5 Best Eating And Drinking Events This Weekend
If what you do on January 1 determines what you do for the rest of the year, then what you do during the first weekend of the year must have some bearing on what you do the rest of the year. Does that sound about right? Maybe? Maybe not? At any rate, here are five great eating, drinking, and merrymaking events from which to choose. By Jessica Allen.
"Music is faith inspiration brought to life, bringing joy and wonder, touching souls, creating community," says the Trinity Wall Street website. Experience the joy, wonder, soul-touching, and community for yourself by attending its annual Festival of Early Music, a series of daily concerts held at Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel. Friday, December 26, through Tuesday, January 6, see schedule for details and ticket information.
Now that Christmas is over, the crowds at the New York Botanical Garden's Holiday Train Show should dissipate (at least a little, anyway), making this weekend the perfect time to hang out among more than 150 landmarks recreated using nuts, seeds, leaves, and other plant matter. The adults-only Bar Car Night includes a cocktail, a light show from Cirque de Light, live music, ice sculpture demos, and the chance to leave the kiddies at home. Friday, January 2, and Saturday, January 3, 7 to 10 pm, $35, must be 21 or older.
Now in its 10th year, COIL is a festival of theater, performance art, and dance. According to artistic director Vallejo Gantner, "[t]his year we focus on transformational times of tremendous blurring between artforms, identities, how we participate and engage and whole new ways of creating. Technology plays a part—but there is far more than that going on. We interact, we participate, we see audiences creating the work itself." Friday, January 2, through Saturday, January 17, see schedule for details, tickets required.
New year, new you. That platitude holds as true for comics as for the rest of us, of course, but comics go one better: new year, new you, new jokes. At the 9th Annual 50 First Jokes, 50 comics, both veteran and just-starting-out, take the stage to release their first joke of 2015. Participants include Mike Lawrence, Brooke Van Poppelen, Matteo Lane, Sasheer Zamata, and Emmy Blotnick. Friday, January 2, 8 pm, $12 at the door, tickets required, must be 21+.
We're cheating a little here by stretching out the weekend, but this event is worth it. This week, Africa Umoja arrives to celebrate the spirit of South Africa through dance, music, and other types of artistic performance. The walls of Symphony Space will come alive with indigenous rhythms and beats, in honor of the 20th anniversary of democratic elections in South Africa. Tuesday, January 6, through Friday, January 10, see schedule for details, tickets required.
