March 2008

Welcome to our monthly bulletin on language and culture from the French Embassy. Click here to view other months.

Francophonie Month
In March, celebrate the French Speaking World with us and our partners! You can participate to the festival and you will find all the events on Francophonie New York.

Week of French Language
March 14-24

The week of French Language will begin on the 14th of march. The aim of this celebration is to reunite the French speaking people and we think your classes are definitly a part of this community. You are all invited to participate and create something for the occasion.
The theme of this year is "les mots de la rencontre". It is perfect for your pupils who are discovering the French language. The idea is to create anything you want with 10 words: apprivoiser, boussole, jubilatoire, palabre, passerelle, rhizome, s'attabler, tact, toi, visage.
Poetry, dance, art , etc ... you can use your imagination, there are no limits to what you can do.
Your participation would be really great. It would enable your pupils to understand that they are part of a community.
Please visit the website for more information. Don't hesitate to contact us if you need some help.
We hope to hear from you soon. website | pdf

Journée Francophone Internationale
March 28, 19 p.m
La Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones d'Amérique (SPFFA) avec le concours de l'Association culturelle francophone de l'ONU (ACF) organise le 28 mars 2008 une Journée francophone internationale ainsi qu'un Gala pour la remise du prix L.S.Senghor à Abdou Diouf, Secrétaire Général de l'OIF.
Salle à manger des Délégués à l'ONU, United Nations, 1st Avenue & 46th Street. read

Accueil New York celebrates its 20th anniversary.
March 15th

A gala event is organized by Accueil New York to bring together everyone in the French American community and celebrate 20 years of active life in New York. We have planned a wonderful evening of gastronomy, music and dance on a cruise around NYC with prestigious surprise gifts.
$100 per person for ANY members and their spouse, $150 per person for non members. You can reserve this magic evening sending an e.mail to any20ans@earthlink.net and your check to the order of Accueil New York and at the following address:
Accueil New York, Consulat General de France
ANY 20 Ans, 934 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10021

3-Day Immersion Summer Institute For Teachers Of French
June 30- July 2008

Embassy Of France/NCLRC & Marcel LaVergne, Ed.D. (Boston University)
An enjoyable, informative live-in immersion seminar on French language and culture. The focus is on effective facilitation of communication in the FL classroom and integrating teaching communication and culture. Activities include French meals, a visit to the French Embassy, and the French collection at the National Gallery. (Conducted in French). For more information please see our website

Justice, DJ Mehdi, Myspace Music Tour
March 11, 8 p.m

Justice is a French electro house duo. Their main trademark is a large light-up cross that shines throughout their shows. Their debut album † was Mixmag's Album of the Month in June 2007.
DJ Mehdi was a former disc jockey of the collective Mafia K'1 Fry. Being recognised for his efforts and budding into one of the French underground hip hop music scene’s premier producers, since then he has pushed the boundary’s by mixing hip hop and electronic music. The American audience may be familiar with Mehdi's I am Somebody used in a 2007 commercial for XM radio. ticket | listen
WaMu Theatre at Madison Square Garden

Travels in Europe: Charles Tessier
Sunday, March 30 3:00 p.m

Charles Tessier (fl. c. 1600) may not be a common household name, but this prolific French composer had an enormous impact on music of his time. He held positions on various royal courts, wrote in many international styles, and was widely admired. (Even the renowned John Dowland borrowed from him.) The outstanding ensemble Le Poème Harmonique, a champion of innovative and brilliant composers of the early 17th century, travels through Tessier’s itinerant career in Europe. The American Academy of Arts & Letters, which may be New York’s greatest and most beautiful space for music, is the fitting host to this magnificent performance.
American Academy of Arts and Letters
156th St b/w Broadway and Riverside Drive
website

Christine Capdeville
March 12, 7.30 p.m

Christine Capdeville, Vocals and Composition
Sandro Albert, Guitar and Musical Direction
Santi De Briano, Double Bass
Ernesto Simpson, Drums
Zinc Bar, 90 Houston Street, New York
read | website | listen

Les Arts Florissants
Thursday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m
The vocal and instrumental ensemble Les Arts Florissants is a renowned and respected early music group in Europe and around the world. Dedicated to the performance of Baroque music on original instruments, the ensemble was founded in 1979 by the Franco-American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, and takes its name from a short opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Les Arts Florissants has been largely responsible for the resurgence of interest in France in 17th-century French repertoire as well as in European music of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Zankel Hall 57th Street & 7th Avenue website | discover
The Global Graphic Novel, Straight out of Angoulême
March 5, 7 p.m

Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian have collaborated for twenty years, with their most successful comic series, “Monsieur Jean,” selling over 120,000 copies in France. The anthology of their work, Get a Life, won an Angoulême Alph-Art Award, one of the most coveted awards in the comic genre. Their work has appeared in The New Yorker and in drawn & quarterly and Dark Horse Presents.
Admission is free.
Housing Works Used Book Cafe, 126 Crosby Street, NYC website

French Voices 2008
We are pleased to announce that French Voices, a translation grant program administered by the French Embassy and the PEN American Center, is now accepting applications for 2008. In 2007, over ten titles were selected.
website

Dominique Fabre: The Waitress Was New
It’s not a dramatic unraveling, but a sad, slow leave-taking that forms the wounded heart of Dominique Fabre’s beguiling little novel, which is elegantly translated by Jordan Stump…. Here is the world of a French café turned inside out by a hugely empathic bar-tender who doesn’t miss a thing which goes on around him… The mixture of Pierre’s hugely likable voice and the acute melancholy of his observations lends "The Waitress Was New" the peculiar mystery and vividness of lived experience.
John Freeman, President of the National Book Critics Circle
review

Non Fiction
Des intellectuels, universitaires, journalistes français ont lancé depuis quatre mois un important site web sur les livres et les idées en France. Ce site est un outil gratuit particulièrement utile nous semble-t-il pour les universitaires américains, les professeurs de français aux Etats-Unis et pour leurs étudiants. Il permet de rester en contact avec la vie des livres et des idées en France, d'avoir des comptes rendus des principaux ouvrages publiés en France et de participer au débat d'idées entre nos deux pays.
website

French Film Stars at the Payne Whitney Mansion
Through March 14

For two weeks only, 25 portraits of famous French film stars taken by the renowned Harcourt Studio will be on display at the French Cultural Services’ New York headquarters, the Payne Whitney Mansion. The exhibit coincides with the “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema” film festival at the Lincoln Center, held in partnership with Unifrance. The superb black and white photos will feature shots of internationally recognized French movie stars, including Sophie Marceau, Jeanne Moreau, and Lambert Wilson. see | website
Cultural Services of the Embassy of France 972 Fifth Avenue, Weekdays from 1 pm-5 pm

Martine Fourgeron, Tête-à-Tête Series I-IV
Through April 12

Tête-à-Tête is a series of intimate portraits of the artist’s two adolescent sons and their friends.
The exhibition consists of 18 color photographs, covering a two-year period from 2005 to 2007. For further information and directions, consult the Press Release.

Exhibition on Marquis de Lafayette
Daily through March 9th, 2008

The New York Historical Society, the city's first museum and cultural institution, is proud to present a truly groundbreaking exhibition on the Marquis de Lafayette. This exhibition, which includes a "jewel box" display of Mount Vernon's Lafayette and Washington, explores Lafayette's return visit to the United States in 1824-1825, which rarely exhibited historical materials and objects from New York Historical Society's collection. website
The New York Historical Society 170 Central Park West at 77th Street

Marion Cotillard wins Best Actress Oscar
With a phenomenal performance as singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose," Cotillard pulled an upset win for best actress over Julie Christie.
Cotillard was the first French performer since 1960 to win an Oscar in the best actress category.

James Ivory in Paris, Seven Films Exploring James Ivory's French Connection.
March 2008

The body of work sculpted by James Ivory over nearly five decades of filmmaking shares few peers in beauty and quality. Whether staring into the soul of middle America or reconstructing Paris at the dawn of the Revolution, Ivory’s keen, penetrating eye for humanity in his characters has never failed him. In the seven films presented here, Ivory offers us gripping portraits of Americans finding themselves as strangers in a strange land, whether it be France, or America itself.
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street website

Work Hard, Play Hard
March 13, 7:30 pm

A reflection on the work place today where people who have given their lives working for a company suddenly face an uncertain future…
Maison Française: Buell Hall, East Gallery website

Focus on French Cinema
March 28 to 30

Focus on French Cinema announces its fourth annual festival. This festival, dedicated to the awareness and promotion of French cinema (including movies produced by French speaking countries), is presented by Alliance Française of Greenwich, Purchase College and French Feeling Films. The festival will start with the Opening Night on Friday March 28, and will feature thirteen movies including US Premières that will be presented throughout the three days of the event.
Performing Arts Center of Purchase College located north of New York City on the border of Greenwich, Connecticut.
website

Days of Glory
Wednesday, March 19 at 10:30am

Indigènes, for Grades 9-12
Four young North Africans enlist in the French Army to liberate France, their “motherland,” from the Nazis. They win numerous battles, but soon find themselves alone to defend an Alsatian village against a German battalion. website | reservations

Curiosphere Web TV
Lancement de Curiosphere tv, première Web TV éducative en libre accès. Curiosphere.tv s’adresse aux parents, professeurs et associations, tous médiateurs éducatifs qui veulent aller encore plus loin, bénéficier de davantage d’informations sur la transmission des connaissances. Certains y trouveront des clefs pour aider les enfants (les orienter, les aider dans leurs travaux, comprendre leur scolarité…), d’autres viendront y partager leur vécu, leurs bonnes pratiques, leurs inquiétudes ou y piocher des idées pour compléter leurs cours ou approfondir leur métier.

Staged reading of Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi"
March 7, 6 p.m

The Center for French Studies is pleased to announce a staged-reading by the Department of French and Italian's L'Atelier, the French Theater Workshop, of Alfred Jarry's 1896 "Ubu Roi".
Princeton Art Museum website

Edouard Glissant, “Philosophie de la Relation”
March 11, 5 p.m

Lecture in French, with screen projection of English translation.
Poet, novelist, playwright, philosopher of aesthetics and poetics, theoretician of Creolisation and of the All-World in the face of globalization, Nobel Prize nominee, Edouard Glissant is Distinguished Professor of French at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Contact: 212-817-8365
365 5th Avenue

A Postcolonial Syndicalism: the Politics of Labor in the French “Outre-mer”
March 11, 12:30 p.m

Anthropologist, University of Chicago; pre-doctoral fellow, Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies, University of Virginia; dissertation title: A Striking Past: Labor and the Politics of History in the French Antilles .
Institute of French Studies, 15 Washington Mews

Continental Shifts: The Art of Edouard Duval Carrié
March 27, 6 p.m

Continental Shifts: The Art of Edouard Duval-Carrié features the magical realism captured in both painting and sculpture by this important Haitian-born artist. The art of Duval-Carrié exhibits a dynamic blend of Afro-Caribbean culture, fantasy, and spectacular ornamentation.
La Maison Française, New York University , 16 Washington Mews, New York website

Québécois Writers in the U.S.: A Fresh Perspective
March 18, 7 p.m

Three celebrated Québécois writers living south of the Canadian border will discuss their work in the context of French Canadian culture. Presented during the Semaine de la Francophonie and on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Québec City by Samuel de Champlain and the inauguration of French-language culture in North America.
Free Admission
The Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, New York 10021

More conferences:
Center for French Studies at Princeton --- website
Institute of French Studies at NYU --- website
Maison francaise of Columbia University --- website
City University of New York ---- website
Maison francaise of New York University --- website

Lady Day
March 19, 1 p.m

La African American Playwright's Exchange vous invite a nous joindre pour une lecture d'une nouvelle piece sur Billie Holiday.
La lecture est faite par l'actrice francaise Juliette Fairley dans le role de Billie Holiday et la suissesse Liliane Klein dans le role do son amie Katie Rose, dans une mise en scene de Thierry Saintine, originaire de Haiti.
Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South, New York City. Free entrance.

First Grade Teacher, Brooklyn
PS 58 in Brooklyn, NY is looking to recruit a first grade teacher for the first grade dual language class. Our school follows a self-contained dual language model. The teacher teaches in French in the mornings and in English in the afternoons to the same group of students. PS 58 is a vibrant community of students, educators and parents. We are looking for candidates with the following qualifications:
* Certification in one or several of the following areas: Childhood Education Grades 1-6, French 7-12 and/or Bilingual Extension - French
* Experience teaching in elementary school settings
* Knowledge of balanced literacy
* Ability to teach in both languages
* contact: mariebouteillon@hotmail.com

Jean Mirvil, principal of the school PS73, in the Bronx, is looking for a teacher for a new dual language program in grade K for the 2008-2009 school year. Contact him at JMirvil@schools.nyc.gov

A bientot,

Fabrice Jaumont
Education Attache
French Embassy
972 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10021


More news on French cultural and educational events on http://www.frenchculture.org
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