The event will take place on Saturday, May 31, 2025, from 7pm aboard the Lehigh Valley No. 79 barge.
The Indeterminacy Festival will present a preview of Into the Charmed Churned Circle on Saturday, May 31, 2025, from 7pm aboard the Lehigh Valley No. 79 barge known as the Waterfront Museum. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased online.
This multi-discipline, multi-generational, immersive performance piece is created by Stanzi Vaubel and commissioned by the Snug Harbor Cultural Center. Composed by Philippe Treuille and Stanzi Vaubel, the work draws inspiration from the architectural motifs of the Newhouse Center at Snug Harbor and Herman Melville's epic seafaring story Moby Dick. Instrumental and vocal performers hail from a consortium of ensembles including Brooklyn Youth Chorus Bass Ensemble, Grace Chorale, Brooklyn Treble Choir, New York Choir Project, and Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra.
The Waterfront Museum is housed aboard the 1914 Lehigh Valley No. 79 listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the last remaining wooden railroad barge afloat from "The Lighterage Era" (1860-1984). Its mission is to provide free and low-cost opportunities for education, exhibition, and the performance arts. Prior to today's "Age of Containerization" (1956-present), Barge 79 transported up to 300 tons of bags, barrels and bundles of goods, hand-loaded by longshoremen, between ships docked in the islands of the Port of New York and the railroad terminals which lined the adjacent NJ mainland. Barges also have a lesser-known showboat history; they have operated in New York as floating theaters since 1845, bringing live entertainment to communities along New York's shores. Rescued from the mudflats of Edgewater, NJ in 1985 by David Sharps (a former variety act entertainer with "Serious Foolishness"), Barge 79 made Red Hook its homeport in 1994. This year the Museum celebrates its 31st year of providing Red Hook with arts and education programs. For more information visit: www.waterfrontmuseum.org
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