Friday, December 7th
Irreversible Quartet/Patricia Spears Jones, Weeksville Heritage Center, 158 Buffalo Ave., 7:30-10PM, $15. Irreversible Quartet is a free jazz quintet featuring Keir Neuringer on sax, Aquiles Navarro on trumpet, Luke Stewart on bass and Tcheser Holmes on drums. It taps into key legacies in creative Black music in the US with an intensity honed by a string of milestones. Patricia Spears Jones, a longtime resident of NYC, is a poet and cultural maven. Art and music inform her poems, which offer portraits of individuals in transit, engaging themes of class and social change with wry perception. In 2017, she was awarded the Jackson Poetry Prize, most prestigious for American poets. Tickets at brownpapertickets.
Annual Holiday Party and Fundraising Raffle, Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, 85 So. Oxford St., 7:30PM, $15 (children under 12 FREE). Includes dinner by local favorite restaurants and 5 raffle tickets. Join your friends and neighbors for an evening of song and good cheer at the Fort Greene Association’s annual event. Jazz singer Deborah Sitton-Garvin of Fort Greene is this year’s lead singer. Children of all ages are welcome and free child care is provided. The Local Merchant Raffle features generous prizes of gift certificates for dining, shopping and services in Fort Greene.
Saturday, December 8th
Domestic Violence Awareness Session, 1454 St. Johns Place, 2-4PM. Butterflies Women’s Group says, “Love Should Not Hurt!” and if you’re looking for a place to let down your vulnerabilities and have a good time with your girls, come and join them. Guest speaker is author and playwright Leslie Green, whose book, Weeding Out the Riffraff, and a $25 gift card will be among the prizes won by lucky entrants to a free raffle. For more info contact Kim at 929-454-4019.
Colored Girls Hustle Marketplace: December Edition, New Woman Space, 188 Woodpoint Rd., 12-6PM, FREE. This curated pop-up shopping experience features women of color artists, creatives and makers. Do your holiday shopping with some of the most talented women of color in New York City! The CGH Marketplace creates a space for self-identified women to share and sell their work, connect with new audiences and build community with other artist entrepreneurs. RSVP at Eventbrite by 8am and check in when you arrive to be entered into a raffle for free goodies from vendors.
Sunday, December 9th
Reparations: Wellness Clinic, Earth Arts Center, 936 Madison St., 3-8:30PM, $20. Attend a new kind of care fair: a folx-only walk-in wellness clinic with 8 workshops and a sound bath. Organizers name and call forth folks of the Black Diaspora to be supported and offer services! Allies may purchase tickets to support the healing of others or donate at Go Fund Me. All monetary support will go to paying selected healers their fair rate, supporting them in mending the traumas of their communities and ensuring that the clinic continues opening its doors.
Wednesday, December 12th
The Weeksville Project: Live Audio Drama Event, Weeksville Heritage Center, 158 Buffalo Ave., 7–9PM, FREE. Enjoy a night of storytelling through time and space – historical fiction on the very land that the stories take place. The audience follows Cumberland, the family’s patriarch, as he arrives at Weeksville from slavery and learns about the developing neighborhood around him, leading to its eventual end as the Borough of Brooklyn blossoms. Stories by Bessie Award winner J. Michael Kinsey and Lilith, but Dark author Nichole Perkins. Followed by a talkback with cast, crew and special guests. Tickets are at Eventbrite.
Friday, December 14th
“Brooklyn Visionaries,” Boaz Vaadia Gallery, 104 Berry St., 6PM FREE. This exhibition uncovers and celebrates the exquisite range of Brooklyn visionaries. Writer/photographer/graphic designer Anne Fink Bartoc incorporates documentary images, text and sound samples from interviews. Sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, the show urns through the weekend.
Saturday, December 15th
Beatbox Botanicals: Harriet’s Apothecary Winter Edition 2018, 1120 Washington Ave., 12-7PM, FREE. Dialogue around how we wage love and resistance, resources we have and resources we need. Lean into tools our ancestors summoned in crisis to build our own blueprints. Share in free or sliding scale, body-affirming potions and prescriptions, individual and group-healing spaces to expand your abilities to transform stress and heal trauma. Enjoy meditation, art-making, Thai yoga massage, Reiki, arts-based herbalism and more. Bring a dish for the potluck. Due to the current political climate and history of racist violence and white supremacy in the U.S., Saturday programming is for Black and Indigenous People of Color only. (Allies attendance available Day Two)
Sunday, December 16th
Beatbox Botanicals: Harriet’s Apothecary Winter Edition 2018, 1120 Washington Ave., 12-7PM, FREE. Day Two is the Holiday Bazaar and Swag Swap, uplifting the brilliance and creative genius of local Black, Indigenous and PoC Cis Women, Queer, Trans artists and healers, etc. Cooperative economics will be centered, as will be FREEDOM SCHOOL, featuring interactive workshops, strategy sessions, dialogues and skill-shares offering tangible tools to deepen collective healing powers outside systems of the state. For Black, Indigenous and People of Color Folks. White allies welcome from 3-6pm. (Resources for white allies are at the Conspire for Change website.) All proceeds from the bazaar will go to Diversidad Sin Fronteras, a collective of trans and gender nonconforming leaders aiding LGBTQ refugees before, during and after being released from immigration detention.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
Friday, December 21st
Holiday Toy and Book Drive, Emanuel Baptist Church, 36 St. James Place, 12-2PM, FREE. All donations will benefit children who are patients in Brooklyn hospitals or who reside in North and Central Brooklyn at this drive organized by District Leader Olanike Alabi along with local elected officials and civic groups. The public is invited to lend support. Please bring a new, unwrapped book or toy. For information call 718-398-0750.