Memorial Day weekend saw DanceAfrica 2018 Bazaar filling the streets that wrap around the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Every May the dance festival celebrates Africa through music, dance and film, wrapping up an outdoor global market place.
The crowds stayed away on the cold, dreary Sunday. But, they made up for it by packing the streets on a pleasantly mild yet overcast Memorial Day. There were many garments of beautifully vivid African print cottons from Ivory Coast and Ghana brightened the sights among the 150 vendors of African, Caribbean and African-American art, crafts, and fashion.
This year, the layout was quite different. Food stalls, situated together on the northern stretch of Lafayette at Fulton created a gridlock of hungry festival attendees.
Vendors, on the entire length of Lafayette across from BAM, cramped the style for the drummers and other Haitian musicians and fans who annually look forward to an al fresco casual sidewalk gathering at La Caye, a popular Haitian neighborhood restaurant.
None-the-less, the Haitian community amassed, and even as festival goers were forced to pass directly in front of performing bands, a crowd surrounded the jamming musicians and the power of their music moved many to dance in the squeezed space.
