Public Events in all Five Boroughs

Local Artists and Cultural Organizations in Each Borough to Host Outdoor, Socially Distanced Press Conferences with Performances March 18-19


FreeDa Banana leading an outdoor dance class during LEIMAY Block Party. Image courtesy LEIMAY.
Image Credit: Shige Moriya

One year after New York City’s arts and cultural sector suddenly shut down over the period of one week in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, events in each borough will mark the somber anniversary. Comprised of speeches by local elected/cultural leaders and performances by New York artists, this day of programming memorializes the shut down while looking forward to the needs of a resilient NY artistic community. The events are united by the dual themes of #CultureRemembers and #CultureForward, and will take place on Thursday, March 18, and Friday, March 19. Local leaders and artists will participate in all of them.

The multiple programs are co-produced and co-presented through mutual efforts among ID Studio Theater with BronxArtsSpace and BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance; El Museo del Barrio; LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College; LEIMAY; and The St. George Theatre. Many of these outdoors events utilize permits from the City’s new Open Culture initiative that provides access to designated streets across the city for cultural activities.

The events are being presented while artists and cultural organizations continue to navigate the immense challenges of strict limits on in-person gatherings and severely reduced incomes. To make this commemoration possible, host organizations in each borough are working together with media, production, and community partners listed below. The media liaison is New Yorkers for Culture and Arts with cultural leaders throughout New York City who are participants in Culture@3 calls. Many of these outdoors events utilize permits from the City’s new Open Culture initiative that provides access to designated streets across the city for cultural activities.

The Brooklyn Events include performances by LEIMAY, the artist-run entanglement based in Williamsburg since 1996, Ximena Garnica, multidisciplinary artist and Artistic Co-Director of LEIMAY, said, “As artists, we often find ourselves at multiple kinds of crossroads. For LEIMAY this event is an act of vulnerability, resistance and joy: we dance on stolen land, we listen to the beat of the drum of our immigrant ancestors, we stand in the tension of gentrification while we bow to the lost souls of this pandemic, we resist through careful gathering, we turn to legal busking as our Government turns their back to the arts, we open spaces to connect, to be inspired, and we empower ourselves because we refuse to live a life without poetry.”

For info about events taking place in the other 4 boroughs, please refer to the full listing in the Brooklyn Arts Council Featured story at brooklynartscouncil.org

The events are united by the dual themes of #CultureRemembers and #CultureForward, and will take place on Thursday, March 18 and Friday, March 19.