Thursday, March 11, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

The Art of NonFiction: David Shields

Shields reads from Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, a work that explores literary license, quotation, and appropriation in television, film, performance art, rap and graffiti, in lyric essays, prose poems and collage novels. He is the author of nine previous books including The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead and Black Planet which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award.

Saturday, March 13, 1:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Bond Street Theatre presents: The Garden Party

Two bumbling gardeners do their best to turn a vacant lot into a flowering park for a picnic lunch. But there's a great deal of comic juggling, tumbling and slapstick to get the job done, as the two must learn to work together. There's also magic, amazing stilt dancing and audience participation throughout this high-energy and wholly original show.

Saturday, March 13, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Russian Literary Series: Yulia Latynina

Latynina is, a journalist, writer and radio host, known for her independent political stance and journalistic courage. In 2008, her investigative reports earned her the Freedom Defenders Award by the US Department of State. This program is in Russian. PLEASE NOTE: Registration is closed.

Sunday, March 14, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Mercy Otis Warren: The Muse of the Revolution

Nancy Rubin Stuart discusses Warren, the first female historian of the American Revolution. A "Founding Mother" Warren wrote about the Revolution from her own recollections and those of her patriotic friends John and Abigail Adams, Sam Adams, Martha and George Washington, Henry Knox and Elbridge Gerry. She was also our nation's first female playwright and ardent advocate for a Bill of Rights.

Sunday, March 14, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Trio Cavatina

Harumi Rhodes, violin, Priscilla Lee, cello, and Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano, are Trio Cavatina, winner of the 2009 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. The prize includes a Carnegie Hall debut concert in Weill Hall in May of 2010 as well as a composition to be written for the Trio by Richard Danielpour.

Tuesday, March 16, 6:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

(Some of ) The World's Best Movies: The Cranes Are Flying

Veronica and Boris are a young couple in the blush of love, until the eruption of World War II tears them apart. Veronica suffers on the home front with no word from her lover, and tries to avoid the advances of Boris's draft-dodging cousin. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, the film is a superbly crafted drama, bolstered by stunning cinematography and impassioned performances.

Thursday, March 18, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Rediscovering the Work that Built America: a talk with Jessica DuLong

Author/Fireboat Engineer Jessica DuLong, a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed merchant marine officer, is one of the world's only female fireboat engineers. Her passion for the Hudson River took shape at her post in the diesel exhaust-filled engine room of retired New York City fireboat John. J. Harvey. She and her crewmates pumped water to firefighters at Ground Zero following the September eleventh attacks. She reads from My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson.

Saturday, March 20, 1:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Circus Tales

Folktales go to the Circus in this performance that interweaves stories with physical comedy, circus skills, and fun!!

Saturday, March 20, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Cosmopolis: Immigrant Writers in NYC: Andre Aciman

Egyptian-born Aciman reads from his new novel Eight White Nights, a story about the fears, longings and tensions that accompany new romance. Aciman is the author of the novel Call Me by Your Name, of the memoir Out of Egypt and of False Papers: Essays on Exile and Memory. He has co-authored and edited The Proust Project and Letters of Transit. WNYC's Leonard Lopate hosts.

Sunday, March 21, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Author Talk with Tayari Jones

Jones is the author of The Untelling, a novel about personal history and individual and familial myth-making, and Leaving Atlanta, a coming of age story set during the city's infamous child murders of 1979-81.

Sunday, March 21, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Missy Mazzoli and Victoire

This chamber-rock ensemble, founded by composer/pianist Mazzoli, is a stirring blend of winds, strings, keyboards and lo-fi electronics. An all-female quintet, Victoire performs Mazzoli's distinct blend of dreamy post rock, quirky minimalism and rich romanticism.

Tuesday, March 23, 6:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

(Some of) The World's Best Movies: Picnic at Hanging Rock

This early Peter Weir film (Gallipoli, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show) is regarded as the first international film success from Australia, Three students and a school teacher disappear on an excursion to Hanging Rock, in Victoria, Australia on Valentine's Day, 1900. The reason for their disappearance, whether by human, natural or supernatural agency, is never discovered, but their disappearance has a profound effect upon everybody in their community.

Wednesday, March 24, 2:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

DISRUPTED LIVES: A Reading Group led by scholar Morris Dickstein

Between the 1930s and the 1970s, many American writers shifted their focus from the large dilemmas of the whole society to the private troubles of the individual. This reading group will take up five short works - four novels and one influential memoir - that deal with lives disrupted by inner and outer challenges, ranging from the brutal effects of the Depression or the Holocaust to the problems that complicate ordinary human needs, hopes, and relationships. This group will read: March 3: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck March 24: Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West April 14: Seize the Day by Saul Bellow May 5: Night by Elie Wiesel May 26: The Ghost Writer. By Philip Roth This group will meet in the Reverend Elsie Smith Room, located next to the Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture.

Thursday, March 25, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Poetry Cafe with Staceyann Chin

The Tenth National Black Writers' Conference at Medgar Evers College presents an afternoon of performance poetry, featuring Staceyann Chin. In addition to performing in and co-writing the Tony-nominated Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Chin has appeared in Off-Broadway one-woman shows at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Thursday, March 25, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Author Talk: Vera Pavlova

Author Vera Pavlova gives a bilingual poetry reading in both English and Russian.

Saturday, March 27, 1:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Big Ideas about Books!

Award-winning singer-songwriter Patricia Shih returns to the Central Library for an encore performance, this time singing about books and the love of reading. Ms. Shih's all-ages, all-audience participation concerts are full of fun, excitement, education... and most important, YOU! Come down to help make "music with meaning" and sing, dance and laugh along while we remember how we learned to read and how we LOVED learning how to learn. Patricia has a special capcacity to reach the smallest toddler and the most mature senior spreading joy and wonder throughout her audience.

Saturday, March 27, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Bruce Adolphe: Piano Puzzlers Live!

Is that Take Me Out to the Ball Game or a Rachmaninoff Prelude? Is that a Cole Porter tune or a Bach fugue? Join composer-pianist and quiz-master Bruce Adolphe for a live version of his public radio program Piano Puzzlers as heard on public radio's Performance Today with host Fred Child for the past five years. Guess the tunes Adolph disguises as music by great composers such as Bach, Mozart, Ravel, Debussy, Chopin and more!

Sunday, March 28, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Author Talk with Steven V. Roberts

In his book My Father's Houses, journalist Roberts chronicled the riveting story of his grandparents' resettlement in this country nearly a century ago. Now he profiles the contemporary faces of immigration in From Every End of This Earth: 13 Families and the New Lives They Made in America. Roberts and his wife, television journalist and author Cokie Roberts, write a popular nationally syndicated newspaper column.

Sunday, March 28, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Claremont Trio

Widely regarded as the premier piano trio of its generation, the Claremont Trio is sought after for its thrillingly virtuosic and richly communicative performances. First winners of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award and the only piano trio ever to win the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, the Claremonts are consistently lauded for their aesthetic maturity, interpretive depth and exuberance.

Thursday, April 1, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival : Papo Vazquez Pirates Troubadours

Trombonist and composer Vazquez brings his Pirates Troubadours ensemble consisting of Willie Williams (sax), Zaccai Curtis (piano), John Benitez (bass), Anthony Carrillo (congas) and Victor Jones (drums). Papo's trombine style combines elements of Jazz, Afro-Caribbean rhythms to create his special blend of Latin Jazz. He is considered by many as one of the pioneers of Afro Puerto Rican Jazz which is a mix of Puerto Rican Bomba, Plena and Jibaro music.

Tuesday, April 6, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Russian Film Series: Documentaries by Boris Dvorkin

Epitaph is based on the music and life of Dmitry Shostakovish. Nyama is a documentary portrait of an important Russian composer Nikolay Myaskovsky. Both films are in Russian with English subtitles.

Thursday, April 8, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Brooklyn Sings, Brooklyn Swings: Beat Kaestli

The Swiss-born crooner returns for an encore performance! Kaestli performs regularly at Birdland, The BlueNote and The Bitter End, inspiring audiences with his silky renditions of American standards.

Saturday, April 10, 1:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Ti-Oh-Oh (The Sky is Getting Dark)

Ti-Oh-Oh is Cinese Theatre Works' first glove puppetry production. This lively and engaging introduction to Chinese arts and culture for audiences of all ages showcases the Taiwanese hand puppet trandition's range - humorous to romantic to heroic - in three scenes accompanied by traditional Chinese music.

Saturday, April 10, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Russian Literary Series: Yuri Rost

Yuri Rost is a photographer, writer, journalist, poet and traveler. His latest project Group Portrait on the Backdrop of the Century, a collection of 250 photos and 145 original captions, was named the 2008 Book of the Year in Russia. This program is presented in Russian

Sunday, April 11, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Silent Film Series - THE CAMERAMAN (1928)

Buster Keaton stars in the feature-length film, a New York City slapstick-romance, where love for a woman named Sally, and friendship with a monkey named Josephine, aid him in his quest to become a newsreel cameraman. Plus Flim Flam Films, a Felix the Cat cartoon short. Curated by Ken Gordon. Live Piano accompaniment by Stuart Oderman. This program lasts 83 minutes.

Sunday, April 11, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Forte String Quartet

The Quartet celebrates the 20th Anniversary by performing a program that includes Mozart, Shostakovich, Beethovan and Roumo Petrova. The quartet iscomprised of award-winning artists originally trained in the classic schools of old Ukraine and Bulgaria.

Tuesday, April 13, 6:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

War and the City: All Through the Night

This Nazi spy caper uses humor to expose some chilling episodes in pre-Pearl Harbor New York City when the German-American Bund was plotting its potentially deadly mischief. Humphry Bogart as patriotic gangster "Gloves" Donahue confronts a sinister German spy ring run by Peter Lorre who plans to blow up a Britain-bound tanker in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Wednesday, April 14, 2:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

DISRUPTED LIVES: A Reading Group led by scholar Morris Dickstein

Between the 1930s and the 1970s, many American writers shifted their focus from the large dilemmas of the whole society to the private troubles of the individual. This reading group will take up five short works - four novels and one influential memoir - that deal with lives disrupted by inner and outer challenges, ranging from the brutal effects of the Depression or the Holocaust to the problems that complicate ordinary human needs, hopes, and relationships. This group will read works by John Steinbeck, Nathaniel West, Saul Bellow, Eli Wiesel, and Philip Roth. This group will meet in the Reverend Elsie Smith Room, located next to the Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture.

Thursday, April 15, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Author talk: Anselm and Edmund Berrigan

Poets Anselm Berrigan and Edmund Berrigan will read from and discuss co-editing projects The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (University of California, 2005), and the Selected Poems of Steve Carey (Sub Press, 2009), as well as their own recent works.

Saturday, April 17, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Cosmopolis: Immigrant Writers in NYC: Sana Krasikov

Krasikov reads from her story collection One More Year, which chronicles the lives of Russian and Georgian immigrants who have settled on the East coast. The author was born in the Ukraine and grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and in the United States. A graduate of the Iowa Writers'Workshop, she is a recipient of an O.Henry Award and a Fulbright scholarship. WNYC's Leonard Lopate hosts.

Sunday, April 18, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Film Screening: The Other Side of Immigration

This film offers a unique and under-reported perspective on Mexican immigration. Rather than focus on immigrants living in the United States, director Roy Germano makes us consider the lives of those left behind in some of Mexico's poorest rural areas. Germano introduces the film.

Sunday, April 18, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Moet Trio

Equally in demand as concert soloists and recitalists, Yuri Namkung, Yves Dharamraj and Michael Mizrahi formed the Moet Trio in 2005. These technically and interpretatively outstanding musicians held artistic residencies at Ottawa's National Arts Centre and Music@Menlo. The Trio currently resides in the Professional Piano Training Program at the New England Conservatory of Music, where they study with Donald and Vivian Weilerstein.

Tuesday, April 20, 6:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

War and the City: The House on 92nd Street

A German-American college student becomes a double agent for the FBI after he is approached by a Nazi spy ring. His effort to locate the head of the ring takes him to a townhouse on 92nd Street. Shot in semi-documentary style, the film's title comes from an actual storefront in Manhattan's Yorkville that sold Nazi paraphernalia and served as the German-American Bund's headquarters.

Thursday, April 22, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Brooklyn Independents: The Graywolf Poets

Graywolf Press presents an evening of verse from award-winning poets. Matthea Harvey is the author of three books of poetry, including Modern Life, and Sad Little Breathing Machine. Catie Rosemurgy is the author of the poetry collections My Favorite Apocalypse and The Stranger Manual. Tom Sleigh?s most recent book, Space Walk, won the Kingsley Tufts Award.

Saturday, April 24, 1:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Harry the Dirty Dog

Harry has everything a little white dog with black spots could want. There's just one problem: he hates taking baths. He hates them so much, in fact, that one morning he runs away. After a wonderful day spent playing in the dirt, Harry gets so grubby that he turns into a little black dog with white spots...and returns home to find that his family doesn't recognize him! ArtsPower's new musical, based on the classic book by Gene Zion with illustrations by Margaret Bloy Graham, captures both the whimsical humor and touching dedication to family found in Harry's story.

Saturday, April 24, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Picasso, Matisse and Africa

Museum of Modern Art lecturer Larissa Bailiff details the influence of African art on the work of Pablo Picasso and of North African Islamic art on the paintings of Henri Matisse, as well as the relationship between these two artists. Bailiff is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, specializing in 19th Century European Art, and has taught undergraduate and graduate art history courses at Pratt and FIT.

Sunday, April 25, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Over Here!: New York City during World War II

Author Lorraine Diehl discusses New York's role on the home front during World War II. American Nazis goose-stepped in Yorkville on the Upper East Side, while recently arrived Jewish ?migr?s found refuge on the Upper West Side. The Brooklyn Navy Yard refitted ships, and German U-boats attacked convoys leaving New York Harbor.

Sunday, April 25, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Benjamin Hochman and Alex Fiterstein

Israeli musicians Hochman, piano, and Fiterstein, clarinet, present Brahms' Sonata in F minor Op. 120 No. 1 and Sonata in E flat Major Op. 120 No. 2, as well as Schumann's Nachtstucke Op. 23 and Fantasiestucke Op. 73. Hochman has achieved widespread acclaim for his performances as orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Fiterstein is one of the leading clarinetists of his generation. He was just named a 2009 winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Tuesday, April 27, 6:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

War and the City: Mr. Lucky

Socialite Laraine Day is wooed by gambler Cary Grant in this romantic wartime film in which Day's character is modeled after real-life socialite Natalie Wales Latham, founder of "Bundles for Britian." The charity that started out as a storefront knitting circle to clothe war-torn Britons became a nation-wide organization sending ambulances and medical equipment to a beseiged England suffering under the German blitz.

Thursday, April 29, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Brooklyn Independents: Ugly Duckling Poets

Three poets with new and forthcoming books on Ugly Duckling Presse will read from their new collections. Rachel Levitsky reads from Neighbor, Rick Snyder reads from Escape from Combray and Karen Weiser reads from To Light Out.

Saturday, May 1, 1:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

The Brave Calf

Teatro IATI presents this story of a little calf who decides to leave his stall to see the world. The calf, with the help of his new friends, teaches the importance of friendship, teamwork and collective care of the environment.

Saturday, May 1, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Russian Literary Series: Podstrochinik

Oleg Dorman introduces the film Podstrochnik (Literal Translation), which will be screened in an excerpted format. The film's protagonist, Liliana Lunguina, a well-known translator and mother of two Russian film directors, narrates the history of the Soviet Union as experienced by members of Russian intelligentsia. The book based on this movie became an immediate hit, and the film became the most important cultural event in Russia in 2009.

Sunday, May 2, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

PEN World Voices Festival: Melvin Van Peebles

The director, actor, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer discusses his work and the independent spirit that guided his business and creative choices. Van Peebles is best known for his films, which inspired the rise of the blaxploitation genre

Sunday, May 2, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Music off the Shelves

Meet the Brooklyn Philharmonic in the center of St. Petersburg! This concert will feature string quartets from the famous Russian Five composers: Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. The afternoon will also include readings from Aleksander Pushkin's great poem The Bronze Horseman among other literary works.

Tuesday, May 4, 6:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

War and the City: Saboteur

When a California airplane plant is destroyed by fire, a factory worker is suspected of being a saboteur. On the run to find the real culprit, he uncovers a plot by German agents to destroy a U.S. Navy ship in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Hitchcock incorporated actual newsreels of the burning Normandie to underscore the spy ring's deadly ambitions. In a grand gesture of patriotism, the director chose New York City's Statue of Liberty for the film's final good-versus-evil duel.

Wednesday, May 5, 2:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

DISRUPTED LIVES: A Reading Group led by scholar Morris Dickstein

Between the 1930s and the 1970s, many American writers shifted their focus from the large dilemmas of the whole society to the private troubles of the individual. This reading group will take up five short works - four novels and one influential memoir - that deal with lives disrupted by inner and outer challenges, ranging from the brutal effects of the Depression or the Holocaust to the problems that complicate ordinary human needs, hopes, and relationships. This group will read works by John Steinbeck, Nathaniel West, Saul Bellow, Eli Wiesel, and Philip Roth. This group will meet in the Reverend Elsie Smith Room, located next to the Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture.

Thursday, May 6, 7:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Brooklyn Sings, Brooklyn Swings: Antoinette Montague

Montague considers Carrie Smith, Etta Jones, Della Griffin and Myrna Lake to be her mentors. She has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, the Zebra Room in Harlem's famous Lenox Lounge, the legendary Blue Note, The Jazz Standard with the Winard Harper Sextet and Dr. Billy Taylor. Born and raised in Newark.

Saturday, May 8, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Picasso: Themes and Variations

Trace Picasso's development from the early years of the twentieth century, with depictions of circus performers in his Blue and Rose periods, to his discovery of Cubism. Learn about Picasso's evolving artistic vision through decades of experimentation in etching, lithography, and linoleum cut, demonstrating how each technique inspired new directions in his work. Earn a free ticket to the Museum of Modern Art to see Picasso: Themes and Variations, on view at MoMA from March 24 to September 6, 2010.

Sunday, May 9, 1:30PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Awakened by the Moon: Margaret Wise Brown

Leonard Marcus, author of Minders of Make Believe, discusses the life and work of Greenpoint native Margaret Wise Brown on the occasion of her 100th birthday. Brown was the author of the beloved children's classics, Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Marcus wrote the definitive biography of Brown, Awakened by the Moon.

Sunday, May 9, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Classical Interludes: Schumann and Chopin

AmerKlavier celebrates the bicentennial of Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856) and Fryderyk Chopin (1810 - 1849). Directed by the renowned artist and teacher Eteri Andjaparidze, AmerKlavier is a piano performance studio for young musicians with exceptional talent.