Samara Gaev, a NY-based poet and educator, working with the 5th graders to brainstorm as they write (and at the end of the week record) their original songs. Samara is on the board of Project Rhythm, which was founded by Jamin Gilbert, president of Ishlab Music Studio in DUMBO.

Blake Harrison of DUMBO-based Flocabulary, teaching the 2nd graders vocabulary words by rapping about a cat named Biggie. Blake and Alex Rappaport talked to the kids about how music sticks in your head and can help you learn.

(Photos courtesy of Jam On DUMBO)

Jam On DUMBO provided the first Music Week at P.S. 307, five days of music programming for the elementary school’s students, from May 21st to May 25th, 2012.

During Music Week, Jam On DUMBO is bringing more than a dozen musicians, educators and performers to P.S. 307 (209 York Street, Brooklyn). Students will be exposed to different types of music and movement and have the opportunity to explore the importance of music in their own lives.

“We understand the value of children having access to the arts. At a time when budgets are cut so drastically from schools, community partnerships like the one with Jam On DUMBO are crucial,” says P.S. 307 Principal Roberta Davenport. “This event is at the core of what we believe – this idea of expanding the worldview of children, and bringing to them unique experiences that they otherwise wouldn’t have.”

The week culminates in a Friday assembly where the fifth graders will perform their original songs. Funmilayo Chesney, an award-winning Congolese dancer and instructor at the Cumbe Center for African and Diaspora Dance, will also perform.

More from the press release after the break.

Although P.S. 307, also known as Daniel Hale Williams Elementary School, is just a five minute walk from DUMBO, the neighborhoods are quite different: The renovated loft apartments, cobblestone streets and luxury stores of DUMBO give way to the high-rise Farragut Houses, a public housing complex that sits on the edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Nearly 90% of students at the school qualify for free lunch, so the school is committed to providing a safe, welcoming and nourishing place for students to grow and thrive.

Jam On DUMBO, a grassroots organization (non-profit status pending), was started by local parents in 2010 as a way to provide more family-friendly music programming to the neighborhood and beyond. As part of the organization’s community outreach mission, the founders wanted to engage with children who don’t have access to the same kind of family programming found in more affluent neighborhoods.

“We are so thankful and proud that we have found musicians and performance artists within our community to volunteer their time to make Music Week a magical experience for the kids of P.S. 307,” says Alisha Nissenfeld, founder of Jam On DUMBO. “We share Principal Davenport’s passion to offer the students the joy and inspiration that comes with being exposed to something new and exciting.”

During Music Week, the students of P.S. 307 will meet and work with various musicians and arts organizations including: Project Rhythm, which will work with small groups of fifth graders throughout the week to write and record their own original songs; Jeff Newell, a music historian who will discuss how historic American music has influenced popular music the students hear today; and Amelia Robinson, of Mil’s Trills, who will perform for the pre-kindergartners on her electric ukulele.

“Kids who don’t participate in music at school miss out on developmental advantages in critical thinking,” says Alex Rappaport, CEO of Flocabulary, a DUMBO-based business that will perform its educational hip-hop for P.S. 307’s second graders at Music Week. “Music used to be considered a pillar of a well-rounded education and has sadly fallen to the wayside in an era of teaching to the test. We’re happy to bring a bit of music to a school in our community and raise awareness about an issue we all need to address.”

The 2012 New York Photo Festival opens to the public today, Thursday, May 17, 2012 (11am). Tickets are not required to view exhibitions, but will be required for presentations and receptions to be held at The POWERHOUSE Arena. For tickets, go to nyph.at/tickets. NYPH’12 tickets also function as Dumbo Amenities cards, allowing bearer one-time discounts and samples of foodstuffs, candies, drinks, and durable goods in the area (value: $45+). Tickets are $15 in advance (order here), $20 at the door. Tickets ordered in advance can be picked up during the festival at Will Call May 16-May 20.

For full programming schedule, go to nyph.at/explore.

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Photoville (photovillenyc.org) is a new Brooklyn-based photo destination – a veritable village of freight containers transformed into temporary exhibition spaces, taking place this summer from June 22 to July 1, 2012 at Pier 3 of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Photoville will feature a mix of exhibitions, lectures, hands-on workshops, nighttime projections, a photo dog run, a camera greenhouse, and a summer beer-garden with food trucks that will create a photography destination like no other. And best of all, Photoville is FREE for all to attend and participate (beer & food sold separately ;)

Occupying more than 60,000 sq. feet in the heart of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Photoville will be located on the uplands of Pier 3, along the Brooklyn Waterfront between DUMBO and Atlantic Avenue.

Photoville will be a FREE community event, but they need your help with this large scale event. They are asking the community for support on Kickstarter:

We are humbled by the extraordinary outpour of support that we have received from our community & programming partners in our quest to raise most of our capital – but we need your support to carry this project to the finish line and create a photographic destination like no other.

United Photo Industries is a Dumbo based, Brooklyn-born, art-presenting cooperative dedicated to identifying, harnessing, and occasionally conjuring unexpected exhibition opportunities. Their mission at United Photo Industries is to promote and showcase emerging photographers through curated exhibitions both locally in DUMBO, Brooklyn and around the world.

The NY Times gave a mention of this event yesterday, which wrote “The ultimate aim, he said, is to create a whole environment for photography: Photoville will be immersive, which means it will provide some basic perks (beer, food trucks, dog run) and more elaborate ones (a greenhouse where plants sprout tiny cameras).”

We know you’re heading to DUMBO for First Thursday – but please head back on Saturday May 5th for Smack Mellon’s Kentucky Derby Party fundraiser. Horse-betting, mint juleps, bluegrass music, silent auction, hat contest, and every ticket in the door gets you & a date into the party and a work of art off the gallery wall for your collection. As if that wasn’t enough, your ticket purchase supports Smack Mellon’s incredible free exhibition programs (like this).

And don’t miss Creative Week 2012 in DUMBO May 7-11. Featuring a major GE Hologram Installation, the Creative unConference, and many other programs throughout the week in DUMBO, including a Jim Henson retrospective, independent film premiers and creative talent from across the globe. Use the code *GOdumbo12* for a discount on tickets courtesy of DUMBO.

May’s First Thursday Picks: Check out GREEN | RED, a site-specific installation for The Archway by Peter Burr and Friends courtesy of the Brooklyn Arts Council. This immersive audio-visual experience features scrolling and cascading video “frames” provide the viewpoint into a computer wilderness, with an accompanying surround-soundtrack. GREEN | RED is part of Scene: Brooklyn: Independent Film and Media Arts, which runs May 2-6.

All First Thursday events are open to the public; most events listed below are free.

Local bars and restaurants also get in on the action – AlMar has 2 for 1 drink specials from 4-6pm. Water Street Restaurant & Lounge has 2 for 1 cosmos for ladies at the bar. Superfine‘s Happy Hour features $3.50 select tap beers, $3.50 well cocktails & $3 Bud/Bud Light. Bubby’s has $5 beers and well drinks at the bar all night long.

From the Dumbo BID on First Thursdays (tonight from 6pm):
Come out for April’s First Thursday Gallery Walk, a festive night in DUMBO that offers visitors the opportunity to see gallery shows from a variety of disciplines. Retail businesses also join the festivities with extended hours and in-store events. Maps with participating galleries and shops will be available throughout the neighborhood. All events are open to the public; most events listed here are free.

For the First Thursday Gallery Walk, artists Sandy de Lissovoy and David Kelley will show their single-channel video, Survival Based Camp, filmed at various sites in Brooklyn and Northeast Los Angeles, under The Archway. The video will be shown at 7:00pm and 8:00pm.

Local bars and restaurants also get in on the action – AlMar has 2 for 1 drink specials from 4-6pm. Water Street Restaurant & Lounge has 2 for 1 cosmos for ladies at the bar. Superfine‘s Happy Hour features $3.50 select tap beers, $3.50 well cocktails & $3 Bud/Bud Light. Bubby’s has $5 beers and well drinks at the bar all night long.

Abundant Learning is excited that the DUMBO Einsteins Pre-K alternative classes are growing right along with their students. While they will continue to offer drop off classes for early and late 3 year old students, they are adding classes this summer and fall for 4-year-old’s. AL will continue their literacy, art, math, and chess curriculum for all of their Einsteins. However, the 4’s classes will begin to explore a mind body connection through yoga and breathing exercises, and they will begin to embark on mini field trips in the neighborhood to develop a sense of community. Additionally, AL is pleased to offer French and Painting classes starting this summer for 3 and 4 year olds – and in the fall AL will have a French Immersion and Painting add on class for the 4’s.

The Abundant Learning Chess program continues to grow with the Thursday Chess Club and private lessons. This summer they are offering a Tournament Chess Boot Camp for children ages 5*-12. Starting in the fall of 2012, Abundant Learning will be offering Chess Memberships for private lessons spanning the entire school year.

In early February, AL partnered with Karma Kids Yoga to offer yoga for children and their families on Sundays. So far the response has been wonderful.

This school year AL expanded the Tutoring program to include 4-year-old children. The one on one tutoring is individually designed for children and adults and is based on multi sensory techniques similar to Lindamood-Bell. The tutoring can be either proactive or remedial.

If you have any questions about the current offerings or requests for future offerings, please contact Liz@abundantlearning.org.

The application for 2012 Dumbo Arts Festival 2012 is online. This year, the Dumbo Arts Festival (DAF) will take place on Friday, September 28th, Saturday, September 29th and Sunday, September 30th. Application is due for projects in the artwork/installation or exhibition categories on April 1, 2012.

The Dumbo Arts Festival attracts 200,000 visitors over 3 days with participation from artists from a variety of disciplines, 100 studios, 50 galleries, and stages. Go to the Dumbo Arts Festival 2012 website for full details.

File this under, random street art or ‘only in Dumbo Brooklyn’.

February 18 – March 4th 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday Feb. 18, 2012 6-9pm

Tony Ingrisano, Sylvia Jeffriess, Jebediah Long, Troy Lovegates, James Moore, Fumi Nakamura

Kunsthalle Galapagos is pleased to present Ocean Size, a group exhibition of six artists who question our perceptions of reality. Their works coax us to join them in fantastical worlds of bold colors, precise lines, and mutated patterns. Distorted characters and fragments morph and fray into an ordered chaos. Disjointed narratives, found memories and alter-egos situate us, then shift our perceptions of our own state of being. The work compels us to reach beyond our own comprehension to something bigger than ourselves, something “ocean size”.

Ocean Size is curated by Julie McKim, Erik Hougen, Albert Shelton, Gracie Kazer

Kunsthalle Galapagos (www.kunsthallegalapagos.com)
16 Main St, Brooklyn, NY

Gallery Hours: Thurs – Sun 1-6pm

There is a trunk show at Ehvonnae in Dumbo by Freshly Given. Freshly Given hand makes limited edition accessories from repurposed leather. Her style is elegant, classic, vintage, and retro. To view some items, go to shop.freshlygiven.com.

Who | What: Freshly Given | Trunk Show NYC
When: Thursday, February 16, 2012 | 6-10pm
Where: Ehvonnae 145 Front Street, Unit B, Brooklyn, NY 11201 718.310.3686

Here’s what they had to say about Dumbo: “This slab-serif display font fully represents DUMBO in all it’s glory. With it’s waterfront parks, expensive apartments and breathtaking views, DUMBO is home to many digital agencies, creative groups, art galleries and non-profit organizations.”

The First Thursday Dumbo Gallery Walk is tonight, Thursday, February 2, 2012, between 6-9pm. The gallery walk is free.

For gallery listing, go to dumbo.is/itineraries/127.

From Dumbo.Is:

Come out for February’s First Thursday Gallery Walk, a festive night in DUMBO that offers visitors the opportunity to see gallery shows from a variety of disciplines. Retail businesses also join the festivities with extended hours and in-store events; two to note – Olga Guanabara and TRUNK.

Local bars and restaurants also get in on the action – AlMar has 2 for 1 drink specials from 4-6PM. The Gallery Cafe offers a $29 per person, 3-course meal and half-priced bottles of wine. Water Street Restaurant & Lounge has 2 for 1 cosmos for ladies at the bar. Superfine’s Happy Hour features $3.50 select tap beers, $3.50 well cocktails & $3 Bud/Bud Light.

(Photo from Gothamist)

Shake Shack, the popular burger stand that opened in 2004 in Madison Square Park in NYC by Danny Meyer opened its first Brooklyn location in December 2011 and its seventh in NYC. But there’s a little bit of Brooklyn in every location. CounterEvolution, the Dumbo Broolyn based growing business uses reclaimed wood to create one-of-a-kind handmade tables and seating for Shake Shack. CounterEvolution owner Jim Malone created the tables and one wall at the Brooklyn Shake Shack using reclaimed wood from bowling lanes.

According to the CounterEvolution website, CounterEvolution began in 2007 when Jim, a life-long musician and songwriter who was at the time producing cartoons for children’s television, needed to make a change. (He was also the original director of the English-language version of Pokemon.). We’ve admired his tables since we saw them at the first Brooklyn Flea and at BKLYN Designs. CounterEvolution has been at 10 Jay Street in Dumbo for three years, but is moving near the Navy Yards in Brooklyn later next month. We caught up with Jim.

Q: Can you give us a short description of counterevolution’s philosophy?

A: We strive to elevate the artistic possibilities of reclaimed wood and other materials through unique designs and quality craftsmanship.

Q: How did it get started and how long have you been in Dumbo?

A: We started with a few postings on Craigslist then began showing at the Brooklyn Flea just as they were getting started. We had a lot of support from design blogs early on and that really helped get the word out. We’ve had a showroom in Dumbo for 3 years.

Q: How did your partnership with Shake Shack start?

A: They found us through our work at Starbucks and Sweetgreen. Our first location was Miami Beach and we’ve been fortunate to partner with them through their expansion. Our most recent Shake Shack was downtown Brooklyn where we did the tables and a large wall installation.

Q: What were some challenges you faced early on? Current challenges?

A: We started just as the banks stopped lending in late 2007. So, financing was an early obstacle and remains a challenge as we seek to expand our retail sales in a slow economic climate.

(Photo of Jim Malone. Photo credit: Sandra Kress)

Thanks Jim and looking forward to seeing your beautiful pieces in upcoming locations soon.

CounterEvolution (counterev.com)

Episode 9: Sarah Walko (www.sarahwalko.com and triangleworkshop.org)
Directed by David Castillo
Produced by Blue Barn Pictures, Inc. for DumboNYC on vimeo

In this episode of Crossing Dumbo, Blue Barn Pictures interviews Dumbo based artist Sarah Walko, artist and Executive Director of Triangle Arts Association. She was awarded a scholarship during graduate school, and as part of it, she took an internship at Triagle. “The focus of Triangle is about process and experimentation over product. The emphasis is not on what is the actual thing that comes out of that but it’s about the entire journey. All of that together under one umbrella is art.” Isn’t the journey what life is about?

Crossing Dumbo, a web series of video portraits of artists, entrepreneurs and residents in Dumbo Brooklyn. This is a collaboration between DumboNYC and our talented friends over at Blue Barn Pictures. Different directors from Blue Barn Pictures, a creative content agency, bring their own approach to each interview to create a distinct profile of the person being interviewed and place them within the Dumbo community. Blue Barn Pictures truly love what they do and support the community in a positive way, and for that we’re grateful to have them be a part of Dumbo.

{DumboNYC.com/category/crossing-dumbo/}

From Mighty Tanaka Gallery:
Look around you; the world is full of art. We all know the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, however, some individuals choose to take that phrase to heart. Artists from a range of disciplines utilize a world of scattered debris, creating an array of striking creations from the items that many people would find worthless. Mighty Tanaka is pleased to bring you our first show of 2012 entitled Lost & Found, a group show of found objects and the artwork that is created from them. Featuring the vision of Adam Void, Alice Mizrachi, Curtis Readel, ELLE & John Breiner, each artist represents a unique idea of the world through their chosen method of creation.

Lost & Found intends to demonstrate a cross-section of aesthetic interpretation of objects that are generally taken for granted in daily life. Artwork made from found materials provides the artist with an endless amount of inspiration, as all the necessary components are easily accessible and free to use. This is the art of the juxtaposition, both complimenting and conflicting itself, as the work is literally born from the streets and transformed into something that is new, exciting and fresh.

Through the usage of mediums such as old beat up currency, abandoned pieces of wood, detached doors and tattered textiles, the artist is able to rebuild forgotten memories and forge them into a new identity. Lost & Foundoffers the viewer the opportunity to reconnect with the pieces of the past and the chance to begin anew.

Lost & Found Opening Reception:
Friday, January 13th, 2012, 6:00pm – 10:00pm
(Show closes February 5th, 2012)

Mighty Tanaka (mightytanaka.com)
111 Front St., Suite 224, Brooklyn, NY 11201