find your history in the current
Let the acclaimed Brooklyn Youth Chorus be your guide as you embark on a journey through PORT(AL), where the city's past, present, and future come together in song.
Tickets on sale February 2025. Premiering May 1, 2025.
PORT(AL) is an innovative choral theater experience that delves into the history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, exploring its past as a bustling port and its evolution within the ever-changing tides of the city. Like a river carrying whispers of forgotten stories, the acclaimed Brooklyn Youth Chorus guides audiences through a confluence of song, movement, and immersive storytelling. Co-created by a team of renowned artists including Dianne Berkun Menaker, Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, and Jessica Grindstaff, PORT(AL) invites you to navigate the currents of time, where the echoes of history, the realities of the present, and the dreams of the future converge.
BROOKLYN YOUTH CHORUS
Dianne Berkun Menaker, Founder and Artistic Director
Music by Paola Prestini and Jad Abumrad
Libretto by Jad Abumrad and Jessica Grindstaff
Directed by Jessica Grindstaff
Co-Created by Dianne Berkun Menaker, Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, and Jessica Grindstaff
Commissioned by Brooklyn Youth Chorus in association with VisionIntoArt
Co-Produced by Brooklyn Youth Chorus and VisionIntoArt
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Submerge yourself in the depths of history. PORT(AL), a mesmerizing new choral theater work by the GRAMMY Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus, opens a channel to the past within the cavernous walls of the Brooklyn Navy Yard's Agger Fish Building.
Premiering in May 1, 2025, this immersive experience, conceived by Dianne Berkun Menaker and co-created with Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, and Jessica Grindstaff, invites you to navigate the eddies and flows of time. Like a ship embarking on a voyage of discovery, you'll be swept away by the Chorus's voices, tracing the tributaries of stories that have shaped this iconic port.
Listen closely for the echoes of historical figures like historian Howard Zinn and drag king Rusty Brown, their legacies swirling like seafoam upon the waves of time. Confront the undercurrents of a turbulent past, where prison ships once cast long shadows upon the harbor and the whispers of forgotten lives ripple through the air.
But PORT(AL) is not merely anchored in the past; it charts a course towards the uncharted seas of the future. As the Chorus navigates the swells of anxiety and the tides of hope that define a generation on the cusp of transformation, their voices intertwine with the whispers of yesterday, creating a powerful wake that propels us forward. Step into the current, and let PORT(AL) carry you on a transformative journey where the boundaries between eras dissolve and the enduring power of the human spirit sets sail.
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives…The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
— Howard Zinn
The AGGER FISH BUILDING
The Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Agger Fish Building will serve as the venue for the premiere of this project. This unrenovated warehouse was part of the complex throughout its transition from naval operations to fish warehouse, with wood plank floors and fish hooks in place that evoke its long and complicated history.
Siting the project here will enable the project’s designers to play with and against the qualities of the raw physical space, and encourage the audience to travel through the Navy Yard’s multiplicity of histories.
Sponsors
Brooklyn Youth Chorus gratefully acknowledges the lead donors of Port(al), without whom this project would not be possible.
This project is made possible with the generous support of Charles J. and Irene F. Hamm, the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation, Marc Agger of the Agger Fish Building, the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation and GaryGraham422.
The commissioning of Port(al) was made possible with major support from The Diamonstein-Spielvogel Youth and Contemporary Music Initiative.
The premiere of Port(al) is dedicated to the 60th Anniversary of the passage of the NYC landmarks law, the legislation that created the Landmarks Preservation commission and established the preservation law in New York City.