BEAT Festival to feature ‘electrifying’ Brooklyn performances

Opening Night Kicks Off at Brooklyn Museum

September 9, 2014 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Last year’s BEAT Festival opening night at the Brooklyn Museum featured Storyboard P.

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The Brooklyn Emerging Artists in Theater (BEAT) will bring its signature performances to the Brooklyn Museum on Sept. 11 to launch its third annual festival. The event will feature festival artists performing in tucked away corners, halls and unexpected locations throughout borough’s largest cultural institution.

The BEAT Festival will run from Sept. 11 to 20, showcasing Brooklyn’s most current crop of local theater, dance, and voice talent in intriguing locations in Crown Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, East New York and Sunset Park. This year’s roster of artists and performances will include renowned poet Aja Monet, an opera entitled Stop & Frisk, Improv Everywhere’s The Mp3 Experiment and two evenings of Crossing Over: A Performance Adventure In Green-Wood Cemetery.

“BEAT brings influential and electrifying performance artists to diverse communities across the borough,” said Stephen Shelley, artistic director and executive producer. “The adventurous performances focus on an interplay between audience members, artists, and the spaces themselves.”

One Opening Night highlight is an interactive dance creation project, #TweetDance. This includes minute-long improvised dances performed by Kyla Ernst-Alper and Maxx Passion, prompted on the spot from audience members’ tweets. Over the course of the evening, guests can attend other performances from festival artists, including Aja Monet; Bed-Stuy Veterans: Featuring Ghost, Poba, and Rain; Elisabet Torras Aguilera; Fixed Agency; LEIMAY; Mashuq Deen; Shirel Jones; Sophia Schrank; and Two Sides Sounding.

After its inaugural year in 2012, the BEAT Festival tripled its crowd last year, with everything from multiple artist MashUps at the Brooklyn Museum and MetroTech Commons to MCs dueling it out onstage at Park Slope synagogue to a performance centered around a ’70s era Coleman Camper on offer.

There are several free performances; ticketed events are priced up to $35, and a general festival pass is available for $60. For tickets and more information about the festival, visit www.beatbrooklyn.com.