Daniele Marin’s current exhibition, Ground Line, at Noho Gallery explores how women in art and society have evolved over time. By using iconic imagery along with the mundane, Marin recontextualizes these images to create nonlinear narratives. Doing this makes the historical information seem fresh. Marin also uses fabric in the acrylic paintings, creating texture and delineating space.

As Marin said, “The incorporation of fabric shifts the expectation about traditional feminine arts.” It also serves as an anchor point for the eye, a place of return.

Marin considers the painting surface a stage where different techniques communicate with each other. In fact, the paintings themselves seem to speak to each other. The color of each painting works within the bigger concept of the show. Marin is particularly interested in “the ground line,” the foundation for this exhibit, which is the horizontal plane on which objects sit. She weaves this into all of the works, establishing unity while referencing “still” images from the past, thereby reclaiming and redefining their roles as ‘feminine.’ The result is a new way of viewing traditional materials.

Marin was born in Paris but lives in the United States. She has an MFA from the Pratt Institute and has won two painting awards from the Visual Arts Center in New Jersey. She has been featured in Art in America and Woman’s Art Journal (Rutgers), among other publications. Some of her works are in the collection of the Newark Museum, the Montclair museum and Merrill Lynch, as well as private collections.

This show runs through Feb. 4. While visiting the exhibition, I had the eerie feeling of walking through a different state of being; somehow becoming a part of the ground line myself, as if I was inside the paintings.

Daniele Marvin: Ground Line
Noho Gallery, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212-367-7063, www.danielemarin.com.
Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

By Armond White

George Lucas’ sales tactics for Red Tails, his $93 million production about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots in the armed forces, make a bigger bang than the film itself. On the publicity rounds, Lucas has talked about the dearth of movies with African-American heroes, promising that Red Tails will give black teens the kinds of on-screen heroes and patriotic good feeling they’ve been denied. Apparently, Lucas has missed all blaxpoitation, post-blaxploitation and post-hip-hop cinema, not to mention the 1995 TV film The Tuskegee Airmen. Lucas’ ignorance condemns Red Tails to be irredeemably condescending.

It’s also one poor piece of filmmaking. Red Tails’ 332nd Fighter Group are a bunch of superficial GI stereotypes, black only in the brown-skinned Obama sense, displaying superficial personal traits. Their captain, Easy (Nate Parker), drinks for courage, and pilot Lightning (David Oyewolo) is a brash daredevil.

Their commanders, Col. A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard) and Maj. Emmanuel Stone (Cuba Gooding Jr.) are shallow lifers given to speeches about perseverance. All are cartoon figures; visually, the film also resembles a cartoon: postcard colors that make the squadron’s base at the Ramitelli Airfield in Italy look like it was shot in Southern California (oops!).
Cartoonishness defines Lucas’ approach to Hollywood revisionism; he doesn’t take World War II any more seriously than he took the Galactic Empire, and the Tuskegee Airmen mean no more to him than the Jedi knights.

The pilots, who due to military segregation were denied the right to fly combat missions but were used as escorts and decoys for white fighter pilots, perform selflessly to unspecific codes of conduct, as if they were uninvolved in history. This is goofball heroism, though totally without a sense of humor—less, even, than Snoopy’s fantasy dogfights with The Red Baron, which Red Tails frequently evokes.

Why comic strip artist Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks) participated in co-writing the screenplay is mystifying given the film’s total lack of his usual sarcasm. McGruder, too, must believe in The Force, which has infantilized American cinema since Star Wars, and so answered Lucas’ call to sign up. That meant signing on to the notion that moviegoers wouldn’t respond to a serious depiction of young men who fulfilled the intellectual requirements of aviation or comprehend the complexity of young black people who felt duty-bound to fight for the country that denied them basic civil rights.

By promoting Red Tails (named for the Airmen’s customized new P-51 Mustang aircraft) as a correction of Hollywood bigotry, Lucas shows that he knows nothing about how popular culture works. In a New York Times magazine puff piece, Lucas explained his wish for cultural crossover: “…which is what you get with sports. Which is what you get with music. I wanted to do it with just being an American citizen.” He ignores how black moviegoers have often identified with white movie heroes and enjoyed cinematic patriotism—and not vicariously. When Red Tails’ Airmen fraternize with white officers, they never so much as ask which states they came from. This isn’t American culture; it’s beer commercial bonhomie.

Red Tails not only insults the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen, it is disconnected from the figures of black male dignity that audiences embraced when forged by Rex Ingram, Paul Robeson, Juano Hernandez, James Douglas, Canada Lee, Woody Strode, Ivan Dixon and others that George Lucas forgets. He’s Jar Jar Binked us again.

Ronni Thomas, a filmmaker and oddity enthusiast, has created a new web series documenting the darkness, eccentricity and mystery of the uncharted and unimaginable happenings of New York City.

Fittingly named The Midnight Archive, these videos boast an eclectic class of characters such as Sue Jeiven, a tattoo artist at East River Tattoo, and Madame Cagliastro of Brooklyn. Jeiven, who is featured in episode three, specializes in anthropomorphic taxidermy, creating lifelike tableaux from dead animals that she guts, stuffs and lovingly clothes in vintage human attire. Madame Cagliastro also deals with animals, performing mummification for pets weighing 20 pounds or less—she mummifies a dead toad in the first episode.

Episode eight, the latest on the Midnight Archive website, is entitled “Wax.” Sigrid Sarda, an artist who started making hauntingly human wax sculptures after the death of her father, hosts with her spooky collection of wax figures that line every inch of her house.

Other members of the odd ensemble who work on the series include Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult New York; Jere Ryder, conservator for the Guiness Automata collection at the Morris Museum in New Jersey; and professor Paul Koudounaris, who traveled the world photographing ossuaries and charnel houses, places constructed of human bones.
In his IKA Collective office at 15 E. 32rd St. in Midtown, Thomas sits among a giant Grim Reaper, scary child dolls and other spine-chilling items as he edits a new episode of the show.

The episode features Thomas himself discussing his collection of stereoviews, a late 19th century entertainment consisting of 3-D images projected through a stereoscope—a much older and intricate ancestor of 3-D View-Masters.
“The lecture was on my collection of macabre stereoviews, in particular my set of diableries, which are French stereo tissues from the 1860s that depict Satan’s daily life in hell. I always kind of sat on these macabre demented things, these private fetishes. When I saw the variety of people who showed up for my lecture, from Harvard professors to gutter punks to people I didn’t even know from my old high school, I decided, let’s make a film out of this stuff.”

Many of the eclectics filmed for The Midnight Archive are lecturers at the Brooklyn Observatory, an event space at 543 Union St. in Brooklyn that serves as a multipurpose room for artists. That’s where Thomas met Joanna Ebenstein, the curator of Morbid Anatomy at the Observatory and now the producer of the series.

Thomas said that after the first episode, TV networks were offering to air the show, but it would have meant less creative control for Thomas and the guys at IKA Collective, whom he says have “fostered a very artistic environment” for him to pursue his work. Television might also “exploit these people or make them look stupid,” and even though the money would be good, Thomas remains speculative about selling out his perverse brainchild.

“I want people to see these everyday people doing extraordinary things, and I wanted to give them a view from an insider, myself, who has had a lifelong fascination and respect for these things. There is a dark underside to all things, and I want to open up that side to those who are outwardly interested and to those who live two lives,” he said.

To watch, visit themidnightarchive.com.

By Marsha McCreadie

One high aesthetic compliment is to call an artist ahead of his time. Yet, the real trick is to be both of your time and ahead of it. Cecil Beaton—photographer, illustrator, set and costume designer, even author—turned that trick, and nicely, too.

The fabulous results and even a hint at his motivation are currently exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York.
Why there, why now? Well, it’s Beaton’s “New York Years,” the 1920s through the 1960s—the fun decades, at least for him and his crowd. Beaton was a soigné mover in the top artistic and social tiers in both his native England and his semipermanent residence of elegant Manhattan hotel suites.

There’s already something gemülichkeit about the approachable museum portico, so the “Beaton Rose,” his cozy 1940s fabric design papering the entrance hall, is a needed transition into a glittery world presented with a clever structure, both chronological and thematic. Let’s face it: We don’t really go to this exhibit to get a career history, though it’s there if you want it—from his early surprisingly “romantic” painting and drawing through his magazine photography years and costumes for the Metropolitan Opera.

Subsections are devoted to his pictures of Marilyn Monroe, Wallis Simpson, Greta Garbo (one of Beaton’s heartfelt but rare heterosexual love quests and the only “candid” image of her laughing I’ve ever seen), Elsie de Wolfe, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. Also view a sweet-looking young Marlon Brando and a cheery Mick Jagger; both Hepburns—Kate and Audrey, separately; and a sprinkling of socialites.

Decorator de Wolfe got Beaton social access and he flattered, cunningly: “I only photograph those I like and admire.” (Summation-type Beaton quotes are posted throughout.) From a wealthy but not aristocratic background, he was clearly more comfortable in a Manhattan filled with other arrivistes than in class-fixed old England.

When the stylistic tide turned against his lush Vogue and Vanity Fair painterly tableaux, shifting to the informal action photography of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, Beaton didn’t wail, he moved on—to sets and costumes for Broadway and Hollywood, though he resented time spent in L.A.

The show highlights details of the Ascot Race set from My Fair Lady, famously imitated by Truman Capote’s Plaza Hotel Black and White Ball.

Peek at Beaton’s letters and other writing for an ironic self-view. See a handsome-looking woman in a shiny dress and bob, shot from behind, glancing over her shoulder. It’s Beaton in drag, clever enough to omit pearls thrown carelessly down the back to tip you off.

Is there a discernable Beaton style? Was he the Picasso of the photography and design world—with a clear signature, even when using multiple modes? No and no. Who cares? He caught various zeitgeists and their emblematic people, made viewers want to look and dress like them and unapologetically took bits and pieces from every genre. You could call it artistic shoplifting (some did)—or, eventually, homage.

Cecil Beaton: The New York Years
Through Feb. 20, Museum of the City of New York, 1220 5th Ave., 212-534-1672, www.mcny.org.

Tucked away on West 72nd Street between Broadway and Columbus Avenue is the 130-seat Triad Theater. Inside, actors make their Off-Broadway debuts, celebrities take the stage with friends and audiences are always entertained by an eclectic variety of shows, from Erotic Broadway to the smash hit Celebrity Autobiography. We spoke to owner Peter Martin about what to expect there.

Peter Martin

West Side Spirit: How did you get started at the Triad?
Peter Martin: I was the company manager of a show called Forever Plaid at the theater; it went on to become one of the five most successful shows Off-Broadway—the producer put in $135,000 and it grossed $300 million worldwide. It seemed like a great business. In 1995, when I was 30, I had the opportunity to buy the theater. I was able to get in at the right time.

The theater was a black box originally. About four years ago, I redesigned it based on 1930s movie palaces. I love those kinds of theaters and did a lot of research. I recreated the bathrooms, added a VIP performer lounge. People tell me, “I’ve seen this in Europe.”

What is the history of the theater?
It started in the early ’80s with Forbidden Broadway. It wasn’t even a theater back then; it was a bar/restaurant called Palsson’s Supper Club. Actor Gerard Alessandrini started writing spoofs of Broadway shows and they were performed there on weekends.

What is your favorite show at the theater currently?
Celebrity Autobiography. Celebrities read from other celebrities’ memoirs in a comedic tone. You’ll have Matthew Broderick reading from Tommy Lee’s autobiography. On another night, you’ll see Kristen Wiig reciting the poetry of Suzanne Somers. We’ve probably had more famous people in it than any show on Broadway.

Have there been any memorable mishaps?
There were two sold-out shows one New Year’s Eve and the coat check girl misplaced all the numbers. People were trying to get their coats out from the first show while others were coming up the stairs for the midnight show. It was a disaster. Another time, John Simon, a well-known theater critic, came in to review Forbidden Broadway. He checked his umbrella and somehow it got lost. A couple of days later, he sent us a bill for $300.

To what do you attribute your success?
Times have changed Off-Broadway. In the last 10 years, tons of theaters have closed. I’ve really had to adapt by instating a new booking policy. In the course of a month, we can have 30 different shows. I’m always thinking of how I can improve the theater and what’s going on in the entertainment industry. On Broadway, a musical costs about $15 million.

Off-Broadway, you can experiment more. Things get started Off-Broadway then move to Broadway. For instance, there’s a new musical in the works about [’50s teen idol] Dion called The Wanderer. The first reading was at The Triad six weeks ago.

By Mark Peikert

In the pantheon of New Yorkers—Dorothy Parker, Andy Warhol, the Ramones—photographer Weegee may not be the first to spring to mind, but he may symbolize the contradictions of New York City better than anyone else. Driven, self-mythologizing and morbidly curious about the curiously morbid, Weegee spent a decade, from 1936 to 1947, chronicling the violence and urban beauty of life in the Big Apple.

Currently on display at the International Center of Photography, Weegee: Murder Is My Business (running through Sept. 2) collects some of the best of Weegee’s mostly nighttime work, from a body stuffed in a trunk to the crowds at Coney Island. What strikes the viewer almost immediately isn’t just the classic, violent aspects of these photos—bodies splayed awkwardly on sidewalks, pools of blood congealing—but the flipside, the almost embarrassingly sentimental glimpses at beachgoers or the melancholy of a Santa balloon being inflated for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

That Santa photograph is indicative of why Weegee’s work still exerts such a magnetic pull; these images are frozen in time, capturing a New York City that is long gone and still mourned (there are only a few stragglers surrounding that balloon, unlike the hordes who descend upon the Upper West Side the night before Thanksgiving now). From a distance, the gangland killings that Weegee followed so avidly thanks to his police scanner have a glamour that we can’t assign the random acts of violence we live through today.

What Murder Is My Business reveals, however, is that the famously gruesome Weegee wasn’t always interested in the details of the deaths he covered. Sometimes his photographs were of gawping onlookers, the body an indistinct detail. ICP has helpfully put these seemingly atypical shots in context, surrounding them with photos by police officers of the same scene that are more insistent on the corpse than Weegee’s. As it turns out, crime wasn’t necessarily Weegee’s business, but the business of capturing the filthy, rain-slicked city he loved in all its rubbernecking glory was.

For more of Weegee’s ceaselessly fascinating work, Chelsea’s Steven Kasher Gallery is holding its own exhibit, Weegee: Naked City, through Feb. 25 at 521 W. 23rd St.

Weegee: Murder Is My Business
ICP, 1133 6th Ave. (at 43rd St.), 212-857-0000, www.icp.org.

By Susan Reiter

Now in its 40th year, Dance on Camera is at a new level of maturity. The annual event at the Walter Reade Theater that once fit into a three-day weekend has expanded to fill five days, Jan. 27–31, and within its brief duration has its own opening night, centerpiece and closing night films.

This year’s festival also takes advantage of the recently opened Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (across 65th Street from the Walter Reade), which will host free screenings of short films as well as conversations and panel discussions with filmmakers on Saturday and Sunday. Many of the regular screenings will also include appearances by directors and participants.

With 14 programs packed into its five days, the festival includes films exploring a wide variety of dance styles, artists and institutions. For New Yorkers, the opening night documentary, Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, is an expansive reminder of the rich and often turbulent history of what was once a mainstay of the local dance scene before the company relocated to Chicago.

The film’s opening strikes a jarring note: While proclaiming the Joffrey’s record of innovation and originality, it starts off with scenes of Lar Lubovitch’s Othello in rehearsal. A ponderous ballet already performed by ABT and San Francisco Ballet at the time, this is hardly the type of work that made the Joffrey’s reputation.

But once the 90-minute film gets going, the performances—and voices—of many talented and personable Joffrey dancers and the company’s never-a-dull-moment history makes for riveting viewing.

Coming of age during the 1960s, the Joffrey also had its finger on the pulse of the times as the counterculture emerged and the Vietnam War dominated the news. The documentary rightly gives significant attention to Joffrey’s choices of Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table and Léonide Massine’s Parade in 1973—painstakingly detailed revivals that made these seminal works live for a new generation.

Another American dance institution with an even longer history—Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival—is the subject of Never Stand Still. The Ron Honsa documentary’s choppy approach takes some getting used to as it interweaves the history of this influential festival and school—giving due attention to Ted Shawn and his male dancers of the 1930s—with what amount to substantial mini-documentaries on such worthy and fascinating subjects as Mark Morris, Paul Taylor, Suzanne Farrell, Shantala Shivalingappa and Gideon Obarzanek, who speak not only about Jacob’s Pillow but about their own artistic and esthetic philosophies.

An intriguing festival documentary is The Space in Back of You, about the influential but relatively unsung Japanese dancer and choreographer Suzushi Hanayagi. She became part of New York’s earliest postmodern dance scene and made significant contributions to several of Robert Wilson’s elaborate productions.

For fans of ballet competitions and their inherent drama, there is First Position, focusing on a particularly interesting and varied selection of contestants at a recent Youth America Grand Prix. Still Moving: Pilobolus at 40 is fun as it chronicles the launch of that distinctive collaborative troupe, offering a glimpse of its founders as shaggy-haired Dartmouth jocks and a touching tribute to the late co-founder Jonathan Wolken.

And for the closing night, there is the truly special—and long-awaited—Check Your Body at the Door, which profiles the New York City club dance scene of the 1990s. It offers a full and vibrant portrait of a number of important dancers, displaying their amazing physical skills in both club and stark studio settings.

Dance on Camera 2012
Jan. 27–31, Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th St. (betw. Broadway & Amsterdam), and Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W. 65th St., www.filmlinc.com; $12.

By Aspen Matis

Columbia University psychiatry professor Galina Mindlin, MD, PhD, studies neuron connections and how such brain links can be strengthened by listening to the right music. Her new book, Your Playlist Can Change Your Life (co-authored by Joseph Cardillo and Don DuRousseau), distills her brain-training findings into playlists for the mood you want to be in.

Our Town spoke with Mindlin about music’s potential to alter mood, productivity and happiness, the existence of side-effect-free medicine and the North Pole’s hold on her mind.
Our Town: We’ve all resolved to be better versions of ourselves in 2012. What role can music play in that resolution?
Galina Mindlin: Positive stimuli affect the brain in a positive way. You can use music as positive stimuli to improve your mood or relieve stress. First, you choose the piece you like and you think of the mind-state you desire. For instance: Do you want to relax, study, get motivated, focus—think first about what you want. Second, you really need to practice, play and play the piece, so your brain will remember it. Your brain is like a muscle.

What if I get sick of the song?
Then you have to leave it for a while, find something else. Stop playing it. Start gently replacing it with something else. Encourage your brain to withdraw from it.

What’s the value of playing the same song again and again?
To train the brain, help the cells forge more connections. But then you do have to update your playlist. Our brains respond to variation.

If you really want to train your mind, you have to stimulate your brain in unpredictable ways—unpredictable frequencies. You want to check the beats per minute—you want to synchronize your brain waves with those of the music, the beats per minute. You become your own boss with this prescription. We can practice personalized medicine.

Do you think the use of music as medicine will grow popular?
All New Yorkers go for the quick fix. A pill. Want to fall asleep faster? Benzo. These things have side effects. Instead: Push the button. You can be your own doctor.

How did you first become interested in music’s effect on the brain?
I went to music school. Now, I record brain waves and translate them into musical frequencies, so your brain plays the music. I give you a CD with your brain’s music.

And what happens when someone listens to her own brain music? What’s the effect?
It’s like listening to your mom’s voice, your daughter’s voice.

Do people ever hate the music of their brain?
Sometimes they don’t like it. But it helps with focus, motivation—anything—85 to 90 percent of the time. You can add it to your playlist.

How does someone determine the frequency of music that is best for what he is trying to do?
If you’re very nervous and you want to calm yourself down, you want to listen to something of a lower frequency. To get motivated or excited—to stimulate your brain—listen to something of higher frequency, generally.
If you want to determine the ideal frequency for you and what you’re trying to do—something more accurate than just “I like this”—buy the book.

What is your song? What do you listen to to train your brain?
I was born in the North Pole, I moved to Moscow when I was 5. You’re a little kid, and everything is white—whiteness and white noise. I’d get confused; kids would sometimes wander outside in the night, because it was always light. I and the other kids would play with a little white fox and a baby polar bear.
For me, to focus, I have to go back to my childhood, into that white-noise space. Silence. Complete silence. And then I can go into my playlist.

By Mark Peikert

Porgy and Bess has been something like this season’s highbrow Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Both shows came to Broadway trailing a wake of scandal and op-eds—except Porgy and Bess had Stephen Sondheim and the New York Times weighing in, while Spider-Man had the Post. And in both cases, what finally showed up on stage was…underwhelming.

Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis in a scene from Porgy and Bess.

What else could this revision of Porgy and Bess be? Director Diane Paulus and bookwriter/reviser Suzan-Lori Parks have streamlined the original four-hour work into a matinee-crowd-friendly two and a half hours, during which time most of the characters act incomprehensibly.

Set in Charleston’s Catfish Row—designed by Riccardo Hernandez to look like a dank alleyway—Porgy and Bess is the story of the limping Porgy (Norm Lewis), the Bad Woman Bess (Audra McDonald) and the ways in which he causes her to vacillate between being good and snorting cocaine and otherwise being bad with drug dealer Sporting Life (David Alan Grier, who thinks his pimp walk is funnier than it is) and her lover Crown (Phillip Boykin, lacking the sex appeal that would convince us that he has Bess in an erotic thrall).

As she did in Hair, Paulus reveals a weakness for grouping her actors on the stage and then leaving them there. With an array of Catfish Row denizens to work with, she often lumps the men and women into separate groups for their songs, a choice that strips the work of the feeling of community. This isn’t a tight-knit group of neighbors; this is a collection of people who happen to live near one another, which lessens the dramatic tension considerably.

On the credit side, Paulus and team do have Lewis and McDonald, two actor-singers who try valiantly to make their characters something more than archetypes. They have an easy chemistry together that makes Bess and Porgy’s relationship seem organic, a haven for Bess after the turmoil of Crown. But not even these two can surmount the revue-like structure Parks has left the book. All that trimming leaves the songs intact but the recitatives (and supporting characters) mangled. Joshua Henry is mostly wasted as Jake, the ill-fated young father, while the other characters feel like plot-propelling scenery, there to alert the audience as to which Bess is on stage: bad Bess or good Bess.

Still, there is always that lush score—“Summertime,” “I Got Plenty of Nothing”—from George and Ira Gershwin to prop up the faltering, giving McDonald and Lewis the chance to remind audiences how much they’ve both been missed by fans of pure, character-driven singing. When they duet, every misfire in the production slips away, leaving two stars centerstage, giving powerhouse performances that almost transcend the misdirection and wrongheaded ideas that suffuse the rest of this Porgy and Bess.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Through June 24, Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St. (betw. Broadway & 8th Ave.), www.porgyandbessonbroadway.com; $75–$150.

By Susan Reiter

Following a brief winter hibernation after its five-week Nutcracker onslaught, New York City Ballet returns to its primary business Tuesday, Jan. 17, when it opens its six-week winter repertory season. While the company’s repertory has been opened up to an increasing variety of choreographers in recent decades, the vast archive of George Balanchine’s exceptional ballets remains its mainstay.

Sara Mearns and Chase Finlay in Christopher Wheeldon's Polyphonia

The season’s first week culminates with a day celebrating Balanchine’s Jan. 22 birthday (happy 108th, George!). Its centerpiece is the 3 p.m. performance of two of the master’s most expansive and appealing works.

Who Cares, a 1970 ballet set to a delectable array of Gershwin songs, celebrates the brash energy and romance of New York and alludes to Balanchine’s brief heyday as a major Broadway choreographer.

The second half of the birthday program offers Union Jack, Balanchine’s majestic—and sometimes cheeky—1976 tribute to all thing British. With its cast of 72 arrayed in kilt-clad regiments choreographed with thrilling precision and dramatic vigor, it is unlike anything else in the repertory. The military-style discipline gives way to an all-too-human music hall couple whose urge to entertain is sometimes greater than their actual finesse. The large cast then return in sailor suits to dance the go-for-broke Royal Navy section, which mocks every possible cliché and is a rambunctious delight.

When NYCB’s autumn season began in mid-September, considerable advance hype was focused on Ocean’s Kingdom, a new Martins ballet set to a score (and based on a concept) by Paul McCartney, which became a hot ticket. If you couldn’t get in and the largely negative reviews haven’t scared you off, there will be five more performances beginning Jan. 19.

This season’s major premiere sounds a lot more promising. Christopher Wheeldon, while no longer the company’s resident choreographer, remains a regular contributor to the repertory and continues to be one of the ballet world’s most significant and in-demand choreographers.

During a Monday event that is part of City Center’s intimate Studio 5 series, Wheeldon offered a brief advance look at a trio from the ballet that showed him working with refined musicality and fluency.

The new work will be part of an all-Wheeldon program (Jan. 28 and Feb. 4) that includes his 2001 Polyphonia and the company’s premiere of DGV (Danse à Grand Vitesse), which he created for the Royal Ballet in 2006. Polyphonia has been in exceptionally fine shape as danced by its current casts last fall, and this brilliant, intricate work for four couples has already staked its claim as a classic of 21st-century ballet.

DGV, set to a score by Michael Nyman, is a surging, propulsive work for a cast of 26, which had its New York premiere when Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon performed it at City Center two years ago.

On Monday, Wheeldon remarked that he had created the still-untitled premiere provide the ideal contrast with the two earlier works on the program. “I wanted to make something gentler, more romantic and classical to balance out the Ligeti and the driving, athletic world of DGV,” he said. He also noted that he was still toying with the program order, contemplating having the new ballet open the program. Arrive late on Jan. 28 at your own risk!

New York City Ballet: Jan. 17–Feb. 26, David H. Koch Theater, 20 Lincoln Center (63rd St. & Columbus Ave.), www.nycballet.com; $29+.