(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings October 11–17, 2019
The big picture
Giant mural of
New Yorkers at
Bklyn Museum
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
He’s really put the focus on Brooklyn!
An enormous new interactive
photo installation documents the joy
and beauty of everyday life in the Big Apple.
The exhibit “JR: Chronicles,” which
opened on Oct. 4 for an eight-month stint
at the Brooklyn Museum, features a twostory
high mural of 1,200 New York residents,
all shot last summer by the renowned
French photographer known as JR, said the
show’s curator.
“He traveled around the five boroughs
and shot people up close, allowing them
to pose however they wanted,” said Drew
Sawyer. “Then people told him a little bit
about themselves — some very personal
anecdotes, or about life in New York City
more broadly. There’s an app that you can
download to listen to all of these recordings.”
In the summer of 2018, JR set up his mobile
photo studio in various neighborhoods
around the city, recruiting passers-by and
photographing them in front of a greenscreen.
Their poses and their stories were
an effort to paint a complete story of citydwelling
life, according to Sawyer.
“Some people posed as if they were
working, some are walking or running,
some people are eating,” said Sawyer. “And
the subjects are from everywhere. Within
Brooklyn, he went to Flatbush, Bed-Stuy,
Coney Island, Downtown, Williamsburg
— and really tried to capture a wide range
of residents to help tell the larger picture
of the city.”
The result of JR’s months-long photojournalistic
effort is the 21-foot-high, 32-
foot wide mural, “The Chronicles of New
York City,” with the subjects digitally packed
together along the city skyline. Visitors
can download an app to hear the stories
of people featured on the mural, or they
can watch a short documentary screening
near the mural that depicts the art-making
process, said Sawyer.
“ ‘The Making Of’ is a 10-minute documentary
film that shows the people who
participated, and how the crew went about
putting together the extraordinary mural,”
he said.
The exhibit also features a chronological
timeline of JR’s past work, which has
gained recognition for his ground-level
depictions of people affected by hot button
political issues — including the Israel
Getting the shot: (Top) “The Chronicles of New York City” features photographs and intimate audio interviews
with more than 1,200 New Yorkers, digitally put together into a giant mural. JR gained renown for capturing people
caught up in hot-button global political issues. The exhibit features a giant sculpture that was once installed along
the border fence along the division between the United States and Mexico.
Palestine conflict, gang violence in
Brazil, and housing issues in Paris. He
has displayed his portraits of local residents
in the place where they live, either
with open-air gallery shows, or by posting
giant versions of his images on walls
nearby, and giving his subjects a voice,
said Sawyer.
“Often times, a photographer will
travel somewhere where an event is taking
place, like a political uprising, or a
conflict zone … and tells those stories
for a foreign audience,” said Sawyer. “JR
turns that on its head, and really goes to
a place and spends time with the people
living there … and gives his subjects an
opportunity to counter the mainstream
media presentation.”
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
It’s an L of a band!
A massive Bushwick brass band
will bring dozens of tubular performers
to the kick-off party of this
year’s Honk NYC festival, in Bushwick
on Oct. 15. The L Train Brass
Band counts more than 80 members,
and about three dozen of them will
blast an eclectic blend of Brooklyn
sounds and sweet Mardi Gras music
at the four-day fest, according to one
of the group’s founders.
“It’s a weird Brooklyn spin on Mardi
Gras flavor, and you can expect the
unexpected,” said Ryan Hall.
The Bushwick resident started the
group in early 2017, while working a
dull but lucrative corporate job. Blasting
the brass with a handful of others
rekindled his love for music, which he
studied in college.
“I found myself in early 2017 with
ART
a sizable bonus and my wife green-lit
my insane idea of buying a tuba and
teaching myself how to play again — it
had been 12 years since I’d last played
it,” Hall said.
He joined forces with trombonist
David Joseph, and soon they were rehearsing
with more and more members
in a townhouse basement in Bushwick.
When the band outgrew that space,
they took the show to Maria Hernandez
Park, the nearest green space, where
the music drew passers-by.
The band’s name comes from the
subway line that many early members
used to get to rehearsals, said Hall, as
well as the train’s route through some
of the hippest nabes in Kings County
and Manhattan.
“The L train has this extra edge
of weirdness because it goes through
Lower Manhattan — that Lower East
Side vibe — and then through Williamsburg,”
he said. “Basically it
winds through the weirdest, trendiest
parts of town and grabs all that
culture with it.”
The band’s first big event was the
2017 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island,
where its 18 performers discovered
the possibilities of a bigger,
louder group.
“I thought, ‘Wow, we can really
have some fun with this brass band
thing,’” Hall said.
In addition to Mardi Gras sounds,
the band plays rhythm and blues, hiphop,
and pop hits, such as a polka rendition
of Britney Spears’s “Toxic,” and
a handful of originals, including the
tunes “L Train Anthem” and “Bushwick.”
The group has grown exponentially
since its performance at the People’s
Playground, and is now inching towards
100 members, said Hall. It uses the social
organizing platform Meetup — for
which Hall now works — to organize
regular rehearsals with anywhere from
a dozen to 90 performers.
Hall said that each show is a fresh
JR
experience for the group.
“We never play the same song the
same way and we love mixing it up,”
he said.
L Train Brass Band at the Honk
NYC Opening Night at Market Hotel
1140 Myrtle Ave. at Broadway in
Bushwick, (914) 893–2843, www.markethotel.
org. Oct. 15 at 8 pm. $15.
And at Rubulad (389 Melrose St.
between Knickerbocker and Irving
avenues in Bushwick, www.honknyc.
com). Oct. 19 at 8 pm. $15.
JR
Jonathan Dorado
“JR: Chronicles” at the Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Pkwy. at Washington
Avenue in Prospect Heights, (718) 638–
5000, www.brooklynmuseum.org. On
display through May of 2020. Wed–Sun;
11 am–6 pm. $16 suggested admission.
Blasting off!
Bushwick band opens brass fest
THEATER
Leo Jenicek
Foul plays
Fire bad! Theater bad, too!
More than a dozen bizarre short plays will
lurch onto the stage next week for the Bad Theater
Fest in Williamsburg. Despite the name, the
eighth annual festival of experimental plays, running
at the Brick theater on Oct. 16–19, does not
really feature “bad” plays, in the sense of being
poor quality, said one of the festival’s founders
— instead, the plays are just quirky and off-beat
enough to take the edge off of high art.
“They don’t fit in with the norm,” said Shawn
Wickens, who co-founded the festival in 2012.
“It’s easy to look at them and dismiss them for
being bad.”
This year’s 19 out-of-the-box productions,
each between five and twenty minutes long, represent
a variety of genres, with an emphasis on
the ridiculous. In one eight-minute comedy-horror
piece, playing during the opening block on
Oct. 16, Frankenstein’s Monster and his Bride
go to marriage counseling, which highlights the
problems that all people (and monsters) deal with
behind closed doors, said its creator.
“You can be a scary monster and still have
all the problems of a relationship,” said Leo Jenicek,
the writer of “She Hate Me,” which takes
its name from a line in the 1935 movie, “Bride
of Frankenstein.” Marital troubles may be Universal,
but in this case, the couple’s monstrous
bodies are also a factor.
“Because they’re made from other people,
their communication isn’t what it should be,”
Jenicek noted.
The festival’s other productions include a love
story between a bat and a human, an interactive
dating show where attendees compete for the
love of the “filthiest woman alive,” and a drama
about rezoning law. In previous years, the festival
has showcased “Cat” — a one-woman production
of “Cats: The Musical” — and a play about
curling, which earned the festival a feature in
Canada’s premier curling magazine.
The showcase’s casual attitude fosters a supportive
and constructive atmosphere, said one
playwright.
“It helps to take the edge off of wanting to create
something that is ‘perfect,’ ” said Asim Ali,
whose play “Cuckoo Drive” follows a man who
receives an email from his future self. “I’m really
comfortable with seeing what maybe doesn’t
work in the play, and therefore, I’m less likely
to make edits based on what I think the audience
might love or hate about it.”
“Bad Theater Fest” at the Brick 579 Metropolitan
Ave. between Lorimer Street and Union
Avenue in Williamsburg, (718) 907–6189, www.
bricktheater.com. Oct. 16–19 at 7 pm. $20.
— Rose Adams
CINEMA
Witch way
They’ve put a spell of us!
During this Halloween season, Brooklyn has
become enchanted by “Hocus Pocus,” a goofy
movie from 1993 that celebrates witches, black
cats, and all things spooky. A Bushwick movie
theater will screen the film every day next week,
and three different nightlife events will elevate the
magical movie.
Several factors
explain the
renewed popularity
of the flick,
said the nightlife
producers. For one
thing, it is just a
really fun movie
— especially because
of the performances
from the three witches at its heart.
“You can’t deny how fun the movie is and how
much fun the three stars are having — meaning
Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy
Najimy,” said Pete McElligott, whose group of
comedians will perform the film “Entirely From
Memory” at Littlefield on Oct. 25, while adding
lines and scenes suggested by the audience.
Also, he spelled out, there are plenty of horror
films, but not many that focus on the Halloween
holiday.
“There’s not too many Halloween films,” he
said. “This one really celebrates the season.”
“ ‘Hocus Pocus’ is a beloved Halloween movie.
It draws really well in October,” said Dave Oliver,
who will host trivia in Bay Ridge on Oct. 15.
Finally, kids who grew up watching “Hocus
Pocus” on the Disney Channel are now old
enough to drink, and want to celebrate their
favorite spooky season film, said one participant
with “A Drinking Game NYC,” which
will host a boozy reading of the witchy film
on Halloween.
“We’re all around the age when we grew up
watching it on TV, and now it’s become a tradition,”
said Cali Daby. This will be the group’s
fourth October doing the show, and audiences
go wild for it every year, she said.
“It’s become of our favorite shows that we do,
something that we look forward to,” said Daby.
“And this year is going to be a blockbuster!”
“Hocus Pocus” at Syndicated 40 Bogart St.
between Thames and Grattan streets in Williamsburg,
(718) 386–3399, www.syndicatedbk.
com. Oct. 14–20 at various times. $7.
Hocus Pocus Trivia at Delia’s Lounge (9224
Third Ave. at 93rd Street in Bay Ridge, www.deliaslounge.
com). Oct. 15 at 8 pm. Free.
“Hocus Pocus Entirely From Memory” at
Littlefield (635 Sackett St. between Third and
Fourth avenues in Gowanus, www.littlefieldnyc.
com). Oct. 23 at 8 pm. $12 ($10 in advance).
“A Drinking Game NYC presents Hocus Pocus”
at the Bell House 149 Seventh St. between
Second and Third avenues in Gowanus, (718)
643–6510, www.thebellhouseny.com. Oct. 31
at 7:30 pm. $20. — Bill Roundy
Brassy: The massive L Train Brass Band will kick off this year’s Honk NYC brass band festival in Bushwick
on Oct. 15.
Karl Moore
/www.de-liaslounge.com
/www.mar-kethotel.org
/www.mar-kethotel.org
/www.honknyc
/www.brooklynmuseum.org
/www.bricktheater.com
/www.bricktheater.com
/www.syndicatedbk
/www.de-liaslounge.com
/www.mar-kethotel.org
/www.de-liaslounge.com
/www.littlefieldnyc
/www.thebellhouseny.com
/www.honknyc
/www.brooklynmuseum.org
/bricktheater.com
/www.syndicatedbk
/www.littlefieldnyc
/www.thebellhouseny.com