The Brooklyn
Arts Council presents "Folk Feet: Celebrating Traditional
Dance in Brooklyn" at Brooklyn College’s Walt Whitman Theater
on Feb. 8. The day-long event features dancers that are participating
in a year-long documentation project, helmed by BAC’s Kay Turner,
exploring the diversity of community-based dance traditions in
Brooklyn.
The day of dance begins with an afternoon program, from 2 pm
to 4:30 pm, dance workshops from 5 pm to 6:30 pm, and an evening
program, from 7 pm to 9 pm, featuring many dance troupes including
the Polish American Folk Dance Company, whose "Kashubian
Medley" (pictured) is influenced by the Baltic seaport of
Gdansk.
Among the cultures that will be featured are those of Norway,
Georgia, the Ukraine, Bangladesh and Trinidad. Not to mention
performances of Irish step dancing, Yemenite traditions, the
Puerto Rican bomba and much more.
In addition to surveying, documenting and presenting the range
of community dance traditions in Brooklyn, the "Folk Feet"
project will produce an archive of video and audio interviews,
photos and transcripts.
The project is sponsored by Danskin and the National Endowment
for the Arts’ Preservation and Heritage Program.
Admission to all of the Feb. 8 events is free. The theater is
located on the Brooklyn College campus, one block from the junction
of Flatbush and Nostrand avenues in Midwood. For more information,
call (718) 625-0080.
