[SPONSORED] INTRODUCING: The BEAT Festival

We all know that Brooklyn is home to some of the best talent, culture, and performance, but even the biggest Brooklyn loyalists might find themselves thinking that they have to go to Manhattan to see great theater and dance performances.

THINK AGAIN, YOU GUYS.  

In its inaugural year, the BEAT Festival is the first of its kind to feature Brooklyn-based theater, dance and voice artists.  We all know that Brooklyn is home to a large and diverse community of performing artists, and BEAT exists to provide a viable, consistent platform for their work.

From September 12-23, the BEAT Festival will host 38 performances, given by 13 local acts in 8 unique Brooklyn venues (including the Flatbush Reformed Church, the Waterfront Museum, the Irondale Center, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and more).  

 

A collaboration between the renowned theater group Elevator Repair Service and the Brooklyn Public Library makes the first year of the Festival all the more special.  Elevator Repair Service will premiere their new work, Shuffle—with performances from 9/20-9/22—in the Brooklyn Public Library, amongst the stacks of the language/literature section.  Shuffle is a performance installation, where the group will use the historic space as a primary element in the performance. 

Images will be cast upon the walls of the library as ERS actors roam amongst the stacks reciting snippets of text from The Great Gatsby, The Sound and the Fury, and The Sun Also Rises.  How do they know what passages to recite?  The text is delivered via an algorithm that randomly selects text from the three works, and sends it iPods held by the performers, making each performance unique and unpredictable.  And you know Hemingway—that guy is as unpredictable as it gets!  

The audience is able to go wherever they like, following different actors at different times.  If you're like the FIPS staff, though, you'll be spending the majority of your time in the lobby of the library, which will be transformed into a bar, where you can sip on wine throughout the show.  And that's just ONE of the performances on tap for the BEAT Festival.  

The BEAT Festival begins 9/12 with performances through 9/23.  Visit BEATBrooklyn.com for more information and to purchase tickets.  Use code FIPS upon checkout and receive 20% off tickets and passes.