Celebrate Brooklyn’s Diverse Cultures at the Brooklyn Roots Festival

July 13, 2018

Pictured above, Afro-Puerto Rican drum and dance ensemble Bomba Yo. C. Brooklyn Arts Council.

On July 29, the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC) and Prospect Park Alliance present the Brooklyn Roots Festival. This folk arts festival celebrates Brooklyn’s traditional artists and immigrant communities through performances, workshops, family activities and more.

This event is free, RSVP today to let us know you are coming!

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The festival is part of BAC’s summer-long Tradition as Resistance Festival. “Folk and traditional expressions are not relics,” said BAC Folk Arts Director Christopher Mulé. “These communities have much to teach us about moving forward in our current climate of social justice and protest. The Brooklyn Roots Festival provides a platform for multiple generations to celebrate traditions of resistance with pride.”

“Prospect Park is Brooklyn’s Backyard, and a haven for the diverse communities of this borough,” said Prospect Park Alliance Vice President of Programs Maria Carrasco. “The Alliance is dedicated to providing free public programs that celebrate the history and traditions of Brooklyn, and we are thrilled to partner on this first Brooklyn Roots Festival.”

The festival’s Main Stage will feature Palestinian dance ensemble Freedom Dabkah, Haitian drumming group Fanmi Asòtò, Afro-Puerto Rican drum and dance ensemble Bomba Yo, and other groups representing Yiddish, Serbian and African Diaspora cultures.

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Pictured, Haitian drumming group Fanmi Asòtò. C. Brooklyn Arts Council.

In addition to the performance Main Stage, a workshop station will engage audiences with activities led by groups including the Queer Kitchen Brigade, the food-agro project working in solidarity with Puerto Rico’s sustainable agroecology movement; Gran Bwa and the Congo Square Drummers, sharing their longtime tradition of sharing tradition and ritual in the Prospect Park Drummer’s Grove; and dance and music workshops.

A children’s section at the Lefferts Historic House presents acclaimed “King of the Dance Party” Father Goose Music with a journey through Caribbean and multicultural music, East Asian folk children’s group Rabbit Days and Dumplings featuring Elena Moon Park, and puppetry presentations by the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre. City Lore is also partnering with BAC to present the multimedia theater piece What We Bring: Stories of Migration.

This event is free, RSVP to let us know you are coming!

Pictured at top, Afro-Puerto Rican drum and dance ensemble Bomba Yo. In story, Haitian drumming group Fanmi Asòtò. C. Brooklyn Arts Council.