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BRIC Announces the 2015 Celebrate Brooklyn! Dance Parties at Brooklyn Bridge Park

Photo: Courtesy BRIC Three Spring Nights with Live Bands and DJs in Stunning Waterfront Locale Sponsored by Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy Featuring Jamie Lidell, Felix Hernandez's Rhythm Revue, Poncho Sanchez and More Photo: Courtesy BRIC BRIC , p
Photo: Courtesy BRIC
Photo: Courtesy BRIC

Three Spring Nights with Live Bands and DJs in Stunning Waterfront Locale Sponsored by Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy Featuring Jamie Lidell, Felix Hernandez's Rhythm Revue, Poncho Sanchez and More

Photo: Courtesy BRIC
Photo: Courtesy BRIC

BRIC, producer of Celebrate Brooklyn!, the borough's premier outdoor summer festival, returns with the fifth annual Celebrate Brooklyn! Dance Parties. The free series, held on Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1 on three consecutiveThursday evenings in May (14, 21 & 28), serves as a "bridge" to Celebrate Brooklyn's 37th annual season, which starts June 3 with a free performance by Chaka Khan and runs throughout the summer at the Prospect Park Bandshell.

Photo: Courtesy BRIC
Photo: Courtesy BRIC

Program Schedule:

Thursday, May 14 | 7 PM

Classic Soul Funk Dance Party: Sonny Knight & The Lakers; The Rhythm Revue with Felix Hernandez

Photo: Courtesy BRIC
Photo: Courtesy BRIC

These hard-soul powerhouses have quickly gained ground in their hometown, topping the Minneapolis Star-Tribune poll "Twin Cities Critic's Tally" as the best live act of 2014 due to their "high-energy...funk-blasting" shows. Soul connoisseurs to novice music listeners alike can find common ground in Sonny Knight and the Lakers irrefutable showmanship and exuberance on stage.

Felix Hernandez brought his funky dance party, The Rhythm Revue, to BRIC House last year, and  after celebrating 23 years of sold-out shows at the now-closed Roseland Ballroom. Hernandez returns to Brooklyn with the New York institution to kick off the evening.

Thursday, May 21 | 7 PM

Electro Soul Dance Party: Jamie Lidell; Fixed (DJs JDH & Dave P); Brooklyn United Marching Band

Photo: Courtesy BRIC
Photo: Courtesy BRIC

The soul-singing dance music eclecticist Jamie Lidell is "the progenitor of his own completely original genre that no one else has been able to recreate" (KCRW) and "a master-craftsman of genre hybrids packing potent lyrical punches of love" (Stereogum). Known for bringing together disparate musical influences, Lidell sites Mtume, Cameo, New Jack Swing, Bobby Brown and George Clinton as inspirations for his latest album, 2013's self-titled LP.

"I referenced a lot of the analogue synth tones of the records I really love," he says, "the question isn't electronic music or not, it's what are you trying to say with the electronics you choose."

JDH and Dave P, hailing from New York and Philadelphia respectively, are the duo of DJs behind the FIXED parties, which have been running for over nine years. They have toured numerous times with Simian Mobile Disco and Soulwax and have recently played Coachella, PS1, Camp Bisco, FYF Fest, and at Pacha Ibiza. The Brooklyn United Marching Band gets the party started.

Thursday, May 28 | 7 PM

Latin Jazz Dance Party: Poncho Sanchez; Bobbito Garcia; Salsa Salsa Dance

Photo: Courtesy BRIC
Photo: Courtesy BRIC

For more than three decades as both a leader and a sideman, conguero Poncho Sanchez has stirred up a fiery stew of straight-ahead jazz, gritty soul music, and infectious melodies and rhythms from a variety of Latin American and South American sources. His influences are numerous, but among the more prominent figures that inform his music are two of the primary architects of Latin jazz — conga drummer and composer Chano Pozo and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

Salsa Salsa Dance kicks off the evening with a dance lesson, followed by a set by world-renowned DJ/writer/sports-commentator Bobbito Garcia.

For more information, please visit www.BRICartsmedia.org.




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