"Brooklyn has always been a place where movement is part of daily life. But today, Brooklynites, like all New Yorkers, are moving less, feeling more isolated and dealing with elevated rates of chronic diseases."
Bridget Finn describes her experience leading up to Art Basel Miami Beach as exhilarating and gratifying, emphasizing the unique feel of Miami during the off-season. She enjoys local exhibitions and the community, which are essential to the show's success.
When Norman Sylvester was 12, long before he garnered the nickname "The Boogie Cat" or shared a stage with B.B. King, he boarded a train in Louisiana and headed west, toward the distant city of Portland, Oregon. He'd lived all his life in the rural South, eating wild muscadine grapes from his family's farm, fishing in the bayou and churning butter at the kitchen table to the tune of his grandmother's gospel singing.
A trumpeter and composer of rare intuition and inspiration, Blanchard will perform Feb. 20 in Miami as part of the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts' acclaimed Jazz Roots series, returning to his iconic Malcolm X Jazz Suite with his band, The E-Collective, and two-time Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet. Created after he wrote the score for the 1992 Spike Lee biopic "Malcolm X," Blanchard has over the years updated and expanded the suite, performed here as part of the ongoing centennial celebration of the slain civil rights icon. Visit ArshtCenter.org.
Rowynn Dumont, a curator, painter, photographer and writer, lived in about 25 places around the world before settling in New York in 2017. It's where my community and the art world infrastructure already were, said Dumont. Exhibits in Union Square, the Flatiron District, Long Island City and the Lower East Side featured her work. She also co-founded a popular monthly new wave dance party, Black Rainbow, on the Lower East Side that would go until 10am.
It is no secret to many of the 1.4 million people who call the Bronx home that they have felt as if the rest of the city had seen the Bronx much as Mayor Mamdani said, a "forgotten borough," over the last six decades. Being forgotten often leads to ignorance of needs critical to a community. "Undersourced" is a term often used by Bronx residents, community advocates, elected officials, and others to describe critical issues such as police protection, air pollution, education, healthcare, and business opportunities.
A decade ago, a multimedia artist from The Bronx got a lucky break. She was one of the winners of a lottery - to which over 53,000 people applied - that allowed her to live in one of the 89 affordable apartments in a stately former public school in East Harlem. At the time, she was living in Staten Island, paying for a space that was smaller, more expensive and more difficult for people who wanted to see her art to visit.
In good times, klezmer singer and composer Éléonore Weill makes most of her living playing gigs around the city under her name or fronting the two bands Fada and Tsibele. But when the COVID pandemic began, she got divorced and had to move out of the Kensington house she shared with her ex-husband. Then she was hit by a car, which left her with a traumatic brain injury.
WILLIAMSBURG - WILLIAMSBURG GAY BAR Macri Park shuts abruptly after announcing on Instagram Jan. 13 that it is closing, leaving staff and performers without an explanation and canceling events that were still advertised on the venue's website, Gay City News reported. Drag performer Mambiche, host of the bi-monthly "Mambi Mondays" karaoke night, said the shutdown blindsided workers. "It took everyone as a surprise. It hurt a lot of people," Mambiche said.