New BAM Venue Offers A Unique Performance Space
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The cultural district that's grown up around the Brooklyn Academy of Music continues to take shape, as another venue — BAM Fisher — opens to the public later this week. Borough reporter Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report.The Brooklyn Academy of Music's newest performance venue, the Judith and Alan Fishman Space in the newly constructed BAM Fisher building, has very unique features. The lights are sculpted to be part of the set and the seats can be moved to accommodate any kind of artistic work.
Currently, the seats are wrapped around the stage for a dance performance.
"It's a quite flexible, malleable, open space that an artist can use to do whatever they like to do," said BAM Executive Producer Joseph Melillo
The BAM Fisher opens to the public Thursday night with a performance to kick off the annual Next Wave Festival.
It is BAM's third theater in the Fort Greene neighborhood, also known as the BAM Cultural District. The original, historic structure around the corner seats 2,000 people, while the BAM Fisher seats 250.
"What you'll see here are a lot of community events, education events, artistic work in an intimate context that we can't really offer in our larger spaces," said BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins.
The BAM Fisher is named for Richard Fisher, who was the chairman of the BAM Endowment Trust. It is a $50 million project built on the site of the former Salvation Army Citadel. The ground floor facade of the 1928 building remains.
"We added on to it. We now have seven stories, including a green roof, a big rehearsal studio, a wonderful theater, a lobby and a classroom workshop space. It's really going to be an incredible building that will be in use 24/7," said Hopkins.
Tickets to all performances at BAM Fisher are $20. For more information about BAM Fisher programming, visit BAM.org.