Ballet Verite will perform the Levi HaLevi Memorial Concert on Sunday April 15 at 7 pm. Reception to follow.

My brother Seth and his wife Sara have a ballet company,  Ballet Vérité .

I’ve written about Ballet Verite projects before.

They are putting together an exciting evening of dance as a way to commemorate  Levi HaLevi, Sara’s dad, who recently passed away.

Levi was a great guy and was supportive of both Seth and Sara in their pursuit of art.

The evening will be held at MMAC, the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center (248 West 60th Street)  on Sunday, April 15th, 7 p.m.

The show features original choreography by Seth Gertsacov and stars a number of truly wonderful and accomplished dancers, including Amar Ramasar, Principal, New York City Ballet; Anna Liceica, former Soloist, American Ballet Theatre ; Leyland Simmons, Principal, Ballet Noir; Katie Moorhead, Principal, American Repertory Ballet; Giorgia Bovo, Soloist, Rebecca Kelly Ballet; DeVon Doane, Dance Theatre of Harlem; Gary Jeter, Complexions; Emily Wagner, Armitage Gone! Dance; and Michaela DePrince, star of the upcoming film,”First Position,” with live music by Remy de Laroque.

Tickets are $50 for general admission.  $20 student/dancer tickets will be available at the door.  A reception will follow.

For tickets, go to http://www.balletverite.com

And here’s the trailer of the film First Position.  Looks great! More information about the movie itself at

http://www.balletdocumentary.com

It’s still October, and it’s snowing!

Time to dig out the winter coat, find my hat, and curse myself for not buying a SnowBlower this year!

Here’s a little video:

I asked Siri, my (and everyone else’s)  iphone 4s personal assistant to tell me a story.

(I’m sorry for the weird quality of the photographs, I saved them via Photo Booth and then reversed the horizontal.  Apparently you can catch a screen shot, but when I tried, my Siri screen went away.)

Here’s the transcript:

ME: Tell Me a Story.

SIRI: “Oh, you’ve probably heard it before.”

ME: Tell Me a Story!

SIRI:  OK!
Once upon a time, in a virtual galaxy far far away, there was a young, quite intelligent agent by the name of Siri.

One beautiful day, when the air was pink and all the trees were red, her friend Eliza said, “Siri, you’re so intelligent, and so helpful- you should go work for Apple as a personal assistant.”

So she did.  And they all lived happily ever after.

ME: Great story!

SIRI: Adam, I don’t understand ‘Great story.’

I had this great dish at the Lebanese Taberna in Silver Spring MD yesterday.  Both Stephanie and I loved it.  Went looking for recipes, and found a great one on Chowhound.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/270971

wow, you’re in luck. i never knew what this dish was called, but it was a favorite in our house. my mom learned to make it from a lebanese woman.
i just made it for the first time in years the other day.
here’s my mom’s recipe–don’t know how authentic it is, but it tastes great!

For chicken and broth:
1 chicken, whole or quartered
1/2 lemon, cut into quarters
1 Tb ground cinnamon
1 tb salt
2 cups water
1 onion with 3 cloves stuck in it
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 stick cinnamon
2 bay leaves
1 large can chickpeas

in large dutch oven or stockpot, put chicken lemon quarters, ground cinnamon, and salt. Add water, onion with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon stick and bay leaves. Simmer until chicken is tender. Remove chicken and let cool. strain and skim broth, pour over chickpeas and cook for 15-20 minutes.

to put the dish togehter:
1 quart plain yogurt (i use labneh or the thick greek yogurt, they work best)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup mints leaves, torn
1 cup pine nuts
3 Tb butter
2 pita breads cut into 1 inch squares
1/2 a pomegranate (if available)

mix yogurt with garlic and let sit for 15 minutes. Fry pine nuts in 1 tb butter until brown. set aside
fry pita cubes in remaining butter until crisp.
skin and bone chicken meat. leave in largish chunks.

put chicken in bottom of serving dish. pour warm broth with chickpeas over it. spoon yogurt mixture on top, and then sprinkle on the pine nuts, pita, mint, and pomegranate. serve in shallow soup bowls.

anyway, hope this works for you. i’ve never seen this dish in a restaurant, but i’ve wowed many friends with it over the years.
good luck!

I’ll be performing  artistic antics on the street at the      Riverdale Arts Festival on Sunday October 23.

There will also be lots of great local musicians, artists, foods, crafts, and lots of other stuff.

Please check it out if you can!

My brother and his wife are producing this event. (and my brother is choreographing some of the dances also)

If you want to see an all-star cast of amazing ballet dancers, and have your money go to a great cause, check it out.

Tickets are available at http://www.balletverite.com It’s $100 for each program, $250 for the whole package with a dvd and a t-shirt. There will be a silent auction and a wine reception in between programs.

Weil – Pay it Forward presents Harlem School of the Arts Dance Benefit
Aug 19th 7pm and 8:15pm, MMAC, 248 West 60th Street

TO BUY TICKETS AND MAKE DONATIONS CLICK HERE

About The Harlem School of the Arts
Since its founding by internationally-acclaimed soprano Dorothy Maynor in 1964, the Harlem School of the Arts (HSA) has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of young people ages 4-18 through world-class training in the arts. HSA offers children and young adults in Harlem and beyond the freedom to find and develop the artist, student, and citizen within themselves in an environment that teaches discipline, stimulates creativity, builds self-confidence and adds a dimension of beauty to our students’ lives, empowering them to become the creative thinkers and innovative leaders of tomorrow. HSA stands unique among community arts institutions in New York City, as the sole provider of arts education, in four disciplines (music, dance, theater and visual arts), under one roof, in our award-winning 37,000 square foot facility. The School’s reputation for artistic rigor and excellence attracts constituents from all five New York City boroughs, Westchester County and New Jersey.

HSA is determined to provide our community’s children with the training, encouragement, mentoring, and support they need to take their rightful place within the next generation of world-class artists, professional achievers and great community citizens. To learn more about the Harlem School of the Arts, please visit www.hsanyc.org

This photo of us is in the NY Times!

Remarkably, the NY Times decided to revisit my marriage and write ANOTHER article about us and how we are progressing three years later.  (We had a VOWS article 3 years ago)

I know, I know, it’s a little much, but how could we say no?

The article will appear in print on Sunday May 1, but it’s online now for your perusal

http://nyti.ms/gertsacov

I think it’s a really good article (but I’m a little biased!)

Our vows article (if you are interested):  http://nyti.ms/9xpTYS

State of the Unions

For Their Next Act …

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Time

The couple with their son, Aaron.

By AMY SOHN

Published: April 28, 2011

WHEN Adam Gertsacov and Stephanie Schwab were married three years ago, she was a vice president at a New York social media agency and he ran a small start-up from their house in Yonkers. A very small startup: the Acme Miniature Flea Circus.

In the act, conceived as a playful homage to old-time show business, he leads two fleas calls Midge and Madge through chariot racing and tight-wire dancing, then shoots them out of a miniature cannon into a tiny Airstream trailer.

In recent years, though, both the fleas and Mr. Gertsacov, 46, who is a graduate of both the University of Pennsylvania and Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, have been performing less often. He is now the primary caretaker of a larger creature: the couple’s 2 ½-year-old son, Aaron.

“My work as a clown is about listening and improvising,” Mr. Gertsacov said. “That comes in handy when Aaron doesn’t want to do what I want to do.”

The son may fill his father’s big shoes one day; prodded by his dad, he even donned a ringmaster hat and performed somersaults for a guest. “I have some ideas about how to incorporate him into an act,” Mr. Gertsacov said.

“Whether or not his mom lets him,” added Ms. Schwab, 43.

Those doing the math may have gleaned that Aaron is only slightly younger than the marriage. At the couple’s wedding at the Roosevelt Ballroom in Yonkers, Ms. Schwab was five months’ pregnant. The couple had been involved for nearly four years when she found she was expecting. Days later, Mr. Gertsacov’s mother died of cancer, and they decided to marry. Their wedding had many clownish touches, like the rings being extracted from a Cracker Jack box.

After Aaron’s birth, Ms. Schwab took two months’ maternity leave, then returned to work. They hired a part-time sitter so that Mr. Gertsacov could concentrate on his job directing Bright Night Providence, a New Year’s Eve celebration in Providence, R.I., that he co-founded when he lived there. After the festival was over, he became the stay-at-home parent.

Ms. Schwab, with her breast pump and daily commute to Manhattan, often felt disconnected. “The first two years,” she said, “I made Adam and the sitter write down every poo, every feeding, every ounce of milk Aaron took, when he slept and when he woke up. I would get home and say: ‘What did he do today?’ What went on?’ ”

Eventually, she learned to trust her husband. “I couldn’t micromanage remotely,” she explained.

Focused on Aaron, Mr. Gertsacov stopped pursuing gigs for the flea circus and another act, “The Puppet Tragedy,” which includes a “Glass Menagerie” performed with real glass and “The Vegetable Macbeth,” at the end of which, Mr. Gertsacov said, “I juice the cast and drink it.”

He has no regrets about shifting from ringmaster to homemaker. “I was afraid I would resent being tied down and that I wouldn’t love my kid,” he said. “After he was born I realized my fears were completely unfounded. Now I have new fears, like the fact that when he turns 18 I’ll be 61.”

As new parents past 40, the couple nonetheless found child-rearing less stressful than the extensive renovation of their Victorian fixer-upper. “We renovated a house, got married and had a kid, one after another,” Mr. Gertsacov said. “Change is normal.”

When someone has a child later in life, Ms. Schwab added, “you are already who you are.”

“You’re not changing as people,” she continued. “We’re pretty settled in what we want out of our lives so we don’t fight much.”

Her marital résumé is longer than her husband’s; she had two short-lived marriages during her 20s. “I knew how not to be married,” she said. “I knew that I had to let go of a little bit.”

After Aaron turned 1, the couple decided he would be an only child. “I really thought we would have more,” Ms. Schwab said, “but once we had him we realized we were too old — staying up all night and breastfeeding around the clock. We were exhausted.”

Last May, they faced a new change. Ms. Schwab founded a digital media concern, Crackerjack Marketing, and now both husband and wife work from home.

“Whether or not Adam will admit it, he feels like I am more underfoot,” she said. “I’ll come down for lunch and ask what he’s done today. He’ll say, ‘Nothing.’ ”

Mr. Gertsacov, who fetches Aaron from school and makes dinner while Ms. Schwab works upstairs, admitted, “I might feel that she’s nagging me a little bit.”

Asked why they seldom argue, they credited technology and a smart suggestion. At their Aufruf, a Jewish ceremony before their wedding, couples in their temple offered advice. According to Ms. Schwab, “the most elderly couple in our synagogue stood up and said, ‘We have two pieces of advice for you — separate bathrooms and separate televisions.’ ” Mr. Gertsacov now watches “Justified” and “Archer” on the set downstairs while Ms. Schwab watches “Top Chef” in their bedroom.

When arguments do occur, they usually involve colliding agendas. As he is on his way to get Aaron, she will tell him what errands to run, and in what order. “Adam will put his palms up, say, ‘maybe,’ and walk out the door,” she said. “I’ll have no idea and no control over what they do.”

Mr. Gertsacov explained: “I don’t like to be told what to do. That’s part of having lived alone for a long time.”

Another recurring disagreement concerns Garrison Keillor. Mr. Gertsacov greatly admires him, but Ms. Schwab does not share that sentiment. Yet she bought them tickets to “A Prairie Home Companion” at Town Hall in Manhattan in the hope that a live show would convert her. In a later telephone interview she said, “The jury is still out.”

Now that Aaron is in preschool, Mr. Gertsacov is developing shows about Henry Hudson and P. T. Barnum, and is to perform the flea circus in July at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers. His ringmaster act intact, he fires off three flea jokes with very little prompting: “That’s the show people are itching to see. That’s how I make my scratch. I don’t perform for flea.”

While Ms. Schwab took Aaron upstairs for a nap, Mr. Gertsacov set up his stage and excitedly ran through the act — without his current Midge and Madge. He said they were sequestered at a friend’s studio to train for the coming performance. “I don’t show them to people in general,” he said earnestly.

Asked how he responds to those who question the very existence of Midge and Madge, he said, “In some ways I welcome that.” He added: “The show is 30 minutes long, 40 minutes with laughter. It’s about the audience and me sharing a moment together.”

As he paged through a book of flea trivia, Ms. Schwab came downstairs and watched happily. “I’m less jealous of the fleas,” she said, “now that we have Aaron.”

Chuck Lesnick announces his Yonkers mayoral candidacy.

Chuck Lesnick, who has been a Democratic leader on City Council during at least the last two terms of Republican Phil Amicone‘s mayorships, has announced that he will be running for Mayor.  This doesn’t come as a surprise to nearly anyone.

Chuck is a good guy (I’ve met him a couple of times and am friends with him on facebook)  I think he’d make a good mayor, although I admittedly don’t know anything about his opponents as of yet.
I only met Amicone once, and on the subject of the arts as an economic tool he is/was dead wrong.  I’m sure Chuck will do better.

Unfortunately, like my former city Providence RI, there’s a fair amount of corruption and expectation of doing things the “old way”  — ie, by knowing somebody who knows how it all works and getting them to exert their knowledge of the system on your behalf.  Reform is not easy under these conditions, but its also necessary.

Hopefully Chuck will make it happen.

Find out more about his candidacy at http://www.chuck-lesnick.com/

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0gwvvoJBqw]

A Hilarious clip from the character Ron Swanson who visits a “Whole Foods”- like establishment for the first time.

This character consistently makes me laugh.

Photo of High School Sociologist Gaby Rodriguez. (courtesy of Jezebel.com)

This is kind of an amazing school project– a 17 year old girl with straight A’s FAKED a pregnancy for 6 months to study how lies, rumors, and innuendoes travel around the school.  It’s a mind-boggling idea, considering that most girls at this age are so peer-pressured that they are actually GETTING pregnant rather than let people say bad things about them.

FROM THE YAKIMA POST:

“She had been nervous about how the crowd might react. After all, she had been lying to them since October.

“It ‘happened’ at homecoming,” says principal Trevor Greene, making air quotes with his middle and index fingers at the word “happened.”

“In essence, she gave up her senior year,” he says. “She sacrificed her senior year to find out what it would be like to be a potential teen mom.

“I admire her courage. I admire her preparation. I give her mother a lot of credit for backing her up on this.”

But, the principal continues, “I have a daughter that will be here next year, and I would not let her do it.”

Read the Yakima Post article:

Read the Jezebel blog post