Brooklyn’s BEAT Festival – the first festival to showcase the borough’s emerging artists in theater, dance, and voice – has announced an exciting addition to its lineup: two free lunchtime performances at MetroTech Commons in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn. Through the support of Forest City Ratner Companies, the two Friday shows – on Sept. 14 and Sept. 21 – will bring dance, spoken word, poetry and opera performances to the lunch crowds at MetroTech.
“Brooklyn is, and has always been, the birthplace of innovation when it comes to performing arts,” said BEAT Festival Artistic Director Stephen Shelley. “The BEAT Festival is all about providing a stage for Brooklyn’s own cutting-edge talent all over the borough and bringing our neighborhoods together to celebrate its artists. We’re incredibly excited and grateful for the opportunity to provide Downtown Brooklyn with these free performances at MetroTech.”
The Sept. 14 show will feature performances by Brooklyn-based spoken word poets, Gabriel Barralaga and Malcolm Wicks, and Marshall Davis Jr. and Friends – a featured act of the BEAT Festival performing in Flatbush, Fort Greene, Park Slope and Red Hook at other points during the festival’s 12-day run.
The Sept. 21 show will showcase contemporary opera from American Opera Projects and Opera on Tap, and multi-talented choreographer, dancer and acrobat Courtney Giannone. Both acts are also featured at the festival’s shows in Fort Greene, Flatbush, Park Slope and Red Hook.
“We are delighted to help bring the BEAT Festival to MetroTech Commons, a growing hub of artistic and cultural events in Downtown Brooklyn,” said Bruce Ratner, Chairman and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies. “The BEAT Festival’s free performances of dance, theater, music, poetry and spoken word truly celebrate Brooklyn’s renowned vibrant creativity and deep appreciation for the arts.”
MetroTech Center is a business and educational center in Downtown Brooklyn. It is the nation’s largest urban university-industry science and technology park. MetroTech Commons, where the performances will be located, is a 3.3 acre privately owned public space at the heart of the MetroTech complex.
“Downtown Brooklyn is a world-class destination for arts and entertainment, with some 50 cultural organizations calling the area home,” said Tucker Reed, President of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. “We are thrilled that the BEAT Festival is showcasing many of these Brooklyn-based artists and cultural groups – in Brooklyn performance venues – and helping to tell the story of how vibrant our neighborhood is.”
About The Beat Festival
The BEAT Festival (Brooklyn Emerging Artists in Theater) will be held from Sept. 12-23, featuring an all-star lineup of cutting-edge performing artists – artists from Brooklyn, in Brooklyn, for Brooklyn – performing at venues in every corner of the borough.
The BEAT Festival aims to providevenues for the borough’s emerging theater artists to showcase their greatest works for their neighbors. For its inaugural year, the BEAT Festival has hand-picked the most innovative, forward-thinking of Brooklyn’s emerging artists and brought them together for a one-of-a-kind festival. This year’s all-star lineup includes: in theater, Lemon Andersen, Elevator Repair Service, Radha Blank, The Irondale Ensemble and Theater Group Dzieci; in dance, Noémie Lafrance, Creative Outlet Dance Theatre, Marshall Davis Jr., Kimberly Bartosik/daela, and Courtney Giannone; and in voice, American Opera Projects & Opera On Tap, and Ishmael “Ish” Islam.
BEAT is a borough-wide festival, with shows in both traditional theaters and unusual spaces in every corner of Brooklyn. Venues for this year’s BEAT Festival include: MetroTech Commons, the Irondale Center in Fort Greene, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in Park Slope, the Waterfront Museum in Red Hook, the Flatbush Reformed Church in Flatbush, the Coney Island Sideshow Theater in Coney Island, the Brooklyn Public Library in Prospect Heights, and El Puente in Williamsburg.
Photo by Harry Pocuis Photography
Photo by Harry Pocuis Photography
Photo by Harry Pocuis Photography
