5 Things to Do This Weekend

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/arts/things-to-do-weekend-coronavirus.html

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KIDS

Animation First, the French Institute Alliance Française’s annual film festival, always offers fresh perspectives on France. This year, however, it also explores America.

The celebration, which streams on the platform Eventive from Friday through Feb. 15, visits the Wild West with “Calamity Jane,” a French portrait of that hardy pioneer’s youth. (Most of the more than 75 films, which have English subtitles when necessary, are accessible on demand, but this one is available only on Friday night.) Another French tale, “Shooom’s Odyssey,” follows a lost baby owl through the Louisiana bayou.

The festival also asked the American director Wes Anderson to choose a few favorites, which is why it features movies like “The Plague Dogs,” a U.S.-British production about canine escapees from a research lab, and two dubbed versions of “Bambi.”

Families can buy an all-festival pass for $20 on the institute’s website, which has age recommendations for the programs and information on free Zoom talks in English with over a dozen filmmakers.LAUREL GRAEBER

Dance

In the absence of live performances, conversations between performing artists have proliferated: the Instagram live interview, the Zoom round table. Offering a twist on the genre, the choreographer Tess Dworman, in collaboration with the choreographer Angie Pittman, recently released “Coverture,” a series of three performances filmed at Roulette in Brooklyn. Each is a duet between Dworman and a different interlocutor — John Maria Gutierrez, Miguel Gutierrez and Martita Abril — in which they lip-sync over a recording of a discussion they’ve already had, while gradually letting movement overtake them.

The subject of their dialogues, or at least the starting point, is the death of the Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta and its surrounding controversy. (Mendieta died after falling from the window of her Greenwich Village apartment; her husband, the artist Carl Andre, was acquitted of her murder.) But what emerges is even more complex, capturing (with humor) how what we think, say and do doesn’t always align. Recordings of the three performances are free to stream at roulette.org/event/tess-dworman-coverture.SIOBHAN BURKE

Art & Museums

As the art world continues to evaluate its impact on its communities, projects like Walls for a Cause NYC, organized by Orange Barrel Media and the gallery We Buy Gold, demonstrate the breadth of what is possible.

Curated by Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels and Diana Nawi, the exhibition features outdoor billboard representations of works by Chioma Ebinama, Marcus Jahmal, Christopher Myers, Theresa Chromati and Ariel Dannielle throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan (billboards of works by Naudline Pierre, Ilana Savdie, Felipe Baeza and Maria Berrio will go up in the coming weeks). We Buy Gold’s website offers not only a list of locations but also a chance to view the artists’ pieces up close in a corresponding online exhibition, “On the Other Side of Something,” which runs through March 28. A portion of the proceeds from sales of the artworks will be donated to Project EATS. This organization, founded by the pioneering former gallery owner Linda Goode Bryant, is dedicated to distributing resources to people in need.MELISSA SMITH

Jazz

If you’re on TikTok, maybe you already know that sea shanties have been having a moment. (Don’t ask us why — the gods of virality work in mysterious ways.) But for the musician and musicologist Ghazi Faisal Al-Mulaifi, a different high-seas tradition has long been a source of inspiration: In scholarly research and with his collaborative ensemble, Boom.Diwan, Al-Mulaifi explores the old Kuwaiti pearl-diving tradition known as Fijiri, wherein a large droning chorus supports a lead vocalist, clapping and responding and building a collective song.

Fijiri shares broad but unmistakable similarities to the various vocal traditions of South African folk music, including in the KwaZulu-Natal region, where the celebrated jazz pianist Nduduzo Makhathini grew up. On Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern time, as part of New York University Abu Dhabi’s 2021 Barzakh Festival, Makhathini will join Boom.Diwan in premiering a new suite that pulls together elements of Fijiri with South African jazz and spiritual music. The performance can be streamed free at the N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi Arts Center’s website, Facebook page or YouTube channel.GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Comedy

Nearly a year ago, Drew Droege’s latest one-man Off Broadway show, “Happy Birthday Doug,” was enjoying previews at the SoHo Playhouse.

The pandemic prematurely ended its run in March, but Droege adapted the stage production for streaming. Directed by Jim Hansen and Tom Detrinis, this filmed version allows the comedian’s various characters to occupy the screen simultaneously, alternating their close-ups as they deliver laugh-out-loud monologues.

You may recognize Droege from his role as a wedding planner in the third and fourth seasons of “Search Party” on HBO Max, or from his appearances on three episodes of “Drunk History.” His inebriated narration for the Comedy Central series lends a greater appreciation for his performance as the guests at Doug’s birthday party, which is set in a hidden room in a Los Angeles wine bar.

Coincidentally, Droege celebrates his own birthday on Tuesday. He’ll be 44.

“Happy Birthday Doug” is available to stream on BroadwayHD with a subscription to the platform, which starts at $8.99 a month.SEAN L. McCARTHY