ARTERIES OF A NATION reinvestigates the America of 1863 in site-specific, interactive performance in Brooklyn Bridge Park
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Squibb Park & Pier 1
Sunday, July 23, free, 7:00
www.renegadepg.com
Brooklyn-based Renegade Performance Group looks back to a terrible time 150 years ago in their site-specific piece Arteries of a Nation. Using sound and movement, RPG artistic director and choreographer André M. Zachery, composer Vincent Burwell, and writer Brook Stephenson examine three events that took place in July 1863: the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York City Draft Riots, and the attack of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry Regiment on Fort Wagner. The immersive work will be performed July 21 at 7:30 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, traveling from Squibb Playground to Pier 1, exploring such concepts as race and equality, still so central, and controversial in light of the Trayvon Martin case and the recent fight over the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The interactive piece, which also features the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Youth Ensemble, takes on added significance by being held on the Brooklyn pier, which played a role in the draft riots and the Civil War.