Brooklyn Center For The Performing Arts Announce Winter/Spring 2018 Season

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn Collegecontinues its 2017-18 season of music, dance, and theatre, reflecting the multicultural diversity of Brooklyn. Performances will be held at Kumble Theater on the downtown Brooklyn campus of LIU, while Brooklyn College's Whitman Theatre undergoes a 12-month closure for structural repairs. In addition, Brooklyn Center will partner with the Weeksville Heritage Center to present their 11thannual National Grid Earth Day Celebration. Advance tickets for all events can be purchased at BrooklynCenter.org or by calling the box office at 718-951-4500 (Tue-Sat, 1pm-6pm). Day-of-show tickets should be purchased at the Kumble Theater, located at 1 University Plaza, or by calling the Kumble Theater box office at 718-488-1624.

Brooklyn Center's 2018 winter/spring calendar includes:

• Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company's Lunar New Year Celebration: Year of the Dog
• Daniel Beaty's Obie and Audelco Award-winning solo show, Emergency
• NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron performing an intimate solo concert
• Jazz vocalist Alicia Olatuja
• 11th annual National Grid Earth Day Celebration (in partnership with Weeksville Heritage Center)
• Step Afrika!

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Fifth Annual Lunar New Year Celebration

Sunday, February 11, 2018 at 3pm

Kumble Theater at LIU-Brooklyn
Tickets: $25
Celebrate the oncoming arrival of spring with an all-new festival of Chinese music and dance commemorating the Year of the Dog, faithful guardian and loyal friend to mankind. Enjoy the elegant splendor and rich culture of one of Brooklyn's most vibrant communities with this performance by the prestigious Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, featuring live music performed by the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York and a special performance by internationally-acclaimed acrobat and Guinness Book of World Records holder Lina Liu.

Daniel Beaty: Emergency

Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 8pm
Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 3pm

Kumble Theater at LIU-Brooklyn

Tickets: $30

When a slave ship emerges out of the Hudson River in present-day New York Harbor, the city and the nation are sent into near-hysteria as they try to understand this bizarre and unexplainable phenomenon. Award-winning actor/writer/poet/community activist Daniel Beaty portrays more than 40 characters in this solo theatrical tour-de-force as he explores our shared humanity and what it means to be free. Through the characters' various testimonies on identity and personal freedom, Emergency weaves an intricately woven, witty, and moving commentary on modern African American life."We can overcome if we change the way we see, see ourselves, see our past, see our possibility."- Daniel Beaty from Emergency

Kenny Barron (solo piano)

Saturday, February 24, 2018 at 8pm

Kumble Theater at LIU-Brooklyn

Tickets: $35

Praised by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the top jazz pianists in the world," NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron has an unmatched elegance, melodic sensibility, and rhythmic mastery. He has received eleven GRAMMY® nods, most recently in 2017 for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, and is a six-time recipient of Best Pianist by the Jazz Journalists Association. Don't miss this intimate solo performance by a masterful artist who Jazz Weekly calls "the most lyrical piano player of our time."

Alicia Olatuja

Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 8pm

Kumble Theater at LIU-Brooklyn

Tickets: $30

"[A. Singer with a strong, lustrous tone and an amiably regal presence onstage." - The New York Times

Brooklyn's own Alicia Olatuja first received national recognition for her soaring solo with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir at President Obama's second inauguration, and has since established herself as one of this generation's most versatile and elegant jazz artists. Her sublime voice has graced the stage of major venues across the country with a combination velvety tone and vibrant confidence. Drawing from a wide range of musical influences-from classical and gospel, to jazz and R&B-she returns home to Brooklyn with her scintillating jazz stylings, including selections from her yet-to-be-released second album, Intuition: Songs from the Minds of Women.

11th Annual National Grid Earth Day Celebration

Saturday, April 21, 2018, 2pm-6pm

Weeksville Heritage Center, 158 Buffalo Avenue, Brooklyn

Tickets: FREE event, no tickets issued

Children and adults alike will enjoy live music, arts and crafts, street performers, culinary demonstrations, and more at this free community event, where interactive family activities highlight the need to create a more sustainable future and care for the earth. In addition, view multidisciplinary exhibits and tour the historic Hunterfly Road houses at Weeksville Heritage Center, a museum dedicated to preserving the history of one America's first free black communities.

Step Afrika!

Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 3pm & 8pm

Kumble Theater at LIU-Brooklyn

Tickets: $35

With its origins in African American fraternities and sororities, stepping is known for its intricate, synchronized patterns of stomps, kicks, claps, and call-and-response. As the world's first professional company dedicated to this art form, the dancers of Step Afrika! use their bodies as instruments, integrating stepping with African traditional dance and other dance forms to create a high-energy, sharply choreographed, and incredibly entertaining performance.

Multibuy discounts (three or more shows) save 15% off individual ticket prices. Multibuyers enjoy flexible ticket exchanges and discounted parking for purchased performances at Brooklyn College. A 50% discount for children ages 12 and under is offered for select performances. Discounts are also available for seniors, students, Brooklyn College faculty/staff/alumni, active/retired military personnel, and groups. $10 student rush tickets available day-of-show.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts

Kumble Theater at LIU Brooklyn, 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn

Weeksville Heritage Center, 158 Buffalo Avenue, Brooklyn

Online orders:

BrooklynCenter.org

Box Office: 718-951-4500, Tuesday-Saturday, 1pm-6pm

Groups of 15 or more: 718-951-4600 x3331

About Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts

Founded in 1954, Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College presents outstanding performing arts and arts education programs, reflective of Brooklyn's diverse communities, at affordable prices. Each season, Brooklyn Center welcomes over 65,000 people to the 2,400 seat Whitman Theatre, including up to 45,000 schoolchildren from over 300 schools who attend their SchoolTime series, one of the largest arts-in-education programs in the borough.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts' programs are supported, in part, by public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Brooklyn Center's 2017-18 season is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Major support for the 2017-18 season is provided by: Brooklyn College, Con Edison, TD Bank, National Grid, The Howard Gilman Foundation, the Jazz Touring Network, the Alice Lawrence Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the TD Charitable Foundation. Additional support provided by CNG Publications, The Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Media Group, and WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM. The Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott New York Brooklyn is the official hotel of Brooklyn Center's 2017-18 season.

Brooklyn Center's presentation of Alicia Olatuja is made possible through the Jazz Touring Network program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges generous support from New York State Assembly members Annette Robinson and Helene Weinstein; New York City Council Member Jumaane D. Williams; New York City Council Cultural Affairs Committee Chair Jimmy Van Bramer; New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Tom Finkelpearl.

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