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La Boheme (Spoken) – NY1 – February 24, 2011

the cell — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:56:22 +0000

YOUR WEEKEND STARTS NOW on NY1 – 2/24/11

WATCH THE SEGMENT HERE

featuring Surviving Arts @ the cell : La Boheme (Spoken)

Music Salon: Visiones – January 22, 2011

the cell — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:47:40 +0000

Click here or the above image to watch Joao Luiz and Nancy Manocherian on Local Saturday Today in New York’s Visiones – Saturday, January 22, 2011

Music Salon: The Dadap Family on NY1

the cell — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:35:47 +0000

YOUR WEEKEND STARTS NOW on NY1 – 2/3/11

WATCH THE SEGMENT HERE

featuring Music Salon@ the cell : The Dadap Family

Chelsea Contemplates the Meaning of "Falling Man"

the cell — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:11:47 +0000

By Serena Solomon

December 31, 2009

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

CHELSEA – Is he jumping off the roof or dancing on the ledge?

Whichever it is, “Falling Man” has baffled and intrigued Chelsea residents for the past 12 months. The artwork leans over the street from the Cell Theatre on West 23rd Street and is the handywork of Washington, D.C., neon artist,Craig Kraft.

“He wanted to distinguish the building with something that represented us,” said Nancy Manocherian, the founding artistic director of the theater and a friend of Kraft’s.

Manocherian described the Cell Theatre as a modern day salon that leans away from mainstream performances. Instead, it showcases emerging young artists or older artists who are underrepresented.

The life-sized sculpture, which was created in 1995, is a negative cast, which curves inwards. At night neon lights placed inside the cast illuminate the piece. His holographic eyes appear to follow those who walk past it, Manocherian said.

Before he found his permanent home on the Cell Theatre’s building, Falling Man traveled the world and was displayed in Puerto Rico, Mexico and South Korea.

David Glading said he walks past Falling Man on his way to work each day, but Wednesday was the first time he stopped to take a closer look.

“I thought he was climbing,” Glading said, tilting his head the other way. “But maybe he is dancing on the ledge.”

The model for the sculpture was a dancing man, according to Manocherian. She believes Falling Man represents “an artist taking a leap into the unknown.”

However, Kathy, a Chelsea artist, has a much stronger opinion. She said Falling Man brought up memories of September 11 when people were forced to jump from the burning World Trade Center.

“It is too fresh a memory in the minds of New Yorkers,” she said. “I know that this was never anticipated by the artist.”

Kathy called the sculpture ambiguous and pondered what its meaning would be if it appeared in the context of another city like Toronto or London.

“What is good about this is it makes people wonder what it means,” she said.

"Leaves of Grass" – As Seen In The New Yorker

admin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:41:00 +0000

September 18, 2008

I Celebrate Myself

Onstage nudity can be a stunt—for better or worse—or a crucial storytelling device. Until last weekend, you could catch the famous group nude scene in "Hair," in Central Park (don’t worry if you missed it, it’s coming to Broadway next year), and, next week, Daniel Radcliffe will bare all when "Equus" opens on Broadway. But there seems something appropriately pure about the Cell Theatre’s production, beginning tonight, of “Leaves of Grass: A Nude Choral Reading of Whitman’s Iconic Song of Myself, featuring a multicultural cast of twenty. The director, Jeremy Bloom, has said that the production "celebrates the bare human form as an intersection of nature and industry." Perhaps these lines from the poem tipped him off:

The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it is odorless;

It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;

I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

"Leaves of Grass" plays through September 20th, at the Cell (338 W. 23rd St.).

Posted by Michael Schulman In Goings On | The Theatre