Review: NIGHTFALL: TIME FLIES at Green-Wood Cemetery Is Perfect October Fare
Death of Classical's annual event transformed Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery into a fanciful, immersive performance space
This past week on October 17th and 18th, The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn was taken over by Nightfall: Time Flies, a sprawling and immersive experience perfect during any time of year, but especially October.
Put on by Death of Classical and Rooftop Films, this multi-pronged performance made great use of Green-Wood’s acreage (according to my phone, covering the whole show took about 11,000 steps). Performances, music, and multimedia pieces were scattered around the winding cemetery paths, all of them with various themes.
As guests entered through the main gothic arch of Green-Wood, which was lit up for the night, there was immediately a light show projected onto the main chapel, with singers, and dancers gathered around. Here, and elsewhere along the route you could buy drinks (wine, beer, or water) and carry on along the way, sipping your purchase and exploring the event map. One station even offered cider made from apples grown at the cemetery.
Walking up the main road of the cemetery, we enjoyed a moonlit walk and the quiet of the graves. Our first performance from the main entrance featured violinist Maya Lorenzen backlit by a glowing mausoleum and candlelight. They really went out of their way to make the cemetery beautiful (and well-lit enough to see); this wasn’t a spooky event so much as a festival that happened to be in a cemetery.
The nice thing about the planning was the sense of exploration; yes, there was a map, but no guides or volunteers pushing the crowd along. There were plenty of intersections where you could choose to go one way or another, giving the night a choose-your-own adventure vibe.
As you walked further along the path, the music from each performance followed for a bit until you got just into the range for another. Things were spaced enough that they didn’t crash into each other, and it never felt like a lonely cemetery walk. Though the place must have been packed, given the scale the crowd never felt overwhelming.
We chose to go straight on from the violinist where we eventually encountered movie viewings projected on mausoleums, The Grand Street Stompers playing 20s music, and all of this culminating with performances curated by the Bindlestiff Family Circus at the end of the road. The acts featured classics like fire twirling, tight wire, juggling, aerial silks, chair dancing and more. As you approached, they had many of their characters running around the headstones, and interacting with guests along the walkway- this part really felt like a circus, while the rest of the walk was more of a musical stroll.
The sheer variety kept us moving all night. While the majority of the performances were musical acts, they were hidden around corners from each other, some featuring dance, some vocals, and they were all different genres. Jazz, salsa, classical, opera and more were waiting around every corner. On our way back down the main road we finally reached the large tent featuring a show and tell by Morbid Anatomy, which featured storytelling and guest lectures on burial customs.
During the three hour event we saw something like eight musical performances, a circus, had storytime, saw movies and performance art. It was a packed night and a ridiculously weird yet good time. The night ended with a New Orleans-style second line led by DoC founder Andrew Ousley and the Grand Street Stompers pied-piping the stragglers towards the gates, where a dance party was waiting to close out the night.
If you’d like to attend the next event like this check out The Green-Wood Cemtery’s events page or the organizers of this event, Death of Classical.
Death of Classical events are often space limited and sell out quickly, so we recommend signing up for their e-mail list, which you can do on their website.
Header photo credit: Andrew Ousley
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