Schools

Poetry, Sculpture, Music: To Benefit PS 29

Local artists and parents Denver Butson and Pietro Costa present a meditative performance at the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery.

Two local parents and artists are using their craft to ensure that others are able to also use art as a means of expression.

Denver Butson and Pietro Costa, parents, artists and business partners at , present a performance to benefit arts programming at PS 29 at the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery, 314 Atlantic Ave., Thursday from 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

"The World Cannot Bear the Weightlessness of Sparrows" is a collaborative piece centered around Costa's sculpture , a response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Butson, who has worked artistically with Costa on grace before, will read his poetry (the title of the performance is from a poem he wrote), accompanied by Grammy-nominated violist Mat Maneri and pianist Lucian Ban.

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"I would like it [the performance] to be moving, and to have a moving affect," said Butson, adding that he does not like to describe his art.

"It is what it is. The night is about grace the sculpture and it's about me and Mat Maneri and Lucian Ban playing together."

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The sculpture will be in the center of the gallery, with the audience facing it. Butson and the musicians will not traditionally present their accompaniment, and will likely be playing from a balcony above. The music and reading will be improvisational, with the musicians playing off each other, and Butson reading his words at opportune moments.

The evening will be contemplative, said Butson, but is not meant to specifically be a remembrance or commemoration of Sept. 11. Some of the poems were directly related to the attacks, and while others may seem similarly inspired, they are not.

"I envision the night being meditative," said Butson. "I don't want it to be just a big downer."

City budget cuts last year directly impacted arts education at PS 29, said Butson. There was no art for second graders, and Buston has a daughter in second grade.

The PS 29 PTA is funding a program with the Brooklyn Children's Museum to bring art to the second grade one day a week for 22-weeks.

"Any funds we raise will go directly to arts and keeping those kinds of things going," said Butson.

 

"The World Cannot Bear the Weightlessness of Sparrows," to benefit PS 29 arts, is on Thursday at 7:30 at Bertrand Delacroix Gallery, 314 Atlantic Ave. Wine provided by Smith & Vine.


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