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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MARCH 24, 2019
NEW ATTITUDE: The songstress will belt out her hits from the
Prospect Park Bandshell’s stage to kick off this year’s series of
summer concerts. Derek Blanks
Fiddle America
Brooklynite brings her mountain music to Folk Festival
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BY KEVIN DUGGAN
She’s an Appalachian trailblazer!
A Crown Heights folk musician
will bring songs from
her years of Appalachian
fi eld research to the annual
Brooklyn Folk Festival, happening
at St. Ann’s Church in
Brooklyn Heights from April
5–7. The fi ddler, banjo player,
and ethnomusicologist Anna
Roberts-Gevalt, who goes by
Anna Rg onstage, will perform
a blend of traditional
and avant-garde tunes from
coal country on the fi nal day
of this year’s festival, which is
sponsored by the Jalopy Theater
in Red Hook.
Roberts-Gevalt says that
spending four years immersed
in the mountain culture
helped her break out of
the navel-gazing urban arts
scene, and connected her to a
longer lineage.
“In New York it’s very
easy to get caught up in yourself
and your art,” Roberts-
Gevalt said. “It was a good
reminder that there’s these
threads of life that have been
going on for so long and will
continue after our deaths.”
Roberts-Gevalt drove
down to Kentucky in her station
wagon in 2009, fi ddle and
banjo in tow, and learned
from Appalachians young
PLAY
venge, Marjana, a slave in
Ali Baba’s household, foils
their plot with tenacity and
quick thinking.
Target Margin’s adaptation
highlights the role-reversal
inherent in the tale of
a powerless woman taking
charge of the situation, according
to Herskovits.
“We try to take material
and make it more true to itself,
a more complete representation
of what the story
already is,” he said.
During the intimate
75-minute performance, a
fi ve-member cast will act
out the story, with one actor
standing in for all 40 thieves.
The audience will relax on
couches and sofa cushions
while sipping on tea, which
the director hopes will give
the night an inviting, joyous
feeling.
“We want people to feel
comfortable. We want it to
feel intimate. It’s a dense
text, but we want it to be adventurous
and artistically
fun,” he said.
“Marjana” is the latest
installment of Target Margin
Theater’s multi-year
exploration of “The One
Thousand and One Nights,”
which started with last
year’s production “Pay No
Attention to the Girl.”
Herskovits said he was
drawn to the source material
for its excess of drama
and vast cultural infl uences.
“The text is so rich in
the diversity of its stories.
And ‘One and One Thousand
Nights’ emerges
from many different cultures
and areas as well.”
said Herskovits.
“Marjana and the Forty
Thieves” at the Doxsee 232
52nd St. between Second
and Third avenues in Sunset
Park, (718) 398–3095
www.targetmargin.org.
March 28–April 20; Thu–
Sat at 8 pm; Sun at 3 pm.
Offi cial opening April 1 at 8
pm. $25–$35.
Continued from page 1
and old, including the late fi ddler
Paul David Smith, who
spent his time passing the
mountain region’s lore on to
the next generation, while encouraging
them to add their
own twists to the songs, she
said.
“He was excited that the
music was changing,” she
said. “The week before he
died he was asked ‘Why do
you like playing music with
young people?’ and he said,
‘Oh the young people are
choosing notes that I had
never thought to choose.’ ”
The researcher also dug
up some obscure local artifacts,
including the “crankie,”
a scroll that unwinds to tell a
visual story, which she has
incorporated into performances
with her band Anna
and Elizabeth, though she
will not break it out for her
solo show on April 7.
During her time in the
bluegrass state, Roberts-
Gevalt saw how young songsters
connected with their
heritage, which inspired her
to research her own New
England ancestry at a Vermont
archive of more than
4,000 song recordings. After
moving to Crown Heights
three years ago, she also took
inspiration from the city’s experimental
and improvisational
music scene, adding a
personal fl avor to her traditional
catalog.
“I want to present the traditional
songs and then my
response through the arrangements
and improvisations
I make,” she said.
During her show, she
plans to sing and play traditional
songs from Appalachia,
along with New England ballads
and her own original material
— but rather than keep
them separate, she hopes the
forms will combine into a mix
that stays true to herself.
“The long term goal for
my music is to let it synthesize,
I’m trying to let them all
marinate together,” she said.
“Not a new genre, but fi nding
combinations that are very
personal to me.”
Anna Rg plays the Brooklyn
Folk Festival at St. Ann’s
Church 157 Montague St.
between Henry and Clinton
streets in Brooklyn Heights,
(718) 395–3214, www.brooklynfolkfest.
com. April 7 at 8
pm. $25 Sunday night pass;
$40 all day, $80 three-day
festival pass. Festival lasts
from April 5 at 7:30 pm to
April 7 at 10 pm.
HERITAGE MUSIC: Anna Rg spent years researching Appalachian
and New England folk music, and will combine the old tunes with
her own modern adaptation at this year’s Brooklyn Folk Festival at
St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights on Apr. 6. Brian Geltner
her band Labelle. After
the group broke up in ’76,
the Philly vocalist’s solo
career took off — her eponymous
solo album soared
to number 31 on the R&B
albums chart, driven by
now-classic tunes including
“ You Can’t Judge a
Book by the Cover, ” and
“ Since I Don’t Have You .”
And after numerous
Grammy nominations, including
for her 1984 crossover
hit “New Attitude,”
and a pair of wins her 1991
R&B album “Burnin’ ”
and 1994 dance number
“When You Talk About
Love,” LaBelle’s name
was immortalized in
American music history
with the 2004 induction of
her version of “Lady Marmalade”
into the Grammy
Hall of Fame.
LaBelle’s blowout concert
event will kick off
Bric’s 41st-annual Celebrate
Brooklyn! Festival
summer-music series. The
arts organization plans to
announce the remaining
line-up of free and paid
acts sometime in May, according
to spokesman Ron
Gaskill.
Before LaBelle’s free
8 pm performance at the
Prospect Park Bandshell,
Bric will host a decidedly
not-free opening night
gala, which has been
dubbed “The Revel,” open
to well-heeled music lovers
who can afford tickets
that start at a whopping
$750. The gala, which will
honor longtime Bric board
member Hilary Ackerman,
will also help fund
the remainder of the concert
series, Gaskill said.
Patti LaBelle at Bric
Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival
Prospect Park Bandshell,
enter at Ninth Street
and Prospect Park West in
Park Slope, (718) 683–5600,
www.bricartsmedia.org/
cb. June 4 at 8 pm. Free.
LABELLE
Continued from page 1
/www.targetmargin.org
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