 92Y this Friday (May 10)—and so does McClatchy, in the role of ever-gracious host and also, this time, as editor of Merwin’s Collected Poems, which is newly published by The Library of America. As part of their conversation, Merwin will read from his life’s work. This 1983 recording offers but a glimpse.

Ashbery’s own contribution to that evening included readings from Three Poems and A Wave. McClatchy again: “Ashbery’s poems reach for themselves and for their readers through vagrant sympathy and a kind of immediate contact. They wander back to their sources of power, then sidle up to us. We recognize their accent as our own, but hear, too, the finer accommodation of speech to that vision.”

“To introduce either John Ashbery or W. S. Merwin is like introducing the Washington Monument,” said McClatchy. “All one need do is point.”

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, we have begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. To purchase tickets to Friday night’s event with W. S. Merwin, please click here. To access other recordings on our Virtual Poetry Center, please click here.

“Women are so powerful when we get together.” — Jennifer Lopez at 92YTribeca today...

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:07:00 -0400

“Women are so powerful when we get together.”

— Jennifer Lopez at 92YTribeca today for #momplussocial. We’re livcasting.

The stage is set for today’s #momplusocial event at...

Wed, 08 May 2013 09:11:00 -0400

The stage is set for today’s #momplusocial event at 92YTribeca. We’ll be livecasting. First panel starts at 10 am.