This summer the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery launch two new series, "Asia After Dark" and "Asia Trash," in addition to their exciting repertoire of public programs. On June 4, the Sackler opens its doors for the debut of "Asia After Dark," an after-hours series held on the first Thursdays in June and September. "Asia After Dark" offers guests an evening of art, dance and creative fun, filled with spotlight tours in the galleries, performances by the Silk Road Dance Company, food tastings from local Asian restaurants and Persian electronic music by DJ Delbar of RadioJavan.com. "Asia AfterDark" is a ticketed event for individuals over 21. Tickets can be purchased for $15 in advance and a limited number of tickets will be sold at the door for $18; cash only. "Asia Trash" is the newest and grossest summertime film series held at the Freer on Thursdays from July 30 - Aug. 20 at 7 p.m. The series will celebrate some of Asia's finest cult movies including "Versus" about Yakuza gangsters, zombies and an escaped convict still shackled to a severed hand. This film is a must see for connoisseurs of good, trashy fun.

Fun-filled summer evenings at the Freer and Sackler will also include a June 6 performance by "Music from China Youth Orchestra," a 20 piece ensemble of musicians ages 8 to 18, performing on traditional Chinese instruments. Conductor Wang Guowei has performed with renowned artists such as Yo-Yo Ma and the Shanghai Quartet. On June 13 and 20, the galleries will present "The Sensual S: Form and Movement," a workshop led by Daniel Phoenix Singh and members of the Dakshina Dance Company. Participants will interact with Anish Kapoor's steel sculpture, "S-Curve" to explore how scale, shape and form reflect and distort perceptions.

The Freer and Sackler Galleries offer a summer-long celebration of Asian music, dance, films, and special tours and talks. See a complete listing of events, dates, and times below:

June 2009

Films

The Riches of Early Soviet Cinema
Soviet filmmakers created a host of innovative and influential works during the silent era and the early years of sound. In conjunction with the Sackler exhibition "The Tsars and The East," the Freer presents four films from three of Soviet cinema's most renowned masters. This series organized with the assistance of Seagull Films.

Battleship Potemkin
Friday, June 5; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Live musical accompaniment by Burnett Thompson
Sergei Eisenstein's masterpiece was a pioneering work for its time, and it remains gripping today. The story of a naval mutiny that preceded the Soviet Revolution comes to life thanks to Eisenstein's bold, clashing images and energetic editing technique. 1925 / 69 min. / b&w / silent

Dziga Vertov Double Feature

Kino-Eye
Sunday, June 7; 2 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Live musical accompaniment by Burnett Thompson
Director Dziga Vertov creates a portrait of Soviet life by following the activities of the Young Pioneers, a band of youthful Communists devoted to improving Soviet society. At once avant-garde, playful, and thought-provoking, it is ultimately Vertov's celebration of his country and the possibilities of cinema. 1924 / 78 min. / b&w / silent

Enthusiasm
Sunday, June 7; 3:30 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Here, Vertov experiments with sound with the same aplomb he always applied to images. Ostensibly a documentary about coal workers, it is a dizzying display of the director's joy in mixing and juxtaposing sounds and images in surprising ways. 1931 / 67 min. / b&w / Russian with English subtitles

Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
Friday, June 12; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Live musical accompaniment by Burnett Thompson
This comedic propaganda film by Lev Kuleshov follows the eponymous Mr. West, an American who travels to Moscow to see the evils of the Soviet empire for himself. His hosts are all too eager to oblige—before they turn the tables and show him the real Soviet Union. 1924 / 77 min. / b&w / silent

Salute to Le Festival des 3 Continents
Since 1979, Le Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, France, has offered an adventurous annual program of drama and documentary films made in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. To celebrate the festival's thirtieth anniversary, the Freer, in conjunction with the Embassy of France and the National Gallery of Art, presents a selection of significant films that made their debuts or won awards at the 3 Continents Festival.

Water, Wind, Dust
Friday, June 19; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
In Person: Amir Naderi
After returning to his drought-stricken hometown, a young boy searches for his missing family. Barely a word of dialogue is spoken in this powerful drama by Amir Naderi, but nature is seen at its most cruel, with howling winds, blinding sandstorms, and blazing desert sunlight. Iran / 1989 / 75 min. / Persian with English subtitles

Devarim
Sunday, June 21; 1 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
His first film after living in Europe for several years, Amos Gitai's portrait of Israel's "lost generation" is the story of three friends from Tel Aviv. Their disenchantment and disconnection from the spiritual and political commitment of their nation's older generations are challenged during a trip to the funeral of one of their fathers. Israel / 1997 / 110 min. / Hebrew with English subtitles

Chronicle of a Disappearance
Sunday, June 21; 3 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Like Gitai, Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman made this film upon returning from a self-imposed exile, in his case a twelve-year stay in New York. Using mostly nonprofessional actors, he weaves a tapestry of vignettes that provides an often-humorous view of the paradoxes middle-class Palestinians encounter while living under Israeli rule. Palestine / 1996 / 88 min. / Arabic with English subtitles

A Summer at Grandpa's
Friday, June 26; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
This rarely screened early gem from Hou Hsiao-hsien, now one of the reigning auteurs in world cinema, is a bittersweet story of two young siblings who are sent to the countryside to live with their grandparents while their mother lies ill in the hospital. Though traumatized by her sickness, they learn to adapt to the ways of the adult world. 1984 / 93 min. / Hokkein, Taiwanese, and Mandarin with English subtitles. This screening made possible by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S.

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks—Part One: Rust
Saturday, June 27; 1 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
China / 2003 / 244 min. / video / Mandarin with English subtitles

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks—Part Two: Remnants
Sunday, June 28; 11 a.m., Meyer Auditorium*
China / 2003 / 178 min. / video / Mandarin with English subtitles

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks—Part Three: Rails
Sunday, June 28; 3 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
China / 2003 / 132 min. / video / Mandarin with English subtitles

Jeannette Catsoulis of the "New York Times" calls Wang Bing's nine-hour, three-part documentary about the dying Tie Xi industrial complex in northeast China "an astonishingly intimate record of China's painful transition from state-run industry to a free market." "Rust" follows workers at a foundry that is slated to close, taking with it a whole way of life. "Remnants" looks at a factory workers' shantytown that is to be demolished and replaced by a private housing development. And "Rails" presents four seasons in the lives of those railway workers responsible for transporting goods in and out of Tie Xi.

Concerts and Performances

Asia After Dark
Thursdays, June 4 & Sept. 3; 6:30 p.m., Sackler Gallery
A new after-hours series is held on first Thursdays this June and September at the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Indulge your senses in and embark on a post-work evening to get the weekend started in style.

On June 4, the Sackler opens its doors for an evening of art, dance, and creative fun—from spotlight tours in the galleries and performances by the Silk Road Dance Company, to food tastings provided by Mie N Yu in Georgetown and Jonny Kabob in Germantown. Mix and mingle to Persian electronic and drum-and-bass music by DJ Delbar from RadioJavan.com.Bring out your creative side by making a business card holder with hand printed paper from Nepal, or get lucky by winning a raffle prize from area merchants, restaurants, hotels, spas and yoga studios.

Purchase advance tickets ($15 per person) or in person during the week at the Freer and Sackler Gallery shops. A limited number of tickets ($18) are sold at the door; cash only. Each admission ticket includes one freedrink ticket. A cash bar is available for wine, beer, spirits, and non-alcoholic beverages throughout the evening. You must be at least 21 years old with a valid ID to attend this event.

This event has received support from RadioJavan.com and Mie N Yu.

Music From China Youth Orchestra
Saturday, June 6; 2 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Pre-concert gallery tour, Arts of China, 1:15 p.m.
Hear the Washington debut of this twenty-piece ensemble performing on traditional Chinese instruments. Based in New York with musicians aged eight to eighteen, the orchestra recently made its second appearance at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. The orchestra's conductor Wang Guowei was concert master with the Shanghai Traditional Orchestra and has since performed with Yo-Yo Ma and the Shanghai Quartet as well as with jazz innovators Ornette Coleman and Kenny Garrett. The program includes folk and classical Chinese music as well as traditional music from China's diverse minority ethnic groups.

Composer Between Worlds: Dimitrie Cantemir
Thursday, June 11; 7:30 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Travel to eighteenth-century Istanbul and Moscow through the music of composer, scholar, and diplomat Dimitrie Cantemir, a flamboyant and brilliant figure who served both the Ottoman sultans and the Russian tsar s. Turkish instrumentalists Neva Őzgen, Murat Aydemir, and Mesut Őzgen join the Lux Musica ensemble to recreate the music of Cantemir's Moldavian homeland, his prolific composing career in Istanbul, and the music of his later life in Moscow, where he organized lavish musical events with his daughter, a harpsichordist trained in the Italian style. Presented in conjunction with "The Tsars and the East."

Dimitrie Cantemir: A Life in Music
Friday, June 12; 1 p,m., Sackler sublevel 1
Saturday, June 13; 2:30 p.m.
Explore the life and works of Dimitrie Cantemir, the Moldavian polymath whose massive history of the Ottomans inspired Gibbon's "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," and whose treatise on Turkish classical music included more than 350 original compositions. His ill-fated rebellion against the Ottomans in Moldavia led to his exile to Moscow, where he was in the employ of the Tsar. Specialists in Turkish classical music, direct from Istanbul, join the California-based Lux Musica ensemble to perform samples of music from Cantemir's life in Moldavia, Istanbul, and Moscow. Presented in conjunction with "The Tsars and the East."

Music and Dance from Sumatra: Rumah Gadang
Saturday, June 20; 3:00 p.m., Freer steps (rain location: Meyer Auditorium)
On the Indonesian island of Sumatra, trade and migration have long mixed musical influences from India, China, Malaysia, the Middle East, and Europe. Rumah Gadang, based in Arlington, features former members of Sumatra's globe-trotting Syofyani ensemble, which over the last forty years has appeared at festivals and cultural exchanges throughout Europe and Asia. Today, the ten members of Rumah Gadang perform the traditional dances of West Sumatra's matriarchal Minang society, accompanied by music on gong-chime (talempong), bamboo flute (bansi), double-reed (pupuik batang padi), and percussion (rabena).

Lectures, Talks, and Workshops

The Sensual S: Form and Movement
Saturday, June 13 & 20; 1 p.m., Sackler pavilion
Experience the intersections of sculpture, body, and environment with Daniel Phoenix Singh and members of the Dakshina Dance Company. Interact with the shiny surfaces of Anish Kapoor's steel sculpture S-Curve as well as with the Indian sculpture in the Sackler Gallery to explore how scale, shape, and form reflect and distort perceptions.

Cambodia Past, Present, Future
Tuesday June 16; 2 p.m., Meyer Auditorium

Producing Angkor: The Material, Spatial, and Cultural Generation of the Khmer Empire
Mitch Hendrickson, University of Sydney

Keeping Watch: The Role of Heritage Watch in Protecting Cambodia's Cultural Legacy
Dougald O'Reilly, Yale University

Archaeologists Mitch Hendrickson and Dougald O'Reilly share new research on Cambodia's past and the latest efforts to protect and preserve the record of the past. Production of objects (ceramics, iron), landscapes (roads and settlements), and identity (both cultural and archaeological) offer critical new insight into how and why the Khmer Empire developed, expanded, and ultimately collapsed. In response to a crisis of looting at historic and prehistoric sites, the international non-profit Heritage Watch was founded to slow the destruction in Cambodia.

July 2009

Films

14th Annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival
This year's festival once again features a selection of films that highlight Hong Kong's cinematic achievements. This festival is cosponsored by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office.

Sparrow
Friday, July 10; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Sunday, July 12; 2 p.m.
This breezy comedic caper from Johnnie To is about a gang of debonair pickpockets who come undone when a beautiful stranger enters their midst with a con of her own. Infused with a sense of nostalgia for old Hong Kong and studded with breathtaking set pieces in which the boys gather wallets and purses using nothing but sleight-of-hand and razorblades, "Sparrow" is infectious fun. 2008 / 87 min. / Cantonese with English subtitles

Ashes of Time Redux
Friday, July 17; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Sunday, July 19; 2 p.m.
Fourteen years after it was originally made, Wong Kar-wai ("Chungking Express," In The Mood for Love") recut this swordplay classic into a new, "definitive" version. A desert fantasia of misty pastels, it stars the late Leslie Cheung as a disenchanted swordsman for hire, but his clients are motivated by the same longings and desires as the contemporary lovers in Wong's more well-known films. 2008 / 93 min. / Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles

Mr. Cinema
Friday, July 24; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Sunday, July 26; 2 p.m.
Made in honor of the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China, Samson Chiu's "moving tribute to the eternal adaptability of the territory's folk," (Derek Elley, "Variety") covers 40 years of the island's history as seen through the eyes of a left-wing film projectionist and his family. 2007, 117 min., Cantonese with English subtitles

All about Women
Friday, July 31; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Tsui Hark's screwball confection tells the intertwined stories of three women: a clumsy nerd who invents a pheromone patch to attract men, a beauty who attracts plenty of men but no real friends, and a tomboyish rocker who takes out her romantic frustrations through boxing. Think of it as a Beijing "Sex and the City." 2008, 119 min., Mandarin and Uighur with English subtitles

Asia Trash!
Once upon a time, the Freer held "Art Nights" during the summer. Not any more. This summer, we present Trash Nights, a celebration of the campy, the gross, and the just plain wrong! Spend your summer nights with some of Asia's best cult movies.

Versus
Thursday, July 30; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Pre-film tour, "The Tale of Shuten Dōji," 4:30 p.m., Sackler information desk
All tour participants will receive up to two tickets to the screening.
Yakuza gangsters, zombies, an escaped convict still shackled to a severed hand: Ryuhei Kitamura's "nonstop action gorefest" (Scott Tobias, "Onion AV Club") is a must-see for connoisseurs of good trashy fun. Intended for mature audiences. Japan / 2000 / 119 min. / Japanese with English subtitles

August 2009

Films

14th Annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival
This year's festival once again features a selection of films that highlight Hong Kong's cinematic achievements. This festival is cosponsored by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office.

All about Women
Sunday, Aug. 2; 2 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Tsui Hark's screwball confection tells the intertwined stories of three women: a clumsy nerd who invents a pheromone patch to attract men, a beauty who attracts plenty of men but no real friends, and a tomboyish rocker who takes out her romantic frustrations through boxing. Think of it as a Beijing "Sex and the City." 2008, 119 min., Mandarin and Uighur with English subtitles

One Nite in Mongkok
Friday, Aug. 7; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Sunday, Aug. 9; 2 p.m.
Derek Yee's fast-paced crime thriller makes the most of its location in Hong Kong's Mongkok district – a bustling, densely-packed urban jungle where everything from fake designer watches to sex is for sale. Into this milieu steps a hit man from the mainland looking to gun down a big-time gangster and, with the help of a prostitute he meets in a no-tell motel, find his missing fiancée. 2004, 110 min., Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles

Eye in the Sky
Friday, Aug. 14; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Sunday, Aug. 16; 2 p.m.
Longtime Johnnie To collaborator Yau Na-hoi made his directorial debut with this taut thriller, and he has clearly learned much from his mentor. The plot pits a police surveillance unit headed by a world-weary, retirement-bound cop against a ruthless gang boss and his crew. 2007, 90 min., Cantonese with English subtitles

My Mother is a Belly Dancer
Friday, Aug. 21; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Sunday, Aug. 23; 2 p.m.
A group of working-class housewives find liberation when a new instructor takes over their traditional dance class and teaches them belly dancing in this charming, surprisingly moving drama. Lee Kung-lok, 2006, 104 min., Cantonese with English subtitles

Asia Trash!
Once upon a time, the Freer held "Art Nights" during the summer. Not any more. This summer, we present Trash Nights, a celebration of the campy, the gross, and the just plain wrong! Spend your summer nights with some of Asia's best cult movies.

The Host
Thursday, Aug. 6; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
"Bong Joon-ho's wildly entertaining saga," writes Lisa Schwarzbaum in "Entertainment Weekly," "should become the hip, thinking-person's monster movie of choice." By turns thrilling, terrifying, hilarious, and touching, this unholy marriage of "Godzilla" and "Jaws" celebrates a slimy beast that emerges from the Han River to terrorize the citizens of Seoul. Korea / 2006 / 119 min. / Korean with English subtitles

Tears of the Black Tiger
Thursday, Aug. 13; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Filmed in an eye-watering palette of neon turquoise, chartreuse, hot pink, and other colors not found in nature, Wisit Sasanatieng's deliriously campy send-up of classic Thai movies, Hollywood melodramas, and believe it or not, cowboy movies "exuberantly combines pop and kitsch with a wholesome belief in the thrills of bad art" (Wesley Morris, "Boston Globe"). Thailand / 2000 / 110 min. / Thai with English subtitles

Tokyo Gore Police
Thursday, Aug. 20; 7 p.m., Meyer Auditorium*
Pre-film tour, "The Tale of Shuten Dōji," 4:30 p.m., Sackler information desk
All tour participants will receive up to two tickets to the screening.
The "New York Times" calls Yoshihiro Nishimura's film a "splatterific social satire." Employing geysers of blood, mountains of severed body parts, mutant go-go girls, and other delights, it takes place in a Tokyo of the near future in which a privatized police force wages hyper-violent war on a new breed of cyborg criminals who can transform their wounds into weapons. Intended for mature audiences. Japan / 2008 / 109 min. / video / Japanese with English subtitles

Tours, Conversations, and Lectures

Articulations 2009: Time Passages
Discover the hidden stories behind the Freer and Sackler art collections and exhibitions through Articulations, a series of interdisciplinary performances, gallery talks, interactive events, and discussions. The 2009 programs explore the intersections of art and time.

Visual Action: The Tale of Shuten Dōji
Tuesday, Aug. 11; 12 p.m., Sackler sublevel 1
Join exhibition curator Ann Yonemura to learn how Japanese artists of the Edo period interpreted the action-packed story of Shuten DŐji on colorful screens, scrolls, fans, and printed books. Artists depicted the rescues of young noblewomen from their monstrous captor and showed how disguised samurai heroes traveled to the ogre's mountain fortress to join him in a drinking party. Triumphantly, the brave warriors vanquished the monster and his guardians, and returned the grateful women to Kyoto.

*Free tickets required for films and performances. Two tickets per person are distributed at the Meyer Auditorium one hour before the event on a first-come, first-served basis. For performances only, up to four tickets per person are available through Ticketmaster beginning at 10 a.m. two Mondays before the event.

The Freer Gallery of Art, located at 12th Street and Independence Avenue S.W., and the adjacent Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, located at 1050 Independence Avenue S.W., are on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day, except Dec. 25, and admission is free. The galleries are located near the Smithsonian Metrorail station on the Blue and Orange lines. For more information about the Freer and Sackler galleries and their exhibitions, programs and other events, the public is welcome to visit www.asia.si.edu. For general Smithsonian information, the public may call (202) 633-1000.