Celebrate Brooklyn is one of New York City’s longest running, free, outdoor performing arts festivals. Launched in 1979, as a catalyst for Brooklyn’s performing arts scene and to bring people back into Prospect Park after years of neglect, Celebrate Brooklyn has been an anchor in the park’s revitalization and has become one of the city’s foremost summer cultural attractions. Over the course of its history Celebrate Brooklyn has presented over 1,700 artists and ensembles reflective of the borough’s diversity, ranging from internationally acclaimed performers to emerging, cutting-edge artists. The festival is produced by BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn, an organization that presents contemporary art, performing arts, and media programs throughout Brooklyn.
Notable artists who have performed at the festival include Mark Morris Dance Group, Philip Glass, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Maceo Parker, Leela James, Norah Jones, Savion Glover, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Group, Blue Man Group, They Might Be Giants, The Neville Brothers, Bob Dylan, Noche Flamenca, Philadanco, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Angelique Kidjo.
Famous quotes containing the words celebrate and/or brooklyn:
“We ought to celebrate this hour by expressions of manly joy. Not thanks, not prayer seem quite the highest or truest name for our communication with the infinite,—but glad and conspiring reception,—reception that becomes giving in its turn, as the receiver is only the All-Giver in part and infancy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If the British prose style is Churchillian, America is the tobacco auctioneer, the barker; Runyon, Lardner, W.W., the traveling salesman who can sell the world the Brooklyn Bridge every day, can put anything over on you and convince you that tomatoes grow at the South Pole.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)