Your Week Untapped: Best Events for December 31-January 6

Our curated list of events for this week: New Year’s Eve at Beaumarchais, the Polar Bear Club annual Jan. 1st swim, last chance to see the event of a thread.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31: Beaumarchais will be hosting a New Year’s Eve party this year with a 1920s Great Gatsby theme. The elegant black tie affair will feature a four-course menu and music by Avalon Jazz Band. The signature cocktail will be the Rose Framboise with Moet Champagne. Learn more about their NYE party here. Then on Tuesday morning, if you are looking to fuel your recovery (or keep the party going), join Beaumarchais for their first champagne-drenched Beau Brunch celebration of 2013. Beaumarchais, 409 West 13th Street. $100 per person. reservations@beaumarchais.com or call (212)675-2400. (via Underground Eats. For more great New Year’s Eve culinary events, visit their website.)

Also on Monday:  For a more affordable NYE celebration, check out the fireworks at Central Park or Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 1: The Polar Bear Club‘s swim is on. Join the Coney Island Polar Bear Club in their annual New Year’s Day swim, which is open to the public. Bring warm clothes, surf boots or old sneakers, towels, and definitely bring your camera. The NYC Parks Department provides changing facilities on the Boardwalk at Stillwell Avenue. 1pm at the Boardwalk at Stillwell Avenue, Coney Island, Brooklyn. FREE.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2:  Last days to see  Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life,  a photographic exhibition examining the legacy of the apartheid system and how it penetrated even the most mundane aspects of social existence in South Africa, from housing, public amenities, and transportation to education, tourism, religion, and businesses.  Curated by Okwui Enwezor with Rory Bester, the exhibition proposes a complex understanding of photography and the aesthetic power of the documentary form and honors the exceptional achievement of South African photographers. 10am-6pm at ICP, 1133 Avenue of the Americas (at 43rd Street). $14 adults / $10 students / Museum members FREE.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3:  The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) presents:  Slideshow Presentations Featuring Eric Drooker and Fly.  Lower East Side native Eric Drooker will give a slide lecture exploring his early years as a street artist in New York City, and will trace the evolution of his graphic novels into animated films — and from his cover paintings of the New Yorker, to his slow infiltration of the mainstream. The artist will talk about growing up on Avenue B, and how the changing landscape has shaped his vision.  The artist will accompany his lecture on various musical instruments. Fly will present UnReal Estate, a slideshow about squatter history. Also joining Eric will be an old rapper friend from the neighborhood, Kid Lucky. His new duo is called the Adventures of Kaila and the Kid. 8pm at MoRUS, C Squat, 155 Avenue C (between 9th & 10th Streets). FREE, rsvp here.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4: The 7th Annual 50 First Jokes. Each year, 50 of NYC’s most incredible up-and-coming and veteran comics come together to tell the first joke they’ve written for the new year, kicking off the 2013 comedy scene in the most righteous way possible. 7:30pm doors, 8pm show at The Bell House, 147 7th Street, Brooklyn. $10 in advance / $12 at the door. Buy tickets here.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5:  The last day of MoMA’s Pier Paolo Pasolini Retrospective. Pasolini’s cinematic legacy is distinguished by an unerring eye for cinematic composition and tone, and a stylistic ease within a variety of genres””many of which he reworked to his own purposes, and all of which he invested with his distinctive touch. Tonight’s film is Il fiore delle Mille e una notte (The Arabian Nights). 5pm at MoMA Theater 1, T1 (followed by a discussion with Simon Abrams, Bilge, Ebiri and Richard Pena, moderated by Jyette Jensen). $12 adults / $8 students. Ticketing info here.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 6:  Last chance to see The Event of a Thread.  Visual artist  Ann Hamilton  combines the ephemeral presence of time with the material tactility for which she is best known to create a new large-scale installation for the Wade Thompson Drill Hall. A multisensory affair, the work draws together readings, sound, and live events within a field of swings that together invite visitors to connect to the action of each other and the work itself, illuminating the experience of the singular and collective body. Tuesdays-Sundays, 12-7pm at  The Park Avenue Armory. $12 / $10 students / FREE for children & Armory members. Buy tickets  here. Read our review here.