CLOSING

OUT THE YEAR WITH THE DE YOUNG AND FRIDAY NIGHTS Friday Nights at the de Young has become a tradition for many, but it didnt start that way. Eight years ago, opening museums up for community gatherings, open to all, was a relatively new concept. Parties were reserved for donors and private events. Now, its hard to imagine the de Young without them. But dont mistake the lively atmosphere for just another place to grab a drink. Every Friday, performers, scholars, and public come together to celebrate and breathe new life into the exhibitions. As 2012 winds down, the de Young hosts its final Friday Night event of the year on November 23 with what has become a typical night of live performance, film, and art making. Try to sum up the crowd, but you wont be able to do it. Every Friday is about every body. While the players change, what stays the same each week is the vibe of the musicians, dancers, poets, filmmakers, painters, and characters that take each artists oeuvre say Picasso or Nureyev - and spins it off into every inspired direction.

Velocity Circus performs on Friday Nights at the de Young to open the season on March 23 and to close the season tonight. Photo by Adrian Arias.

Nothing will wake you from your post-turkey coma like Gregangelo and Velocity Circus. Artistic director and founder Gregangelo Herrera might be more genius than mad, but walking into his world is like stepping into Willy Wonkas chocolate factory. Whether hes turning a room into an Egyptian tomb or undersea cavern, or surrounding you with whirling dervishes and characters from Gaultiers wildest dreams, he never fails to surprise. For more free art, join in the artist reception to celebrate Javier Manriques Frescomania where hes interpreted fragments of famous wall paintings from around the world, or sit down at the art making table and make something of your own. For those craving something quieter or more scholarly, the Koret Auditorium hosts films and lectures every week. On the 23rd, the breathtaking duo of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev dance again on film in The Perfect Partnership (2005, 90 min). In other words, just a typical Friday Night.

For the second year in a row, Friday Nights will go on hiatus for four months. For the more daring, the de Young Artist Fellows program continues to deliver treats for the Friday Night- hungry crowd from November 29-December 9 when Monique Jenkinson (aka Fauxnique) presents her final Artist Fellows performance, Instrument, at the edgy local performance space CounterPULSE. Last April, Jenkinson grabbed hold of Jean Paul Gaultiers politics of inclusion, as well as his propensity for appropriation, and danced through the crowd, invited children to dress drag queens for a runway show, and turned the museum into a nightclub with dancey DJ pop. But as much as Monique Jenkinson has found a way to unite her performances with the museums vision and to simply be damn entertaining, her work is just as much about opening up a conversation than about answering questions. With the Nureyev exhibition as a launching point, the artist has embarked, spun, and growled through an experimental process that is as much Jenkinson as Nureyev, as much exploration as ballet. Jenkinson has been working with three disparate choreographers Chris Black, Miguel Gutierrez, Amy Seiwert - to create movement on her body. As the instrument, the performer has taken their dictatorial directions and woven them together in a personal take on what is it is to dance and make dance, to surrender and create.

Monique Jenkinson in rehearsal with Chris Black, Miguel Gutierrez, and Amy Seiwert. Photos by Andrea Martin.

The fantastic costumes and the striking photos in Nureyev: A Life in Dance tell a story about one of the most celebrated dancers of the 20th century it is only the dramatic lighting that belies there is also a darker side to the story. Jenkinson has grappled with these elements to tell her own story of the beautiful and sometimes painful side of ballet, elements that have given way to a performance that balances between jets and gestures. Becoming a museum without walls - taking programs outside the context of the more traditional museum setting - is the new wave of programming for the de Young and there have been no better partners in this than Dancers Group, a tour de force behind dance in the Bay Area, and CounterPULSE, where provocative is fundamental, and no better artist than the bold and fearless Monique Jenkinson, who has dazzled and provoked museum goers since she first set down her glittered heels. Friday Nights at the de Young programs are free and continue through November 23. Gallery admission is not included or required. Instrument takes place at CounterPULSE on Nov 29 Dec 9, Thurs-Sun at 8 p.m.