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2016 BEAT Festival

Company:
BEAT Festival

The Fifth Annual Brooklyn BEAT Festival to Feature More Than a Dozen Engaging and Adventurous Performances Across the Borough
(Brooklyn, NY, August 16, 2014).

On September 15-23, 2016, the fifth annual Brooklyn Emerging Artists in Theater (BEAT) Festival will take place, showcasing Brooklyn's most exciting crop of local theater, dance, and voice talent, performing in unique locations borough-wide.

Brooklyn's worldwide appeal – created in part by the artists who live and work here – make this festival a true world-class event. The festival celebrates a sense of place and a vibe that is unique to Brooklyn.

"BEAT brings influential and electrifying performance artists to diverse communities across the borough," said Stephen Shelley, Artistic Director and Executive Producer. "The adventurous performances focus on an interplay between audience members, artists, and the spaces themselves."

For the first time, BEAT has asked three esteemed Brooklyn-based artists to curate the 2016 festival: Keisha-Gaye Anderson (voice), Terry Greiss (theater), and LEIMAY's Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya (dance). (Bio information for each is below). BEAT's primary aim is to support and develop emerging performing artists in Brooklyn. By inviting these established artists to provide their guidance, BEAT has added an extra layer of artistic vision and foresight into the next generation of Brooklyn art-makers. The BEAT Festival is thrilled to share their discoveries with 2016 audiences.

There are several free performances; ticketed events are priced up to $20, and a general festival pass is available for $50 or purchase two for $75. For tickets and more information about the festival, visit http://www.beatbrooklyn.com/.

 

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

BEAT Festival Opening Night
Sept. 15, 2016
Time: 7pm
Price: FREE (The standard museum suggested donation entrance policy still applies) Venue: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Crown Heights

With Derick Cross, The FLEX Program, t’ai freedom ford, Elyzabeth Gorman, Lucy Kerr, David Langlois, Thea Little, Ras Osagyefo, Gabriel Ramirez, Niki Singleton, Vickie Tanner, Hanne Tierney and Jamila Youngstedt

For one night only, the Brooklyn Museum becomes the “Brooklyn Museum of the Performing Arts.” See all the artists in this year’s BEAT Festival performing throughout Brooklyn’s largest cultural institution. Performances will be taking place in all corners and halls of the building, and it’s up to you to find them. Come one, come all — this is a free event, a true celebration of Brooklyn performing arts. Guests will have access to the museum, including many of the most popular current exhibits!

MetroTech Lunchtime Mashup #1
Sept. 16, 2016
Featuring The FLEX Program, David Langlois & Ras Osagyefo
Time: Noon
Price: FREE
Venue: MetroTech Commons, MetroTech Center, Downtown Brooklyn

Step away from your desk for an hour of free performance! First, The FLEX Program explores the mythological story of Apollo using its dynamic and unique street dance movements. Then, listen as David Langlois and Ras Osagyefo collaborate, tapping into the deep musical and poetic history of Rastafari. David is a multi-instrumentalist having played around the world with the likes of Bette Midler and Paul McCartney and Ras is a Jamaican born poet and author that Billboard described as “spitting fiery rhymes.”

Vickie Tanner, Running Into Me Sept. 16, 2016
Time: 7pm
Price: $20
Venue: Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 7th Ave., Park Slope

A call from home sends writer/performer Vickie Tanner (Stomp, Tantalus) on a whirlwind tour of her life, proving wherever you go, there you are. Riveting and audacious, this is an extraordinary true story. Most of the men in her immediate family served time in prison; her family ridiculed her for choosing to study and to speak standard English; ultimately she defined herself and defied the odds. She takes the audience on a ride from her misguided upbringing in the rough Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles to her pursuit of a life as an actor. “She exudes a warmth and generosity that invites the audience into the story of her past without making them feel like voyeurs.” - The Skinny

David Langlois and Ras Osagyefo, ReggaeVerse Sept. 17, 2016
Time: 7pm
Price: $20
Venue: Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 7th Ave., Park Slope

Multi-instrumentalist David Langlois and Jamaican poet Ras Osagyefo are combining forces just for the BEAT Festival. Ras is a poet, writer and lyricist known for echoing the struggles of the disempowered and voiceless in his native home land and around the world. David has invented an extremely unique version of the traditional washboard instrument - and that, along with his renowned percussion talents, have taken him around the world and placed him on stage with some of the biggest names in music: Bette Midler, Paul McCartney, and Les Paul to name a few.

Hanne Tierney, Baby, said Alice B. Toklas . . . Sept. 18, 2016
Time: 1-4pm
Price: FREE
Venue: FiveMyles, 558 St Johns Pl., (bet Classon & Franklin Ave), Crown Heights

This self-performing theater piece revels in and transcends its own artificiality. The precise movements of two cloth figures, hula hoops, copper pipes, and fabric configurations are being controlled in plain sight by a wood and plexiglass device. An elaborate, visible robot brain sends messages to the device whose levers literally manipulate the strings of the performing materials, creating the gestures, lights and dialogue. The figures are Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein, arguing over the worth of Stein's avant-garde plays and operas. This piece will run in 15 minute loops from 1pm until 4pm.

Thea Little and Niki Singleton, Control Equinox Sept. 19, 2016
Time: Noon
Price: FREE
Venue: 1 MetroTech Lobby, 1 MetroTech Center, Downtown Brooklyn

Control Equinox is a wild, humorous, and intense dance-theatre work incorporating two 11-foot sculptures on wheels, made in collaboration by choreographer Thea Little and visual artist Niki Singleton. This work is the culmination of research and productions made on the topic of Control since the Summer of 2014. The five performers explore the sculptural props, moving inside and around them while they are being pushed and pulled throughout the performance spaces. The dancers run the gamut of Control by engaging in power roles, competition among one another, games, humiliation, manipulation, perfectionism, vanity, militaristic organized movement, and social and time pressure, while also being a group machine of unity, cooperation, and comfort to one another. The sculptures have dual representations: the Man can be a symbol of freedom or oppression and the Tool an instrument of pain or pleasure.

The FLEX Program, FLEX-Hyperborealis Sept. 20, 2016
Time: 7pm
Price: $20
Presented in association with Kumble Theater at LIU Brooklyn
Venue: Kumble Theater, Flatbush Ave between DeKalb Ave & Willoughby St, One University Plaza, Downtown Brooklyn

In this unique work, The FLEX Program merges street dance with Greek mythology and the timeless search for meaning in a highly stratified world. The FLEX Program started as a movement in the streets of Brooklyn and is now an education initiative that fosters positive growth among young people in difficult circumstances through mindful movement, creative storytelling, and improvisational dance. With FLEX-Hyperborealis, the FLEX dancers explore the journey of Apollo, the Greek God of music, poetry and healing as he is challenged on his way to gaining wisdom from the people beyond the Northern Winds.

SEE/HEAR/NOW, A Night of Spoken Word Curated by Keisha-Gaye Anderson Sept. 21, 2016
Time: 7pm
Price: $10
Presented in association with FiveMyles
Featuring, Derick Cross, Gabriel Ramirez, and t’ai freedom ford
Venue: FiveMyles, 558 St. Johns Pl (bet Classon & Franklin Ave), Crown Heights

Poets t'ai freedom ford, Derick Cross and Gabriel Ramirez wield words that witness, dissect, and demand that we stand in the present moment, fully embracing both our brilliance and the challenges that divide us. Pulling from their varied experiences in activism, education, fiction writing, poetry, acting, music, and many others, this will be a night of spoken word being uniquely created for the festival. See...hear....now! - what brings us together and moves us toward a more positive society.

Brooklyn on the Rim, A Dance Evening Curated by LEIMAY Sept. 22, 2016
Featuring: Lucy Kerr, Thea Little & Niki Singleton
Time: 7pm
Price: $20
Venue: Triskelion Arts, Muriel Schulman Theater, 106 Calyer St (Enter on Banker Street), Greenpoint

This event features Control Equinox, a unique movement and sculpture collaboration between Thea Little and Niki Singleton, followed by Lucy Kerr’s while you were away, which merges film and performance, exploring the poetic relationship between the human landscape and loneliness. This evening’s program is curated by Williamsburg- based LEIMAY, one of Brooklyn’s most innovative movement and installation art creators. The “rim” in the title represents the collective edge of our notions of dance and theater, meaning this event is certain to reveal something new and fresh to our audience.

MetroTech Lunchtime Mashup #2 Sept. 23, 2016
Time: Noon
Price: FREE
Featuring Lucy Kerr, Derick Cross and Jamila Youngstedt
Venue: MetroTech Commons, MetroTech Center, Downtown Brooklyn

Our second, free outdoor lunchtime performance in the MetroTech Commons invites you to first witness a unique collaboration between a beatboxer and a cyr wheel artist. Combining movement, poetry and music, Derick Cross will beatbox alongside Jamila Youngstedt and her spinning wheel. This unique performance will be followed by Lucy Kerr’s equally compelling sculptural performance installation, The World of Wrestling.

Elyzabeth Gorman’s Margaret I + BEAT Closing Night Party Sept 23, 2016
Time: 7pm
Price: $20
Venue: Industry City Distillery, 33 35th St, 6th Floor, Sunset Park

Sunset Park’s Industry City Distillery provides a spectacular backdrop for this original work by director Elyzabeth Gorman. Margaret I combines music, movement and text from Shakespeare’s Henry VI tetralogy, his sources, early female writers, and contemporary responses to explore the role of women in politics, war and sex. Set against the tumultuous Wars of the Roses, Shakespeare’s characters illuminate women’s impact through history and in contemporary leadership.

Immediately following the performance, join us for house-brewed and hand-crafted vodka cocktails at Industry City Distillery in celebration of our artists and audiences of BEAT 2016! Ticket includes admission to both the performance and party.

For more information: BEATBrooklyn.com