Serious Fun with Saint Ann's School and Hungry March Band--Live at the Archway!

On Thursday, May 14, between 6 and 8 PM, Live at the Archway, underneath the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge, presented first the Brass Choir and Percussion Ensemble of Saint Ann’s School and then the musicians and dancers of the Hungry March Band.

If duets are for lovers, or enemies who can’t get enough of each other, these two were like opposites who attract. They also played in counterpoint to the intermittent subway trains rumbling across the bridge overhead.

The resulting happy coincidence of music and noise is what makes Live at the Archway, sponsored by the DUMBO Business Improvement District and Superfine restaurant, a unique new venue which represents so well DUMBO’s blend of culture and technology.

In their casual school dress, the students of Saint Ann’s could not have been more unassuming. Yet, they met the challenge of a historically and stylistically varied repertoire.

Directed by Stephen Pickering, the two dozen high schoolers of the Brass Choir turned “Fanfare” from the 1912 ballet, La Peri, by Paul Dukas, into a rhapsody, slowly built Richard Wagner’s lush tones towards a crescendo, for “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral,” from Lohengrin, and properly embellished one of Giovanni Gabrielli’s Baroque-sounding canzonas.

Even with conductor Sam Lazzara hovering over them like a crane spearing fish, the Percussion Ensemble’s sixth-graders retained their poise with a discipline to match the minimalist “Five,” (duet for snare drums), by John Beck, and “Duet for Snare Drum and Timpani” by Thomas Siwe, both late-20^th-century composers.

The Brass Choir’s performance of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of Nobles,” from the opera-ballet Mlada, expressed the ambition of a cinematic overture. By ending with the traditional Shaker song “Simple Gifts” and the third movement “March” of Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Folk Songs from Somerset, the students let down their audience as sweetly as the breeze in the trees.

In contrast, “raucous” best describes the 12-member Hungry March Band (HMB), which traces its origin to the Mermaid Parade of 1997. Their original tunes, based on a melange of Balkan, Reggae, Central African and New Orleans styles, resounded in the Archway as if Tin Pan Alley, with its synthesis of jazz, ragtime, and ballads had been reborn. 

In fact, HMB’s three dancers, dressed as drum majorette, pirate, and jail-breaker, could have been characters from the Three Penny Opera (for beggars), who enticed the Archway’s urchins to step, however wobbly, beyond the reach of their parents.

The moral of the story: Some young people take their fun quite seriously while some grown-ups let the good times roll wherever they lead. Thank goodness you can find both groups mixing it up in the Archway, down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass. 

Superfine Lights up DUMBO Nightlife with New Artistic Spirit(s)

Like a ship in a bottle, where’s the last place you would look for a lighthouse? Why under the Brooklyn Archway of the Manhattan Bridge, at Water Street between Anchorage Place and Adams Street. Superfine, the Mediterranean-style, natural foods restaurant at nearby 126 Front Street, has constructed a beer and wine kiosk there in the form of a 14’ red lighthouse topped with a mermaid weather vane.

Much as Walt Whitman in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” compared intimacy with the commuters of his day to the ebb and flow of the tide, so the good folks of Superfine intend to make evenings in the Archway a rite of passage DUMBO’s residents will welcome once the workday is done. 

From now through October, Wednesday’s through Sunday’s, noon to 10 pm, the Lighthouse will be open for business. And every Thursday, thanks to Superfine, the DUMBO BID and NYC DOT, the cathedral-like, 7,000-square-foot space, paved with Belgian blocks, will reverberate with a multi-media extravaganza. First Thursday’s, from 5 to 8 pm, during the DUMBO BID’s Art Walk, will include a DJ and video art projections.

Superfine’s owners, Tanya Rynd and Cara Lee Sparry, declared, “Now in our 17^th year of business together, we’ve stood the test of time with our creativity and vision, staying true to the food and art movements of New York! To celebrate we’ve not only obtained a permit to serve beer and wine in the Archway for the next two years, but we’re also programming public art, bands, light projections, dance, DJs, and all manner of interactive performance work.”

Although their main audience is after-hours worker-bees, Rynd and Sparry are committed to entertainment for all ages. Thus, for the opening of the season, this First Thursday, May 7, the Midnight Radio Show will present at dusk (7:30 pm) original fairy tales using "exquisitely hand-crafted two-dimensional [shadow] puppets" in between DJ Miko Wanderlust's two sets.

Founded in 2013, the Brooklyn-based Midnight Radio Show creates family-friendly bedtime stories which will transform the Archway into a portal populated by magical creatures. Accompanied by Ezra Lowrey’s vocals and guitar improvisations, Charlottte Lily Gaspard (aka Miss C.), founder of the theater company, will narrate the following stories, with “a few jazz standards and folk songs in between:”

Miss C. stated, “The Farmer and the Sea Captain is a classic love story about a Sea Captain who is washed ashore during a storm. He falls in love with a local Farmer but once the storm passes, how can these two hearts find happiness when one belongs on the waves and the other belongs to the land? A story about true love, identity, definitions of home and where we belong.

The Origin of Puccini follows the adventures of one of our favorite recurring characters. Puccini is a very extraordinary cat, whose passion is the study of dreams. Despite his epic fall from grace, his determination can overcome any obstacle... We hope.

And The Mountain is a playful tale about the balance between noise and quiet, between play time and times of rest. Meet a very grumpy Giant and a very exuberant fairy, enjoy the silly trouble that ensues for these unlikely neighbors.” 

Another Brooklynite, longtime DJ Miko Wanderlust too will fill the Arch with sounds which please the imagination. As he expounded, “Spanning all genres and styles, I will weave a set of colorful vibrations that excites and inspires. I play to the crowd…on rooftops and boats, in fields and night clubs... and under bridges! For this set I will inject some groovy soul in the afternoon sunshine that works its way into b-boy breaks and fun-filled funk as the energy builds [for the Midnight Radio Theater]. Afterwards, there will be smiles all around and a good time to be had by all!”