Target Passport Fridays 2010: Mexico

Leave your baggage at home and bring a picnic blanket out to Flushing Meadows Corona Park for Target Passport Fridays 2010, the 6th season of the Queens Museum of Art’s annual outdoor summer festival of international music, dance and film. This year’s journey around the globe begins in South Africa in honor of the World Cup, and includes stops in Colombia, Ecuador, South Korea, Taiwan, the Middle East, India, and Mexico. Each evening begins with live dance and music performances followed by the feature film screening after sunset.

Dance: Mexicanos Unidos de Queens Ballet Folklorico Groups Nueva Juventud and Ballet Infantil Tepochli present traditional dances from various Mexican states in beautiful costumes.

Music: Cumbiagra is a Brooklyn-based group known for their high energy live shows. They started out playing the classic cumbias of Colombia and Mexico, and have gone on to develop their own Mexilombian/Nuyorican mix!

Film: Those Who Remain/Los Que Se Quedan (Juan Carlos Rulfo & Carlos Haggerman, Mexico, 2008, 96 min, Spanish with English subtitles)
Shines a light on the families left behind by loved ones who have traveled North for work, while also illuminating the rich glow of the Mexican spirit. Examining the emotional cost of long-term estrangement, the directors find rich cinematic metaphors in the deserted, newly constructed homes on the highway, their empty rooms a powerful reminder of the absence of loved ones at otherwise joyous occasions like communions and graduations. Despite this void in their communities, many of those profiled emerge as colorful characters with boundless vitality and wonderful senses of humor.