City’s winter choice: dancing
There are plenty of ways to raise
your body temperature this winter and have some fun doing it (i.e. you don’t
have to use words like “cardio,” “reps,” or “ow”) That’s right, you should be dancing.
Many local groups and venues offer
dance nights in their genre of choice, often at low cost and with some sort of
basic instruction.
Sundays:
Argentine Tango atDancEncounters, HungerfordBuilding, 1115
East Main Street, 7-10
p.m. $7. 325-2101
Mondays:
Argentine Tangoat Tango Café, 700
South Clinton Avenue, 8:30 p.m. (lesson at 8 p.m.)
$5. 475-0249
International Folkat the Jewish Community Center, 1200 Edgewood Avenue, 7:45-9:45
p.m. $5. 624-1964
Tuesdays:
Ballroom Series at EdgertonCommunity
Center, 41 Backus Street,
7:30-9:30 p.m. $2. 428-6769
Wednesdays: Irish Country WorkshopsMcGinnity’s, 534 West Ridge
Road, Greece, 7:30-9:30 p.m. $2. 342-2756,
www.irishrochester.org
Swing and Ballroom
atDance Biz, 1742 Long Pond Road,
Gates, 8 to 10:30
p.m. $7. 254-0300
Swing DancEncounters,
1115 East Main Street, 2nd
Floor, 5:30 (classes), 8:30-10:30 p.m. (dance). $6.
748-9574
Argentine Tango, NeoTango Nasty D’s, 140 Alexander Street, 8 p.m. (lesson at 7 p.m.) $4. 256-1000,
www.midnighttango.com
Thursdays:
African Dance, with live jembe drums, at Bush
Mango Drum and Dance, 34 Elton Street,
7 p.m. 235-3960, www.bushmango.com
Contra at Covenant United, 1124
Culver Road, 8-11
p.m. $6. 244-2815, www.rochestercontra.com
Swingat St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 2000
Highland Avenue, 8-11
p.m., lesson 7:15 p.m.
$10. 244-2815, www.rochesterswingdance.com
Salsa at Tapas 177 Lounge, 177 St Paul Street, 9:30
p.m. Free. 21+ 262-2090,
www.tapas177.com
City’s winter choice: cinema
Because it’s not necessarily the big
season for blockbuster openings, winter can be a great time to catch up with
old favorites.
The George Eastman House’s Dryden
Theatre (900 East Avenue,
www.eastmanhouse.org, 271-3361) has a number of film programs this winter to
keep you occupied. “Intimate Stories” is a program screening in January and
February of eight films from Argentina’s
New Wave — the world’s most recent cinematic talent
surge. There is also a collection of “The Films of Louis Malle,
Part 1,” including A Very Private Affair,
Murmur of the Heart, Elevator to the Gallows, and The Lovers. (Part 2 is in March and
April.) On January 28, Tom Schiller, one of Saturday
Night Live’s original staff writers, will be in town to present a collection of the short
films he made for the show’s segment called “Schiller’s Reel.” And on Tuesdays
in February, the Dryden will screen four of Michael Caine’s
earlier movies, made between 1966 and 1970, in a celebration of mod cool.
And if you like your movies cheap and
in quantity, check in with the Cinema Theater (957
South Clinton Avenue, 271-1785). There are double
features of second-run movies at ridiculously low prices ($3) in a lovely old
theater — a theater, by the way, badly in need of business. You’ll miss it
when it’s gone.
WendaGu’s “100,000 Kilometers, 2004-5,”
an installation of hair bricks and panels, is on display at Albright-Knox.
City’s winter choice: out of town
museums
Sometimes cabin fever is so strong,
it pushes you right out of town. And sometimes that coincides with some really
good reasons for museum lovers to go. Here is a handful of destinations:
Buffalo:
There’s still time to see The Wall:
Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art at Albright-Knox Gallery
(www.albrightknox.org, 716-882-8700); it’s on display through January 29. And
A-K also has the Gusto at the Gallery program, free admission for activities on
Friday evenings. And you can be there for HallwallsContemporaryArtCenter’s
(www.hallwalls.org, 716-854-1694) January 14 grand reopening after extensive
rehabbing of the facility. Or, you can check in later for any of the wealth of
programming on tap: film retrospectives, visual art exhibits (see SuzyLake’s photos), and performing arts
events.
Corning:
Right now at the Corning Museum of Glass (www.cmog.org, 800-732-6845) the big
exhibit is on the glass of the ’60s, but there are tons of side exhibits,
family activities, and glassmaking demonstrations to keep everyone engaged,
whether they think they’re a fan of glass art or not. Plus, CMOG has the Free
to Rediscover program; if you pay admission once you
can go back free as often as you want the whole year. Corning also has the
Rockwell Museum of Western Art, where right now they are showing a collection
of Inuit Art. (www.rockwellmusuem.org, 607-937-5386)
Ithaca: Sciencenter (www.sciencenter.org, 607-272-0600) has a new
exhibit, Mars and Stars, opening on
January 15; Radio Days family workshops are on January 21 and March 4; and
there’s free admission on Sundays, February 5 and March 5.
Syracuse: Aftermarket: Art,
Objects and Commerce is an exhibit on display now through February 19 at
the Everson Museum of Art (www.everson.org, 315-474-6064). It includes several
projects: AllMyLifeForSale.com,
excerpts from an online performance piece; the giant installation Surplus; and Walm-Art.Com, a shop where Wal-Mart
items are sold at museum store prices.
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2006.
