Tilt Kids Festival

Multicultural, sophisticated, impertinent, Tilt Kids Festival returns for a third edition of adventurous art for all audiences!

The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) are thrilled to present the third annual Tilt Kids Festival, featuring six premieres of whimsical, thoughtful, and rigorously made works for children across six venues throughout New York City. 

Described by The New York Times as “French in origin, fantastical in concept, and freewheeling in execution,” the festival presents adventurous, original works by some of the world’s most renowned creators and thinkers. Kids and adults alike are invited to experience radical inclusion and transformative visions, specially curated for the audiences of today and tomorrow!

Many events are free; for ticketed events, please visit www.tiltkidsfestival.org.

Select festival events include:

Tilt Kids Festival Commission
Yto Barrada & Julie Klear: Once Upon a Forest, the Animal Spring
Saturday, March 3, through Friday, April 6
Opening: Saturday, March 3, 11am–12pm

FIAF Gallery
22 East 60th Street (between Park and Madison Avenue)
Hours: Monday–Friday 11am–6pm, Saturday 11am–5pm

Free & open to the public / All ages

In an imaginative new visual art exhibition, French-Moroccan multimedia artist Yto Barrada and American designer and art educator Julie Klear invite kids to create new worlds using colorful art pieces to transform the FIAF Gallery into a moveable visual feast.

Turning buildings into forests, or cities into flowers, kids are encouraged to play, hide, and interact with the animals and landscapes, while changing things up through words, languages, and sounds. By moving pieces around and creating original artwork, the kids will have a unique opportunity to work together and use the power of art and words to change the world!

Animal Spring was originally created as an artful card game in four languages—English, French, Arabic, and Dutch, by the Wiels Museum in Brussels.

Joël Pommerat: Little Red Riding Hood
Saturday, March 3 at 12 & 7pm, Sunday, March 4 at 12pm
Festival opening brunch: Saturday, March 3 from 11am–12pm

FIAF, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th Street (between Madison & Park)

Tickets: 25 USD Kids ages 7–10 & students with ID; 40 USD FIAF Members; 60 USD non-members
Ages 7 & up / 45 minutes

“[Pommerat] is one of the most outstanding and creative directors working today.”—The Guardian

Once upon a time, there was a fearless little girl. A workaholic single mother. A homemade flan. And a crafty wolf. With projections, imagination, and a velvety voice, a stoic narrator guides audiences across a dark stage for an unforgettable adventure and a powerful rite of passage.

Visionary French director Joël Pommerat makes Little Red Riding Hood startlingly new in this contemporary staging of the oft-told fairytale. Created by Pommerat to introduce his young daughter to the magic of theater, this production of Little Red Riding Hood revolutionized the way theater is made for kids, in France and around the world. With the aim of speaking truth, he creates wholly original theater that radiates warmth, empathy, and curiosity for audiences of all ages.

Don’t miss a rare stateside performance of this landmark production, in French with easy-to-read English subtitles.

Jérôme Bel: Gala (New York premiere)
Saturday, March 3 at 3pm

NYU Skirball
566 LaGuardia Place (between Thompson Street and LaGuardia Place)

Tickets: 40 USD / Ages 7 & up / 90 minutes

For Gala, a cast of twenty New Yorkers get dressed up in their sequined best to pull together their most enthusiastic moves. In true Jérôme Bel style, ranging from 8 to 80 years old, some performers are professional dancers, while others are dancing on stage for the first time. Through their movement, the gentle humanity of each performer lights up this inspired production.

Jérôme Bel, the “mischievously entertaining” (The Guardian) French choreographer, explores the relationship between choreography and popular culture, dancer and audience, often using humor to break the formality of a theatrical performance. His approachable, playful work asks questions that may also be on kids’ minds—what is dance? Who gets to be a dancer?

Co-presented with NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Tilt Kids Festival Commission
Diane Mikhael: Lettering Lab: Exploring with Arabic and Latin Letterforms
Saturday, March 10, at 11am & 1:30pm

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
2 East 91st Street (between Fifth & Madison Avenue)

Free & open to the public
Ages 5–12
90-minute sessions

As part of the Cooper Hewitt series Design Kids, Lebanese-Canadian designer and professor Diane Mikhael will lead a special workshop commissioned by the festival.

Kids will explore and compare the visual forms and dimensions of Arabic and Latin letters. Creating a visual dialogue between letters from the two different alphabets, they can uncover the relationships between different shapes.

Co-presented with Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum as part of their series Design Kids. Design Kids is made possible by the generous support of Target, Siegel Family Endowment, and Great Circle Foundation.

Tilt Kids Festival is produced by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in partnership with leading cultural institions: The Brooklyn Public Library, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Issue Project Room, and NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

For the full schedule of events, visit us at www.tiltkidsfestival.org.