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Choose from more than 100 educational, cultural and interactive activities each month
Events
Events Listings
Here's a short selection of Smithsonian Events. For full list please visit our comprehensive Calendar of Events
Remember to explore each museum section for upcoming exhibit information. Be sure to click to add a museum to your personal itinerary as you go!
Hepburn, Herself
May 12, 2008 5:00 PM
National Portrait Gallery
McEvoy Auditorium
Featuring actress Helen Hedman as Hepburn and Portrait Gallery's Jewell Robinson as her interviewer, this performance creates an intimate portrayal of the iconic star in her own words. Behind her carefully constructed image, the notoriously secretive actress shares her thoughts on life, death, family, regret, grief, and love, revealing, above all, a woman ahead of her time.
Note: For reservations, call 633-8520 or e-mail NPGPublicPrograms@si.edu.
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Barbecuing with Steven Raichlen, the Gladiator of Grilling
May 13, 2008 4:30 PM
Resident Associate Program
Natural History Museum, Atrium Cafe (enter Constitution Ave.)
"Nothing can rival grilling over a live fire" for ease, fun, and explosive flavors, according to Steven Raichlen. Tonight, he shares tips on how to make the most of the grilling experience with sauces, rubs, and marinades. Come hungry! Book signing follows.
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Behind-the-Scenes Program
May 14, 2008 1:00 PM
Smithsonian American Art Museum
3rd floor, west, Lunder Conservation Center
A museum conservator explains how artworks in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery collections are cleaned, conserved, and stabilized.
Note: Register in person at the Luce Foundation Center information desk before 3 PM.
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Flights of Fancy - Stories for Children
May 15, 2008 9:30 AM
National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
(for ages 3-7) Bring your children to "Flights of Fancy," the Museum's story time. Celebrate National Children's Book Week as storytellers and readers share folktales and books from around the world that make the collections come alive. It's a magical way to explore space and fly with heroes and heroines of the past. Each reading is followed by a hands-on activity.
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Dasepo Naughty Girls
May 16, 2008 5:00 PM
Freer Gallery of Art
Freer, Meyer Auditorium
Note: This film is intended for mature audiences.
(2006, 103 min., directed by E. J-young, Korean with English subtitles) In this twisted musical comedy film that takes place in No Use High, it satirizes everything from internet dating to cross-dressing. Beneath the bawdy jokes, however, is a touching story about a poor, shy girl who tries to fit in at the weirdest high school imaginable.
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Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
May 17, 2008 7:00 AM
Smithsonian Institution Building, the Castle
Edgewater, MD; for directions, call 301-238-2737; see Note
Come learn about your environment from Smithsonian scientists and educators who work at this unique outdoor laboratory on the Chesapeake Bay. Take guided boat and canoe trips, walk on nature trails, climb a weather-monitoring station, tour laboratories and field research sites, see birds of prey, and enjoy live music. Other family programs include nature crafts, a scavenger hunt, face painting, and an art show. Don't miss the annual Wade-In, where a staff member tests the clarity of the water by wading in wearing white shoes until the shoes are no longer visible.
Note: There will not be on-site parking. Free parking will be available only at Central Middle School, 221 Central Avenue East in Edgewater (intersection of Mayo Road, 1.2 miles east of Maryland Route 2) and, beginning at 9 AM, buses will shuttle visitors to and from SERC.
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Corkey Hay DeSimone: Butterfly Friends
May 18, 2008 12:00 PM
National Museum of Natural History
Ground Floor, outside Museum Store
Corkey Hay DeSimone signs copies of her children's books Butterfly Friends Board Book and Butterfly Friends Coloring Book.
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"El Anatsui: Gawu"
This is the first solo exhibition of works by El Anatsui, one of Africa's leading contemporary artist, who was originally from Ghana and has lived in Nigeria since 1975. Having experimented with a variety of media, his most recent focus is on the use of discarded metal objects -- tops from food tins or wrappers from flattened metal liquor bottles -- hundreds or even thousands of which are joined together to resemble weavings that both reflect the tradition of Ghanaian strip cloths and the abstraction of modernist paintings.
On view March 12 through September 2, 2008
Location: National Museum of African Art
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Smithsonian Bound
Thursday May 1, 2008, By Eric Morrison, Juneau Empire
The copper sun embedded in the mouth of the raven carved into the canoe's prow glistened Wednesday as the paddles from nine men rhythmically sliced through the water of Twin Lakes.
Observing from the dock on the lake's edge, lead artist Doug Chilton noted that many of the men testing the unnamed 26-foot canoe bound for the Smithsonian Museum had never paddled before. "You naturally fall into that unity," he said as he watched them swiftly glide across the lake in the red-and-black-painted canoe.
Chilton, a Tlingit of the Raven moiety from the Deisheetaan Clan, and other Alaska Native artists spent nearly 10 months carving and finishing the canoe at the Sealaska Plaza downtown.
"We had quite a few people come in and work on it, but I have no idea how many man hours it took," Chilton said. Sealaska Corp. donated the red cedar tree used for the canoe, which is bound for Washington, D.C., sometime this month. The canoe will be part of the permanent display in Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The hall exhibition is scheduled to open in September.
