Entertainment

Hot picks

‘TAO’ JONES

Every once in a while we’re treated to one of those really New York nights of theater — the kind of show that just wouldn’t fly in say, Iowa.

Tonight is going to be that kind of night when choreographer Antonia Katrandjieva and The Overground Physical Theater present “Urban Tao.” It’s an evening filled with dance, art, music, metaphysics and, yes, yoga melded into a performance that will bring together an international group of dancers, painters, folk and jazz musicians.

The theme of the performance piece? What else? Alienation and ambition in the city. What city? The only city.

Overground, an uber-modern dance troop leaps, spins and moves in fantastic, futuristic costumes, as they unfold the tales of passengers on a stalled train during a blackout.

Tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m. Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square. Tix are $20 (prior to the show), or by e-mail: a_katrandjieva@hotmail.com. — Linda Stasi

CAT-ASTROPHE

Who says horror movies have to be gory? Not Val Lewton, who in the 1940s produced a series of classic black-and-white chillers for RKO that rely on suggestive lighting and camera effects rather than blood and guts. Best is “Cat People” (1942), unreeling Monday at 6:50 and 9:15 p.m. at BAM Rose Cinemas. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, it features exotic Simone Simon as a newly wed Balkan-born dress designer in New York who avoids sleeping with her husband (Kent Smith) because she fears an ancient curse will turn her into a killer panther upon sexual arousal. Best scene: A romantic rival (Jane Randolph) is menaced by an unseen creature in a deserted basement swimming pool. (I still get chills every time I see that scene.) The theater is 30 Lafayette Ave., near Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn; bam.org. — V.A. Musetto

POT LUCK

If hanging out at the recently reopened Brooklyn Bridge Park isn’t enough to get you into the summer spirit, a potluck picnic ought to do the trick. You’re invited to Sideluck Potshow’s “Beautiful, Bountiful Brooklyn Tasting Hour.” For $20, those who prefer eating to cooking can enjoy seasonal food from Brooklyn-based farms and other local restaurants tomorrow from 6 to 7 p.m. For $10, you can come by afterward, share your culinary experiments and take in a 9 p.m. slideshow with contributions by roughly 40 artists whose images are tied to dining and the spirit of sharing. It all gets cooking in DUMBO, at the corner of Water and Pearl streets (the slideshow under the archway of the Manhattan Bridge). For tickets and more info, go to network.slideluckpotshow.com/events. — Brian Niemietz

SWAMPER ROOM

Before soul singer, piano man and songwriter Swamp Dogg, born Jerry Williams, recorded his wildly funky and eclectic disc “Total Destruction to Your Mind” in 1970, he was known as Little Jerry. But afterward, he wanted a new moniker. He picked “Swamp” because he was recording in Muscle Shoals, Ala. (where the session men were known as the Swampers). And the dog? “A dog gets away with anything,” he says. “That’s what I wanted do with my music, jump from category to category — from a love song to a heavy political thing to a novelty song.” He spelled dog with a double g, partly due to Red Foxx’s double X. Imagine his surprise decades later when he saw rappers, such as Snoop Dogg, make his Dogg part of everyday street vernacular. “I got the shock of my life,” says Dogg, 67, wishing he had followed his late wife’s advice to trademark the name. Swamp Dogg, whose last album, “Give Em as Little as You Can . . . as Often as You Have To . . . or . . . A Tribute To Rock ’n’ Roll,” included covers of “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hungry Heart,” will perform Sunday at 8 p.m. at City Winery (155 Varick St.; 212-608-0555) backed by Tre Williams and his soul band Revelations. — Mary Huhn



HOT WHEELS

Lance Armstrong’s personal journey aside, it is all about the bike at “Bespoke,” the hot new exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design. We’re talking 21 custom-designed sets of wheels, like Richard Sachs’ red steel racing bikes, whose narrow, forked seats look like serpents’ tongues; Jeff Jones’ rugged, thick-tired mountain bikes; and Sasha White’s Vanilla-brand beauties. White, a bike-messenger-turned-master-builder, made a tricycle with cherrywood fittings and tilted wheels for his daughter. You can look, but you can’t ride the exhibits. (If you don’t mind a long waiting list, you might one day buy your own, for $7,500 and up.)

As guest curator Michael Maharam sees it: “You can buy a beautiful red Richard Sachs bike for a fraction of what you’d pay for a Ferrari, but you’re getting the top of the heap.” Hit the sixth-floor studios tomorrow and Sunday, when members of Bamboo Bike Studio show how they build their rides from reeds. Through Aug. 15 at MAD, 2 Columbus Circle; 212-956-3535. — Barbara Hoffman