9/12 13 FREE Event: Coney Island Performance Festival

coney island history proj

This new literary event is free and open to the public. It is at 6:30 pm on Sat & Sun. Since it's a FREE event, best to arrive early. Reservations are recommended: email [email protected]

Parachute: the Coney Island Performance Festival is the first annual literary and performance festival in historic Coney Island. It is a community based festival focusing on Brooklyn artists. The Coney Island Performance Festival takes place the second weekend in September—Saturday and Sunday, September 12th and 13th at the New York Aquarium’s Alien Stingers exhibit (after hours) on Surf Avenue at West 8th Street.

Saturday, September 12th:

Hosted by visual artist and performer, Africasso
Cara Benson
Charles Denson
Jibade Khalil Huffman
Dennis Nurkse
Akilah Oliver
Patricia Spears Jones

Sunday September 13th:

Hosted by the illustrious burlesque dancer, Angie Pontani (Miss Cyclone)
Edmund Berrigan
Michael Cirelli
Eileen Myles
Edwin Torres
John Ventimiglia-- (“Artie Bucco” from The Sopranos) reading Henry Miller’s words on Coney Island


Since its inception, Coney Island has played host to a magnificent array of theatre, performance, poetry, dance, and literature. A naked Walt Whitman read Shakespeare to the Atlantic Ocean; Cary Grant was a stilt walker at Steeplechase Park; Woody Guthrie strummed his guitar on Mermaid Avenue; Bread and Puppet Theatre was in residence in the 1970's and Coney Island USA has been a theatrical presence and Coney Island fixture for nearly thirty years.

Readings will begin at 6:30pm both nights and feature a wide array of established and up-and-coming Brooklyn based poets and writers. Highlights include poet, Patricia Spears Jones, John Ventimiglia from the Sopranos reading Henry Miller, Eileen Myles (named by BUST magazine as "the rock star of modern poetry”) and the former Brooklyn Poet Laureate, Dennis Nurkse.

http://www.ciparachutefestival.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/PARACHUTE-The-Coney-Island-Performance-Festival/117835530949

The Coney Island History Project under the Cyclone will be open from 2-6 pm--last weekend of the season--in conjunction with the Parachute Festival. You can pick up a festival program, sample Stumptown Coffee (one of the sponsors) and of course Ring the Bell!
http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/news/?p=203


Sponsors:
Astella Development Corporation
Bowery Arts & Sciences
Coney Island History Project
JoMart Chocolates
The Farm on Adderly
New York Aquarium
Poets & Writers
Stumptown Coffee Roasters