Archives: Events

Come join the Drama Club which is open to adults and university students, with or without acting experience. It consists of miming, improvising, and acting out published works of theater, such as sketches and plays.

This activity is open to library members, the cost is 90€ for the 2019-2020 school year. Sign up at the front desk with the registration form. Take the stage and break a leg! 

There are still a couple of spaces left to join the Drama Club which is open to adults and university students, with or without acting experience. These evenings of acting consist of miming, improvising, and acting out published works of theater such as sketches and plays.

This activity is open to library members, the cost is 90€ for the 2019-2020 school year. Sign up at the front desk with the registration form. Take the stage and break a leg! 

For music lovers who are not necessarily musicians, the library presents a series of sessions aimed at illustrating English Classical Music in its most beautiful forms. Each session will focus on a composer, with a short presentation of their work as well as listening to select pieces and videos. The point is to share comments and criticism as a group.

Free and open to all library members, for more information or to sign up please contact the group coordinator here.

Do you love French food and restaurants? Would you like to speak English more, but in a relaxed environment? Join the Luncheon Club! Enjoy a meal and great conversation in English once a month at a local restaurant. This activity is open to library members. For more information or to sign up, please contact the group coordinator here.

The film club presents a film in English once a month on a Saturday afternoon. This showing will be of “Angels’ Share” a comedy-drama film directed by Ken Loach. Set in Glasgow, Scotland, it tells the story of a young father who narrowly avoids a prison sentence. He is determined to turn over a new leaf and when he and his friends from the same community payback group visit a whisky distillery, a route to a new life becomes apparent. The title is from “the angels’ share”, a term for the portion (share) of a whisky’s volume that is lost to evaporation during aging in oak barrels. Watch the trailer here.

Screening begins at 3 o’clock sharp and will be followed by a discussion in English. This activity is free and open to all library members. If possible, please reserve by signing up at the front desk. 

Anissa Bouziane was born in the United States to a Moroccan father and French mother. She is a writer, filmmaker, and teacher who has been working on issues of the divide between the East and West for more than twenty years. She will be talking about her first novel, Dune Song / Sables, which is coming out in France and the U.S. this fall and is in competition for the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s First Book Award. The book, rooted in the personal experience of witnessing the collapse of the Twin Towers, centers around the events of 9/11 as seen from the perspective of an Arab-American woman. Click here to read a book review.

“Constructed like a puzzle which assembles itself before our eyes, Anissa Bouziane’s book is lifted, feather-like, by a prose both precise and delicate. An epic tale made of strong images where style breathes with force into the immensity of the story’s spaces.”  E. Thiboud — Le Monde

Bouziane has a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University, a bachelor’s degree in political sciences from Wellesley College, a certificate in film from New York University, and she is completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. Her award-winning experimental films and installation art, produced in collaboration with photographer Yasmina Bouziane, was at the forefront of discussion about Arab identity in the West in the decade before September 11^th. She lived and worked in New York City for more than ten years, until 2002 when she moved back to Morocco and then France.

Today, Bouziane lives and writes in Paris. She is an educational consultant and teaches English and American literature. She specializes in using creative writing to teach English to non-native speakers. Her essays and short stories have been published in The International Herald Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, the magazine Tolerance, and the RAWI Anthology of Arab-American Writing. Her short and experimental films have been shown worldwide, at the Festival National du Cinema Marocain, the Rawafid film festival in Casablanca, the Pasadena Film Festival, and the Berkley Film and Video Festival, where the Bouziane Sisters’ first film, Yellow Nylon Rope, won first prize. Their installation work has been on display in galleries including New Langton Arts Gallery in San Francisco and Columbia University’s French House. Always busy, Bouziane is hard at work on her next novel.

This talk is free and open to the public. No reservations necessary, but seating is limited. The Speaker Series has been made possible with the support of the Embassy of the United States of America, France. / Avec le soutien de l’Ambassade des États-Unis d’Amérique.

Come along and bring your knitting,

Have a natter while you’re sitting,

Or learn to knit with wool provided,

Needles loaned and stitches guided.

Knitted garments are très chic,

So be in vogue and start this week.

Knit and Natter is a free activity, open to all library members. No need to reserve, just come and enjoy! If anyone has some extra yarn please bring it in.

Join the library community for a special moment to talk about anything and everything (in English of course!) over a cup of coffee or tea. Coffee House is free and open to all library members. Just drop by, no need to reserve!

The garden club invites you to discover the beautiful gardens in the area! This free activity is open to library members and offers visits once a month to a garden between April and October. For more information and/or to sign up for this visit please send an email to gardenclub@ellia.org.

If you love needlecraft, this activity is for you! Each participant will make a textile creation of their choice while exchanging different techniques in English. All styles are welcome: embroidery, patchwork, quilting, weaving, collage, tapestry, etc.

For those who wish, it is possible to work on a group project. Each person will make their own textile artwork inspired by the Neil Gaiman quote, “A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.” The pieces will be shown at the library as an art exhibition in 2020.

Bring your own materials and join us at the library on the following dates: October 3rd, November 7th and December 5th. Open to library members. Please sign up at the front desk, when possible.