Indy Events Calendar April 5–11

The Indypendent’s events calendar comes out every Wednesday online and once a month in print. We provide this calendar as a service to the communities we serve in the New York metropolitan area. Sign-up for our regular e-newsletter and you won’t miss a thing. If there is an event you want others to learn about, let us know.

THURS APRIL 5
1:00PM, 3:30PM & 6:45PM • $15
SCREENING: Bill Gunn’s Personal Problems
Bill Gunn, actor, screenwriter, novelist and director of the art-horror classic Ganja & Hess (1973), teamed with writer Ishmael Reed to produce what Reed has called a “meta-soap opera” — an exceptional, rough-edged ensemble piece exploring black working class lives in New York City with candor and emotional intensity. Catch it before its run ends at the Metrograph on Thursday.
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St., Mnhtn

THURS APRIL 5
7PM–9PM • FREE
OPEN HOUSE: Woke Foods
Woke Foods uses it’s platform to share vegan and vegetarian Dominican food practices. If you also see food as a political, emotional and spiritual exchange, a collaboration of skill, heart and ancestry, you may want to join the Woke Foods co–op as a worker-owner, volunteer or intern.
Bank Note Building (Green Worker Cooperatives)
1231 Lafayette Ave., 2nd Fl., Bronx

APRIL 6–APRIL 8
FRI–SUN, times vary • $25–$85
FESTIVAL: The 10th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival
The best in American and world folk music; a celebration of down-home music, cultural diversity and memory in the heart of Brooklyn. This years lineup includes Blind Boy Paxton, the East River String Band with R. Crumb and legendary Roman street musician, Birdman. Plus workshops, open jam sessions and annual banjo throwing competition. Visit brooklynfolkfest.com for a full schedule.
St. Ann’s Church
157 Montague St., Bklyn

Jessy Carolina & The Hot Mess at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. Credit: Brian Geltner.

FRI APRIL 6
7PM • $13, $10 for seniors & students
SCREENING: Ugetsu
This new 4K restoration of Kenji Mizoguchi’s towering masterpiece offers viewers an opportunity to appreciate the nuance of cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa’s exquisite images. A haunting and elegant fable about the illusory nature of desire set during the civil wars of 16th century Japan, Ugetsu weaves reality and fantasy together with painterly images that unfurl like scenes from an emaki scroll.
Japan Society
333 E 47th St., Mnhtn

SAT APRIL 7
1PM–3PM • $25 for adults, FREE for children under 12
ART: Explore This! Activity Stations
Designed for the whole family, engaging activities will be set up in front of select artworks at MoMA, allowing you to spend time discovering modern and contemporary art together. Choose the art and activities that interest your family and move at your own pace.
The Museum of Modern Art
11 W 53rd St., Mnhtn

SAT APRIL 7
2PM–5PM • FREE
TRAINING: Introduction to Direct Action
Hosted by Rainforest Action Network, this training will cover a brief history on direct action and the tools needed to plan your own protest.
Mayday Space
176 St Nicholas Ave., Bklyn

SAT APRIL 7
9PM • FREE
PERFORMANCE: Dr. John Cooper Clarke
In his latest show the original people’s poet mixes verse, ponderings on modern life and good honest gags — a chance to witness a living legend at the top of this game.
Joe’s Pub at The Public
425 Lafayette St., Mnhtn

SUN APRIL 8
12PM–6PM • FREE
READING: Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts In High School
“When you look in the mirror and see a smart, angry girl who wants to be free, you’re seeing a paradigm Kathy helped bring into the realm of the recognizable,” writes Sarah Schulman in The Gentrification of the Mind. Schulman, who has lived across from Performance Space New York for the last forty years, invites more than seventy artists — including many of Kathy Acker’s peers, friends, mentees and cultural descendants — for a marathon reading of the notorious 1978 novel Blood and Guts in High School. Its plot, partly situated in the East Village, spins the all-American coming-of-age story into a girl riot.
Performance Space New York
150 First Ave., Mnhtn

SUN APRIL 8
7PM–9PM • FREE
SCREENING: Mann V. Ford
A documentary describing the Ford corporation’s legacy of environmental contamination in northern New Jersey. At present, toxic chemicals still plague a neighboring indigenous community, the Ramapough Lenape Nation. Discussion to follow film.
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen St., Mnhtn

TUES APRIL 10
7:30PM • $10–$25 suggested donation
THEATER: Bread and Puppet presents The Basic Byebye Show
A manifesto on transformation inspired by Albrecht Dürer’s apocalyptic woodcuts and the daily news from a long-standing, upstart puppet troupe. The Basic Byebye Show expands on the traditional bye-byes of funerals and train stations by turning the saying into a political act. Say “bye-bye” to the gun as a practical tool for massacre-making, as a symbol of “freedom,” as an instrument of political influence and as an economic dependency.
West Park Presbyterian Church
165 W. 86th St., Mnhtn

Shelleyne Rodríguez, For Korryn Gaines through Emory Douglas, 2017, mixed media.

WEDS APRIL 11
6:30PM–8:30PM • FREE
PANEL: Latinx Art is American Art
Artists Miguel Luciano and Shelleyne Rodríguez join curators from the Whitney, Boston University and the Smithsonian for a discussion on Latin America’s artistic heritage and contemporary significance.
The New School
Theresa Lang Center 55 West 13th St., Mnhtn

WEDS APRIL 11
7PM–9PM • FREE
SCREENING: This is Parkdale
A screening and discussion of a documentary about how tenants in a Toronto neighborhood successfully organized to fight displacement and gentrification.
242 W 37th St., 5th Fl., Mnhtn’

WEDS APRIL 11
7PM–12AM • $10
SCREENING: Deep Web
Every Wednesday Superchief Gallery showcases amazing short films and video art at its independent movie theater. April 11 features Deep Web, a documentary that discusses the politics of the dark web while covering the trial of Ross Ulbricht and the events surrounding Silk Road and bitcoin.
Superchief Gallery NY
1628 Jefferson Ave., Queens

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Photo (top): Bread and Puppet performs The Byebye Show. Credit: Mark Dannenhauer.