STEP ON UP!: CAGE DANCING
Charles Riley, a k a Lil Buck, puts a moonwalking spin on a legendary ballet. The 24-year-old Memphis dancer specializes in a style called jookin’. When his jookin’ version of “The Dying Swan,” with slow spins and falls as if it were in zero gravity, became a YouTube sensation in 2011, former ballet star Damian Woetzel saw it and hooked him up with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, to play the music live. Lil Buck and Ma toured, even performing in China.
The unlikely duo touch down Tuesday at (Le) Poisson Rouge, with a piece specially composed by Philip Glass. Dancing to the minimalist composer is a new challenge. “You can’t just wing it,” Lil Buck explains. “I have to listen to it over and over.”
The dancer is excited to be at the Village club, a more intimate venue than the Great Wall. “It’s mellow and jazzy — it’s going to be like a real jookin’ session.”
7 and 10 p.m. 158 Bleecker St.; 212-505-3474, lepoissonrouge.com.
— Leigh Witchel
Erin Baiano
2 of 5
GO HERE!: GROUND RULES
It’s baseball season. Take me out to the . . . graveyard?
To celebrate Monday’s Opening Day, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery is offering a two-hour trolley tour, tomorrow, of the baseball greats buried there.
“Very few people, even Brooklynites, know Brooklyn was really the birthplace of baseball,” says Jeff Richman, Green-Wood’s historian and a tour leader. “As a result of that, we have a who’s who of many of the American pioneers of baseball.”
Those pioneers include Henry Chadwick, who Theodore Roosevelt dubbed the “father of baseball,” along with Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and James Creighton, baseball’s first national star. Part of the tour’s proceeds will go to fix the old “lemon-peel” baseball monument that was atop Creighton’s grave.
Tomorrow at 1 p.m. 500 25th St., at FifthAvenue, Sunset Park; 718-768-7300, green-wood.com. $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers.
— Tim Donnelly
3 of 5
WATCH IT!: REMIXIN’ NIXON
Everybody knows that President Richard Nixon “BUGGED HIMSELF,’’ as a New York Post headline put it when his secret White House recording system was exposed during the Watergate scandal that led to his resignation. Few are aware that investigators also seized 25 hours of Super 8 home movies shot during his first term in office by three of his top aides: H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin. Penny Lane’s fascinating documentary “Our Nixon,’’ which closes the New Directors/New Films series on Sunday at 7 and 9:30 p.m., juxtaposes lighthearted images of events like the wedding of Nixon’s daughter Tricia and his visit to China with the surreptitious tape recordings and later interviews with the three aides — all of whom did jail time. Says Ehrlichman: “You had the feeling you were in the middle of a brilliantly lighted, badly run television show.’’ Walter Reade Theater, 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.
— Lou Lumenick
4 of 5
TAKE A BITE!: BURGER UP
Mets fans looking for a beefier lineup this season may not find it on the diamond, but Citi Field does have a meaty new player when it comes to concessions. Meat maestro Pat LaFrieda has joined the team to open Pat LaFrieda’s Chop House, a loungey sit-down restaurant that will feature old family specialties like grandma’s sausage and peppers. There’s also a promising rookie on the menu: the Citi Field Amazin’ Burger (pictured), which LaFrieda swears is “unlike anything you’ve had before.” It’s crafted from a new custom blend featuring beef belly, an underserved cut used to make pastrami and not much else — until now. “It’s like beef bacon,” he says with the enthusiasm of a manager touting his latest phenom. The 10-ounce patty comes topped with onion rings and a red-wine gastrique. The restaurant, inside the Delta Sky360 Club at the stadium, will debut along with the 2013 Mets on Monday.
— Hailey Eber
Alexander Porter
5 of 5
DON’T MISS!: WITH ALL DUE RESPECT
Aretha Franklin — she’s just like us! She sings in the shower. “The acoustics are wonderful,” Franklin says. She reads. “One of my favorite things to do when I come to New York is sit on the side of the bed and read the New York Post.” And she gets flowers for her birthday (Franklin turned 71 on Monday). “My son and my granddaughters sent me a beautiful bouquet of French tulips,” she boasts. “And I also got gorgeous, gorgeous flowers from Oprah. And gorgeous flowers from the president and Mrs. Obama.” OK, maybe she’s not just like us. She’s the Queen of Soul — in town to play at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on tomorrow night.
Franklin, who says she’s feeling fine — after some health scares — promises a “rockin’, sockin’ good time.” Plus “a very special surprise guest,” whom she declines to name, but says has Newark roots.
7 p.m. at 1 Center St., Newark; 888-466-5722, njpac.org.
— Billy Heller
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
