The Best NYC Dates For This Week

Mar 18th, 2013 @ 03:42 pm › Adam Rathe

Sure, you could go out for drinks or spend the evening gazing across a dinner table, but with so much going on in New York on any given night, why make the same old reservations? Keep these cultural happenings in mind when you’re planning this week’s big night out—they could turn just another date into a night you’ll never forget.

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New Directors / New Films

Now in its 42nd year, this 11-day festival celebrates the work of up-and-coming filmmakers from around the world, and has been instrumental in launching the careers of auteurs including Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and Pedro Almodóvar. This year’s slate includes three sets of shorts film and 25 features, including the New York premiere of Danish director Tobias Lindholm’s hotly anticipated modern-day pirate movie, A Hijacking.

March 20-31
Planetarium

The stars won’t just be on stage when this four-night series of new music kicks off at the Brooklyn Academy of Music March 21. For this space-inspired performance, indie-rock troubadour Sufjan Stevens joined forces with Bryce Dessner, of The National, and hipster composer—yes, such a thing exists—Nico Muhly to create a two-part concert of string music that pays homage to the bright, shiny things in the night sky. A way more romantic starry night than sitting on a blanket, pretending to know which constellations are which.

March 21-24
LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital

Frazier, a veteran of big-ticket group shows at The Whitney and The New Museum, strikes out on her own with this solo show at The Brooklyn museum. A Haunted Capital uses Frazier’s striking photography, including images of the artist and her own family, to illustrate the story of the downfall of her hometown of Braddock, Penn, a former steel mill town gone to seed. Frazier’s work isn’t the most uplifting, but it’s stunning and thought provoking and will make for great conversation on a post-museum jaunt through nearby Prospect Park.

Opens March 22
Prince Dance Party

Hot on the heels of a recent, surprise SXSW appearance by the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, Soho’s Housing Works is dedicating an evening to celebrating the Purple One. Come for a reading from cultural critic Touré's new book, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon?, but stay for the dance party, helmed by A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad.

March 22
Sinkane

Sinkane is the stage name of Sudanese native and current Brooklyn resident Ahmed Gallab, who you might remember from past gigs including stints with Yeasayer and behind the drum kit for Of Montreal. Tonight, he brings his chilled-out jazzy pop to the Mercury Lounge’s intimate stage. You might not show up at the club with something you refer to as “our song,” but chances of leaving without one are slim.

March 23
Hannibal Buress

With another workweek looming, Sunday night dates are usually no laughing matter. Luckily, former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock scribe Hannibal Buress hosts a free weekly evening of comedy in the front bar of Williamsburg’s Knitting Factory, where guests include up-and-coming comics as well as some of Buress’ more established friends. (Seriously, Louis CK and Robin Williams have been surprise guests.) So, DVR your Sunday night stories and grab a seat at the bar, where the drinks and the laughs should be in constant supply and Monday morning never seemed so far away.

March 24