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The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, created on March 20, 1970 includes 70 states (including 14 observers) across the five continents, representing a total of over 870 million people and over one-third of the United Nations’ member states. French speakers are also overwhelmingly young, and often highly mobile. In most of the 70 member countries of the OIF, 60% of the population is under 30 years old. Additionally, access to education in French is widely available internationally, thanks to a network of an estimated 900,000 French teachers worldwide. In all there are 96.2 million French speakers in the OIF member countries. With 18.9% of world exports and 19% of world imports, French-speaking countries account for 19% of world trade in goods.
Each year in March thousands of events are organized around the world to celebrate La Francophonie. Here are a few happening this month in New York!
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BOOKS
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Beginning on March 9th at New York University, FIAF, Skyroom, New York Public Library
Part novel, part treatise, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’sEmile, or On Education profoundly influenced modern philosophies of education by laying the foundation for a system emphasizing human goodness, learning by doing, and a return to nature. To celebrate the tricentennial of the birth of the Geneva-born philosopher, the festival ThinkSwiss: Genève Meets New York will highlight the contemporary relevance of Rousseau's ideas' and their impact on current American and worldwide issues.
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Beginning on March 19th
The Patagonian Hare, a critically acclaimed bestseller in France in 2009, is published this month in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In his remarkable memoir, Claude Lanzmann offers a visionary testimonial of his own life and of eighty years of contemporary history.
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CINEMA
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March 1-11 Alice Tully Hall (ATH) / BAMcinématek (BAM) / Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (EBM) / IFC Center (IFC) / Walter Reade Theater (WRT)
The 17th edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance Films’ celebrated annual showcase of the best in contemporary French film, hits screens at The Film Society, the IFC Center and BAMcinématek, March 1-11
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March 2-8 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema has expanded its lineup in 2012 with Rendez-Vous +, a selection of over a dozen contemporary documentaries and rarely seen classic films.
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March 2-25 at New York’s DGA Theater, Walter Reade Theater, IFC Center, Peter Norton Symphony Space, Asia Society, Scholastic Theater, and Cantor Film Center.
The nation’s largest festival for kids and teens will present four weeks of groundbreaking and thought-provoking new works, including 100 new films, new feature premieres, six short film programs, filmmaker Q&As and filmmaking workshops. The jurors for the NYICFF Awards Ceremony form an impressive group, including Michel Ocelot, Susan Sarandon, Gus Van Sant.
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EDUCATION
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Last November, the French Heritage Language Program organized a conference entitled "Heritage Languages and Social Cohesion," which brought together heritage language experts from across the country to discuss major issues facing heritage languages and heritage language education in the United States today. The conference videos are now available.
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Francophonie in Harlem will soon reap the benefits of a new educational alliance between the French Heritage Language Program and the New York. Walking down the halls of the New York French American Charter School in Harlem, you will hear languages you have never heard before. This everyday aspect agrees with the school's mission: foster global citizenship for a multicultural society. The New York French American Charter School is in fact a bilingual school. “The school blends the rigorous standards of learning that are characteristic of the French educational system with American approaches that value individuality and critical thinking,” says their website. In class, children from K to 3rd grade are used to alternating between French and English. The teachers are multilingual and work with French interns and assistants who further contribute to establishing a French-speaking environment. Say what you will, but read this much French: “à NYFACS, on aime le français!”.
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Connecting classrooms from France to the United States
My Transatlantic School an online platform that enables partnerships between schools from the French Académie of Montpellier and New York State. Launched last year, the site now counts some 300 member-schools. To join, visit nycfrench3.ning.com
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How do you bring the world to your child and bring your child to the world?
On Saturday, March 31, 2012, World Brooklyn, a consortium of Brooklyn-based educators, will host an event to celebrate and showcase the work of educators, community groups, and researchers in the field of global education...
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MUSIC
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March 20 at Cultural Center at the Lycée Français de New York
On March 20, the Cultural Center at the Lycée Français de New York will present, Racines Haiti with Jacques Schwarz-Bart. Originally performed at the music festival Banlieues Bleues, Racine Haiti mixes rhythms from Guadeloupe and Haiti.
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March 23, 2012 at CUNY Grad Center
Tunisian vocalist Sonia M’Barek can sing a centuries-old song from Andalusia, and just as nimbly re-frame the words of radical 20th-century poets. She hears the ties of mood and rhythm linking Tunisia’s prized classical traditions, Egyptian cabaret music, and Ottoman court pieces, evoking the diverse musical traditions around the Mediterranean with a sultry, supple voice.
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| PERFORMING ARTS |
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March 1 - May 27, 2012 at the Whitney Museum of American Art
French choreographer Gisele Vienne presentsLAST SPRING: A Prequel as part of the 2012 Whitney Biennial. The installation presents a teenager, performed by an animated ventriloquist doll who is engaged in a schizophrenic dialogue with a glove puppet.
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| VISUAL ARTS |
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February 28 - June 3, 2012 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, offers a unique opportunity to see one of the most important private collections of 20th century art ever assembled.
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March 3 - April 22 at the New York Botanical Gardens
The vertical gardens of French botanist and artist Patrick Blanc—featuring structures covered in orchids, ferns, exotic plants, and epiphytes freed from the constraints of gravity—transform the historic Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into an exotic spectacle to dazzle the senses in The Orchid Show: Patrick Blanc’s Vertical Gardens.
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March 3rd–May 6th at the Museum of the Moving Image
Romanian-born, Paris-based artist and winner of the 2011 Prix Marcel Duchamp, Mircea Cantor, will present four groundbreaking videos and a series of drawings and photographs in an exhibition entitled Restless: Films and Other Works by Mircea Cantor at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens from March 3rd through May 6th. |
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NEWS
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Article by Robert Lane Greene, The Economist INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, March/April 2012
Once a mark of the cultured, language-learning is in retreat among English speakers. It’s never too late, but where to start? Robert Lane Greene launches our latest Big Question ...
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