house of yes

oriana on 27 Jun ’11

neighborhood: east williamsburg | space type: performance venue | active since: 2008 | links: website, facebook, twitter

update, summer 2014: In sad but of course not shocking news, the House of Yes lost their East Williamsburg lease in August 2013. (If you want to take a look back, the Atlantic has an awesome piece on all three incarnations, from Bed-Stuy to Ridgewood to East Williamsburg.)

But why get nostalgic? House of Yes 4.0 will be opening in Bushwick the fall! Want to help make it happen, and get some wild and incredible rewards to boot? Donate to their Kickstarter, and help keep the Brooklyn underground alive.

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I am really overjoyed about this post, because House of Yes is actually my very favorite space in Brooklyn (so far), and one of the spaces that inspired this whole project. It’s an aerialist training facility and performance venue in a huge former ice warehouse, and they put on the most high-energy, high-caliber, innovative and astonishing shows I’ve seen. They make all their costumes onsite and build their own sets, they collaborate with Brooklyn bands for live musical accompaniment, and every show is just spectacular, bristling with staggeringly talented aerialists, trapezists, fire-dancers, contortionists, burlesque acts, singers, and musicians.

Anya Sapozhnikova

 

Besides putting on phenomenal shows in a fantastic converted warehouse—in one of the most vibrant corners of East Williamsburg, down the block from 3rd Ward, Werdink, Shea Stadium, the former Bushwick Project for the Arts and Bushwick Music Studios, and more—many of the House of Yes gals make up the loose conglomeration of female acrobats Lady Circus, and they are tireless, performing at all the best underground Brooklyn parties and Manhattan cabarets, like Shanghai Mermaid and Café Panache, among many many others. And the mainstream world is taking notice: the Lady Circus performers were featured as a costume-design challenge on the incredibly popular show Project Runway in 2011!

Don’t you want to hear from the woman responsible for it all? Read on for my interview with Anya Sapozhnikova, founder of House of Yes and Lady Circus and crucial fixture in the Brooklyn underground performance scene.

photo from designglut.com

brooklyn spaces: I first heard about House of Yes when it burned down.
Anya: Yeah, that was our first space. The thing about the fire was that it made us realize that people really cared about what we were doing, and the mobilization of the underground scene in Brooklyn and beyond really blew us away. Our friend threw us a benefit party at Pussycat Lounge, and all the underground parties that were happening that night canceled their events and moved everyone there. The benefit was immensely successful, and we went from having nothing—we were all homeless, all of our shit was gone—to being able sign a lease on a new space.

Circus of Circus

brooklyn spaces: Was House of Yes originally conceived as a studio and teaching space, or was it always a performance venue?
Anya: The old space was just “Let’s do this and see what happens.” The new space was always going to be a venue in the evening and a training and rehearsal space during the day. Upstairs we also have a sewing studio, Make Fun. To be able to flourish and produce as much work as we want to, we need every square inch of the space making money all the time. We aren’t like, “Oh, we’re DIY culture, we’re going to dumpster everything.” Sustainability’s great, but we’re really excited about doing high-production-value shows, we want to do the best we possibly can, and we don’t want money holding us back. We have this state-of-the-art facility that enables us to create a show from start to finish, from sitting down with all your friends and working out the concept to having a sold-out closing night. What makes it so beautiful to me is that we concentrate on every single aspect: the costuming, the rehearsals, the movement, the sound, the promotion, everything. To me, live theatre is the most all-encompassing, the most mixed-media way to produce art. So in order for us to do our best, we’re always thinking about how we can generate income so these things can keep happening and we can keep growing.

The Wonderneath

brooklyn spaces: There’s a lot of these types of spaces around, but I feel like House of Yes is more intentional, and the caliber of shows here is higher. Do you think that’s partly because you have such a multifaceted facility?
Anya: I think we’re just really ambitious. There are a lot of different people involved and everyone just brings a huge amount of passion. Everyone involved in the space is so hands-on. We know what we need, there’s always an open dialogue, and it’s just a really tight group of friends who are all really, really ambitious.

New Faux Fashion Show

brooklyn spaces: How many people are involved in the day-to-day running of the space?
Anya: I don’t know. A lot. Nikki and Airin run Sky Box, which is the aerial component of the space, and that’s classes, workshops, training, rehearsals. Tara and Kae, who’s my main partner in the space, they run the sewing studio. Kae and I do the majority of the booking. Hasaan, one of the original founding members, runs the sound studio.

AHOYA, student showcase

brooklyn spaces: How long does it take to put a show together?
Anya: Two weeks.
brooklyn spaces: Seriously?
Anya: Yeah. $piderman! was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, and it was done in two weeks. In two weeks we wrote, produced, directed, cast, made costumes, figured out the craziest lighting you’ve ever seen, everything. It was a huge pain in the ass and it caused a bunch of nervous breakdowns, but I think everyone secretly enjoyed it.

$piderman: Turn on the Lights!

backstage during 2010's Christmas Spectacular

brooklyn spaces: Do you have a favorite show, or one that’s particularly triumphant or special?
Anya: I like them all for different reasons, but I think that the Christmas Spectacular is probably my favorite. For a lot of the people involved, it feels like you have a real family. Me and Kae curate it, and it’s just everyone we know who we think is talented and amazing who we want to hang out with for three weeks straight. People can do whatever the fuck they want, and we kind of guide it and arrange it. I realized it was my favorite show when I was standing backstage and there was an eleven-year-old boy dressed in drag next to a fifty-three-year-old transvestite dressed as a man, and they’re dancing their asses off and I’m holding this giant spotlight, getting ready to go on, and I was just like, “Wow, this is really beautiful, we’re a family, and we’re celebrating this holiday that’s all about family.” It’s kind of really wholesome in a fucked up way. So that’s my favorite show. It’s low pressure, but really high talent, and it’s always good. Airin said it’s entertainment at its worst dressed in its best. High-quality chaos.

AHOYA! student showcase

brooklyn spaces: Being in this amazing corner of Brooklyn, do you have a relationship with the other people in the neighborhood?
Anya: Yeah, absolutely. It’s awesome to see this really accessible gentrification, where it’s not some random guy you’ll never meet building some random building you’ll never live in. Our peers aren’t afraid of becoming entrepreneurs and businesspeople, really pursuing what they want to do and doing it well, doing it in an interesting way that they care about. I love being in this community of business owners and curators and producers who are all young people, we all ride bikes and hang out on rooftops together. It’s like a different kind of grown-up. I really enjoy that.

Amber Dinner Theatre

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future of the space?
Anya: I want to become a New York City institution. I want to make theatre in New York City better. It’s okay for theatre to be really fucking entertaining. I want to create art that’s accessible and meaningful and a really good time too.

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Like this? Read about more performance spaces: Gowanus Ballroom, Big Sky Works, Rubulad, The Muse

werdink / ninja pyrate

oriana on 22 Jun ’11

neighborhood: east williamsburg | space type: screenprinting \ events | active since: 2010
links (werdink): site, blog, myspace, facebook | link (ninja pyrate): facebook
contact (werdink): contact@werdink.com; 917.204.2976 | contact (ninja pyrate): ninjapyrates@gmail.com

Even though I live about ten minutes away from them, I’d never heard of Werdink Screenprinting Boutique or Ninja Pyrate. And maybe you haven’t either—but believe me, that’s going to change. They’ve got  an amazing hybrid space, encompassing a high-end screenprinting studio, a boutique shop selling apparel and skateboards (all printed onsite), a multipurpose event space with a rubber floor and an aerial rig, a DJ setup, and a recording studio in a pirate ship. A pirate ship. And they’re really eager to open the space up to the community, to see what people can do with it.

Who are these amazing people? Matthew is the Werdink screenprinter, and his sister Krisstina and her boyfriend Jeff are still figuring out more amazing ways to use the Ninja Pyrate space. Plus they’re all well connected to the crazy Brooklyn creatives: Werdink did a screenprinting truck for the first three Lost Horizon Night Markets and shares tips with Bushwick Print Lab; Krisstina pals around with one of the girls from House of Yes and Lady Circus who started Make Fun; their space is literally downstairs from Shea Stadium.

Scroll down to hear more from these awesome people!
[all photos in this post by Alix Piorun]

Read More about werdink / ninja pyrate

hive nyc

oriana on 15 Jun ’11

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: art collective | active since: 2011 | links: website, facebook, twitter

During this year’s Bushwick Open Studios, I had an ambitious roster of spaces to hit, and by a fortuitous chance, one of those was Hive NYC, a nonprofit multidisciplinary art space that is home to a collective of musicians, visual artists, writers, actors, photographers, and aerialists. There was fantastic art on display, by Jewel Lim, Tamar Meir, Our Guy, Sigal Arad Inbar, and Fumie Eshii. And the artists who were there—Yula, Isaac, Kate, and Melanie—were just amazingly warm and welcoming.

Yula, Isaac, Kate, and Melanie, photo by Maximus Comissar

They showed us all around the space, then brought out a lovely little impromptu lunch: salad and couscous, hummus and boiled eggs, avocados and cheese and coffee. They were bubbling over with excitement about their space, their projects, their bands, and the life they’re making for themselves. In addition to art and music, they have plas to green their home with a rooftop garden, compost, a water accumulation system, and doing more buiding with salvaged and reused materials. They even have their own living metaphor: an actual beehive on the roof.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: How did the space get started?
Kate: There was a group of us all playing music together, and we were all into different forms of art as well, like I write, Isaac does theatre productions, we have a saw-player who paints, our trombone player is working on a rooftop garden, stuff like that. So the idea was just to bring in as many people as possible and give them a place to create whatever they wanted to create.

photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: How did you find the space?
Yula: It was so amazing, it happened really fast. About a year ago, I told a friend, “What I want is to have a little sanctuary for the people I know and love, so they could do whatever they want to do.” And in no more than a year, the Hive started coming together. All these people started being drawn in, our friends brought more friends, and each one of them were geniuses in their little ways. So we were like, “Okay, we need a home.” And a month later, I found this place on Craigslist. Isaac came here, and he was like, “It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s amazing!” The landlords are awesome, they’re artists, they said, “As long as you don’t burn the place down, you can do anything you want.” And so we moved in and started doing things. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also really rewarding and fun.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: What was the last show you had?
Yula: We had a show last night, and our band The eXtended Family played with Dolchnakov Brigade. There were so many people here, it was ridiculous.
Kate: It was so overwhelmingly positive too, everyone was just having a great time. I think there’s a mutual understanding that this isn’t a club, this is a place where people live. We had so many people dancing, and all this artwork all around, and nothing got disturbed, there were no problems at all, there was just a really beautiful, positive energy.

Yula and the eXtended Family, photo from streetcredmusic

brooklyn spaces: What are some of the other projects people here do?
Yula: The eXtended Family is the heart, it’s all of us. The music is very eclectic. We call it ro-punk, romantic punk, but you can’t really define it, it’s a mix of a lot of shit thrown together with a kind of punchy attitude, but in a positive way. And then Dolchnakov Brigade is just like a megalomaniac onion, an underdog-ish, fascist kick in the face. There are several other bands who work with us too, there’s Crooks & Perverts, Gato Loco, This Way to the Egress, Torcher Chamber Ensemble.

photo by Maximus Comissar

Kate: We have a website that features writers, artists, music, sustainability projects, and humor, as well as allowing members to barter for goods and services.
Yula: There’s also a Philly Hive. They’re doing events in a place called BookSpace, with aerialists and circus-ish type stuff and book readings and poetry.
Kate: One of our members is the editor of Helo: The Crisis Story Magazine. We’re also in the middle of a Kickstarter to try to raise money to get our roof garden off the ground, ha ha.
Yula: We have bees on our roof now. Thirty thousand little sweet bees! I never thought I would be so comfortable around so many bees. But you can be one foot away from this huge swarm, and they don’t bother you, they just mind their own business.
Kate: Didn’t you name them all Deborah?
Yula: Yes, Deborah the Hive. It’s one organism made of many little things, which is a perfect metaphor for us.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Do you feel like Brooklyn has influenced the way you conceive the space, or do you think spaces like this are having an impact on the way that Brooklyn is right now?
Yula: I think the second. For us at least. You can do pretty much anything you want here if you respect everything else. And if you set that tone, people respond to it wonderfully. Little by little, if you just spread it slowly, you might be able to make a difference in a larger way. As soon as Bushwick Open Studios started and I started walking around the neighborhood, I was like, “We’re not the only people doing this!” It’s wonderful. We just need to make some connections and make this trust circle bigger, broader, and stronger, and then who knows what can happen? I’m hoping that this is just the beginning, that everybody’s going to pick up from this and just do more and more.
Kate: There’s been a pretty big snowball effect since we’ve started. We’ve been picking up more and more people and having a great time. This space has definitely come together very quickly.
Yula: If we can just continue to do what we do and enjoy it, that’s all we really want. Just don’t bother us doing it. World, don’t interfere. If you have any bad intentions, just stay out.

Like this? Read about more communal art spaces: The Schoolhouse, Swimming Cities, Arch P&D, Silent Barn, Monster Island, Flux Factory, Bushwick Project for the Arts

boswyck farms

oriana on 23 May ’11

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: farm | active since: 2008 | links: website, facebook, twitter

Amid all the other creative movements in Brooklyn these days, farming is one that’s gaining ground. Brooklynites are farming in gardens (Trees Not Trash, Bushwick City Farm), on rooftops (Eagle Street, Roberta’s), even in trucks! And of course they’re experimenting with different kinds of farming—which brings us to Boswyck.

in the Grow Room, researching how plants grow with no natural light

Boswyck Farms is a working hydroponic farm as well as a research and development center, focused on building and testing different types of hydroponic growing systems. They grow all manner of produce—from artichokes to dill to a dwarf apple tree—and they’ve placed smaller offshoot farms around the neighborhood, including on the roof of the Bushwick Starr. They also do a ton of outreach and projects within the community, like growing lettuce at an institution for adults with mental illness, teaching botany programs and summer school classes in NYC schools, and running hydroponic workshops for adults. They even bring students into the farm as interns. It’s not just for kids, of course—anyone can volunteer.

herb garden in a flood-and-drain system

Q&A with Lee, Boswyck’s founder

brooklyn spaces: Give me a quick hydroponics tutorial.
Lee: Hydroponics at its core is growing without soil. All the food that the plants need is mixed into a nutrient solution. We try out many of the different types of hydroponic systems here. We’re growing tomatoes in a flood-and-drain system, and the way that works is and six times a day the roots get bathed in nutrients, and then it drains back down into the reservoir. All of our systems re-circulate. We have ancho peppers growing in a drip system, where nutrients are dripped through the roots continuously, twenty-four hours a day. We have an herb garden, with basil, dill, cilantro, oregano, and thyme, growing in another flood-and-drain system. We have several self-contained drip systems, growing broccoli, cauliflower, and pink flamingo chard. We have artichokes growing in a deep-water system, which has about two inches of nutrients that the roots sit in all the time, and a raft system growing cucumbers, sage, dill, cilantro, and spinach. Lastly, we have basil, dill, and cilantro growing in a tower system built out of milk crates. Every nine minutes, the pump turns on and rains down nutrients through the roots. That system was designed by two students at City College.

ancho peppers growing with no natural light

brooklyn spaces: And this is all great for the environment, right?

Lee: Even though it’s counterintuitive, hydroponics uses 70–90 percent less water than traditional growing: there’s no runoff, and there’s very little evaporation. People ask whether hydroponics uses a lot of electricity, and usually they look at the lights, which do use a lot, but they actually have nothing to do with hydroponics. If we were growing indoors with soil, the lights would be the same. At Boswyck, we’re starting to look at how we can offset some of the electricity usage with wind and solar power, and we’re always looking at ways to build these systems from reclaimed materials.

pink flamingo chard in a self-contained drip system

brooklyn spaces: Have you always been a farmer?
Lee: No, I’m a computer programmer. I read a magazine article and took a visit to the Science Barge, which is a teaching boat that’s hydroponic, and I just got hooked. I decided that I was going to turn my life upside-down and become an urban farmer. It’s very exciting and very terrifying, because I’m putting my life savings into it. If I wasn’t frightened, I’d be delusional.

tomatoes in a flood-and-drain system

brooklyn spaces: Who are some of your clients?
Lee: One is a place called Fountain House, in Hell’s Kitchen, which is a residency and day center for adults with mental illness. They wanted to grow the lettuce that they use in their cafeteria, so they had a 165-sq-ft room that we built out just for growing lettuce. Another client is the Child Development Support Corporation in Bed-Stuy. They do a lot of early childhood classes for families, and they run an emergency food pantry. They gave us a 250-sq-ft room, and we’re going to be growing lettuce, bok choy, and collards.

herbs growing in reused milk crates

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about the work you do with students.
Lee: We started in a fourth-grade class in the West Village. The last time I had been in a fourth-grade classroom, I was in fourth grade. I had a lot of respect for teachers going in, but now I simply don’t understand how they do it. I’d spend an hour and a half with the kids and then come home and take a nap. Now we do informal internships with college students and formal internships with some high school students in the neighborhood. It’s been really eye-opening working with these kids. They have been fucked by the system, from start to finish. I can’t put it any other way. I’ve got eleventh graders in who are reading at a fourth- or fifth-grade level, very little math skills, and nobody’s ever taught them a work ethic. I feel my job is teaching them how to work, what it is to be in a workplace, and things like personal responsibility. Not too long ago, we had a workshop with a number of sixth-grade students from a school out in suburban Queens, and these kids were so focused, the questions they came up with were so insightful. Seeing the contrast between them and the kids we work with in at-risk areas… I always knew this was going on, but it hit me really hard when I saw it in person. It makes me want even more to bring that kind of experience to schools in our neighborhood, because all kids deserve it.

artichoke in a deep-water system

brooklyn spaces: Are you the only hydroponic farm in Brooklyn?
Lee: There aren’t a lot of legal hydroponic farms in the New York City area. We don’t shy away from the fact that most of the people doing hydroponics in the city are growing pot. In fact, the pot growers are doing some great research, and we wouldn’t be where we are without them. But there’s a number of different farms in the city that are doing everything from small-scale to large commercial greenhouses. I think we’re the only ones who combine hydroponics, education, and working with social service providers. There is definitely a lot of great urban farming going on all over New York, and Brooklyn seems to be the epicenter.

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Like this? Read about more community groups: Trees Not Trash, Books Through Bars, Brooklyn Free Store, Trinity Project, Time’s Up, Film Biz Recycling, Bushwick City Farms

shea stadium

oriana on 16 May ’11

neighborhood: east williamsburg | space type: music space | active since: 2009 | links: website, facebook

There is something magical about the little corner of East Williamsburg south of Grand Street and east of Bushwick Ave. Within just a few blocks you have 3rd Ward, House of Yes, Werdink / Ninja Pyrate, the Acheron, Bushwick Project for the Arts, Paper Box, and Shea Stadium. Plus the Anchored Inn, Yummus Hummus, Main Drag Music, a slew of other factories and art spaces, and who even knows what else. Brooklyn creativity is dense all over, but even so, that’s quite a little group.

DJ Unicornicopia, photo by me

I live ten minutes from the whole cluster, but embarrassingly, I’d never been to Shea Stadium before. It’s a really nice space, roomy and welcoming, with some good beat-up couches and a great terrace. As with most DIY Brooklyn venues, Todd P has thrown shows here. My friend’s band Krallice has played here—that’s them in the big picture at the top of the post.

I interviewed Adam, who started the space, and then I stayed for a quirky cool show, with Pam Finch, Duncan Malachock, and DJ Unicornicopia.

Demander, from Konstantin Sergeyev's Flickr

brooklyn spaces: Give me a quick history of the space?
Adam: We moved in here July 1, 2009, and we had our first show on July 4th. That show was a lot of fun, because we hadn’t done anything in terms of building out the space; we just plugged PA speakers into the walls and went for it. There was no stage, nothing. People were dancing and these enormous clouds of sawdust were getting kicked up. After that we took a week or two to just put up walls. It’s a slow process: you add this, you add that. It’s always a work in progress.

Fiasco, from Brooklyn Vegan

brooklyn spaces: How many people are involved in making this happen?
Adam: The main people are me and my friend Sean, who was with me from the beginning, and Nora. My friends in the band So So Glows all live here and help out with the shows, and we have a revolving door of some other really cool people who help out. Nora actually started as an intern, but it was clear from the beginning that she was going to become more than that very quickly. She just was really hungry, and she had the right attitude and the right ideas.

photo by me

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about the live archives.
Adam: The live archives was sort of the impetus behind the space. I work in music—I’m a producer, engineer, and  musician—and I always wanted to open up some sort of space, but I felt like the last thing this area needed was another recording studio. Plus I wanted to do something a little less sterile and a little more fun and interactive. So I was like, “Let’s start throwing shows and I’ll record them, and we’ll build up this massive archive of performances.” I think at this point I have about 1,400 sets.
brooklyn spaces: What’s the goal? Just to amass a huge amount of recorded live music?

Worrier, from Konstantin Sergeyev's Flickr

Adam: Yeah. I think that in ten, twenty years, what’s happening in this area is something people are going to want to know about, and it’s nice to be able to capture it. When we first launched the site, I was getting letters from people who live in Alabama, Kentucky, Australia, New Zealand, saying, “It’s logistically impossible for us to get to New York and see these bands that we love, but through your archives, we can connect.”

brooklyn spaces: Is there an overarching kind of music you aim for?
Adam: If we like it, we book it. It’s really that simple. The stuff we have is all over the map. And it’s a pretty healthy mix of local bands and touring bands and bands from other countries.

Jefferson High, photo from Impose Magazine

brooklyn spaces: What’s your relationship like with the community?
Adam: I have a pretty good relationship with all of our neighbors, especially our landlords next door. They’re from Lebanon, and they’ve been here since the seventies. They used to own all of Meadow Street, from Morgan to Waterbury. Every single building. Now they’re down to only two or three, and they run a furniture business across the street, Mona Liza Fine Furniture. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff. They were sort of the pioneers of the neighborhood; they came when it was just junkyards and tire fires and gang violence. And they’re the coolest. When the weather gets nice, they bring a big table out onto the sidewalk and cook dinner for everybody. It’s like old-school New York. And they’ve been nothing but supportive of us. It wouldn’t be possible to do what we do if they weren’t so cool.
brooklyn spaces: Do they come to the shows?
Adam: Sometimes, but usually they don’t stick around very long. What happens more often is people at the shows will go over there, because they’re outside all the time, hanging out, smoking hookah, cooking. People wander over and hang out all night, getting drunk with the landlords.

photo by me

brooklyn spaces: Was this neighborhood in particular a place you wanted to be?
Adam: I didn’t know too much about the neighborhood before we moved in. I grew up in Bay Ridge, and I’ve lived in Brooklyn for the majority of my life, but this neighborhood was one of the few in the borough that I really wasn’t very familiar with. I’m happy that we landed here because this is really a great, great neighborhood. And I think it’ll continue to get better, unfortunately probably to a point that will prohibit us from being able to keep doing what we do, but that’s part of the cycle. Eventually your time comes and you have to reevaluate and figure out a different path. This neighborhood is changing rapidly, and we’ll just see what happens.

Fresh and Onlys, from The Owl Mag

brooklyn spaces: It’s true; even in the last five years, it’s become completely different.
Adam: Totally. It’s such a strange neighborhood, because it’s so close to the things you want to be close to, and kind of far from the things you want to be far away from. You have privacy, you have space, and there aren’t many public businesses around, so you don’t have noise complaints. It’s completely amazing to be three blocks from the L train and not have to worry about noise complaints. I don’t really think that’s possible anywhere else. You basically have the keys to do what you want, and in Brooklyn in 2011, that’s so rare. These few blocks might be the final frontier.

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future of the space?
Adam: Really just to keep doing what we’re doing for as long as possible. I know it’s not going to last forever, so I want to enjoy it while we can.

***

Like this? Read about other music spaces: Silent Barn, Death By Audio, Fort Useless, 285 Kent, Newsonic, Bushwick Music Studios, Monster Island

bushwick starr

oriana on 22 Apr ’11

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: theatre | active since: 2001 | links: website, facebook, twitter

The first play I saw at Bushwick Starr was The Ring Cycle Parts 1&2, a recontectualizing of Wagner‘s famous opera set in America in the eighties, seen through the lens of trickle-down economics and WWF wrestling. It was outrageously great, and even our friends visiting from Brussels were impressed. The next time I made it back was for Winter in the Woods, a series of vignettes around the theme of winter, which featured a spooky theremin player, a troupe dancing backward, women as swans, marionettes fighting their handlers, and so much more awesomeness.

still from The Ring Cycle (from pacopenguin's Flickr)

Bushwick Starr provides a small, intimate theatre-going experience, where a handful of audience members sit on the floor, and you don’t even need to bring your glasses. They’re a nonprofit, doing innovative and locally focused work, giving artists and groups a forum to grow and experiment, with consistently high-quality creative results. This weekend (Aprli 22 & 23) is this year’s Big Green Theater Festival, an interactive environmental-education program focused on teaching kids about their environment and community in creative ways. Get your tickets already! But first, check out my interview with Sue, Bushwick Starr’s founder.

still from Winter in the Woods

brooklyn spaces: Tell me a bit about the history of the space.
Sue: The Bushwick Starr began as a developmental space for the New York–based theater company Fovea Floods, Inc. Our company was looking for a large rehearsal space for a show we were producing at the (then) Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in the East Village, and when we found the loft in Bushwick, we fell in love. In 2004, we fully converted the space into a black-box venue while producing a large-scale theatrical run. And as the neighborhood of Bushwick began to transform into a thriving artistic nexus, we decided to open our doors to other artists. So it was really less of a decision to open up a theater in Bushwick, than it was a gradual transition from a private space to a public venue. We’ve grown into a thriving theatrical venue, a vital neighborhood arts center, and a destination for exciting and engaging performance.

from Bushwick Starr's Facebook page

brooklyn spaces: What have been some of your favorite shows?
Sue: One of our favorites was Pass Kontrol‘s New Hope City in the spring of 2010. It was an apocalyptic rock-opera / allegory set in the future of a New York–type city, created and conceived by a local Bushwick rock band. The show was an unexpected runaway hit, because it perfectly represented a reflection—a moment—of the Bushwick community spirit. It’s DIY, it’s cutting-edge, it’s full of promise and creativity, and it’s hopeful at its core. Another highlight was Half Straddle‘s In the Pony Palace / FOOTBALL in the spring of 2011. Half Straddle is an up-and-coming company in an exciting moment of growth. It’s always our goal to catch budding companies and offer them some valuable and productive time to develop their work, while giving them all of our support to get their work seen, and it’s extremely rewarding for us to be a part of that journey. We want to help companies put on a show, but we also want people to take notice of the work, and just generally get excited about something new—and they certainly did with Pony Palace. Our relationship with Half Straddle on this production was a great fit, and I think the fact that the run was sold out and we received so much press is a testament to both of us making the most of a special moment for our organizations, and working together to forge ahead.

still from Scary Monsters (from Bushwick Starr's Facebook page)

brooklyn spaces: Is there an overarching theme or idea for the types of shows you put on?
Sue: We present new or developing work from primarily NYC-based experimental theater and dance artists. We like to work with groups that have a strong vision and something to say artistically. We also choose people who have established their voice and their audience but are still in a moment of growth, so that the support we offer them will have value and impact. If you look at our current season, you can get an idea of the type of work / artistic style we lean toward—Half Straddle, PL115, Witness Relocation, and 31 Down, all of which are making experimental, cutting-edge work.

photo from Bushwick Starr's Facebook page

brooklyn spaces: What is the space’s relationship with the neighborhood & community?
Sue: The Bushwick Starr is an organization defined by both our artists and our community. With this in mind, we have created annual offerings like The Bushwhack Series, a festival highlighting local talent; Band of Puppets Fest, a showcase of puppetry for families in our community; and the environmentally driven Big Green Theater Festival, which brings the youth of Bushwick directly in touch with professional theater. We are in the heart of Bushwick, and at the crossroads of our neighborhood’s unique culture, history, and community. We strive to unite these elements within an artistic forum and serve as a place where both artistic and community-based dialogue can be encouraged and explored.

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Like this? Read about other performance spaces: Chez Bushwick, Clockworks Puppet Studio, South Oxford Space, Cave, Bushwick Project for the Arts, Cave of Archaic Remnants, Vaudeville Park

bushwick print lab

oriana on 10 Apr ’11

neighborhood: ridgewood | space type: commercial & studios | active since: 2010 | links: website, facebook

I hope I’m not going to have to change the name of this blog; Bushwick Print Lab is yet another space (like Silent Barn and Arch P&D) that is—technically, and only barely—in Queens. But it’s such a neat space, I had to cover it. BPL is a collective silkscreen studio where you can contract printing projects from very talented printers, or rent space and time to do it yourself. They offer basic silkscreening and textile printing workshops, too. Hourly rates begin at $25, monthly at $125, and their equipment includes a 44-inch exposure unit, a coating and drying room, a power washer and back-lit washout, flatstock printing tables, large paper drying racks, four-color tabletop presses, a flash unit, discounted paper stock, t-shirts, and inks—all the tools a screenprinter needs. In addition to being involved in the greater Bushwick art community, BPL does month-long art shows whenever someone wants to curate one. So read my interview with Ray, and then get in touch with him to start doing some projects!
brooklyn spaces: How do clients find you?
Ray: It’s mostly friends of friends and word of mouth, although if you Google “silkscreen” and “Brooklyn,” we come up pretty high. There aren’t a lot of labs like us. We have most of the tools that you need, although it’s not necessarily the highest-end, or the most expensive production. We’re more DIY, for artists. There are a few others, like ABC No Rio is the one that most people know, where you put $5 in the coffee can and you coat your screen and go, but we’re a little more professional, for things that have to be precise, with no fingerprints.

brooklyn spaces: What kinds of clients do you get?
Ray: We’re pretty affordable and open to different people, so it’s a little bit of everything. We have high school kids come here, and we have career printmakers. We get a lot of people from the digital art world who want to do something more physical. We get activists; we just did the plaques for the Ghost Bike Project, and the Yes Men have a screen here right now. We made a screen for Swimming Cities. SVA and Parsons have even had classes come here. And then of course lots people from bands.

brooklyn spaces: Is it just you running the whole thing? Is there a staff?
Ray: It’s sort of a benevolent dictatorship. I’m the one who runs it, and I tend to use the space more than everyone else because I’m doing my own jobs to help pay for it. But there’s a few other people who have been helping out: Kevin from Just Seeds works here one day a week, and Melissa, who’s an assistant for Molly Crabapple and does Dr. Sketchy stuff, she does admin assistance. And we had an intern, Ben, he’s from this Walkabout program in Westchester, he was here for six weeks. That‘s basically the staff.

brooklyn spaces: Why did you pick this neighborhood?
Ray: It’s the neighborhood I know, I’ve been working out here for four or five years. And my friend Todd, he and all these people from Graffiti Research Lab needed to move studios, so we moved in together. I love the building, and our neighbors are great, like Yarn Wire, Regina Rex Galleries, Brooklyn Salsa Company, and Lang Percussion. Plus it’s just a nice area. We’re technically in Queens, which is interesting. You can really tell; it’s industrial Bushwick until you get to Cypress, and then it’s all row houses. It’s a whole other life in Queens, it turns out.

brooklyn spaces: Anything else you want to tell the world about BPL?
Ray: We’re happy to work with people, and we try to do it as affordably as possible. It’s been really nice doing this, everybody who works is here really cool and supportive and interested in each other’s projects. It’s been working out. I’m really happy about everything.

***

Like this? Read about more makers: Werdink, Gowanus Print Lab, Pickett Furniture, A Wrecked Tangle Press, Metropolis Soap, 6 Charles Place, Arch P&D, Gowanus Ballroom, Urbanglass, Better Than Jam, 3rd Ward

arch p&d

oriana on 7 Apr ’11

neighborhood: ridgewood | space type: art studios | active since: 2010 | links: website, tumblr

The guys who make up Arch P&D—Evan, Ian, and Zak—are some of the nicest, hardest-working dudes I have ever met. Not only were they willing to give me an interview and walk-through of their amazing new space way late at night, they actually set up a private art opening for me and Maximus, new works by Andriana Santiago in collaboration with Evan, weeks before the show will be open to the public. The Arch artists hung out with us for hours, bubbling over with excitement and energy and passion, chatting about art and life and skateboarding and bedazzling and pleasant anarchy.

photos by Maximus Comissar

You’ve probably heard of the previous incarnation of Arch, from their big, bright gallery space on Troutman Street in Bushwick, where they held group art shows and indie boutiques, and were a fixture in neighborhood art events like Beat Night and Bushwick Open Studios. But they’ve moved on, with a new space (in Ridgewood, technically), new goals, new ideas, and new synergy. As Evan says, “Arch was started to create a space where artists could get together and share art and skills, to do work that everyone could benefit from in a sustainable manner.” There are eight artists sharing space at the new Arch, and they make every kind of art imaginable, from visual art to commercial art to music to skateboarding to metal and woodwork. Even with so many people, the space is incredibly organized and doesn’t feel cramped; every workstation is built on wheels, so they can clear out the space easily for parties and events. They’ve got a crazy diverse roster of high-profile clients—including Lady Gaga, Dos Equis, Andrew WK, Dance New Amsterdam, and Lindsey Lohan—as well as working with many other underground Brooklyn spaces, like Red Lotus Room and House of Yes. They also throw art salons and parties, have open hours as a gallery, and are open to collaboration and skillsharing.

 

brooklyn spaces: How did you all come together?
Evan: I met Zak doing a job for Dos Equis. We made steampunk party boxes and a steampunk piano for Andrew WK.
Ian: I met Evan through working with Narcissister. He started pulling me onto some jobs, and I pulled him onto some, and it went back and forth for awhile, until we decided that it was silly not to merge into one entity.

brooklyn spaces: So you guys have lots of high-profile clients, individually as well as collectively.
Evan: Everything is collective now. Together we’re doing what one of us could never do alone.
Ian: Everything in the shop is communal, so long as you know what you’re doing and you clean up after yourself. It’s respectfully collective.
Zak: It’s an open exchange of ideas and materials and tools.

brooklyn spaces: How did you pick the name?
Evan: It’s from a project that I did with a massive group of friends for Pier 59’s fifteenth anniversary party. It was for Fashion Week Spring 2010. We designed a massive Roman set, with an arch and columns and blocks, which took every last bit of help from everyone I knew. And it became obvious that the structure of an arch requires every block in the arch to hold it up. Actually, tomorrow we’re going to go and pick up that arch from storage, and we’re going to install it in the House of Yes for the new show, Caligula Maximus. It’s coming full circle.
brooklyn spaces: Where will it go when House of Yes is done with it?
Evan: I don’t know, it might end up at Materials for the Arts.
Zak: Sustainability is a key element for us. Everything we do is going to get reused or given away.

brooklyn spaces: Has Bushwick influenced the space, or Brooklyn in general?
Zak: Bushwick is the pulsating center of art in Brooklyn right now. It’s where everything is happening.
Ian: I think even the way we’ve set up the space, it has a Brooklyn feel. It’s open, there’s no walls between our spaces, everything is there for everyone to see.
Evan: It’s all DIY and scavenged, the windows leak, it’s freezing cold, you’re working in the shop in all your clothes. That’s Brooklyn.
Zak: Survival skills.
Evan: Also it’s really bleak, it’s this post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland.
Zak: In the wintertime you walk out there and it’s like snowfields and dilapidated train tracks and broken-down warehouses, but what’s coming out of here is what people deem some of the most beautiful artistic work in the world. On the outside this building looks like nothing, but inside we’re creating stuff that’s on Fifth Avenue. The juxtaposition is fantastic, it embodies the whole situation.
Andriana: And we’re remaking the neighborhood. It’s just about taking what you have, whatever it is, even if it’s old or dirty, and making it your own and creating your own life. Whatever you want it to be.
Ian: That’s what’s so beautiful about this space, it’s all of our dreams put together, making it into a collective dream.
Evan: I’m gonna cry.

brooklyn spaces: What else is even in this immediate neighborhood? Are there other artists creeping out?
Evan: Oh yeah. There’s a lot of lofts out here that are filled with artists.
Andriana: We’re like roaches.
Zak: Yeah, we come out at night and we’re impossible to get rid of.

brooklyn spaces: Will this space be open to the public like the last one?
Evan: We just recently did a gallery show; obviously this will be an ideal place to have art hanging on a regular basis. We’ve been open to the public for about five events. We’re trying to find where our public presence as a space exists.
Ian: A lot of it comes from opening up the space to other artists. We’re open to helping people who don’t have the space to do larger projects.
Zak: We’ve all been there, having a concept but not the space to realize it. So we’re more than willing to help out other artists with space and materials.

brooklyn spaces: Do any of you want to talk about recent favorite projects that you’ve done?
Evan: We just made a mannequin for Melody Sweets, a burlesque performer. And we did a really nice set at Lincoln Center for Fashion Week for Odd Molly, a Swedish fashion company. And we did a set for Black Nativity Now, an Off-Broadway production by Alfred Preisser. Zak just headed up a project doing two suites for the Lady Gaga concert at Madison Square Garden.
Zak: I also make surfboard fin key necklaces, in a range of metals and finishes, and Lindsey Lohan has taken a liking to them, so I’m getting some calls from her. That speaks to the diversity in the whole situation, we have high-end sets, high-end furniture, high-end jewelry, it’s such a range.

brooklyn spaces: Anything else you want to tell the world?
Zak: Tell them to come by! They’re more than welcome, our doors are always open. Just be friendly. Have a smile on your face and want to be a little bit creative and get your ideas out.
Ian: There’s always a way to make your project happen.
Zak: Yeah, whenever someone says “Is that possible?”, we never say no. It’s always possible. It just takes a little bit of creativity, a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears.

***

Like this? Read about more art coworking spaces: Exapno, Time’s Up, Bushwick Print Lab, Urbanglass, 3rd Ward, Brooklyn Lyceum, No-Space

better than jam

oriana on 14 Mar ’11

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: design co-op | active since: 2010 | links: website, facebook, blog, etsy

Honestly, I wandered into Better Than Jam by accident. I was looking at art at the Loom during Bushwick Site Fest, and suddenly I found myself in a bright, beautiful boutique, with rack after rack of silkscreened t-shirts and dresses, felted hats, shining jewelry, stitched pillows, knit scarves, and on and on. It turns out that Better Than Jam is a handmade design co-op, a collective space run by fashion designer Karin Persan. It’s a lovely shop full of lovely things, open daily. Go support the store and buy yourself something nice, but first read my interview with Karin!

brooklyn spaces: How did this all get started?
Karin: Well, I’m a fashion designer. I’ve been doing markets on the weekends for six or seven years, just traveling around, and the opportunity came up to take this space and open a storefront, so I grabbed it. I wanted to make it a showcase for local designers, and I started with a core group of awesome, talented people, and as I’ve been open I just meet more and more creative people from the neighborhood. The way the space works is everyone puts in a little bit for rent, and then keeps 90 percent of what they make. It’s a self-sufficient space.

brooklyn spaces: Do you have specific ideas for what you want to stock?
Karin: I have to keep it noncompetitive between the designers, so I only take on new people who don’t have anything similar to what I already carry. I like to have a good array of styles, designers with a good range of experience, and everything is high-quality, obviously.

brooklyn spaces: Do you do all the selection and the running of the space yourself?
Karin: Yup. I don’t make the designers work like a co-op usually does. I do want them to be involved, like bringing in new stock regularly, and I have events every once in a while, so I want them to come and participate, so people can meet them. People really love meeting the designers of the pieces they love.

brooklyn spaces: I’ve never heard of a space like this before, is this a pioneering idea?
Karin: Oh, I don’t know. I went to art school, I’m not a business major. I’ve had people emailing me from all over the country, saying, “What’s your business model?” I don’t have a business model! This is just what works for me.

brooklyn spaces: Was there a particular desire to have your shop in this neighborhood, or in Brooklyn in general?
Karin: It made sense for me to do it in Bushwick. This is where I’ve been for the last few years, I’m really proud of my neighborhood and how many creative people are here, and I like being a part of the growth of it, in a positive way. It wouldn’t make sense for me to open something like this in Park Slope or Williamsburg, because that’s not me, that’s not where I’m going. This is my neighborhood, this is where I have to be.

***

Like this? Read about more commercial spaces: Metropolis Soap Co., Breuckelen Distilling Co., Bushwick Print Lab

3rd ward

oriana on 16 Feb ’11

neighborhood: east williamsburg | space type: skillshare | active since: 2005 | links: website, facebook, twitter

Update October 2013: The story is still coming to light, but as of October 9th, 3rd Ward is closed, with the owner having absconded seemingly in the middle of the night with no warning, leaving members, teachers, and small businesses that run out of the space completely in the lurch. The story was broken by the New York Observer here, and there has been an outpouring of frustrated rage since then.

***

3rd Ward is kind of a no-brainer, since it’s a wildly popular, well-publicized space, but as a pioneering skillshare, community, and event space, they definitely warrant covering here. And it’s an incredible place, with so much to offer. There’s no interview in this post, but please click through to learn all about this fabulous space!

3rd Ward is primarily a skillshare, and while membership isn’t cheap, it comes with great perks (a free bike!) and access to a whole host of facilities. (Non-members can also access many of the offerings, but it costs more.)

Their facilities include massive metal shop, a wood shop, a jewelry studio, and a textile studio. They’ve also got a bicycle shop that is available for drop-ins, a cavernous gallery space with rotating exhibits, and several studios for events. Plus they offer a vast array of classes, in everything from digital media to welding to pottery.

They also do tons of events, including myriad gallery shows, live drawing events, music performances, presentations, crazy parties, craft fairs, fundraisers, festivals, and so much more.

It’s a terrific gathering place, and has something awesome happening basically all the time.

Also check out this great interview (not done by me) with 3rd Ward’s co-founder.

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Like this? Read about other skillshares: Pioneer Works, Time’s Up, Urbanglass, Brooklyn Brainery, Arch P&D, Bushwick Print Lab, Gowanus Print Lab, Ger-Nis, Exapno