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Spreading her wings: Michael Keegan-Dolan’s adaptation of
“Swan Lake,” coming to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Oct.
15, combines the original story with an Irish folktale and a tragic
event in recent Irish history. Marie Laure Briane
Feather weight
Irish adaptation of ‘Swan Lake’ lands at BAM
A By Rose Adams strange, serious new show is
taking wing.
White-feathered figures, evil
priests, and corrupt cops will leap onto
the stage when an avant-garde adaptation
of Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet “Swan
Lake” debuts at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music’s Harvey Theater on Oct. 15. The
production, from Irish dance company
Teac Damsa, fuses the ballet’s haunting
story with Irish folklore and recent events
in that country, making its mythical story
feel compelling to modern audiences,
said its creator.
“By mixing three stories or myths
together… we can see a connection
between what we perceive as ancient,
and mythological and what we perceive
as contemporary and real,” said Irish
choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan.
“Swan Lake/Loch na hEala,” which
runs Oct. 15–20, re-imagines the ballet’s
original love story between a prince and
a woman turned into a swan by an evil
sorcerer. It reinvents the prince as a
depressed 36-year-old, based on a man
shot to death by Irish police in 2000, and
the sorcerer as a sexually abusive priest
who transforms his victims into swans so
they cannot accuse him. The leading lady
is one of those silenced swans, and shares
a name with the lead character in “The
Children of Lir,” an ancient fairy tale
about four siblings who turn into birds.
The show draws on prevalent themes
in modern Ireland, including oppression,
state power, and corruption of the church,
said Keegan-Dolan, and even its narrative
style has Irish influences.
“The show is built around a narrative
structure, a structure that I would have
inherited from my ancestors, who were
also storytellers,” he said. “The Irish are a
people who have always valued stories, as
ways of passing on valuable information
from young to old.”
The show’s 10 dancers will combine
classic ballet moves with modern dance,
and the show discards Tchaikovsky’s
score for traditional Irish and Nordic
music, played on fiddles, cellos, and
guitars by the music trio Slow Moving
Clouds.
The show may draw on the history and
folklore of Ireland, but its characters will
resonate with people across borders and
eras, said Keegan-Dolan.
“Every society, ancient or modern,
has its evil sorcerers — some of them
politicians or religious leaders,” he
said. “As with any powerful myth,
the characters speak to us today as
strongly as the day of their origin.
We simply need to learn how to listen
again.”
“Swan Lake/Loch na hEala” at BAM
Harvey Theater 651 Fulton St. between
Rockwell and Ashland places in Fort
Greene, (718) 636–4100, www.bam.org.
Oct. 15–19 at 7:30 pm; Oct. 20 at 3 pm.
$30 –$95.
Your entertainment
guide Page 45
Police Blotter ..........................8
Opinion ...................................34
Letters .................................... 35
Wellness ................................. 37
Standing O ............................43
HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, OCT. 4-10, 2019
Coney houses plagued by Mildew
Residents fear respiratory illnesses, cancer due to noxious conditions
BY ROSE ADAMS
Residents of a Coney Island
public housing complex say
that they have contracted respiratory
illnesses and possibly
cancerous bacteria due
their dilapidated abodes.
“The mold just keeps coming,”
said Tracie Baker, 44,
who lives in Coney Island
Houses with two of her children.
“It’s in the bathroom,
it’s in the ceiling, it’s everywhere.”
Baker moved into the complex
on Surf Avenue between
W. 30th and W. 31st streets
in 1999, and said that persistent
mold in her apartment’s
bathroom and bedrooms
most likely caused her sons’
asthma, which developed in
their infancy. Three years
ago, Baker contracted bronchitis,
which she attributes
both to mold and dust kicked
up by nearby construction
work.
“I can’t explain how much
damage we’ve already been
through since being here,”
Baker said.
Two fl oors above Baker, two
other children suffer from
asthma, and their mother
says that she ingested a harmful
bacteria from her apartment’s
tap water.
“For the past three of four
years I’ve been having issues
with my body,” said Luz
Lozada, 42, who alleges that
she began experiencing indigestion,
bloating, and stomach
pain after drinking water
from her faucet about three
years ago. Gastrointestinal
tests detected H. pylori in her
system, a potentially cancerous
bacteria that eats away
stomach lining, and is usually
contracted by drinking
contaminated water.
“I ended up buying my own
jugs of water,” Lozada said,
although she saves a threeyear
old jug of murky, brown
tap water from her kitchen
sink, which she waves in
front of housing authorities
Luz Lozada shows a bottle of water that she says she took from taps in her NYCHA apartment in Coney Island.
Photo by Trey Pentecost
and elected offi cials to showcase
the fi lth on tap.
Both Lozada and Baker have
fi led numerous work orders
to address the mold in their
apartments and a host of
other issues — such as a lack
of heating, peeling paint, and
mice problems — but say that
the Housing Authority is usually
slow to respond to the
complaints, if it responds at
all. A recent study revealed
that the agency dismissed
more than 47-percent of moldrelated
work orders as “unfounded”
between July of 2017
and 2018, often within fi ve
minutes of the complaint’s
submission, The City reported
. And even when workers
do show up, their repairs
are often temporary fi xes
rather than permanent solutions,
Lozada claimed.
“They come in here and do
band-aid jobs,” she said.
Last year, repairmen came
to scrub the mildew from
the floors in her apartment,
but rather than removing
the mildewy floor tiles, the
workers layered new tiles on
top of the old ones, Lozada
alleged.
“They were putting tiles on
top of tiles,” Lozada said.
Baker and Lozada occasionally
withhold their rent
when authorities repeatedly
dismiss their complaints,
and say that housing officials
quickly threaten them
with eviction notices when
the the money doesn’t come
in — which deters other residents
from protesting the
dismal conditions.
“Everyone gets scared of getting
evicted,” Lozada said.
“They don’t want to speak
out.”
And Baker claimed that
when she requests to transfer
locations, authorities
say she needs to front the
next month’s rent, which she
can’t afford.
“They keep telling me that
my rent needs to be at a zero
balance. My rent will never
be at a zero balance as long
as you add the next month’s
rent,” she lamented. “So I’m
in a Catch-22.”
A NYCHA spokeswoman
said that no other residents
have complained about the
water — despite comments
Assemblywoman Mathylde
Frontus made at a press conference
last week, when she
said, “I can’t tell you how
many people call me every
single day talking about the
water. Talking about the
quality of life. Talking about
the filth. The brown water
that’s coming out. People
breaking out in rashes. People
not feeling safe.”
Mail:
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