This weekend Artichoke Dance Company will premiere Just Gowanus, a walking tour detailing the area’s past, present, and future, interspersed with dance performances inspired by the unique Brooklyn neighborhood.
The two-hour tour will highlight several noteworthy spots in Gowanus—the 4th Street Turning Basin, bioswales, recycling facilities, plant nurseries—making stops at significant sites including the Salt Lot, the Whole Foods promenade, and Sponge Park to discuss the impending rezoning of the neighborhood, the EPA’s cleanup of the Superfund-designated Gowanus Canal, and other environmental concerns in the community such as flooding, brownfields, the urban heat island effect, and combined sewer overflow (CSOs).
At each stop, four Artichoke dancers will perform short works and lead interactive experiences that illustrate the “geography’s significance” and encourage audiences to “reflect on the place and future.”
The tour kicks off at the Salt Lot, home of a DSNY salt shed, Big Reuse’s NYC Compost Project, and Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s (GCC) education and stewardship programs. Just past the towering mountain of salt used on icy roads during snowstorms (and from which the dancers make a dramatic entrance), visitors will find an oasis overlooking the canal—GCC’s verdant garden and nursery.
“This site is going to go away for a while,” Lynn Neuman, Director of Artichoke Dance, noted during a preview of the tour. As part of the Gowanus Canal cleanup, two CSO tanks will be built to hold excess rainwater during heavy storms to prevent overflow into the canal. One eight-million-gallon tank will be constructed at the northern end of the canal and one four-million-gallon tank will be built at the Salt Lot. GCC will need to find a temporary home for its outdoor facilities until the tank is completed in 2028 and the Conservancy can move back.
Across the canal from the Salt Lot is Public Place. If the city approves the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning, which is currently in the public review phase, a divisive development, Gowanus Green, is planned for the city-owned Public Place site, Neuman explained. If given the okay, a school, a public park, and six affordable housing towers rising as high as 28 stories will be developed. For decades, Public Place was home to the Citizens Works Manufactured Gas Plant, making it “one of the most toxic sites along the canal,” Neuman said. Though the coal tar contaminating the site is currently being remediated by National Grid, and developers vow to clean it up further, many in the community argue that it will never be safe to live above and that it is unjust to house low-income families on the land.
These are just some of the concerns that will be raised during the Just Gowanus tour. “There’s so much going on and so much controversy around Gowanus right now that getting the information out, I think, is really important,” Neuman said. “And trying to present it in a way that isn’t leading in one way or the other, but just gives the information, so that people can make informed decisions.” She added that while listening to public testimony during the community board hearing for the rezoning she heard “a lot of speculation about what’s actually going on.... I’m hoping to disseminate some facts.” Neuman would like audiences to learn more about important issues in the neighborhood and obtain “some sense of how they can get active…to know that activism is not scary. It’s very doable,” she insists.
Neuman is a member of 350Brooklyn, a group that addresses the climate crisis, and the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice (GNCJ) which fights to advance racial, economic and environmental justice in Gowanus. The dancer and choreographer first became involved in environmental activism about ten years ago. “It started with plastic pollution for me,” she recalls. “I adopted an older Labrador when I moved to Brooklyn, and I didn’t know this about Labs, but they try to eat everything. I was constantly pulling stuff out of her mouth and one day I realized it’s all plastic. [All the litter] on the street was plastic.” Neuman reached out to the Earth Institute at Columbia University and connected with Ph.D. students researching plastic pollution. With their help she organized a bus tour that took groups to see various trash and recycling facilities across the city.
A decade later, she’s organized another tour focused on Gowanus—seamlessly integrating performance, education, and activism. Originally planned to be staged last summer, the production had to wait a year due to the pandemic. “It’s been in my head for a really long time, and now we finally get to do it,” Neuman said. She spent a lot of time at the sites highlighted on the tour and worked with her dancers to “devise different improvisational approaches that illustrate what I see as happening there.” Bold gestural movements of limbs as well as powerful leaps and bounds beautifully evoke the natural surroundings. One dance portrays the “progression of the history of the canal from a salt marsh to industrialization,” Neuman explained, while another reflects cycles, those found in nature or the cyclic phases of city development processes. Some of the music composed to accompany the dances incorporates sound samples recorded around Gowanus, including birdsong and mechanical rhythms.
Artichoke dancers are known to perform in billowing skirts composed entirely of single-use plastic bags. “[The dancers] have been dancing in plastic bags—which are really hot, by the way—for about five years, until we passed the plastic bag ban legislation in New York State,” Neuman noted. “Now there’s a nation-wide comprehensive plastic bill that would eliminate single-use plastic bags and other single-use plastics that are not recyclable.” During the tour audiences will be given tips on how to get involved in the community and beyond, such as pushing NYS representatives to support the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2021.
Even if you closely follow what’s going on in Gowanus, you are likely to learn something new during this enlightening and entertaining event. This innovative mix of dance, information, and advocacy showcases what makes the neighborhood special while highlighting the potential changes that might rob Gowanus of its charms.
Founded in 1995, Artichoke Dance merges dance, environmental activism, and civic engagement. Just Gowanus is the company’s third production that focuses on the Gowanus neighborhood and collaborates with residents and local organizations. In 2017 Artichoke produced Global Water Dances on the Gowanus Canal and in 2019 they presented the Gowanus Visions Festival of Art and Action.
Gowanus Canal Conservancy, the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, and the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice (GNCJ), partnered with Artichoke Dance Company for the Just Gowanus Tour.
Just Gowanus: An Interactive Performance Tour
Saturdays & Sundays |July 10 & 11; July 17 & 18 at 2pm
Tour begins at the Salt Lot, 2 Second Avenue, Gowanus
Tickets $30
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