Our guide to cultural events in New York City for children and teenagers happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
COMMUNITY DAY at the Noguchi Museum (July 7, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.). Young artists often reinterpret or reinvent the styles of their creative ancestors. This Queens museum will invite children to do the same — after they first discover how the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-88) followed that path himself. During this Community Day, part of a free series taking place the first Sunday of every month through September, families can go on a self-guided scavenger hunt through the galleries and investigate the show “Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan,” which illustrates how the abstract art of Noguchi and his colleague Saburo Hasegawa (1906-57) reflects the traditions of Japanese calligraphy. Visitors ages 2 to 11 can use their observations in Open Studio: Brush and Ink With Taisan Tanaka, a drop-in program from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tanaka, a Japanese artist, will introduce the techniques of this ancient art, which young people can explore and transform in their own paintings.
718-204-7088, noguchi.org
CIRCUS AFLOAT!: ‘PREPOSTEROUS!’ at the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge (July 6, 2 and 7 p.m.). Pies in the face, balls in the air, whoopie cushions sounding off — you can expect the usual comic effects in what Happenstance Theater describes on its website as a “pocket-size theatrical clown circus.” But the five members of this company also do a few things you don’t always see, like function as a human calliope, portray animals in the ring and create what its website calls “ridiculous entrees.” Its show “Preposterous!” is part of the aptly named Circus Afloat! series, on board this historic Hudson Valley barge that has gained new life as a Brooklyn museum.
877-238-5596, waterfrontmuseum.org
‘ELGIN PARK’ at Wildrence (July 6, 1 and 7 p.m.; July 7, 2 and 5 p.m.; through July 14). Enter a blue door at 59 Canal Street, descend a flight of stairs, and you’ll find yourself in a murky place that is probably unlike any you’ve ever visited. It is “Elgin Park,” which most closely resembles the internet-famous town of the same name that Michael Paul Smith, a model maker, assembled from toy-size buildings and tiny cars. But this “Elgin Park” is much more: A meditation on magic and memory, it immerses young people in a 1950s mystery that stars a reimagined version of Smith himself. Created by Drew Petersen, Jae Lee and Yvonne Chang, the show leads an intimate group of 20 (reservations are required) through a warren of rooms and around a miniature set as the fictional Smith investigates the disappearance of his brother, Paul, a renowned magician who may have pulled off the ultimate vanishing act. The 70-minute production, which is geared toward theatergoers 10 and older, employs sleight of hand, audience participation and shifting chronology as it weaves a mesmerizing spell all its own.
wildrence.com
SUMMER ART MONDAYS: WHIMSICAL STRINGED INSTRUMENT at the Jewish Museum (July 8, 1-4 p.m.). Auditory art has a long history of inspiring visual art, and vice versa. This drop-in program, part of a family series taking place every Monday in July, lets children engage in that symbiosis. (Online registration is recommended.) They will be encouraged to explore the museum’s current shows, especially “Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything,” which features Cohen’s music and a variety of videos, photographs and other works that reflect his songs. Young visitors will then use materials including cardboard, long tubes, colored wire, rubber bands and rice to design and build their own stringed instruments and shakers.
866-205-1322, thejewishmuseum.org
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
‘TEEN TITANS: RAVEN’ at Barnes & Noble, Union Square (July 9, 7-9 p.m.). For writers, delving into the pasts of superheroes can be as enticing as envisioning their futures. Consider “Teen Titans: Raven,” a new graphic novel from DC Ink, a young-adult publishing imprint of DC Comics. Written by Kami Garcia and illustrated by Gabriel Picolo, the book reimagines the origins of Raven, a.k.a. Rachel Roth. Here, she is a 17-year-old whose memory has been severely damaged as a result of injuries suffered in an accident that killed her foster mother. Garcia and Picolo will attend this free celebration — admission is first come first served — where they will sign books, answer questions and talk about Raven’s journey toward self-discovery. The authors Meg Cabot (“The Princess Diaries”) and Danielle Paige (the Dorothy Must Die series) will join them.
212-253-0810, stores.barnesandnoble.com/store/2675
‘35 YEARS OF TMNT’ at the Paley Center for Media (through July 14). Cowabunga, dudes! Many turtle species are long-lived, and the heroes of this animated television franchise help prove it. Nickelodeon, the network home of the current incarnation, “Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the cartoon characters with this exhibition, which traces the foursome’s evolution from their comic-book origins through multiple TV series and feature films. In addition to the show’s posters, products and visual timeline, young fans of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello can enjoy related craft activities and screenings each weekend. This Saturday and Sunday the center will present “Out of the Sewers,” episodes in which the turtles pursue adventures that take them beyond New York City’s underground pipeline.
212-621-6600, paleycenter.org
‘TOMBOY’ in Tompkins Square Park (July 5, 8:30 p.m.). This movie’s plot may strike you as somewhat Shakespearean: The heroine pretends to be a boy for her own convenience, only to find herself attracting the affections of a popular girl. In this 2011 feature by Céline Sciamma, however, the principal characters aren’t young women, but 10-year-olds. Led by Zoé Héran, who portrays the titular rebel, Laure — she calls herself Mikael after her family makes a summer move to the suburbs — the young actors give the story “messiness, joy and life,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review in The New York Times. Screening in French with English subtitles as part of Films on the Green, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy’s free outdoor screening series (the rain date is Saturday), “Tomboy” explores both gender identity and the complicated consequences of deception.
frenchculture.org
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