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Public Programs
This year, a vibrant line-up of seasonal public programs and exhibits drew large and diversified audiences to Brooklyn Botanic Garden. In addition to pursuing productive cultural partnerships with other organizations, BBG expanded the reach of Jazz & Roses, hosted a capacity audience at the Garden's first Lunar New Year Celebration and Flower Market, and enhanced exhibit design and artistic caliber in the Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery.
September's Chile Pepper Fiesta presented a full roster of acclaimed performers from around the world, as well as art exhibits, informative lectures, children's workshops, and chile pepper gardening tips. New this year was Mexican cultural programming offered in consultation with the Mexican Cultural Institute, which included performances by children from the Mariachi Academy of New York and a cooking demonstration. A West African percussion group, Peruvian dancing by Ballet Folklorico Peru, and a performance by Louisiana natives the Lost Bayou Ramblers rounded out the diverse performance schedule.
BBG's multicultural Halloween event, Ghouls and Gourds, continued the Garden's tradition of pairing diverse cultural performances with exceptional educational programs, including exhibits celebrating the cultures of Thailand and Mexico, musical performances from a Puerto Rican ensemble and a bluegrass band, and world-class performances for children featuring songs about gardening, recycling, and international culture. BBG educators taught children how to grind corn into meal and make a custom mix of mulling spices for apple cider. The afternoon was capped off with the annual Costume Parade led by the northern Brazilian drum corps Maracatu NY and large puppets from Brooklyn's own Puppet Library Collective.
The Winter Celebration in December featured the Garden's first-ever collaboration with a renowned storytelling group, The Moth. The event had the theme "Thin Ice" and was hosted by celebrated comedian, actor, and New Yorker contributor Andy Borowitz. Children were entertained at the Education Department's Winter Greens Discovery Workshop.
This year's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration featured an homage to the talents of Great Day Chorale founder and director Louvinia Pointer, who marked her 90th birthday. The afternoon included performances by the Great Day Chorale, Great Day Youth Ensemble, and Noel Pointer String Ensemble.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden's first ever Lunar New Year Celebration and Flower Market proved an excellent opportunity to educate visitors about the lunar new year traditions of China, Korea, and Vietnam, and to reach out to Asian cultural communities in the metropolitan area and explore the importance of plants and flowers in those cultures. The February event drew a capacity crowd for performances of opera, acrobatics, martial arts, Chinese folk dance by the Huaxia Edison Dance Troupe, and traditional Korean drumming by Nori Company. Attendees enjoyed the Garden's market of plants said to bring luck and prosperity in the new year, as well as special tours of BBG's specimen plants from Asia. Children created paper versions of flowers sold in the market and learned about the citrus plants that grow the fruits used widely in lunar new year celebrations.
The Garden repeated its highly successful program Hanami: Celebrating the Cherry Blossom–Viewing Season, thanks to which BBG received the designation Cultural Institution of the Month for April from New York City's tourism and marketing organization, NYC & Company. The program kicked off in early April with the opening of the Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery exhibit Hana to Mushi: Flowers and Insects, featuring moku hanga woodblock artist April Vollmer and kirigami paper-cutting artist Kaku Ueda. Hanami was also celebrated with a month-long Japanese menu in the Garden's Terrace Café, specialized weekend guided tours, and a collection of cherry blossom–themed gifts and books in the Gift Shop. Hanami culminated in Sakura Matsuri, the Garden's signature Cherry Blossom Festival. Over 60,000 visitors attended this year's 26th annual Sakura Matsuri on the last weekend of April. The weekend's increasingly large and complex roster of programming devoted to traditional Japanese arts and culture was complemented by contemporary performances and events designed to attract young audiences.
Pairing the beauty of the Cranford Rose Garden with concerts by New York's best jazz artists is a winning combination. In an effort to expand the reach of June's Jazz & Roses celebration, BBG partnered with Heart of Brooklyn and WBGO Radio to feature Jazz & Roses in a promotional campaign called "Jazz: Brooklyn's Beat." WBGO radio host Monifa Brown presided over the stage on a day of what can only be called torrential rain, but artists and audiences were undeterred and enjoyed a full afternoon of concerts, including performances by award-winning artists Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke that WBGO recorded for future radio airplay.
Musical performances at BBG draw large audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
The Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery hosted many exhibits this year, including Animated Nature: The Work of Sue Johnson (shown, Johnson’s “The Dresser”).
The midwinter renovation of the Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery was a dramatic step toward transforming the space into a vibrant metro-area fine arts destination. Successfully recruiting artists, improving gallery displays, and developing gallery interpretive materials all led to increased gallery attendance, greater media attention, and capacity crowds at show openings. The summer exhibition, Nature Unbound: Sculpture and Drawings by Nancy Blum, featured the artist's expansive pen and ink drawings and large-scale sculptures of butterflies and lotus blossoms. In September, Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Florilegium Society returned to the Gallery with a show of stunning botanical illustrations entitled Portaits of a Garden III. After several months of renovation, the Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery opened again in March with Inflorescence: Drawings by Renowned Sarajevo Artist Tanja Softic. And a blend of botanical and zoological curiosities was the humorous focus of the show Animated Nature: The Work of Sue Johnson from May through June.