this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

LUNAR NEW YEAR 4714: THE YEAR OF THE MONKEY

lunar new year 4714

Sara D. Roosevelt Park and other locations
East Houston St. between Forsythe & Chrystie Sts.
February 8-28, free – $200
www.betterchinatown.com
www.explorechinatown.com

Gōng xǐ fā cái! New York City is ready to celebrate the Year of the Monkey this month with special events all over town. The seventeenth New Year Firecracker Ceremony and Cultural Festival will explode in and around Sara D. Roosevelt Park on February 8 at 11:00 am, with live music and dance, speeches by politicians, drum groups, lion, dragon, and unicorn dancers making their way through local businesses, and more than half a million rounds of firecrackers warding off evil spirits and welcoming in a prosperous new year. Also on February 8, China Institute will host “A Taste of Chinese New Year” (free, 12 noon – 5:00 pm) featuring Mandarin classes, a China Ink workshop, and more; on February 13 (free, 12 noon – 5:00), China Institute invites everyone back for a family celebration including lion dances, kung fu demonstrations, arts & crafts, and dumplings.

The New York Philharmonic gets into the party spirit with Long Yu conducting a multimedia Chinese New Year Concert at David Geffen Hall on February 9 ($35-$110, 7:30) with violinist Maxim Vengerov and harpist Nancy Allen performing Li Huanzhi’s “Spring Festival Overture,” Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s “The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto,” Kreisler’s “Tambourin Chinois,” and Tan Dun’s “Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women.” The Flushing Lunar New Year Parade takes place February 13 at 9:30. Dr. Hsing-Lih Chou has again curated a Lunar New Year Dance Sampler at Flushing Town Hall on February 14 (free, 12 noon). The seventeenth annual Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and Festival will wind its way through Chinatown, Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and Columbus Park on February 14 starting at 1:00, with cultural booths in the park and a parade with floats, antique cars, live performances, and much more from China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and other nations. The annual family festival at the Queens Botanical Garden is set for February 20 ($2-$4, 1:00 – 3:00). The New York Chinese Cultural Center will present a Lunar New Year program with folk dances, paper cutting, calligraphy, and lion dances at the Bronx Museum of the Arts also on February 20 (free, 2:00 – 4:00).

The Museum of Chinese in America celebrates the holiday with its annual Lunar New Year Family Festival on February 20 ($10, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm) with live music and dance, demonstrations and workshops, storytelling, arts and crafts, and more. One of our favorite restaurants, Xi’an Famous Foods, will be hosting a Lunar New Year Festival concert at Terminal 5 on February 20 ($60-$200, 5:30) with Far East Movement, Kimberley Chen, Soft Lipa, and Kina Grannis, benefiting Apex for Youth. There will be a Hao Bang Ah Monkey Puppet Show by Chinese Theatre Works, calligraphy workshops, a zodiac-themed scavenger hunt, and arts & crafts at the Prospect Park Zoo and the Queens Zoo on February 27-28 ($6-$8). And finally, the Lantern Festival is set for February 28 (free, 11:30 am – 3:30 pm) in Sunset Park on Eighth Ave. between Fifty-Third & Fifty-Fifth Sts.

DAVE STEWART IN CONVERSATION WITH MICK ROCK

Dave Stewart will discuss his new memoir at B&N on February 10 with Mick Rock

Who: Dave Stewart and Mick Rock
What: Conversation about new book
Where: Barnes & Noble, 150 East 86th St. at Lexington Ave., 212-369-2180
When: Wednesday February 10, free, 7:00
Why: “I love Dave’s constant creative search and his passion for making music; I love the fact that he’s constantly pushing the boundaries of what we think is possible,” Mick Jagger writes in the foreword to Dave Stewart’s memoir, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This: A Life in Music (New American Library, February 9, $27.95). “He creates a fertile environment in which it’s almost impossible not to be creative and innovative. This environment includes a compulsory martini at seven thirty in the evening, although by ten thirty, no one has gone home and everyone in the control room is dancing.” British songwriter, musician, and producer Stewart will be at the 86th St. B&N on February 10 to discuss his brand-new book, which details his life and times from a small child through his glory years with Annie Lennox in the Eurythmics to his collaborations with such superstars as Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, George Harrison, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Jagger, and so many others. “I’ve had the chance to experience this wonderful state of being in the moment with some of the greatest artists on the planet,” Stewart, who also delves into his battle with pheochromocytoma, explains in the introduction. Legendary photographer Mick Rock, who has shot such musicians as Syd Barrett, Joan Jett, David Bowie, Alicia Keys, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Queen, Ellie Goulding, the Sex Pistols, Snoop Dogg, the Killers, Michael Buble, and Daft Punk, will host the conversation. Preferred seating is available for this wristband event with the purchase of the book at the store; no word yet on whether martinis will be served.

LUNAR NEW YEAR FESTIVAL: YEAR OF THE MONKEY

The Met will celebrate the Year of the Monkey with a full slate of programs on February 6

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Saturday, February 6, free with recommended museum admission ($12-$25), 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
www.metmuseum.org

It will soon be 4713 on the Chinese calendar, the Year of the Monkey, a positive yang fire year that celebrates the monkey’s clever wit and inventive, playful nature. On February 6, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will host its annual Lunar New Year festival, with special events going on all day long honoring both China and Tibet. There will be live performances by Sesame Street puppeteers, students from the Music from China Youth Orchestra using traditional instruments, and Lotus Music & Dance in addition to a parade led by the Chinese Center on Long Island Lion Troupe. Art workshops include paper cutting with Master Lu, Monkey King mask making with the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, iPad calligraphy with the China Institute, a hand-pulled noodle demonstration by Chef Zheng of Noodle Q, a martial arts demonstration by the New York Chinese Cultural Center, Chinese tea ceremonies with Ten Ren Tea & Ginseng Co., a participatory installation by artist Wu Jian’an, a reading by picture book author and illustrator Yangsook Choi, bilingual storytime, drawing stations, and more. There will also be an interactive digital fireworks display in the Great Hall by CHiKA and Calli Higgins. The museum is currently showing several exhibitions related to China and Tibet, including “Monkey Business: Celebrating the Year of the Monkey,” “The Arts of Nepal and Tibet: Recent Gifts,” “Chinese Textiles: Ten Centuries of Masterpieces from the Met Collection,” “Chinese Lacquer: Treasures from the Irving Collection, 12th-18th Century,” and “Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the Metropolitan Collection.”

FIRST SATURDAY: RADICAL BLACK HISTORY

Stanley Nelson will be at the Brooklyn Museum to screen and discuss his 2015 documentary, THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION, as part of free Black History Month program

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, February 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum turns its attention to Black History Month for its February edition of its free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Dasan Ahanu and Tai Allen (“The Originals,” a live mix-tape honoring Gil Scott-Heron and Oscar Brown Jr.), the New Black Fest (“HANDS UP 7: Testaments,” monologues followed by a Q&A), L.A. Lytes (Latasha Alcindor, DJ Afro Panther, and NonVisuals), and Charles Perry; art chats with experts using the ASK app; interactive activities with the Museum of Impact, the Very Black Project, and #TeamMelanin; an art workshop inspired by Romare Bearden’s collage portraits; an art workshop about Black Lives Matter and gender justice led by activist Joshua Allen; book-club discussions of Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin’s Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party and Bob Avakian’s From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, led by Andy Zee; and a screening of Stanley Nelson’s 2015 documentary, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, followed by a conversation with Nelson and Elizabeth Sackler. In addition, the galleries are open late so you can check out such exhibitions as “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008,” “Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (to a Seagull),’” “KAWS: ALONG THE WAY,” “Forever Coney: Photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Collection,” and “Agitprop!”

THE COEN BROTHERS: A SERIOUS MAN

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is one serious man in underrated Coen brothers film

A SERIOUS MAN (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2009)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, February 1, 3:00 & 7:30
Series runs January 28 – February 4
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
focusfeatures.com

The Coen brothers take their unique brand of dry, black comedy to a whole new level with A Serious Man. Poor Larry Gopnik (a remarkably even-keeled Michael Stuhlbarg) just keeps getting dumped on: His wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), wants to leave him for, of all people, touchy-feely Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed); his brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), keeps hogging the bathroom so he can drain his cyst; his son, Danny (Aaron Wolf), won’t stop complaining that F-Troop isn’t coming in clearly and is constantly on the run from the school drug dealer (Jon Kaminsky Jr.); his daughter, Sarah (Jessica McManus), wants to get a nose job; one of his students (David Kang) has bribed him for a passing grade; his possible tenure appears to be in jeopardy; and he gets no help at all from a series of funnier and funnier rabbis. But Larry keeps on keepin’ on in the Jewish suburbs of Minnesota in 1967, trying to make a go of it as his woes pile higher and higher. Joel and Ethan Coen have crafted one of their best tales yet, nailing the look and feel of the era, from Hebrew school to Bar Mitzvah practice, from office jobs to parking lots, from the Columbia Record Club to transistor radios, from television antennas to the naked neighbor next door. The Coens get so many things right, you won’t mind the handful of mistakes in the film, and because it’s the Coens, who’s to say at least some of those errors weren’t intentional? A Serious Man is a seriously great film, made by a pair of seriously great filmmakers. And while you don’t have to be Jewish and from Minnesota to fall in love with it, it sure can’t hurt.

The Coen brothers will be at Film Forum to kick off retrospective

A Serious Man is screening at Film Forum on February 1 as part of a week-long tribute to Joel and Ethan, consisting of most of their older movies and a pair of film-related concert documentaries, leading up to a sneak preview of their latest, Hail, Caesar! For more than thirty years, the Coens have been capturing the American zeitgeist like no one else, penetrating deep into the psyche of the country, doing so in a wide variety of genres. The series skips over Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, and Burn After Reading, but the rest of their oeuvre is present and accounted for, from the creepy, atmospheric Blood Simple and Barton Fink to the mad humor of The Hudsucker Proxy and Raising Arizona, from the brutal Westerns No Country for Old Men and True Grit to the gangster picture Miller’s Crossing, in addition to their cult masterpiece, The Big Lebowski. Things get going on January 28 with the beautifully elegant Fargo, followed by a Q&A with Joel and Ethan. D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Nick Doob will be at Film Forum on February 3 for a showing of their concert film Down from the Mountain, featuring the music from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

ARTISTS AT THE CROSSROADS

R. Luke DuBois and Okwui Okpokwasili will discuss their residencies at the first Artists at the Crossroads discussion

Who: R. Luke DuBois and Okwui Okpokwasili
What: Artists at the Crossroads
Where: TheStage at the TimesCenter, 242 West 41st St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
When: Tuesday, February 1, free, 6:00
Why: New York City–based composer and interactive performance and installation artist R. Luke DuBois and Brooklyn-based writer, dancer, and Bessie-winning choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili will team up for the inaugural Residency Artist Talk, “Artists at the Crossroads,” being held February 1 at 6:00 at the TimesCenter. DuBois and Okpokwasili will discuss their three-month residencies, with a focus on creating public art for Times Square Arts, part of the Times Square Alliance. The free event will be moderated by Deep Lab member Kate Crawford; the next two residents, Brooklyn-based media artist and designer Joshue Ott and New Jersey–born composer Kenneth Kirschner, will be introduced at the end of the talk. The Residency at the Crossroads program “invites artists to experiment and engage with Times Square’s unique urban identity, history, and users. . . . They will be encouraged to invite multidisciplinary collaborators of their choice to create interventions, convenings, and experiments in Times Square’s public spaces, in open studios, and online.”

NEW YORK CHILIFEST

The fifth annual New York City ChiliFest returns to Chelsea Market on January 31

Chelsea Market
75 Ninth Ave. between 15th & 16 Sts.
Sunday, January 31, $50-$70, doors open at 6:30
chelseamarket.com
www.nychilifest2016.com

You can get ready for the February 7 Super Bowl by getting down and dirty with some badass chili at the annual NYC ChiliFest, taking place January 31 at Chelsea Market. The fifth annual competitive celebration of hot meat will feature dishes from Bark Hot Dogs, Untitled, La Palapa, Resto, Toro, El Vez, Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer, Talde, Untamed Sandwiches, Fleisher’s Craft Butchery, Hill Country Barbecue, Fletcher’s Barbecue Brooklyn, Hecho en Dumbo, Littleneck, Glady’s, Mŏkbar, El Original, Los Tacos No.1, Speedy Romeo, Bar Truman, the Brooklyn Star, and Chelsea Creamline, battling it out for the Golden Chili Mug. The food, which uses meat from responsibly raised animals provided by Dickson’s Farmstand Meat, can be washed down with four specially selected Samuel Adams beers or Mister Katz’s Rock & Rye cocktails from New York Distilling Company. Judging it all will be such chefs, entrepreneurs, and food writers as Adam Sachs, Martin Tessarzik, Brady Lowe, Bill Telepan, Lior Lev Sercarz, Alex Raij, and Catherine Lederer. In addition, there will be live music by Brooklyn band the Defibulators. The basic ticket price is $50, which comes with unlimited chili; for $60, you get unlimited booze as well, and for $70, you get the chili, the booze, and a copy of the Chelsea Market Cookbook. Ticket proceeds benefit Wellness in the Schools, whose mission is to “inspire healthy eating, environmental awareness, and fitness as a way of life for kids in public schools.”