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Jekyll & Hyde’s Deborah Cox Tells Me What Whitney Houston Personally Taught Her
Deborah Cox has been influenced by a lot of big-time divas. She sang backup for Celine Dion, who taught her the importance of discipline. She duetted with Whitney Houston, who told her to not hold back in her desire to start a family. (“Do what you want to do,” said Whit, no doubt while making […]
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DZI Croquettes
There’s a wonderful moment in the documentary DZI Croquettes in which footage of half-nude androgynous men dancing up a storm onstage—faces slathered in makeup—is superimposed over grim-faced soldiers marching down the street, serving as muscle for the dictatorship then running Brazil. Merged, the images underscore the fact that both the performance and the march happened […]
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Coppelia Wants to Cuba Your Peru
Imagine if the diner as we know it—an institution run by Greek immigrants seeking to reproduce the standard Middle American menu of 50 years ago at a low price point—had evolved as a Latin phenomenon instead. That’s the premise behind Coppelia, a new 24-hour restaurant near the corner of 14th Street and Seventh Avenue from […]
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Jomama Jones Returns to the U.S.A.
There are few things as genuinely cheering as watching a motley group of New Yorkers spontaneously bump and shake together on a chilly evening. So come add some rhythm to your winter blues with Soho Rep’s Jomama Jones, a soulful solo act that gets audiences shimmying in their seats before bringing them up onstage to […]
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JE T’AIME, N.Y. ET  PARIS
It’s in the classic tweed Coco Chanel suit, in Ruhlmann furniture, and in Josephine Baker’s slick ‘do. They’re reflections of the period from 1925 to 1940 that made New York and Paris the epicenters of style and design, and the exhibition Paris/New York: Design Fashion Culture explores the period’s surge of new buildings, films, and […]
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Cabaret Society in Désir
In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates argues that “devot[ion] to beautiful bodies” sets us on the path to “true virtue.” If Socrates is to be believed, then the would-be virtuous should head for the South Street Seaport—past the tourists, past the ice-cream carts, past the shopping mall, and into Désir. This circus-cum-cabaret, housed in the Spiegeltent, features […]
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In the Spirit of Prohibition
When it comes to decent food and drink and a little light social intercourse, New York is all about options. Happily, with the 462 zillion establishments serving up refreshment of varying sorts, there’s no need for residents to favor ever encroaching chains such as TGI Friday’s, Olive Garden, and Applebee’s over the homegrown and unique. […]
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Feet Films
At the 11th annual Dance on Camera Festival, a hardy dance-film buff can attend 15 different programs, learning the many ways in which a merger can spark a completely new artwork or preserve and transform an existing one. Annette von Wangenheim’s 2006 Josephine Baker: Black Diva in a White Man’s World assembles a terrific array […]
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A Woman Alone
The Museum of the Moving Image has consecrated the winter of ’06 to flappers of color. Following on the heels of jazz baby Josephine Baker’s retro is a seven-weekend celebration of the stunningly beautiful Chinese American movie actress Anna May Wong (1905–61). Like Baker, the Los Angeles–born Wong had to relocate to Europe to become […]
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An American in Paris
Josephine Baker was born in St. Louis, raised in Harlem, and employed on Broadway, but she could have become a superstar only in Paris. By the late ’20s, Baker was the toast of Montmartre, the personification of “le jazz hot,” and the high priestess of primitivism, as well as the highest-paid entertainer in Europe. The […]