BRIC Announces Programming For Milestone 40th Anniversary Season

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, 7-9in 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.