DON’T MISS!: SHOOTING PHOTOS
WAR — what is it good for? Photos, for one thing. As the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Photography and the American Civil War” shows, the battles that ripped our nation apart were amply documented. So were the people who fought them. “When you got your uniform, you went to the photo studio, armed yourself and posed for your portrait,” says curator Jeff Rosenheim, who worked on this show for five years. Some 500 photos hail from the Met’s collection; others are on loan. Together they fill 11 galleries, some with scenes so intense they make Spielberg’s “Lincoln” seem tame. But carnage isn’t all — here, too, are photos of ordinary men and women, plus such artifacts as Lincoln photographer Matthew Brady’s camera. There’s even a photo of Brady himself: He was close to blind then — the final irony for someone who saw life and death through his lens. Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, metmuseum.org.
— Barbara Hoffman
David Wynn Vaughan Collection Photo: Jack Melton
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LISTEN UP!: EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
The image of Alicia Keys solemnly sitting at a piano is one that still endures, but as the New Yorker returns home for her Barclays Center show tonight (and another at the Garden next Thursday), it is something she’s striving to change. “When I play, I don’t want people to think: ‘I know exactly what Alicia is gonna do,’ ” she says. “I want people to go, ‘What the f - – k?!’ ” Although the soul diva is actively seeking out new sonic pastures — as heard on last year’s surprisingly robust “Girl on Fire” album — she admits that “Empire State of Mind” remains a signature song, and one she still hasn’t gotten tired of. “I’m so proud of that. There have been times when I’ve been at a basketball game when they’ve been playing Sinatra [“New York, New York”] and I’ve been like, ‘What the hell is that doing on? It should be my song!’ ” 7 p.m. at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, Brooklyn; 917-618-6700, barclayscenter.com.
— Hardeep Phull
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STEP UP!: JUST HIN-DU IT
It takes two to tango — and that’s the magic number for Indian dance, too. Nrityagram, one of the foremost dance troupes in India, is returning to the US, wowing audiences with its control and virtuosity.
The troupe’s specialty is Odissi, a sinuous, richly costumed style that recounts the great Hindu legends. The performance “Samyoga” — union in Sanskrit — is made of five solos and duets: stories of the gods Krishna and Shiva, but also of love, all to a live original Indian score.
Yet tomorrow (8 p.m.) and Sunday (3 p.m.) at the Skirball Center for Performing Arts, we see only the top of the roster: artistic director Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy. “We’ve been dancing together for 20 years,” Sen explains. “When we perform duets, it’s almost as if we don’t have to think, we only have to dance.”
556 LaGuardia Place; 212-352-3101, nyuskirball.org. Tickets, $20 to $40; kids 16 and under, $5 with adult.
— Leigh Witchel
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CHECK IT OUT!: SOFT TOUCH
Normally, Hot Picks doesn’t condone fighting, but this big melee you can attend in your pajamas — and there’s no heavy hitting.
The eighth annual New York City Pillow Fight returns tomorrow afternoon at 3 to Washington Square Park, part of an international event in 150 cities. Participants gather to whale on each other with pillows, all in the name of silliness.
“We started it as sort of an expression of a growing public space movement,” says event founder Kevin Bracken. “We consider ourself a playful extension of the movement. It’s fun, free activities in the street.”
And there will be costumes, too: Fixtures include a guy in a bumblebee suit and one dressed like ancient Scottish hero William Wallace.
“People had their own reasons for coming,” Bracken says, “to reclaim childhood or express feelings about public space.”
Free, BYO pillow (leave the down ones at home, feathers are too messy); pillowfightday.com.
— Tim Donnelly
Getty Images
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WATCH IT!: COMIN’ AT YA
“I’ve been stabbed to death, shot and electrocuted in movies,” Samuel L. Jackson told me at the 1993 press junket for “Jurassic Park’’ in Hollywood. “But this was something new.’’ He was describing his character’s close encounter with a man-eating Velociraptor created through a combination of a life-size puppet and then cutting-edge digital effects. Twenty years later, the scares in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel about an out-of-control theme park with real dinosaurs — Hollywood’s top-grossing movie until “Titanic’’ — are enhanced in a new 3-D upgrade that opens nationally in theaters today. The film also features Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern. “We decided from the outset that the stars of this movie were the dinosaurs,” producer Kathleen Kennedy told me. “There was no reason to go out and spend millions of dollars on big stars.”
— Lou Lumenick
