(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings April 19–25, 2019
THEATER
‘Shake’ it up
Happy birthday, Bill!
A Kings County theater troupe will transform
Ditmas Park’s Stratford Road into a free,
public celebration of the 455th birthday of William
Shakespeare. “Shakespeare on Stratford
(Road)” will take place on the afternoon of
April 28 — though scholars agree the playwright
was most likely born in Stratford-upon-
Avon on April 23, 1564.
The Bard’s birthday bash will feature live
performances on front porches donated for
the day by residents of the block between
Cortelyou Road and Slocum Place for use as
Shakespearean stages, in an event that promises
to be a delightfully communal art party,
according to its director.
“I just wanted to celebrate the community,
celebrate spring, and get people listening to
love poetry, and love songs, and dance,” said
Claire Beckman, director and co-founder of
Brave New World Repertory Theatre, which
takes its name from a line in Shakespeare’s
“The Tempest.”
The event will kick off with 18 costumed
thespians belting out some of Shakespeare’s
lesser-known sonnets from their street-side
venues, each performing a different 14-line
love poem on a loop. The repeated recitations
will give audience members a chance to roam
around and soak up the romance, according
to Beckman.
“They can listen at a rapid pace, or they
can stop and listen to each sonnet completely,”
she said.
After the sonnet spectacular, Beckman’s audience
will move into the center of the block for
a performance of some spring-themed madrigals
from the 16th century, along with a demonstration
of courtly jigs typical of Shakespeare’s
time, which will subtly transform into an Afro-
Haitian dance that should feel more familiar
to contemporary audiences.
Beckman’s Brave New World troupe first
garnered recognition following its debut performance
of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which
used porches and sidewalks along Westminster
Road as a venue in 2005, and the company
has since built a reputation for so-called
“site specific” performances utilizing public
places as stages.
Celebrate the Bard’s birthday at “Shakespeare
on Stratford (Road)” on Stratford Road
between Courtelyou Road and Slocum Place in
Ditmas Park. April 28; 2–4 p.m. Free.
— Colin Mixson
About faces Collection reveals portraits of South Asian feminist activists
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
She’s made a community collage!
A new exhibit will put a face on
New York’s community of South
Asian-American feminist activists. Artist
Jaishri Abichandani has produced more
than two dozen small-scale portraits of her
fellow rabble-rousers for her show “Jasmine
Blooms at Night,” opening at Bric
on April 24.
The show features 26 paintings and
four sculptures that celebrate her community’s
many different women and queer
people pushing for change, who are little
known outside of activist circles, said
the artist.
“They’re not going to be visible to people
outside of my community. We know
who they are, we know the work they’ve
done, we love them and appreciate them,”
said Abichandani.
The prominent display of activists will
ART
also give South Asian Brooklynites a
chance to see their own modern history,
she said.
“The truth is, South Asians never get
to go and see paintings of people who are
living, breathing, making change amongst
them,” said the Clinton Hill artist.
Abichandani found her subjects from
friends she has encountered or been inspired
by during her decades-long career
of activism, which includes being a student
organizer during her college years
in Queens, rallying for pro-choice causes
in Washington, D.C., and founding arts
group the South Asian Women’s Creative
Collective in 1997.
Her Bric show highlights many Kings
County subjects, including immigrant
rights activists Thanu Yakupitiyage and
Rage Kidvai, and the Kensington founder
of the Bangladeshi Feminist Collective,
Shahana Hanif.
The project started a few years ago,
when she created little sculptures of
activists and friends she called “Angry
Ladies.”
The elaborate, three-dimensional portraits
took a huge amount of time, so she
switched to painting portraits and decorating
them with jewelry and trinkets.
She has arranged the works according
to the different causes her subjects
fight for — right down to the shape of
the pictures. Her pictures of LGBTQ
activists are on triangular canvasses,
referencing the pink triangle logo of the
AIDS advocacy group Act Up.
The paintings themselves also hint at
the topic of their subject’s activism. For
instance, labor leader Bhairavi Desai is
portrayed against a yellow background,
referencing her work as a founding member
of the city’s cab driver’s union, while
the portrait of attorney Menaka Guruswamy,
who recently helped repeal the laws
criminalizing gay sex in India, features a
small set of weighing scales.
The queer activist scene of the 1990s
was an incubator for her own activism,
and for many of the subjects of
Abichandani’s paintings, she said.
“These organizations that were around
in the ’90s were crucial to my becoming an
activist. This is my way of acknowledging
who we are and the work that we’ve done
to shift social landscapes,” she said.
Abichandani’s is one of three exhibits
in the suite “The Portrait is Political” at
the Fulton Street art space, which also includes
photos from Brooklynite Texas Isaiah,
and a collection of portraits of more
than 35 queer Kings County artists, curated
by Liz Collins.
BOOKS
Reading picks
Word’s picks: “Fay
Wray and Robert
Riskin,” by Victoria
Riskin
Iconic “King Kong”
star Fay Wray’s daughter
Victoria comes up with
an Empire State Building
sized winner with
this thoughtful memoir,
which also serves as
a fascinating history of
Hollywood in its rollicking 1930s prime.
Mike Lindgren, Word 126 Franklin St. at Milton
Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.
wordbookstores.com .
Community
Bookstore’s pick:
“Dirt,” by William
Bryant Logan
This book, subtitled
“The Ecstatic Skin of the
Earth,” combines natural
history, philosophy and
memoir. Botanist William
Logan Bryant produces
an extended meditation
on life on earth
from the point of view
of “that substance from which we all arise and
to which we all must return.” A funny, poetic,
and deeply re-orienting work.
— Samuel Partal, Community Bookstore 43
Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield
Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.
commu nityb ookst ore.net .
Greenlight
Bookstore’s
pick: “The Word
For Woman Is
Wilderness,” by Abi
Andrews
This thoughtful exploration
into a woman’s excursion
to the Alaskan
wilderness is the antithesis
of Krakauer’s “Into
the Wild,” tempered by
homage to Rachel Carson’s
“Silent Spring.” It reclaims nature and the
tendency of adventure and travel writing to feel
gendered by being fiercely feminist, without ever
being overly so. As young women discover, reclaim,
explore, and expand their roles as women
in the world, this is an empowering, meditative
book to take in.
— Rebecca Fitting, Greenlight Bookstore
686 Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S.
Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–
0200, www.greenlightbookstore.com .
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
Business is blooming!
Local Japanophiles can get a
taste of the island country’s culture
at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s
annual cherry blossom festival next
weekend. The Sakura Matsuri Festival
on April 27–28 will give Brooklynites
a chance to celebrate Japanese
culture with tea ceremonies, art demonstrations,
music performances, and
costume displays in pop-ups across
the Garden, according to a rep.
“Sakura Matsuri has expanded
over the years to feature a wide array
of performances, exhibits, and
events celebrating both traditional
and contemporary Japanese culture,”
said Elizabeth Reina-Longoria.
“The festival has grown to be
the largest festival in an American
public garden.”
Each year the Festival draws tens
of thousands of visitors to the Garden’s
FESTIVAL
52 acres, which will be filled
with activities that include high-flying,
action-packed sword fighting dramas
as well as peaceful, traditional
Japanese musical performances, according
to Reina-Longoria.
“Traditional Japanese dance from
Dancejapan and the Japanese Folk
Dance Institute, tea ceremonies with
tea masters Soumi Shimizu and Skyo
Shimizu, taiko drumming from Soh
Daiko, and of course Yoshi Amao,
and his martial arts group, Samurai
Sword Soul are among fan favorites,”
she said.
Many Sakura Masturi visitors don
extravagant costumes in imitation of
their favorite anime characters, said
Reina-Longoria, and this year those
fans will have a chance to show off
their knowledge of the action-packed
art form.
“Visitors love attending Sakura
Matsuri in their most impressive cosplay,”
she said. “This year visitors
can check out ‘Neko or Usagi: Anime
Quiz Battleground,’ a game show in
the Garden from cosplay curator extraordinaire
Charles Battersby.”
Many of the cultural events will
take place on both days of the festival,
but music-loving visitors should
consult the schedule on the Garden’s
website. The Japanese punk band
Pinky Doodle Poodle and Tokyo
indie rockers the Molice will each
play on the opening day of the festival,
while the J-Music Ensemble,
which blends jazz with video-game
soundtracks, and Japanese rock band
Lust will each take the stage on the
second day.
Group shot: Jaishri Abichandani has created dozens of portraits and sculptures of her fellow South Asian-American feminist activists.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
“The Portrait is Political” at Bric Gallery
647 Fulton St. at Rockwell Place
in Fort Greene, (718) 855–7882, www.
bricartsmedia.org. Opening reception
April 24 at 7 p.m. On display through
May 12. Free.
Brave New World
A cherry blossom treat
Botanic Garden hosts annual Japanese festival
Bang-a-gong: Traditional Japanese taiko drummers will perform at
this year’s Sakura Matsuri festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
File Photo by Jason Speakman
Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn
Botanic Gardens 990 Washington
Ave. between Crown and Montgomery
streets in Crown Heights,
(718) 623–7200, www.bbg.org.
April 27–28; 10 am–6 pm. $30
($25 teens, kids under 12 free).
/www.bricartsmedia.org
/www.wordbookstores.com
/www.commu
/www.commu
/www.greenlightbookstore.com
/www.bricartsmedia.org
/www.wordbookstores.com
/www.bbg.org
/wordbookstores.com
/ore.net
/www.greenlightbookstore.com
/bricartsmedia.org
/www.bbg.org