GET BACK! THE DOCK STREET CONCERTS 2021 to be Presented by St. Ann's Warehouse

Over the course of its 20 years in DUMBO, St. Ann's Warehouse has given artists and audiences a place on the Brooklyn waterfront to reconvene, heal, find perspective, and experience joy following periods of collective turmoil. After more than two decades at the Church of St. Ann & the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights, the organization opened the doors to its first warehouse theater, at 38 Water Street, in October 2001. After Sandy devastated the East Coast in October 2012, St. Ann's offered neighbors its second DUMBO home, 29 Jay Street, for recovery and sustenance. Now, as New York City emerges from the long COVID-19 cultural shutdown, St. Ann's Warehouse is inviting the public to come together in Brooklyn Bridge Park for Get Back!: The Dock Street Concerts 2021, listening and dancing to free live performances by a genre-spanning lineup of musicians, singers, and poets, programmed in collaboration with Khadijat Oseni and other guest curators.

Get Back! 2021 kicks off July 1 with Sunny Jain performing music from his "Wild Wild East" project, which recasts the immigrant as the modern-day cowboy and cowgirl. Jain sources inspiration from the scores of Bollywood classics and Spaghetti Westerns, Indian folk traditions, jazz improvisation, and rollicking psychedelic and surf guitar styles. The New York Times has described Wild Wild East as "furiously propulsive," and Pitchfork has written that its "shimmering walls of sound feel like floating face-down in a pool and watching light patterns dance on the floor."

The series continues on July 8 with acclaimed singer-actress Zonya Love's (The Color Purple on Broadway) "Spiritual Uprising," a collection of reimagined Negro spirituals. In evocative new renditions of songs such as "Wade in the Water" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," Love demonstrates the music's enduring cultural and historical significance.

The Wall Street Journal has proclaimed multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton, "virtually the only music-maker of his generation to fully assimilate the blues idiom of the 1920s and '30s, the blues of Bessie Smith and Lonnie Johnson." He has also earned comparisons to iconic contemporary blues artists such as Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo', Corey Harris, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. He headlines on July 15.

Eli Fola, who performs July 22, is a Nigerian-born, New York- and Tulum-based multidisciplinary sound artist, saxophonist, DJ, composer, and producer. He has performed alongside artists such as Black Coffee, Pablo Fierro, and Audiofly, and his own Afrofuturist "Yoruba Tech Soul" music is an energizing fusion of Afrohouse, techno, jazz, and classical styles. Fola returns for this second season of Get Back!, after two unforgettable concerts last summer.

Brooklyn poet multi-hyphenate writer and artist Cyrus Aaron's poetry is featured in Khadijat Oseni and Julian Alexander's acclaimed public art project Supremacy Project, currently installed on the exterior walls of St. Ann's Warehouse. He and the BLK HRS collective of musicians he leads return on July 29 by popular demand for another community-making live performance.

St. Ann's Warehouse first presented Get Back! last year, when all indoor cultural events had been cancelled and New Yorkers had been sheltering in place for months. Inspired by the Beatles' iconic 1969 rock event, the series provided an innovative way to bring artists back to work and live music to Brooklyn Bridge Park, entertaining and nurturing people strolling through and sitting in the Park. From August to October, musicians lifted their instruments and voices for the first time in six months and performed unannounced shows (to avoid creating crowds) from St. Ann's roof balcony. Featured artists included musicians Bill Frisell, Stephane Wremble, Eli Fola, Bobby Previte, Red Baraat's Sunny Jain, the Arturo O'Farrill Trio, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, and downtown music theater artists Stew, Oklahoma!'s Damon Daunno, Lance Horne, Joey Arias, Machine Dazzle, Nia Drummond, and Mikaela Bennett. See some of the inaugural Get Back! Series here.

St. Ann's Warehouse Artistic Director Susan Feldman said, "It's so powerful to think about how far we have come from the utter despair of a year ago. The city is coming alive with music and performances of all kinds. The vaccines and New York determination have made it so. Relief and gratitude to ease our way back out."

Get Back!: The Dock Street Concerts 2021 is part of Con Edison's Arts Al Fresco, a series of free and safe outdoor arts experiences across the five boroughs, and Westchester, Orange and Rockland counties.

"Con Edison's long-standing commitment to making the arts accessible to all New Yorkers is more important today than ever before," said Frances A. Resheske, Con Edison's senior vice president, Corporate Affairs. "As New York recovers from the pandemic, we are pleased to support local artists and cultural organizations in our free Arts Al Fresco series."

August Get Back! 2021 concerts will be announced soon.

Schedule and Location

July 1: Sunny Jain's "East East West"

July 8: Zonya Love's "Spiritual Uprising"

July 15: Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton

July 22: Eli Fola

July 29: Cyrus Aaron's & the BLK HRS

Get Back! 2021: The Dock Street Concerts take place 7-9pm at the top of Dock Street, between St. Ann's Warehouse and Jane's Carousel.

St. Ann's Warehouse is located in Brooklyn Bridge Park, at 45 Water Street|DUMBO|Brooklyn, NY 11201.

www.stannswarehouse.org

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