City multimedia series celebrates
Black Bklyn business resilience
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A new city multimedia
series highlights the power
Black restaurant owners in
central Brooklyn and their
unique struggle to stay afl oat
during the pandemic. The online
photo and video project
“You Do It With Your Heart”
by the city’s Commission on
Human Rights tells the stories
of these business owners and
how they stayed put for their
communities, according to the
exhibit’s photographer.
“We don’t think about our
restaurants being essential,
but they are,” said Andre Wagner,
who is one of this year’s
Public Artists in Residence for
the city’s Department of Cultural
Affairs.
Wagner photographed the
entrepreneurs in front of their
businesses, including local
staples like the Haitian cafe
and market Grandchamps
on Patchen Avenue in Bedford
COURIER L 28 IFE, APRIL 9-15, 2021
Stuyvesant, the Prospect
Height soul food haven Cheryl’s
Global Soul on Underhill
Avenue, and the Nigerian eatery
Brooklyn Suya on Franklin
Avenue in Crown Heights.
Having restaurants run by
Black Brooklynites in predominantly
Black neighborhoods
acts as an anchor and a positive
refl ection of the local community,
according to Wagner.
“Just having your own
people in your community, it
brings us into comfort when
you can speak to people who
speak your language,” he said.
“It changes your dynamic
when you can get food and support
people that look like you.”
This sentiment was echoed
in interviews with owners conducted
by Commission spokesperson
Vincent Villano and
overlaid on Wagner’s blackand
white fi lm images as online
WITH HEART: Cheryl’s Global Soul owner Chef Cheryl outside the Prospect
Heights soul food haven on Underhill Avenue. Andre Wagner
video montages.
“Just being a Black-owned
business we have different
challenges a lot of the times,”
said Chef Cheryl of Cheryl’s
Global Soul in one of the video
portraits. “They’re looking for
places where they see refl ections
of themselves in front
and back of the house.”
Black-owned businesses suffered
disproportionately from
COVID-induced hardship. Between
February and April 2020,
41 percent of Black-owned businesses
closed either temporarily
or permanently, compared to
17 percent of white-owned businesses,
according to nationwide
fi gures by the nonprofi t organization
National Bureau of Economic
Research.
Chef Cheryl talks about
pivoting to 100 percent takeout
during the early days of the
outbreak, before prepping food
for the outbursts of protests
following the police killing of
George Floyd in Minneapolis
last summer.
The dire straits of the pandemic
often crystalized how
vital these businesses are, and
some owners talked about how
they and their patrons found
solace and togetherness.
“This is therapy, just to
leave your house to come out
to just have a conversation,
to just sit down and have a
drink,” said Donna Drakes,
the owner of Brooklyn Beso in
Bedford-Stuyvesant.
They also talk about issues
that predate the coronavirus,
such as loan discrimination
and the economic pressures as
longtime residents and establishments
are priced out.
“We still don’t get what we
need from fi nancial institutions,”
said Chef Cheryl in the
video. “They look at us in a way
that they don’t look at white
prospects for loans and stuff
like that ... which I just believe
is a bit on the systemic side ofnot
looking you as a whole but
more as a negative.”
BY BEN VERDE
The Brooklyn Academy of
Music hosted its fi rst live inperson
performance in over
a year on Tuesday, April 6,
marking a gradual return to
normal as vaccinations ramp
up and the city slowly recovers
from the pandemic.
BAM will host the New
York premiere of the modern
dance performance “Infl uences”
on ice at the LeFrak
Center at Lakeside in Prospect
Park through April 11.
“Infl uences” will serve as the
fi rst of fi ve outdoor BAM performances
and installations
this spring that will turn the
city’s streets into a stage.
“I’m thrilled, I’m elated,”
said David Binder, artistic director
at BAM. “It’s been an exciting
year doing work in the
virtual space, but I’m very, very
excited to be back in person.”
DANCE
“Infl uences,” from the Canadian
ice skating company
Le Patin Libre, will also mark
a return to live, ticketed performances
for the company, which
mainly participated in spontaneous
performances throughout
Montreal last summer.
“This performance now in
Brooklyn is our fi rst real return
in a year to a capacity
to really share a real choreographed
piece,” said choreographer
Alexandre Hamel. “This
is how our lives and social lives
are organized, so getting together
with the troupe was really
a joyful moment, like being
reunited with a family.”
Hamel describes Le Patin
Libre as a cross between the
mediums of competitive fi gure
skating and contemporary
dance, with their performances
aiming to do away with many
of the formalities of the fi gure
skating world. At the Lakeside
performance of “Infl uences,”
the audience will be seated in
spaced-out seats on the rink
itself, rather than in far-away
grandstands like in a typical
fi gure skating performance.
“We wanted a different relationship
with the audience.
We wanted them closer, and for
many things that we were doing
we especially wanted them
at the ice level,” Hamel said.
“Because a lot of our choreography
plays with perspective,
some skaters being very far,
others being very close to the
audience, we needed that room
versus stage relation.”
Hamel said he is excited to
work with the LeFrak Center
to bring “Infl uences” to life,
citing the rink’s integration
with the surrounding neighborhood.
“Skating at this rink is important
for us,” he said. “It’s a
rink that is more opened to its
community than most rinks…
whereas most rinks are reserved
for very elite ice sport
club members.”
Other outdoor programming
in BAM’s reopening season
will include a production
of the Alice Harris play “What
to Send Up when it Goes Down”
staged at the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden, “1:1 Concerts” at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard — which
will feature musicians playing
to an audience of one — and
a performance collaboration
with Pop-Up Magazine that
will take place on the sidewalks
of Fort Greene.
Also on view as part of the
series is the Arrivals + Departures
installation outside Borough
Hall.
“Together these fi ve projects
across fi ve locations in
Brooklyn are aiming to use
the city as a stage,” Binder told
Brooklyn Paper. “They really
ask the audience to be a player,
a protagonist, a partner in the
show, to play an active role in
shaping the performance.”
The survivors
BAM returns to in-person production
with P’Park ice skating performance
BROOKLYN
Sliding back in
Infl uences at the Lefrak Center
at Lakeside 171 East Drive
in Prospect Park, Bam.org
April 6-10 at 8pm, April 10-11
at 2pm, $45.
“Infl uences” will show at the Lefrak Center at Lakeside from April 6-10.
Photo by Rolline Laporte
/Bam.org
