Bengali New Year Celebration
Saturday, April 14th, noon to 4:00 p.m.
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Annie Ferdous (917) 674–4746
Nilofar Jahan (347) 237–1628
Jole Carliner (718) 633–1106
Hallelujah, it’s spring!
And one way to mark it—at least in Kensington—is to join in what’s becoming a neighborhood tradition: the celebration of Bengali New Year, this year with a samba band, kids' activities, a parade, and a Bangla music and dance performance. The celebration will run from noon to 4 p.m. at Avenue C Plaza, on Saturday, April 14th, in Kensington, Brooklyn, on McDonald Avenue at Avenue C (F/G train to Church Avenue).
Hosted by the Bangladesh Institute for Performing Arts (BIPA) and co-sponsored by The Singing Winds, a local storytelling group performing folk tales from around the world, the New Year’s celebration of the Bengali year 1425 will kick off Avenue C Plaza’s programs for the outdoor season. Managed by The Kensington Stewards, the plaza is a NYC DOT (Department of Transportation) plaza.
In Bangladesh, April 14th is a national holiday where the day begins at 6 a.m. with the singing of a song written by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. People dress in red and white saree and Panjabi for the occasion; BIPA encourages Kensington locals to do likewise as they celebrate the arrival of 1425!
In Kensington, BIPA founder and director Annie Ferdous said: "The celebrations abroad offer an excellent occasion for intercultural exchange and understanding. Both kids and adults learn about other cultures through them."
She continued: "Getting to know other cultures is important for immigrants, but so too is observing our own traditions. They connect us to our own culture while adapting to a new one.
"We need to teach our children that we are all different. These differences should be celebrated. Our culture and language is something we have to take pride in. Respecting others begins by respecting ourselves and our heritage."
Although events in Kensington are more modest than those in Bangladesh, the day’s program will do its best to imitate them, starting at noon with children's activities, including a magic show, face painting, and balloons.
The Bengali New Year's tradition calls for processions, drums, and music. And in Kensington, at 2 p.m., FogoAzula NYC, an all-woman Brazilian drumline, will kick off the festivities with a half-hour percussion performance. Then, with mask-wearing revelers leading the way, by 2:30 p.m., people will line up to parade in a march around the Avenue C Plaza neighborhood.
These masks of owl faces and of tiger and lion faces, big bird, and a King and Queen, are being made by children from P.S. 230, P.S. 179, and P.S. 130, who have been working on them for several weeks.
The climax of the Bengali New Year's Day festivities, at 3:30 p.m., will be performances by BIPA, a Bengali dance troupe conceived and nurtured in NYC by Annie Ferdous and now celebrating its 25th anniversary. It will perform Bangladeshi dances, including one to the Tagore song: "Esho he boishakh," which means "welcome Boishak," the first month of the new year.
Funded by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and Councilmember Brad Lander, the April 14th festivities build on the first Kensington Bengali New Year's celebration, which took place on April 20, 2013. It too featured mask-making, Alpona drawing workshops, Bengali performances, and a parade between P.S. 230 and Dome Playground.
Back then, as now, that day’s festivities were jointly produced by BIPA’s Annie Ferdous and The Singing Winds' Jill Reinier, who have become a tag-team showcasing Bengali cultural events in Kensington—and spreading them to cultural institutions elsewhere in New York City.