The Black Gotham Experience welcomes you to our 2023 programming with our Fall Season 2023, themed As Above So Below
As Above So Below is the ancient African wisdom about polarity, that what happens on higher realms happens in lower realms. We will pay homage to the Black ancestral spirits of Gotham and how they relate to our lives today.
Art in DUMBO 2023 First Thursday Gallery Walk Launch Party | Kamau Studios | 10.5.23 | 5:00 – 6:30pm
Art in DUMBO celebrates the beginning of the 2023 First Thursday season, where DUMBO galleries stay open late with special events + performances on the first Thursday of each month. The night begins with an after-work happy hour, hosted by Kamau Studios x Brooklyn Arts Council x Smack Mellon and sponsored by Art in DUMBO x DUMBO Improvement District.
When: Thursday, October 5th 2023
Where: Kamau Studios // 20 Jay Street Suite 1120, 11201, Brooklyn, NY 10038
Leslie Parker Dance Project’s Divination Tools: imagine home (BGX Procession) | 10.6.23 | 7pm – 8:30pm
Leslie Parker and Black Gotham Experience will host a pre-show procession for Divination Tools: imagine home; “the latest iteration of NYC & Twin Cities-based artist Leslie Parker’s multi-year project, Call to Remember. Divination Tools: imagine home brings together a powerful collective of Black visual artists, musicians, and femme dance artists to explore improvisation through storytelling, music, film, movement, visual art, Black divinity/lineage, and contemporary experience. The collective work cultivates space for conjuring and building community through remembrance. Performers include Parker, Tenisha George, and Paloma McGregor as well as musicians Nioka Workman, Dameun Strange, and Michael Wimberly.”
*Use our code “DSP10” for 50% off of your ticket purchase*
Where: Location details with ticket purchase
When: Friday, October 6
Other Side of Wall Street | 10.7.23 | 3pm – 4:30pm
The first of five in the core stories of the Black Gotham Experience starts in 1643 with the beginning of a small town known as Land of the Blacks right outside the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. By 1655, the Land of the Blacks was over twice the size of SoHo today and it continued to exist after the English take the island from the Dutch, making it the first free Black community in New York. This walking tour explains how this community started and how it continued to exist into the 18th century. Other Side of Wall Street concludes on the first day of British New York in September 1664. Tickets required.
When: Saturday, October 7th 2023
Where: Washington Sq Arch
BGX Gallery Exhibition: in transition | 10.12.23 | 5pm – 7:00pm
Join us 10.12.23 for in transition, a BGX Gallery Exhibition, showcasing our transition of space. More soon…
When: Thursday, October 12th, 2023
Where: BGX Gallery // 192 Front Street, NY, NY 10038
Sarah’s Fire | 10.12.23 | 7pm – 8:30pm
The second of five in the core stories of the Black Gotham Experience that starts in 1664 in the small town known as Land of the Blacks on day two of British New York. Sarah’s Fire is a tale set on the southern tip of the island Manhattan that is home to both free and enslaved Black people. This walking tour illustrates the peculiar universe of urban slavery in a port city with deep ties to the sugar plantations of the West Indies. A key persona in this story is an enslaved woman named Sarah who is one of 29 people that participate in the first militarized Black rebellion on the island of Manhattan that took place April 6th 1712.
When: Thursday, October 12th, 2023
Where: BGX Gallery // 192 Front Street, NY, NY 10038
Coping Mechanism | 10.19.23 |7pm – 9:30pm
Join us as we partner with the wild project to facilitate ritual for Coping Mechanism, a play written by Cyrus Aaron: “Guns. Guns. Anti. Pro. Life. Death. Chaos. Control. The public debate is between moving on with the future or maintaining the past but what about the victims of the victims? How do the internal struggles that make up the larger conversation process grief behind closed doors? Debra Clayborne is a single-mother unraveled by the murder of her teenage son Nathan. A year later, she is invited to finish something he started, and the invitation stirs up a world of hurt. Everyday becomes a choice between life and death, moving on and holding on, and she is at the mercy of time.”
Use our promo code “REMEMBER” for tickets
Citizen Hope | 10.21.23 | 3pm – 4:30pm
Citizen Hope is one of BGX’s final public walking tours. Situated in the temporal space of the revolutionary era circa mid to late 18th to mid 19th centuries, and traversing three different geographical locales along the trans Atlantic slave trade, including North America, France and Saint Domingo (now Haiti), Citizen Hope examines the contributions that enslaved people made to the modern notion of freedom, rights, and citizenship, while also grappling with the contradictory nature of these terms, particularly as it pertains to the black diaspora within the Black Atlantic.
When: Saturday, October 21st
Where: Begins at BGX Gallery // 192 Front Street, NY, NY 10038
State of Mirrors | 10.26.23 | 7pm – 8:30pm
The finale of the five core stories of the Black Gotham Experience starts in New York City 1862. The United States of America is deeply divided on the matter of slavery and what to do with millions of Black people who are demanding freedom along with their European allies. State of Mirrors illustrates how the founding of the original states and the expansion of the country, similar to New York State, have connections to the African Diaspora. Simultaneously, this story follows how New York City, which is the nation’s first Capital, sets a tone for future generations that will replace true origin stories with mythologies that justify inequality.
When: Thursday, October 26th 2023
Where: Begins at BGX Gallery // 192 Front Street, NY, NY 10038
FIGHTING DARK | 10.28.23 | 3pm – 4:30pm
FIGHTING DARK speaks to a dark side of American history as well as the dark-skinned people who have been impacted by it, especially the Black New Yorkers who fled in the dark of night during the 1863 riots and those who enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War in what was called the “Colored Troops 20th Infantry” from New York City. This walk draws out lessons on how Black people find resilience in the face of racial violence. Tickets required.
When: Saturday, October 9th
Where: Meet up at 52 Chambers Street
kuzaliwa | 11.2.23 | 3pm – 4:30pm
When: Thursday, November 2nd
Where: Meet up in front of The Apollo Theater at 253 West 125th in Harlem
As Above So Below | 11.4.23 | 3:00 – 4:30pm
As Above So Below is a collaborative project that reveals connections between sacred and historic spaces of the African Diaspora in the Lower Manhattan section of New York City. This walk has an emphasis on the African Burial Ground Commons and Historic District featuring the African Burial Ground Memorial, Black Lives Matter Plaza and the Triumph of the Human Spirit Monument. The original project was initiated by Kamau Ware, Founder of Black Gotham Experience (BGX) with Architect and Designer Rodney Leon. Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is the fiscal sponsor and commissioner of the project.
When: Saturday, November 4th 2023
Where: African Burial Monument 290 Broadway
Nerdy Thursdays | 11.9.23 | 6:30 – 9:30pm
When: Thursday, November 9th 2023
Where: BGX Gallery // 192 Front Street, NY, NY 10038
Nerdy Thursdays | 11.16.23 | 6:30 – 9:30pm
When: Thursday, November 16th 2023
Where: BGX Gallery // 192 Front Street, NY, NY 10038
Caesar’s Rebellion | 11.11.23 |3pm – 4:30pm
The third of five in the core stories of the Black Gotham Experience starts in 1712 in the wake of more slave codes passed in British New York. The port city of New York has shifting political and class divisions that shape the environment of the enslaved leading up to the 1730s. Although stricter laws have been passed to limit Black life, the population of enslaved Africans continues to increase as does poor European indentures creating a large and loosely organized underclass that seek change. The result is a rebellion in 1741 known as “the Great Negro Plot” which is documented in a New York Supreme Court. The extensive journal by one of the justices stitches together a plot that evolved around a charismatic enslaved Black figure named Caesar. This journal gives an insightful look into slavery, colonial law, class, and politics.
When: Saturday, November 11th 2023
Where: Museum of the American Indian, NY, NY 100004
in transition talk | 11.18.23 | 3pm – 4:30pm
When: Saturday, November 18th 2023
Where: BGX Gallery // 192 Front Street, NY, NY 10038
