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Happy New Year from Baltimore!

A New Year brings excitement and adventures to the city with the opening of the Four Seasons Baltimore, new exhibits at our world-class museums and activities for everyone. As an eclectic city, Baltimore’s LGBT community truly fits the vacation spot for the modern family. For the kids, Clifford the Big Red Dog marks his spot at Port Discovery Children’s Museum and the world of bugs can be explored at the Maryland Science Center. Adults can take in a flick at the Charm City LGBT Film Festival and explore the culinary delights. Check out all the details below and visit www.baltimore.org to customize your itinerary.

Event Spotlight: Creative Alliance at the Patterson

The Creative Alliance builds communities by bringing together artists and audiences from diverse backgrounds to experience spectacular arts programs and engage in the creative process. We provide support to area artists, promote Baltimore as a center for creative production, act as a positive force in our community, and advocate for cultural expression rooted in a sense of place.

Five Questions with KJ Mohr, Director of Film and Digital Media Programs for the Creative Alliance at The Patterson

Q1- What is the Creative Alliance at The Patterson?

Creative Alliance is a community-based arts organization that was founded 15 years ago to bring together artists and audiences from diverse backgrounds to experience spectacular arts programs and engage in the creative process. We provide support to area artists, promote Baltimore as a center for creative production, act as a positive force in our community, and advocate for cultural expression rooted in a sense of place.

CAMM (Creative Alliance Media Makers) was founded about 10 years ago by Baltimore filmmakers who were specifically seeking to create more of a community and support network for artists working with the moving image.

Q2- With a robust events calendar, coming up next is the Charm City LGBT Film Festival, can you tell us about the event?

Since Baltimore has not had a queer film festival in several years, we saw a void and a need for Baltimore screenings of some of the exciting LGBT movies being produced now. I’ve also worked in queer film festival programming for the past 15 years or so and I'm the Programmer of the Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, so I had access to all this great work and it was a logical fit. We decided to make it two-days for a quick and intense taste of some of the best queer work of the past year.

Q3- If you had to pick one, what is the “must see” film of this year’s festival?

Oh god- that's not fair! I picked all of these because I love them, and they're really varied. There's something for everyone (and I'm not just talking about gay folks). Angel is an extraordinary documentary with a fascinating subject dealing with mind-blowing issues. And I can promise you that you've never seen anything like “Madame X,” featuring the world's first transgender superhero - everything about that movie is fantastic and fun. “Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same” is a hilarious smart movie for everyone. And the upbeat musical film “Leave It On The Floor” should not be missed.

Q4- Are there any celebrities or big names attached to the film festival?

Filmmakers and actors will be coming for many of the films, notably Jacqui Jackson from Jamie & Jessie Are Not Together and a bunch of cast and crew from the documentaries “This Is What Love In Action Looks Like” and “Married In Spandex.” “Leave It On The Floor” features characters from “Noah's Ark” and Beyoncé supported the production (evident in its dancing and music!).

Q5- How can visitors get involved with the film festival?

Come and enjoy! I know of several people coming in from out of town to hunker down and enjoy all two days of movies. There's thought-provoking and entertaining work of excellent variety that you won't have an opportunity to see anywhere else - I can hardly wait to see these films again myself!
 

What's Going on Around Town?

Adventures with Clifford the Big Red Dog
Port Discovery Children’s Museum
January 14 - May 6, 2012
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Board the Birdwell Island ferry and journey to the world of Clifford™, America’s beloved big red dog with a heart to match, in Adventures with Clifford the Big Red Dog traveling exhibit! Inspired by Scholastic Entertainment’s television show, “Clifford the Big Red Dog” on PBS KIDS, the exhibit offers numerous “paw-on adventures” – slide down the tail of a colossal nine-foot high Clifford – help fill Clifford’s big dog bowl, create sand art, find “bone”-ifide treasures at T-Bone’s Beach and more! 

Touch and the Enjoyment of Sculpture: Exploring the Appeal of Renaissance Statuettes
The Walters Art Museum
January 21 - April 15, 2012
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This groundbreaking focus show will explore the implications of tactile perception for enjoying sculpture by melding the research of a Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist studying how the brain reacts to tactile stimuli and a Walters’ curator interested in the increased appreciation of tactility as an aspect of European Renaissance art – a period marked by a new availability of small “collectibles” meant to be held. Did artists anticipate a reaction to tactile stimulus in shaping sculpture, specifically statuettes of female nudes? Displays will illustrate the Renaissance attitudes toward touch, the sensation of touch being stimulated without actual contact, and the neural processing and perception of objects during touch.

Charm City LGBT Film Festival
Creative Alliance
January 20-21, 2012
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To give Baltimore a taste of the best queer filmmaking of the past year, Creative Alliance brings you the 2012 Charm City LGBT Film Festival! Funny, thought-provoking and innovative, these films represent variety of cutting-edge work from Baltimore to Jakarta to Ecuador to the planet of Zots! Films include “Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same,” “Married in Spandex with Dance Tranny Dance,” and “Angel.”


Charm City Kitty Club presents Episode 2: Hot and Bothered
Creative Alliance
January 28, 2012, 8 p.m.
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It's the 10th anniversary season of Baltimore's original queer cabaret, and this time we're reliving the joys and pains of our adolescent angst. Between crushing on the captain of the field hockey team and reading Rubyfruit Jungle under the covers at night, we barely made it out alive! Luckily we've got some great life coaches: emcee songstress J Pope and the Funk Friday, feminist playwright Susan McCully, gender-bending acro-balancing by The Dandy Vagabonds, and more!

Harry’s Big Adventure: My Bug World!
Maryland Science Center
February 4 - April 29, 2012
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Hosted by Harry, a Chinese praying mantis, and his insect friends, the exhibit has three goals: to foster a sense of wonder and fascination for the natural world and its bugs, to highlight the many different habitats and behaviors of bugs, and to inspire outdoor play and discovery. It features live bugs, video, audio, games and more and is designed to give students an up-close view of nature and a new perspective on the role insects play in our environment. Many live species are on display including butterflies, ladybugs, Emperor scorpions, tarantulas, cockroaches, millipedes, crawfish, aphids, water striders, water beetles, click beetles, dung beetles, ants and more.

Into the Woods
CENTERSTAGE
March 7 - April 15, 2012
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What happens after Happily Ever After, after all? In Sondheim and Lapine’s beloved musical retelling of the Grimm classics, a parade of familiar folktale figures find their way “Into the Woods” and try to get home before dark – under the guidance of Mark Lamos, who dazzled us with “A Little Night Music” in 2008.

Joan Rivers
The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center: The Hippodrome Theatre
March 23, 2012, 8 p.m.
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“The Celebrity Apprentice” winner brings her live stand-up act to the Hippodrome Theatre. Rivers presents an evening of her newest and most outrageous riffs on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” Hollywood, pop culture, celebrities, reality TV and award show fashion.

Print by Print: Series from Dürer to Lichtenstein
The Baltimore Museum of Art
Through March 25, 2012
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Discover more than 350 prints by Canaletto, Pablo Picasso, Ed Ruscha, and other European and American artists who created images in series. The true vision of these artists is realized as each series is shown in its entirety.

Where to Stay:

With more than 25 TAG approved hotels and over 10 IGLTA partner accommodations, visitors’ choices range from quaint B&Bs and boutique hotels to the larger upscale hotels and extended stay properties, which makes finding a room in Baltimore easy.

Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore
www.fourseasons.com/Baltimore
200 International Drive
Baltimore MD 21202
410-576-5800

Hugging the shoreline, with unmatched views across the water, the 256-room luxury Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore offers a chic, five-star, resort-like getaway in the heart of Harbor East – the city’s hippest new district. Explore upscale dining, entertainment and shopping in this vibrant, walkable neighborhood. Meet or dine over sparkling blue views. Relax in the spa, or lounge in the pool oasis overlooking the marina – while the children have fun invented just for them. Discover Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore, a complete urban retreat.

Stay and Shop Package

Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore Stay and Shop Package Through March 31, 2012

Now through March 31, 2012, enjoy special discounts at select Harbor East shops when you stay at the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore. This package also includes breakfast for two in Wit & Wisdom, A Tavern by Michael Mina, or through in-room dining.

Where to Dine:

Bond Street Social
www.bondstreetsocial.com
901 S. Bond Street
Baltimore, MD 21231

Baltimore’s newest and hottest Fell’s Point eating and drinking destination, combines an original, upscale dining experience with a hip, lively social scene. The creative menu of “social plates” encourages social dining with a range of global dishes that fuse European, Latin, Asian, and Chesapeake Bay cuisine.