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It initially looked like a small, no-frills concert in a carefully controlled environment: Jazz musician Jon Batiste seated at a piano in an auditorium at the Javits Center on the West Side of Manhattan, performing to an audience of around 50 health sitting. in evenly spaced rows – some wearing scrubs, others army fatigues.
Dancer Ayodele Casel began typing, with no musical accompaniment except a recording of her own voice, her amplified cramps filling the room. And opera singer Anthony Roth Costanzo performed “Ave Maria” in the angelic tones of a countertenor.
But about half an hour later, the performers descended from the stage and left the hall, transforming what had started as a formal concert into an uplifting procession of music and dance that passed through the barren building – the convention center. has been transformed into a field hospital. at the start of the pandemic and is now a mass vaccination site – where hundreds of hopeful people had come on Saturday afternoon to get vaccinated.
Batiste switched to the melodica, a toy-like portable reed instrument with a keyboard, and the band – which had grown to include a horn section and percussionists – paraded up the escalator and through. the convention center, eventually reaching a high-ceilinged hall where dozens of people sat quietly waiting for what was needed 15 minutes after being vaccinated.
The concert-turned-traveling party was the first in a series of pop-up shows in New York City intended to give the arts a boost by providing artists with paid work and the public the opportunity to see performances afterwards. nearly a year of darkened theaters and concert halls. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo last month announced plans for the series, titled “NY PopsUp,” stating that “we must bring the arts and culture back to life” and adding that their rebirth would be crucial for New Brunswick’s economic recovery. York City. The broadcasts begin as he comes under fire for criticism for the state’s handling of deaths from Covid-19 nursing home residents.
Because the program is wary of drawing crowds, most shows will be unannounced, suddenly emerging in parks, museums, parking lots, and street corners. The idea is to inject a dose of inspiration into the lives of New Yorkers – a time when they can interrupt their programmed lives and witness art during a pandemic year that has limited human contact and imposed strict restrictions. on people’s activities.
“We need more spontaneity; that’s beauty, ”Batiste said in an interview. “You don’t know what’s around the corner.”
As the band of musicians moved through the Javits center, the audience of health workers followed them, clapping to the beat and recording the show on their phones. Batiste, who is the conductor of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” propelled his musicians through space (most of them performed with the show’s house band, including Endea Owens on bass. , Tivon Pennicott on saxophone, and Joe Saylor and Nêgah Santos on percussion).
Bre Williams, a 35-year-old nurse in blue scrub who came from Savannah, Georgia to help in New York City, looked wide-eyed.
“Do you do this stuff here all the time?” she said laughing.
Shortly before the music ended, some health workers rushed to continue their workday (this concert was taking place during their break, after all).
The series is put together by a public-private partnership led by producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. Zack Winokur, the director and interdisciplinary artist in charge of programming, said the group aims to put on more than 300 pop-up performances during Labor Day, in every borough and across the state. The performers are chosen by a council of artists – including Batiste, Casel and Costanzo – to whom each is invited to draw on their own networks to find participants.
“It’s been a long time since I saw a live show,” Winokur said in an interview. “It’s an absolutely necessary experience right now.”
After the first performance at the Javits Center, the musicians traveled to Brooklyn, where they started another flash mob style street jam, starting from Cadman Plaza Park and winding through Dumbo to end up in a skatepark, where the teenagers watched them. oddly before getting back on their skateboards. The free and mobile concerts are called “riots of love” by Batiste, who had already planned them on social networks. It traveled along sidewalks and slush, sometimes slowing traffic.
Prevented from tap dancing in the street, Casel struck rhythms by clapping with his hands the metal plates of his tap shoes; Costanzo danced with the group and at one point grabbed the megaphone to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.
While the music was intended to provide spontaneous exposure to passers-by, the walk itself was as tightly regulated as any event in the pandemic era. Security personnel led members of the musical entourage around rough terrain and dog droppings. Another employee asked bystanders to disperse when they began to violate social distancing guidelines.
Despite the logistics associated with it, the plan managed to be a spontaneous curiosity for the dozens of people who unexpectedly encountered the music. Walking down the narrow alleys and shopping streets, the group got people to stop, stare and sometimes groove a bit. Children were looking through the windows along Washington Street; a porter rushed out of a building to see what it was about; The pharmacy workers leaned out the door to film the procession on the sidewalk.
However, not everyone seemed to enjoy the music. At one point, someone inside a building started throwing objects at protesters from several floors (one of the security staff said he thought he saw a container of juice orange and a trophy hitting the snow).
Used to improvising, the group simply dodged the flying objects and walked a little faster, the music never stopping.
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