Queens Museum's Passport Thursdays Kicks Off Tonight

Thank God It’s Thursday! Tonight, the Queens Museum offers the first installment of Passport Thursdays, a weekly series featuring outdoor music, dance, and film. Set to run from 7 pm until 10 pm, each presentation will have an ethnic theme, and the Flushing Meadows Corona Park venue will offer free, hands-on artmaking workshops before each movie starts. As an extra benefit, the galleries and cafe will stay open until 8 pm these nights. (In the case of rain, Passport Thursdays will move inside the museum.)

India is the focus on July 31st. Sonali Skandan & Jiva Dance (above) will present Bharatanatyam, a classical dance form of South India. The scheduled movie is The World Before Her, which tells the story of two young women who follow completely divergent paths in modernizing India. One wants to become Miss India; the other is a fierce Hindu Nationalist prepared to kill and die for her beliefs.

Information and photos on the following three Passport Thursdays are on the jump page.

The theme on Aug 7th is  Brazil. BatalaNYC (above), an all-female drumming band will play music from Salvador de Bahia, a region whose culture is known for its African influences. O Mistério do Samba, a movie which captures musicians and composers from Rio’s most samba school Portela, will screen.

Cuba is the focus on August 14th. The Cimarrón Project (above) will showcase the diversity of African-Cuban music and dance. These artists like to introduce their audiences to lesser known aspects of the genre, such as Bata drumming, Abakua music, Suku Suku, and Changui. The scheduled movie, Habanastation, traces the lives of two classmates from different upbringings who build a strong friendship.

The series goes to Korea on Aug 21st. The Song Hee Lee Dance Company will perform a combination of modern and traditional Korean dance forms. The night’s movie, Approved for Adoption, is an animated documentary that traces the unconventional upbringing of its filmmaker Jung Henin. Like many children after the Korean War, he was adopted by a European family and grew up in Belgium. Combining sepia-toned animated vignettes with super-8 family footage and archival film, the autobiography tracks Jung from the day he first meets his new blond siblings into his teenage years, when his identity issues cause rifts at home.

Details: Passport Thursdays, Queens Museum, NYC Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, July 31st and the three following Thursdays, 7 pm to 10 pm, free.

Photos: Queens Museum