News From The Queens Tourism Council
Goodbye Thanksgiving turkey, hello Santa Claus! Upcoming events include a holiday historic house tour, seasonal live music events, and Christmas-inspired theater. There’s also a singing celebration on Human Rights Day, a Dutch dancer, a winter solstice celebration, a fun run, and plenty of foreign films.
Here’s the rundown.
– Tonight (Thursday), Dec. 4, Rockin’ Holiday Toy Drive, 7 p.m. to midnight. The Carnival of Love Foundation hosts an event with light appetizers, dessert, and a limited open bar. Money raised will help the foundation team up with the Blue Child Project to deliver gifts to hospitals in underprivileged areas during Christmas week. $25. Melrose Ballroom, 36-08 33rd St., LIC, www.carnivaloflove.org.
– Friday, Dec. 5, Deeper Harmonies, 7 p.m. The Flushing Interfaith Council and Willow Interfaith Women’s Choir host a concert in celebration of Human Rights Week 2014. Six diverse performing groups come together to sing for religious freedom and to raise awareness of the persecution of religious minorities around the world. $10- $15. Flushing Town Hall, 135-35 Northern Blvd., Flushing, www.flushingtownhall.org.
– Friday, Dec. 5, through Sunday, Dec. 21, Twelve Days of Chain Christmas, times vary. Variations Theatre Group presents diverse forms of holiday entertainment. For example, It’s a Wonderful Life is a live radio play adapted from the treasured holiday film. Check website for shows and prices. Chain Theatre, 21-28 45th Rd., LIC, www.variationstheatregroup.com.
– Friday, Dec. 5, Tableau Vivant, 6 p.m. Dongsok Shin performs on King Manor’s fortepiano with violinist Karen Marmer. These members of the baroque ensemble REBEL play sonatas by Mozart, Dussek, Edelmann, and Bach. King Manor Museum, King Park, Jamaica Avenue between 150th and 153rd streets, Jamaica, www.kingmanor.org.
– Friday, Dec. 5, See It Big! Animation: Rocks in My Pockets, 7 p.m. This See It Big Series is presenting 16 animated films. With stop-motion animation with papier-mâchépuppets and oldfashioned, hand-drawn cartoons, Rocks in My Pockets tells a personal tale based on women and her family’s battles with madness. Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Kaufman Astoria District, www.movingimage.us.
– Saturday, Dec. 6, Maria Blaisse, 1 p.m. A special dance performance and talk with the prominent Dutch designer Maria Blaisse. A Q&A on “Slow Ecology” moderated by slowLab follows. Event is in conjunction with the presentation of Blaisse’s Breathing Sphere, a computercontrolled, motorized sphere of woven bamboo, on exhibit from Dec. 3, 2014 to Jan. 4, 2015. Free. Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Rd., LIC, www.noguchi.org.
– Saturday, Dec. 6, Book Sale, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hundreds of books-fiction, nonfiction, cooking, history, children, sports, architecture, biographies, etc. Greater Astoria Historical Society, Queens Building, 35-20 Broadway, Fourth Floor, LIC, www.astorialic.org.
– Saturday, Dec. 6, O Brazil: Casa Grande, 7 p.m. The Museum of the Moving Image (MMI) is presenting an ongoing series celebrating the Brazilian film industry. In Casa Grande, a 17-year-old strives to escape his privileged life within Rio’s social elite. Writer/editor Karen Sztajnberg in person. MMI, 36- 01 35th Ave., Kaufman Arts District, www.movingimage.us.
– Saturday, Dec. 6, Reading by Santa Claus, noon. Santa Claus reads “The Night Before Christmas,” while the venue serves as a drop-off location for Toys for Tots. Chain Theatre, 21- 28 45th Rd., LIC, www.variationstheatregroup.com.
– Saturday, Dec. 6, Jean Grémillon: Dainah la Métisse, 3 p.m.; Remorques, 5 p.m. The Museum of the Moving Image is doing a retrospective on director Jean Grémillon, a titan of pre- New Wave French cinema. On a transatlantic ocean liner, an elegant black magician is forced to watch with chagrin as his wife, Dainah the Mulatto, flirts with fellow passengers, including a suspicious, subliterate engineer. When Dainah disappears the next day, both men fall under suspicion. In Remorques, a tugboat captain who specializes in bringing vessels safely into port goes out one storm-tossed night and fishes up a young woman who drives a wedge between him and his sick wife. MMI, 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria, www.movingimage.us.
– Saturday, Dec. 6-7, Painting Exhibition: Archana Santra, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Santra, who was born in Calcutta, depicts movement from place to place and relationship to relationship, searching for depth and meaning, sometimes struck by the intensity of change, sometimes awed by the experience of learning. Free. AmericanMartyrs Church, 79-43 Bell Blvd., Bayside, 1-718-464- 4582.
– Saturday, Dec. 6, See It Big! Animation: Pom Poko, 1 p.m. The See It Big Series is presenting 16 animated films. In Japanese with English subtitles, Pom Poko is a lush fantasy about a forest filled with magical shapeshifting raccoons. Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Kaufman Astoria District, www.movingimage.us.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, The Vienna Boys’ Choir, 3 p.m. This celebrated choir performs a program that includes traditional Christmas carols, Gregorian chants, world music, and holiday favorites. Prices vary. Colden Auditorium, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, www.kupferbergcenter.org.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, 27th Annual Holiday Historic House Tour, 1 to 5 p.m. This 27th annual tour visits historic sites decked out in their holiday glory: Kingsland Homestead, Bowne House, Voelker Orth Museum, Flushing Town Hall, Friends Meeting House, Latimer House, and the Louis Armstrong House Museum. More info at www.queenshistoricalsociety.org.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, Forest Park Toy Drive 5 Miler, 8:30 a.m. The Queens Tourism Council presents this second annual run/toy drive. Racers are asked to donate toys that will be distributed by the Queens Center for Progress to local children. $25/$30 on race day, and the first 50 registrants receive Queens Distance Runners t-shirts. The course loops twice through Forest Park, starting and finishing at Forest Park Drive and Woodhaven Boulevard, Kew Gardens, visit their website, www.queensdistancerunners.org.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, Winter Solstice Celebration, 1 to 5 p.m. A concert by Rough Dozen, a talented, dynamic, all-male a cappella ensemble, plus botanical craft workshops, appearances by Santa, seasonal refreshments, a garden tour, a holiday marketplace, and a tree-lighting ceremony. Free. Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main St., Flushing, www.queensbotanical.org.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, Under His Very Windows, 1 p.m. Dr. Susan Zucotti highlights aid to Italy’s Jews provided by Catholics. She claims that those Catholics who aided Jews invariably believed that they were acting “according to the Pope’s will.” Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center & Archives, Queensborough Community College, 222-05 56th Ave., Bayside, www.qcc.cuny.edu/ khrca.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, Flushing’s Chinatown, 11 a.m. Official Queens historian Jack Eichenbaum leads a walking tour of this immigrant destination and commercial center. Taiwanese rather than Cantonese at its core, Flushing hosts a variety of overseas Chinese groups. Rezoning and greater land availability support unusual real estate developments, including office buildings, hotels, residential condos, specialty shops, cultural institutions, and malls. Restaurant recommendations provided. $15, but no registration necessary. Just show up in time. More info at jaconet@aol.com.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, Chautauqua in Astoria, 2 p.m. Through a series of workshops led by Sally Ann Drucker, participants chose a figure from New York history, wrote a 20-minute script, and learned how to present their material to live audiences. The project culminates in performances featuring Sharon Twickler as Nellie Bly, Joanne De Feo asMaeWest, David Druce as Theodore Roosevelt, Katherine Jason as Rose Rosenfeld Freedman, and Drucker as Emma Goldman. Free. Greater Astoria Historical Society, Queens Building, 35-20 Broadway, Fourth Floor, LIC, www.astorialic.org.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, Live Music, 2 to 4 p.m. As part of Myrtle Avenue BID’s Small Business Saturday, the eclectic local indie band Silverteeth performs at Venditti Square, Myrtle and St. Nicholas avenues, Ridgewood, www.Ridgewood-NY.com.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, Jean Grémillon: L’Étrange Monsieur Victor, 3 p.m.; June 6th at Dawn, 6 p.m.; and L’Etrange Madame X, 6 p.m. The Museum of the Moving Image is doing a retrospective on director Jean Grémillon of pre-New Wave French cinema. In L’Étrange, Victor is a Jekyll & Hyde shopkeeper who moonlights in underworld trade. The walls dividing his double life crack when he commits a murder and allows another man to be jailed for the crime. In June 6th, Grémillon returned to his native Normandy to retell the story of D-Day through the words of eyewitnesses and experts. In L’Etrange Madame X, a chambermaid is in a loveless marriage with an aristocratic publishing magnate when she falls in love with a handsome young carpenter and gets pregnant. MMI, 36-01 35thAve., Astoria, www.movingimage.us.
– Sunday, Dec. 7, See It Big! Animation: My Neighbor Totoro, 1 p.m. The See It Big Series is presenting 16 animated films. In Japanese with English subtitles, Totoro is about two sisters who move to a new country home, and discover a family of Totoros, gentle but powerful creatures seen only by children. Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Kaufman Astoria District, www.movingimage.us.
– Tuesday, Dec. 9, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, 1 p.m. This movie solves a decades-old mystery. Julia is an American journalist living in Paris with her French husband assigned to cover the anniversary of France’s notorious 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv roundup of Jews inWorldWar II. Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center, Queensborough Community College, 222-05 56th Ave., Bayside, www.qcc.cuny.edu/ khrca
The “It’s In Queens” column is produced by the Queens tourism Council with the hope that readers will enjoy the borough’s many attractions. More info available online at www.itsinqueens.com.
