BRIC ANNOUNCES PROGRAMMING FOR MILESTONE 40TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON SEPTEMBER 2018-MAY 2019
BRIC ANNOUNCES PROGRAMMING FOR MILESTONE
40TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
SEPTEMBER 2018-MAY 2019
Programming Highlights Include the 4th Annual BRIC JazzFest, BRIC Biennial: Vol. 3,
Urban Bush Women as Artists-in-Residence, the 3rd Annual BRIC OPEN, and
Two BRIC TV Original Series That Premiered at Tribeca
Five Special 40th Anniversary Commissions
Anniversary Season Programming Centers on BRIC’s Legacy of Incubating
Diverse Artists and Media-Makers Who Speak to Social Issues
BRIC, the pioneering NYC arts-and-media organization and leading presenter of free cultural programming in Brooklyn, announces programming for its milestone 40th Anniversary season at BRIC House (September 2018-May 2019)—the organization’s award-winning 40,000SF Downtown Brooklyn home. The season at BRIC House—its first under newly appointed BRIC President Kristina Newman-Scott—highlights the central idea that has animated BRIC’s identity from the very beginning: that to create the future we want to see, artists must be supported in their role as civic leaders and citizens must be empowered to speak in their own creative voice. The season also deepens the organization’s inclusive approach to both local and global discussions, and the places where they intersect.
In honor of this multifaceted 40th year of programming, stretching from the Summer 2018 to Winter/Spring 2019 seasons, BRIC has commissioned new works across the spectrum of artistic disciplines, including R+R=NOW’s The Liberation Suite, which made its world premiere at the 2018 BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival; Grimanesa Amorós’ HEDERA, a monumental light installation at Prospect Park which has hypnotically presided over the 2018 BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival; Mary Mattingly’s What Happens After, a contemporary art exhibition of ambitious scale and complex content; a new piece by rising star trumpeter and vocalist Keyon Harrold, making its world premiere at the fourth annual BRIC Jazzfest; and specially commissioned works for the BRIC OPEN, the organization’s annual arts and ideas festival.
Founded in 1979 with a dual cultural and civic mission to foster economic revitalization through the arts, BRIC celebrates four decades of serving as a welcoming cultural connector between emerging and established artists in Brooklyn and the borough’s many diverse communities—of being “Where Brooklyn Comes Together,” as the organization’s new tagline states. Originally conceived as The Fund for the Borough of Brooklyn, one of its first achievements was the development and launch of the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, a mostly free summer-long performance series that creates a welcoming environment for all within one of the city’s most beloved green spaces, Prospect Park. The festival, now considered one of the city’s foremost summer cultural attractions, serves an audience of over 175,000 people from across the borough every year. In order to further strengthen the visual arts sector in Brooklyn, BRIC established the Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn Heights in 1981 to support the creation of opportunities for contemporary artists in the borough. BRIC was named the Public Access television organization for Brooklyn in 1988, nurturing public education in the development of works in the medium of video and facilitating the creation of and access to Brooklyn-focused television programming—programming that now reaches over 2 million households through BRIC’s robust cable and digital networks. The 2013 opening of BRIC House brought BRIC’s performing arts, contemporary art and community media programs under one roof for the first time since the organization’s founding, and allowed them to expand their programming; deepen their support for emerging artists, many of them living and working in Brooklyn; and enrich the lives of nearly one million people each year.
BRIC House, celebrating its 5th anniversary since opening its doors, has quickly become one of New York City’s most inviting and accessible spaces to experience art in its many forms. The Municipal Arts Society named it “Best Neighborhood Catalyst,” The New York Times hailed it as a “venerable…arts organization” with “snazzily redesigned headquarters,” and Time Out NY deemed it “one of Brooklyn’s best hubs for performance art and exhibitions.” BRIC received the 2015 Building Brooklyn Award for Community Development by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, awarded to “renovation projects that improve the borough's diverse neighborhoods and economy.”
BRIC prides itself on inclusive and representative programming that reflects the diversity of Brooklyn, and is proud to acknowledge that 85% of its live event patrons attend for free. As Brooklyn Vegan recently wrote, “There are those who believe that art and culture is the province of the few, the elite—i.e., those who can afford it. Then there’s BRIC. The organization advocates that culture is everyone’s right and, as one of the city’s largest presenters of free cultural programming, it backs up that advocacy big time.”
Fall 2018 Season Programming Highlights
The anniversary season at BRIC House boldly begins with What Happens After, an exhibition from acclaimed artist Mary Mattingly, September 13-November 11 in the BRIC House Gallery. Drawing on BRIC’s belief in the potentials of artistic creativity to look beyond an unjust or violent present and envision a better future, the exhibit features an immense, fraught object—a decommissioned U.S. military vehicle—as its centerpiece, repurposed as a platform for thought-provoking performance. The second main exhibition of the season, Penelope Umbrico’s MONUMENT, similarly reuses neglected, loaded objects—here, contemporary technologies left to waste by the rapidness of technologic obsolescence (November 29-January 20). Together, the two exhibitions boldly redefine what is considered “women’s work.”
BRIC House features additional contemporary art exhibition spaces that will host artists Juanli Carrión (September 12-November 11) and Rose Nestler (November 29-January 20) in the BRIC House Project Room, and Jon Henry (September 13-October 14) and Johannah Herr (October 25-February 3) in the BRIC House Hallway.
The Fall 2018 season provides Brooklyn audiences with a multitude of invigorating performances. The fourth annual BRIC JazzFest (October 13-20)—which includes a three-night jazz music marathon, as well as film screenings, dance workshops, panel discussions, and a special JazzFest edition of BRIC’s Brooklyn Poetry Slam—showcases a diversity of means of reflecting and celebrating the legacy, present, and future of jazz. BRIC Artists-in-Residence The Knights present an evening concert of music that inspired two unparalleled artistic forces—Leonard Bernstein and Walt Whitman (October 27)—and return to introduce audiences of all ages to classical music for Family Matinees (October 27, December 2).
BRIC further adds to its ever-engaging community media programming, offering the new series Dinette—focused on a group of female and gender non-conforming friends—and continuing acclaimed programs like 112BK hosted by Ashley Ford and Going in with Brian Vines on BRIC TV, the award-winning cable TV and digital network. On October 3, NYCHA: The Cost of Living, A #BHeard Town Hall centers the voices of residents in NYCHA housing in a live event at BRIC House. Podcast enthusiasts can catch Last Name Basis, Franchesca Ramsey and Patrick Kondas’ beloved BRIC Radio podcast, taping live on November 14 in the BRIC House Ballroom.
Winter/Spring 2019 Season Programming Highlights
The 40th Anniversary programming—with its eye towards the inextricable intertwining of creativity and participation in pushing society forward—continues into the Winter/Spring 2019 Season. 2018-2019 Artists-in-Residence Urban Bush Women—“committed, triple-threat performers who dance, sing, and act with a sometimes searing sense of truthfulness” (The New York Times)—present the New York premiere of Hair & Other Stories, a performance that blends dance-theater and conversation in an interrogation of disquieting perceptions of beauty, identity, and race (January 31, February 1-2, 7-9 in the BRIC House Ballroom). The company’s year-long residency is filled out with monthly free community dance classes, including the Talk ‘Trane Workshop as part of BRIC Jazz Fest, and a series of Hair Parties: community events that bring participants into conversation with the socio-political themes of the performance.
Three cornerstones of BRIC’s eclectic cultural programming return in Winter/Spring 2019: the BRIC Biennial, BRIC House Sessions, and BRIC OPEN. BRIC Biennial: Vol. 3, South Brooklyn Edition focuses on artists based in this eponymous (and nebulous) cluster of neighborhoods, with exhibits also occurring throughout “South Brooklyn” (February 14-April 14). BRIC House Sessions, the exhilarating weekly music series, returns beginning Thursdays in February, and runs through April. This year’s BRIC OPEN—the annual arts and ideas festival borne out of BRIC’s core values of creativity, inclusion, and community—is centered around the theme of Justice (April 24-27). In conjunction with BRIC’s 40th, it features a celebration of the “BRIC 40”—40 citizens of Brooklyn who are bringing their own creativity to bear for social change.
Between Fall 2018 and Winter/Spring 2019, audiences will get to experience works-in-progress from the compelling emerging artists working in music, dance, theatre and multidisciplinary performance announced for this year’s BRIClab Residency: The New Wild and Qais Essar; Rev. Yolanda Roger Anthony Mapes and Justin Taylor; Janeill Cooper; Eliza Bent; Laura Anderson Barbata; Bex Kwan and Sophia Mak; Tendayi Kuumba and Courtney J. Cook; and Wendy S. Walters.
In addition, returning year-round programs at BRIC House include the Stoop Series, BRIC’s own conversation series featuring a community of creative thinkers on the Stoop at BRIC House; the ever-popular Brooklyn Poetry Slam hosted Mahogany L. Browne, featuring the borough’s best slam poets; BRIC Family programs; and the BRIC Media Center’s array of low-cost, high-quality training courses to help aspiring media-makers take their message to the next level.
Free events may be reserved at BRICartsmedia.org. Tickets for BRIC JazzFest, The Knights, and BRIClab are currently on sale. Tickets for Urban Bush Women’s Hair & Other Stories will go on sale in September. BRIC’s spring events, including BRIC House Sessions, will be available to reserve or purchase in early 2019. Tickets may be purchased online at BRICartsmedia.org or via phone at 877.987.6487. The Box Office at BRIC House is open on performance days only, one hour prior to the event. BRIC House is located at 647 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn and is open weekdays and Saturday at 8am and Sundays at 10am.
Visit BRICartsmedia.org for a full Fall 2018 programming schedule.
BRIC 40th ANNIVERSARY SEASON PROGRAMMING HIGHLIGHTS
[Contemporary Art]
Mary Mattingly
What Happens After
Opening Reception: Sep 12, 2018 | 7-9pm
On View: Sep 13 - Nov 11, 2018
BRIC House Gallery | FREE
In Partnership with the Brooklyn Navy Yard
BRIC has commissioned activist artist Mary Mattingly to create a major new work, one that examines the massive military industrial complex and its profound effects on our nation’s economy, the environment, and on individuals and communities. A U.S. military vehicle at the center of the exhibition—creatively transformed into a platform for performance by a group of performance artists—acts to spark dialogue, about the possibility of reimagining the use of objects with violent histories and, more broadly, about ways of being. What Happens After also includes a massive flowchart, drawn by the artist, that will document the movement of natural resources, money, materials, and military equipment on a global scale, and sculptural objects created by Mattingly that examine the natural resources extracted from the earth and used by the military industrial complex.
Public programs associated with the exhibition—many of which will be staged on the military vehicle—will be announced in late August.
Mary Mattingly is a Brooklyn-based visual artist best known for Swale, a floating food forest for New York. Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, the Brooklyn Museum, the Palais de Tokyo, and in the Havana Biennial, among many other institiutions. In 2009 Mattingly founded the Waterpod Project, a barge-based public space and self-sufficient habitat that hosted over 200,000 visitors in New York.
[Performing Arts]
BRIClab Residencies
September 2018-April 2019
BRIC House Artist Studio
BRIClab is a commissioning and residency program that offers local artists time and space to explore and expand the possibilities of their work in music, dance, theater and multidisciplinary performance. Work-in-progress showings, presented with moderated artist-audience dialogues, open artists’ process and creativity to BRIC’s diverse public.
Residency artists of the 2018-2019 BRIClab season include The New Wild and Qais Essar, Rev. Yolanda Roger Anthony Mapes and Justin Taylor, Janeill Cooper, Eliza Bent, Laura Anderson Barbata, Bex Kwan and Sophia Mak, Tendayi Kuumba and Courtney J. Cook, and Wendy S. Walters.
Full program details will be announced in September.
[Community Media]
BRIC TV
BRIC TV is the voice of Brooklyn on cable television and online video—reflecting the best that the borough has to offer with original, character-driven series, award-winning short documentaries, local news and social justice reporting, and premier arts, music, and comedy coverage. The network is viewable on YouTube, Spectrum 1992, Cablevision Optimum 70, and Verizon 46.
The new season of BRIC TV includes include original TV series Dinette from director Shaina Feinberg and The Great Pretender from Nathan Silver, both of which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival; 112BK hosted by Ashley Ford, the only daily news and culture show from and about the country’s fourth largest city; and Going In with Brian Vines, the network’s prime time news magazine program that takes you inside the most pressing topics facing Brooklyn today.
Full schedule and premiere dates for BRIC TV will be announced in September.
[Community Media]
NYCHA: The Cost of Living, A #BHeard Town Hall
Wed, Oct 3, 2018 | 6:30-8:30pm
BRIC House Ballroom | FREE
BRIC hosts local politicians, activists, journalists and community members to take on some of the most important —and most difficult—issues facing the borough. No topic is off-limits, and no viewpoint is ignored.
NYCHA, the nation’s largest housing authority and New York City’s biggest landlord, is also home for upwards of half-a-million residents who must contend with issues of over-policing, crumbling infrastructure, environmental hazards, and violence. With the Trump administration slashing federal funding of the public housing authority, BRIC TV’s award-winning #BHeard Town Hall series will center the voices of NYCHA residents from Brooklyn and beyond in a live event at BRIC House.
Additional #BHeard Town Hall dates and topics to be announced.
[Performing Arts]
BRIC JAZZFEST
October 13-20, 2018
BRIC House
Now in its fourth year, Brooklyn’s ultimate jazz festival includes film, poetry, dance, panel discussions, workshops, and a three-stage, three-night live music marathon that celebrates some of the most exciting global legends in jazz, and groundbreaking new jazz artists from Brooklyn and beyond. For its 40th anniversary, BRIC has commissioned rising star trumpeter Keyon Harrold to write a new piece of music which will have its world premiere at the 2018 BRIC JazzFest.
The three-night jazz marathon (October 18-20) features performances by Meshell Ndegeocello, Terence Blanchard and The E-Collective, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Cyrus Chestnut Trio, Stefon Harris & Blackout ft. Casey Benjamin, Brownout Presents: Fear of a Brown Planet ft. Third Root, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Xenia Rubinos, The Jazz Passengers, Keyon Harrold, Deva Mahal, Madison McFerrin, Kat Edmonson, JD Allen, Lakecia Benjamin & SoulSquad, Camila Meza, Resident Alien ft. Ali Sethi & Sunny Jain, Arnetta Johnson & SUNNY, Yassir Tejeda y Palotré, Yotam Ben-Or Quartet, Noa Fort, Melanie Charles & Make Jazz Trill Again, and Michael Sarian & The Chabones.
Full program details were announced in July and are available upon request.
[Performing Arts]
The Knights
2018-2019 Artists-in-Residence
“[The Knights are] one of Brooklyn’s sterling cultural products….known far beyond the borough for their relaxed virtuosity and expansive repertory.” –The New Yorker
Led by brothers Colin and Eric Jacobsen, The Knights are a GRAMMY-nominated, Brooklyn-based orchestral collective that engages listeners and defies boundaries with programs that showcase the players’ roots in the classical tradition and passion for musical discovery.
Evening Concert
Leonard Bernstein and Walt Whitman: American Originals & De Falla's Master Peter Puppet Show
Oct 27, 2018 | 8PM
$18 Adv/$23 Day-of-show
BRIC House Ballroom
Arguably two of America's brightest creative forces, Leonard Bernstein and Walt Whitman still seem larger than life to this day. In this season, which encompasses anniversary celebrations for both great artists (Bernstein's 100th birthday and Whitman's 200th), The Knights celebrate with music that inspired the two artists and drove them to find their own voice, as well as original music composed by Bernstein and music featuring text by Walt Whitman. In the second half of the program, we are treated to the wizardry of visual artist Kevork Mourad, whose mixture of projected animation and live-painting help tell the tale of an episode of Cervantes' Don Quixote known as Master Peter's Puppet Show. This pocket-sized opera by the colorful Spanish composer Manuel De Falla is a comedic ride through the hallucinatory visions of the unfortunate Knight-errant, told through the voices of three stellar singers.
Family Matinees*
Oct 27, 2018 | 2PM
Dec 2, 2018 | 2PM
$10 Adv/$14 Day-of-show
BRIC House Ballroom
Bring the whole family to The Knights’ one-hour matinee, where audiences of all ages will be introduced to classical music in a fun, relaxed, and interactive setting! Known for educating while entertaining, The Knights will present excerpts from their diverse repertory interspersed with hands-on demonstrations and Q&As.
*Dates for the Spring season family matinees to be announced at a later date.
[Community Media]
BRIC RADIO
BRIC Radio is Brooklyn’s independent podcasting network, amplifying voices and stories that reflect the diversity and creative spirit of the borough. The new season of BRIC Radio features Last Name Basis, a biweekly podcast in which comedian, activist and YouTube sensation Franchesca Ramsey and her husband Patrick Kondas discuss what's going on in the world and in their lives as a married couple; and Brooklyn, USA, a monthly podcast that features stories, essays, audio drama, short fiction and soundscapes from Brooklyn produced by a rotating group of journalists, writers, sound artists and radio makers.
Last Name Basis, Live!
Wed, Nov 14, 2018
BRIC House Ballroom | FREE
BRIC Radio proudly presents the second live taping of its favorite couplecast, Last Name Basis. Franchesca Ramsey is an actress, activist, comedian and video blogger who spends way too much time on the internet; Patrick Kondas is an attorney and aspiring ukulele master who loves to cook. They will be joined by some very special guests for an unforgettable night of laughs, stories, and surprises.
[Visual Arts]
Penelope Umbrico
MONUMENT
Opening Reception: Wed, Nov 28, 2018 | 7-9pm
On View: Nov 29, 2018 – Jan 20, 2019
BRIC House Gallery | FREE
Penelope Umbrico’s MONUMENT, featuring a massive wall of broken LCD monitors and work in varied media, explores contemporary technology and its obsolescence, as well as the potential for creative re-use of our electronic cast-offs. The exhibition will also function as an e-waste site and artist residency, activated by public programs and workshops led by gallery visitors and other artists.
Penelope Umbrico is a prominent mid-career, Brooklyn-based artist. She has exhibited at such institutions as the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, MassMoCA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and numerous others internationally. She is the recipient of a Smithsonian Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a John Gutmann Photography Fellowship Award, a Deutsche Bank Fellow/New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and an Aaron Siskind Photographer’s Fellowship. Her publications include Penelope Umbrico (photographs) and Range, both published by Aperture, New York.
[Performing Arts]
Urban Bush Women
2018-2019 Artists-in-Residence
Hair & Other Stories (New York Premiere)
Jan 31, Feb 1-2, 7-9 | 7:30PM
$20 Adv /$25 Day-of-show
BRIC House Ballroom
For nearly 35 years, Urban Bush Women’s uniquely bold and boundary-pushing storytelling has woven contemporary dance, music, and text with the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora. Described by the Brooklyn-based company as the “urgent dialogue of the 21st century,” Hair & Other Stories is a medley of personal narratives gathered from community, kitchen and living room conversations, social media and YouTube. This evening-length experience blends dance-theater performance and conversation to explore disquieting perceptions of beauty, identity, and race through the lens of hair, primarily that of African-American women. Choreographed by Associate Artistic Directors Chanon Judson and Samantha Speis as a radical reinterpretation of HairStories (2001), the work features new music compositions by The Illustrious Blacks, costumes by DeeDee Gomes, and stage direction by Raelle Myrick-Hodges. Powerful and humorous, Hair and Other Stories celebrates the path to freedom and self-love as we seek to rise to our Extra-ordinary Selves in extraordinary times.
Full residency details, including dates for dance classes and other public programs, will be announced in September.
[Contemporary Art]
BRIC Biennial: Vol. 3, South Brooklyn Edition
Opening Reception: February 13, 2019
On View: February 14-April 14, 2019
Each edition of the Biennial, BRIC’s largest exhibition held every two years, is dedicated to emerging and mid-career artists of exceptional creativity based in various regions of the borough. The third edition of the BRIC Biennial will focus on “South Brooklyn”—the archaic and nebulous term for neighborhoods south of downtown Brooklyn including Park Slope, Gowanus, Kensington, Sunset Park, and Bay Ridge. The Biennial will also feature exhibitions at sites in these neighborhoods, including an outdoor commissioned artwork at Green-Wood Cemetery.
Full program details, including artist names and participating art spaces, to be announced at a later date.
[Performing Arts]
BRIC HOUSE SESSIONS
Thursdays, February-April, 2019
Tickets: $15 Advanced / $20 Door
The ethos of the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival is alive at BRIC’s Fort Greene headquarters with world-class concerts reflecting the diversity of Brooklyn in a weekly music series: BRIC House Sessions. Spanning two stages, each show begins with local DJs and musicians on the BRIC House Stoop overlooking the Gallery, where guests can explore the free contemporary art exhibitions. The featured artist will then perform in the BRIC House Ballroom, one of the best spaces for live music in Brooklyn.
Lineup and program details to be announced at a later date.
[Public Programming]
BRIC OPEN: Justice
An Arts & Ideas Festival
April 24-27, 2019
BRIC House | FREE
The BRIC OPEN is an arts and ideas festival that grows from BRIC’s core values of creativity, inclusion, and community, bringing people together through four days and nights of art, music, film, and performance; readings and conversations; and neighborhood tours and shared meals. The third annual festival in 2019 will feature newly commissioned art works in the Gallery at BRIC House, and a celebration of the “BRIC 40”—40 citizens of Brooklyn who are bringing their own creativity to bear for social change.
Full program details to be announced in the spring.
About BRIC
BRIC is the leading presenter of free cultural programming in Brooklyn, and one of the largest in New York City. We present and incubate work by artists and media-makers who reflect the diversity that surrounds us. BRIC programs reach hundreds of thousands of people each year.
Our main venue, BRIC House, offers a public media center, a major contemporary art exhibition space, two performance spaces, a glass-walled TV studio, and artist work spaces.
Some of BRIC’s most acclaimed programs include the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival in Prospect Park, several path-breaking public access media initiatives, including BRIC TV, and a renowned contemporary art exhibition series. BRIC also offers education and other vital programs at BRIC House and throughout Brooklyn.
In addition to making cultural programming genuinely accessible, BRIC is dedicated to providing substantial support to artists and media makers in their efforts to develop work and reach new audiences.
BRIC is unusual in both presenting exceptional cultural experiences and nurturing individual expression. This dual commitment enables us to most effectively reflect New York City’s innate cultural richness and diversity.
Learn more at BRICartsmedia.org.
Press contact: Blake Zidell, Rachael Shearer, or Ron Gaskill at Blake Zidell & Associates: blake@blakezidell.com, rachael@blakezidell.com, ron@blakezidell.com 718.643.9052