Get your spooky fun on this Friday at BuildItGreen!NYC’s brand-new space in Gowanus, Brooklyn! From 3-6pm, kids can stop by the BIG!NYC/GrowNYC costume swap and trade their old finery for new, plus watch family-friendly Hallowe’en films, do some eco-crafts (Solar One will be making cardboard animal masks), play games and much more!

Then at 7pm, it’s time for more adult fun at BIG’s costume fundraiser. Tickets start at just $10 and are available HERE!

BIG!NYC Costume Swap and Fundraiser
Friday October 28, 2011
Costume Swap at 3pm, Fundraiser at 6pm
69 9th Street, Brooklyn
Get directions HERE!

Sun to Stars returns to Solar One for its 6th season on September 10, 2011 from 2-10 pm [Rain Date September 11]

This year’s performers include: Neel Murgai │ Shobana Ram│Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury│Gaurav Shah│ Parul Shah Dance Company│Malini Srinivasan│ Rujuta Vaidya │Jay Gandhi │Nitin Mitta

Please click on the links above to learn more about the artists!

This year’s Festival will have a special emphasis on children, with special activities for them in the early part of the Festival (2pm-4pm). These activities will include traditional kite and lamp making, coloring South Asian deity puppets, learning to wrap a sari and a special storytelling performance.

Curated by Parul Shah with Reena Shah

Artistic Direction by Tamar Rogoff

Food from Five Star Banquet and Catering

East India Pale Ale from Brroklyn Brewery

For more information about Sun To Stars, click HERE.

Saturday September 10 from 2pm-10pm with special activities for kids from 2pm-4pm

Schedule (subject to change):

2pm Kids Program: Student Performers, Arts & Crafts, Storytelling, Kite Making

4pm Dance Performances: Malini Shrinivasan, Shobana Ram, Parul Shah Dance company, Rujuta Vaidya

6:30pm Music Performances: Neel Murgai, Jay Gandhi & Nitin Mitta, Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury, Gaurav Shah

Sun To Stars Video by Andrew Baker

Hello, world! Beautiful day today, isn’t it? You’re probably out enjoying it, after being cooped up all weekend. This evening,  join the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association for the next event in the Margaret D, Lawrence and Helen W.Collins Memorial Music and Dance Series at Solar One. On  Monday, local singer-songwriter Paul Sachs returns with his band, and on Tuesday, we’ll have informal dance lessons and open dancing with local legend Evelyn Diamond. Both events are free and open to the public!

Paul Sachs & Band
Monday August 29 at 6pm

Folk Dancing with Evelyn Diamond
Tuesday August 30 at 7pm

An evening of free dance classes and open dancing with local legend Evelyn Diamond. You’ve never experienced folk dancing like this before! Presented by the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association.

Enjoy an evening of traditional jazz music with our favorite father-and-sons-trio. Rain date Friday, July 22nd.

Live jazz music from one of NYC’s oldest and most respected jazz institutions- Jazzmobile!  Vocalist Cynthia Holiday will perform accompanied by piano, bass and drums. Presented by the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association.

Live Salsa music from some of NYC’s premier musicians.  Presented by the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association. Rain date Monday August 15th

No Lights No Lycra started in Melbourne, Australia and has since spread throughout the world, with weekly events held in San Francisco, Berlin, and Glasgow, not to mention our very own in Brooklyn. No Lights No Lycra in Greenpoint has been providing revelers with their weekly pure dance hit every Tuesday for over a year, and has been featured in the New York Times.

No Lights No Lycra gives people a place to rediscover the joy of dancing, away from the booze, poses and pressures of a club.

Greenpoint’s No Lights No Lycra is crossing the East River and coming to Solar One for a solar powered dance session to celebrate the summer solstice! Join us on Tuesday 21st June from 8:30pm for an outdoor boogie. NLNL‘s music programmers promise to put together an irresistible set of dancefloor bangers to get your body moving.

Cost: $5 in the box

This Swedish fiction feature from 2010 follows a group of anarchist drummers as they play construction sites, banks and hospitals to create their magnum opus. Plus a live performance from the drummers in the film! Tickets are available at www.rooftopfilms.com or at the door. Rain date Wednesday May 25.

Check out the “long trailer” (please note: this scene is not in the full-length version, but it shows how awesome both the film and the live performance will be):

Join DJ Trent as he welcomes MALUCA and ARAABMUZIK to Solar 1 and the WFMU airwaves. Maluca – Bronx-born, Dominican-raised, now part of Diplo’s Mad Decent crew- is full of hyperfast rap-sing bounce. She’ll bring it with a dance crew in tow. Rhode Islander araabMUZIK – you’ve probably heard his work on the Dipset track “Salute” – is a prodigy on the MPC drum machine, banging out otherworldly beats you won’t believe are being performed live with just two hands. DJ Trent will also bring a stack of videos to screen live, honoring the women of hip-hop who have made the world a lot more interesting in recent decades. Join the fun live at [Solar 1 on the East River at 23rd Street – and enjoy really cheap, really good beer – or tune into live audio and video streams at WFMU.org and 91.1 / 90.1fm.

UPDATE: This performance will be postponed until Saturday August 28 from 3:00-4:30pm. We look forward to seeing you then!

Join the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association as they present the last concert of  this year’s Helen W. Collins Memorial Music Series: Legends of Jazz, featuring 99-year-old saxophonist Max Lucas* playing music from the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Dancing is encouraged!

* Unfortunately, and unknown to us until yesterday, Max Lucas passed away May 15, 2010, and saxophonist Fred Staton will be appearing with Legends of Jazz. We apologize for this error!

Sun To Stars, our annual South Asian festival of food, music and dance, is turning 5, and we’d like you to come to the party!

The festival was inspired by the all-night concerts held along India’s Ganges River where not only are the talents of a wide variety of artists presented, but also a vibrant mix of families, children, couples, friends and random passersby as everyone settles in to relax and enjoy. The Solar One blacktop in front of the stage will be transformed with carpets and pillows into a South Asian seating area, with carpets and pillows for attendees to lounge on. Long Island City’s Five Star Banquet and Restaurant will be serving North Indian fare for $8 a plate; they’re known for their chicken makhani (butter chicken).

This year’s performers include:

A.R. Balaskandan │ Bill Buchen │ Narendra Budhakar │ Jay Gandhi │ Sonali Mishra │ Rohan Mishra │ Nitin Mitta │ Nemanja Rebic │ Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury and more!

Check the Sun To Stars page in the coming weeks to find out what’s new as the Festival approaches!

Join DJ Trent as he freaks out to his two favorite movies:

1) David Byrne’s TRUE STORIES, starring John Goodman and Byrne, with music by Talking Heads, exploring the changing world of central Texas in 1986
and
2) Daft Punk’s INTERSTELLA 5555: THE 5TORY OF THE 5ECRET 5TAR 5YSTEM, an insane anime adventure into the year 5555 set to Daft Punk’s “Discovery,” possibly the best album ever made.

Since both movies are set to music (but avoid the awful cliches associated with, you know, musicals) it will also be a dance party with $2 Brooklyn Beer all night long. If you can’t make it in person, join the fun from home with live audio/video broadcasts at 91.1fm and wfmu.org.

Come see Paul Sachs and his band at Solar One this Saturday for an evening of urban acoustic folk. You can learn more at his website, www.paulsachs.com, but here’s a little blurb from the site:

“Urban acoustic/folk songs in the tradition of Harry Chapin and Springsteen…  A native New Yorker, Sachs has played many clubs in the city and in coffeehouses in Upstate NY and Connecticut. His new CD, The Refuge, was released this summer and is now available for sale on CDbaby.com and iTunes.”

Presented as part of the Helen W. Collins Memorial Music Series.

Jazzmobile is a 45-year-old NYC nonprofit dedicated to presenting, preserving, promoting and propagating jazz music as “America’s classical music”. Their programs include a summer festival, a jazz vocal competition and workshops, seminars and lectures to raise awareness of jazz as a unique American art form.

The Harlem Renaissance Orchestra’s mission is to revive the music of the Big Band Era and to preserve this music in its living form by giving recognition to the following great creators:  Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Pops Louie Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lucky Millinder, Earl Fatha Hines, Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton, and others. Our goal is to reestablish Harlem as the Big Band Mecca of the world.

The orchestra maintains a nucleus of ten veteran musicians. These musicians have engaged in performances around the world and acquired college degrees in Music Performance and in Education.  As a result, their contributions have provided a firm foundation over a span of twenty years.  Collectively and with conscious effort, we have been able to blend the talents of fine young musicians with more mature musicians, thus producing a sound that is enjoyed by music lovers of all ages.

Presented by the Stuyvesant Cove Park association as part of the Helen W. Collins Music Series.

Civilian space exploration is still prohibitively expensive (for most of us), but intergalactic travel can be closely approximated by a simple journey to the East River on the evening of July 12th.

Join Solar One, Astralwerks Records, and WFMU’s DJ Trent for a 100% solar-powered evening of electronic music videos of every vintage, including the amazing new audiovisual experience by the Chemical Brothers, “Further.” Free Sixpoint Beer for everyone 21+ while supplies last. Solar One is located on 23rd Street @ the East River.

If you can’t make it in person, tune in to live audio and video streams at 91.1 in NYC, 90.1FM in the Catskills, and WFMU.org all over this planet. RAIN DATE: July 19th.

Now a Facebook event!

It’s time once again to join our favorite local father-and-sons jazz act as the Rutkowski Trio return to Solar One for a triumphant 6th year playing outdoor classic jazz tunes by the likes of Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon and many more illustrious jazz composers.

Performance will begin at 7pm, and the concert is free, open to the public and suitable for all ages.

It’s Build it Green’s 5th birthday, and we’re celebrating with a joint fundraiser under the tents! Come and enjoy delicious organic vegetable and lamb bar-b-que, beer, live music with the amazing Amayo’s Fu-Arkestra, the DJ skills of Tony Lowe and entertainment from the always-entertaining BIG!NYC team. Tickets are a wallet-friendly $20 adv/$25 at the door, and all proceeds will be split between Solar One and Build it Green! Show us how much you care about a sustainable NYC, come party at Solar One!

Advance tickets available HERE or at the BIG!NYC warehouse in Astoria.

Under the Solar One Tents Map/Directions

Saturday June 12 from 6pm-10pm

Join Solar One for our first Family Day, this Saturday May 8 from 10am to 2pm. Pot your own native plant, make a seed bomb, or a flower costume, or a watercolor painting, have your face painted and learn about worm composting! All free, all at Solar One- we hope to see you there!

RSVP to daisy@solar1.org or dina@solar1.org

photos: Jonathan Hökklo

Solar One is proud to present the Jamal Jackson Dance Company, with special guests Berean Community Drumline and the Frank Malloy Djembe Ensemble, in a Contemporary African dance and percussive extravaganza.

This hour-long traveling performance will be a presentation of original choreography by Jamal Jackson with the unique musical accompaniment of Southern-style marching band drum line. Starting at the south end of Stuyvesant Cove Park, the Berean Community Drumline will guide the audience to different performance settings in the park, and finally to the main stage for a show-stopping finale.

About Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC)

Jamal Jackson, Artistic Director, was born in Brooklyn, New York and began his formal studies of movement with the Harlem based Batoto Yetu Dance Company. His pursuit of dance led him to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he received the Weston Award for his contribution to the Fusion Dance Company and NewWorks/World Traditions African Dance Company from 1996-2000. Jamal studied with Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, Seydou Coulibaly, and Fred Benjamin and worked under Mba and Bisar in Mali, West Africa. Jamal choreographed for the New York Arts Festival and Inaya Day in 2002, marking the beginning of his African-based, modern style of movement. Jamal performed with Ballet International Africans for two seasons as a principal dancer and in 2004 he founded the Jamal Jackson Dance Company, which debuted Images of the Union at University Settlement in New York and at Westport Hall in Connecticut. The company went on to perform United We Stand at the Hudson Guild Theater, Dance New Amsterdam, Mo Pitkins, and for Jennifer Muller/The Works series. Jamal has created work for the Diversity in Dance Project at The Yard featuring Urban Bush Women and the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company and has returned to Batoto Yetu Dance Company as the Assistant Artistic Director. In 2008 and 2009, the company performed This Place Called Home, which was presented at Big Range Austin in Austin, TX, the Yard in Martha’s Vineyard, and Performance Spaces of the 21 Century in Chatham, New York to name a few. For 2010, JJDC has premiered a work in progress, Next Time, which will be developed into an evening length piece.

The mission of Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC) is to translate the creative vision of Artistic Director Jamal Jackson into choreography and educational tools for use in performances, workshops and community outreach that will teach people about the connection between African and American cultures.

JJDC’s aesthetic is a Contemporary African technique that fuses African movement with Modern, Hip Hop, storytelling and Jamal’s signature movement style which is characterized by looseness in the arms, hips and spine, fast footwork, and a constant bounce.

JJDC Outreach: Berean Community Drumline

The purpose of the Berean Community Drumline, a program of the Berean Community and Family Life Center in Brooklyn, NY, is to provide culturally sensitive physical activity intervention that engages adolescents at a physical level to combat obesity, prevent disease, and encourage an overall healthy lifestyle. The number of overweight adolescents in the United States has tripled in the past 20 years, and obesity has become a serious national epidemic. The African American population has suffered the most from the problem of childhood obesity, also showing prevalence for obesity as adults – 77%, which is 20% higher than their Euro-American counterparts. Weight issues in children and adolescents are primarily caused by lack of physical activity and/or healthy behaviors that will improve their quality of life. The mission of the Drumline program is to equip and empower adolescents to participate in physical activity on a regular basis. This mission ties into the overall mission of the BCFLC which is “to provide an accessible, community-based program that responds to the holistic needs of persons to promote community empowerment, comprehensive wellness and enhance the quality of life.” As the participants are taught the skills and techniques behind drumming, dancing and stepping, they also gain creativity, coordination, discipline, self-control and teamwork.

At the beginning of this year, JJDC initiated an outreach program with the Berean Community Drumline with the goal of:

1. Providing the youth with opportunities to perform on a professional stage

2. Teaching professionalism and improving dance technique

3. Using dance to teach youth about the culture and history of the African Diaspora

4. Providing professional development to choreographers
Program highlights include:

1. Collaboration to create new JJDC choreography with Drumline accompaniment

2. Weekly dance classes for the dancers

3. Monthly open JJDC rehearsals and technique workshops for choreographers

4. Drumline Dance Festival

Don’t miss this extraordinary performance experience!