#WeeklyColumn | It’s In Queens! March 8 to March 14
BY QEDC It's In Queens
Check out the borough’s intellectual side with documentaries, lectures, workshops, panel discussions, Women’s History Month events, and bird-watching. Don’t worry, Queens also lets its fun side shine with comedy, tremendous food, great art, and cheese-making.
March 8, Island of the Hungry Ghosts, March 17. Fourteen screenings of the exclusive NYC engagement of Gabrielle Brady’s debut that won Best Documentary at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. Poh Lin Lee provides therapy to asylum seekers in a high-security detention center in the Australian territory of Christmas Island. Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria’s Kaufman Arts District.
March 8, Friday Night Stand-up, 7 pm. Dinner, dancing, and comedy with an Italian buffet, a live deejay, and “It’s Your Line Now!” featuring veteran funnymen Al Isaacs, Scott Baker, and Vinnie Mark. $69. Verdi’s Restaurant, 149-58 Cross Island Pkwy., Whitestone.
March 8, Spring Awakening, March 24. This musical explores the journey through adolescence, examining morality and sexual politics while unapologetically plumbing the depths of the hormonal teenage psyche. $22/$25 at the door. First run is March 7-10 at 8 pm with an additional 2 pm show on March 10. Second run is March 20-24 at 8 pm with an additional 2 pm show on March 24. The Secret Theatre, 44-02 23rd St., LIC.
March 8, Single Entry: A Caribbean Comedy, March 10. Four presentations of this play about two Jamaican women who devise hilarious strategies to obtain U.S. visas. They make it to NYC to learn that things aren’t as good as they expected. York College Performing Arts Center, 94-45 Guy R. Brewer Blvd., Jamaica.
March 9, Global Mashup: Bollywood Meets Global Roots Blues, 7 pm (dance lessons) & 8 pm (concert). Falu, an internationally recognized Indian vocalist, performs. Hazmat Modine, a band that melds African, Central Asian, Caribbean, and Eastern European influences, takes the stage. Then, the groups join and jam. $16. Flushing Town Hall, 135-35 Northern Blvd.
March 9, Canten A Coro, 8 pm. The Astoria Choir, which has almost 100 members, sings Spanish language music, including settings of poems by Federico Garcia Lorca and Pablo Neruda, folks songs, and villancicos. $20. Trinity Lutheran Church, 31-18 37th St., Astoria.
March 9, Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., 2:30 pm. The screening of a documentary on Grammy-nominated British-Sri Lankan singer-songwriter-rapper-producer-political activist Matangi Arulpragasam, better known as “M.I.A.” Over two decades, this daughter of a Tamil resistance fighter goes from refugee to immigrant to star. $10. Queens Historical Society, 143-35 37th Ave., Flushing.
March 9, Morning Bird Walk, 10 am. A seasoned naturalist leads an early morning search for different bird species. $5. Alley Pond Environmental Center, 228-06 Northern Blvd., Douglaston.
March 10, Taste of the World Festival, 2:30 pm. Local restaurants provide dishes for this eighth annual event. Expect 200 people and about 40 vendors. $25/$30 at the door. Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, 110-06 Queens Blvd., Forest Hills.
March 10, Women’s History Month Free Screening, 3 pm. Watch “Pariah,” which tells the story of Alike, a 17-year-old African American in NYC embracing her identity as a lesbian. Lewis H. Latimer House Museum, 34-41 137th St., Flushing.
March 10, Spring Forward 10 and 5 Mile Races, 8 am. Two races at the same time. One is four loops. The other is two loops. Children’s run at 10:30 am. Forest Park.
March 10, Center of Attention, 3:30 pm. Visitors are invited to engage in a conversation about Isamu Noguchi’s “To Intrude on Nature’s Way (1971),” which is on permanent display. Free with admission. The Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Rd., LIC.
March 10, Distance, Longing and the Digital, 3 pm. Artists from “Distance: Works on Paper by Skowhegan Alumni” discuss how they address longing and attempts to bridge the distance between here and there, now and then, through digital means. Free. Dorksy Gallery, 11-03 45th Ave., LIC.
March 11, Live Drawing with Models, 6 pm. Open to all talent levels. Supportive environment. Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd.
March 13, Pop-Up Memory Book: Art Making Workshop for Seniors, 11 am. This first workshop in a series helps seniors find creative ways to tell stories through art. Seven more weekly workshops follow. $10. Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd.
March 13, Cheesemaking for Beginners, 6 pm. Carol Johnson, a cook and cheese expert, offers an introductory, hands-on class on the history and science behind curds and whey. Participants make two types of soft cheese and leave with samples, recipes, and instructions. Queens County Farm Museum, 73-50 Little Neck Pkwy., Glen Oaks.
March 13, Standing with Standing Rock: Allyship and the Environment, 12:10 pm. Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, director of the Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and Rachel Waters, graduate student at the New School’s Milano School of International Affairs, discuss the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. They also address ongoing resistance movements led by indigenous people and allies around other sites of possible oil pipelines and places where resource extracting threatens land, water, sacred sites, and lives. Kupferberg Holocaust Center, Queensborough Community College, 222-05 56th Ave., Bayside.
March 14, Thursday Night Jazz Series, 8 pm. Percussionist Joel Ross, who recently completed a two-year fellowship with the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet in California, performs with his newly minted Good Vibes ensemble. $10. Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, 161-04 Jamaica Ave.
Continued from the previous week
Latinx Homages, until March 10. Tremendous dance and music by Latino singers and composers. Salsa, Cumbia, Tex-Mex, Cha-cha-cha, and Mambo. Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 4 pm. Thalía Spanish Theatre, 41-17 Greenpoint Ave., Sunnyside.
In Practice: Other Objects, until March 25. This exhibition displays new pieces by 11 artists and artist teams that probe the slippages and interplay between objecthood and personhood. SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves St., LIC.
Images: Falu (top) and Flushing Town Hall (bottom)
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