Whether you are looking to start learning French, brush up on your skills, or take an advanced conversation class, ThinkFrench might be just what you need. The teachers at ThinkFrench are both university professors and native speakers, with over ten years of practice teaching French as a second language. Our classes offer a truly unique learning experience - each 8 week session gives you access to a private blog that has been specifically designed to help you master contemporary French, the kind of French that is being spoken on the streets of Paris today. The first 8 week sessions for levels 1, 2 and 3 are starting in early September. A few spots remain open at the moment. 
Please visit our blog for more details : 

http://www.thinkfrenchnyc.blogspot.com/

We look forward to hearing from you. À très bientôt.

The ThinkFrench team. 

Alwan for the Arts, New York’s leader in promoting the diverse culture and arts of the Middle East, presents So You Think You Can Dabkeh, a series exploring the traditional and popular line dances of the Levant region of the Middle East. Through participatory and performance events in Manhattan and Brooklyn from September 8 - October 13, 2012, Alwan will celebrate one of the most publicly performed and beloved traditional dances of Arab Americans. The events are open to the public and funded in part by NYSCA.

Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature the original work of French artist, Sylvie Vermandel.  The opening reception will be held on Thursday night, September 20, 2012 from 6-8 pm

About the Artist

The oil paintings of French artist Sylvie Vermandel, which the artist refers to as ‘jewel paintings,’ are simultaneously representational and symbolic, reflective of the beautiful natural world that surrounds us as well as the spirituality and light that underscores everything we experience. Rather than using a palette, Vermandel mixes her colors directly on the canvas in thin layers, creating varying contrasts so that the observer is able to attain new perspectives on the painting. She adds an entirely new dimension of light and texture by incorporating such elements as crystals, gold leaf and silver sequins into each piece. What results is a harmony of color, tone and light that celebrates the artist’s great love for Mother Earth and is designed to bring out the positive side of life through sy

17 GIRLS (Cannes Film Festival International’s Critics Week selection), is Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s provocative debut feature focusing on a group of bored teenage girls who all make an irrevocable pact, a story inspired by a true headline-grabbing case which took place in Massachusetts.

When Camille (Louise Grinberg, The Class) accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high-school classmates to follow suit, so they can raise their children collectively, an act at once unexpected and incomprehensible.  It’s only a matter of time, before seventeen girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos.  Set in the writer-directors’ small, seaside hometown of Lorient in Brittany, 17 GIRLS is a reflection on adolescence, body image, friendship and the perplexing realities of growing up.

Prior to 17 GIRLS, Delphine (also a novelist) and Muriel Coulin (a documentary director) directed five award-winning short films together. Louise Gr

Ticket Info | Membership Offer | Follow the Film Society

André S. Labarthe in person for select screenings on 10/3 and 10/4!

In 1964, film critic and filmmaker André S. Labarthe, together with Janine Bazin, widow of influential film theorist André Bazin, approached the French television channel ORTF about starting a program that would resemble the long, in-depth interviews with film directors that magazines such as Cahiers du cinéma and Positif regularly published. ORTF gave the green light, and Cinéastes de notre temps (Filmmakers of Our Time) was born. Many of the programs were dedicated to older directors, then in retirement or in the final stages of their careers. Instead of TV journalists, Labarthe and Bazin would often ask well-known film directors to make these programs: thus, Jacques Rivette on Jean Renoir, or Jacques Rozier on Jean Vigo.

Cinéastes de notre temps lasted until 1971, when ORTF, for various clear and unclear reasons, decided to terminate production. Over the follo

The painted Narcissus, attributed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio ca 1599, will be the focal image of french artist Francine LeClercq's installation, whereas the erring gaze of Narcissus, the visual echo reverberating between the illusionistic picture plane and the actual gallery setting, the existential reciprocity between the subject and object, form and content, …, are parallel notions and traits that LeClercq uses to investigate the modern context and premise within which a work may be produced, placed and perceived. 

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Narcissus, la nouvelle exposition de l'artiste française Francine LeClercq est à découvrir du 4 au 27 Octobre à la gallerie Soho20 à Chelsea. Cette installation tourne autour de l'oeuvre "Narcissus" attribuée à Caravaggio.

For preview and images, please visit: http://francineleclercq.blogspot.com/

For further information, please contact Jenn Dierdorf at info@soho20gallery.com

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON
cuts from Hamlet. A 45 minute event for friends to gather at a wonderful venue, drink beer, and watch a few Shakespeare scenes.

Adapted and Directed by Knud Adams. Produced by Brian Miskell.

Version moderne de Shakespeare présentée dans un café théâtre. Adaptation et mise en scène Knud Adams. Production : Brian Miskell. 

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON
cuts from Hamlet. A 45 minute event for friends to gather at a wonderful venue, drink beer, and watch a few Shakespeare scenes.

Adapted and Directed by Knud Adams. Produced by Brian Miskell.

Version moderne de Shakespeare présentée dans un café théâtre. Adaptation et mise en scène Knud Adams. Production : Brian Miskell. 

The title of Philippe Béziat’s lovely film about the staging of Verdi’s masterwork at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France could be said to have a double meaning. On the one hand, it refers to Met Opera favorite Natalie Dessay as she hones her articulation, gestures and movements on her way to incarnating Violetta, Verdi’s tragic courtesan. On the other, it captures the wonder that opera is: the way in which so many elements—musical, vocal, dramatic, choreographic, scenographic—come together to create a single aesthetic experience. Much more than a backstage look at the contemporary staging of a classic, the film captures the highly detailed work of both director Jean-François Sivadier and musical director Louis Langrée, lingering over notes and lyrics, trying to get the expression of their meaning to be as precise as possible, and the efforts by the singers to integrate their own performances into the production’s overal