I liked playing with blocks as a kid, building grand castles out of wooden shapes painted primary colors. I was also the Tetris Queen; I held the high score on my dad’s stone age computer until we got rid of that computer. Never though, when I was young, did I ever play Tangram. Saturday night I watched about a dozen performers play Tangram on stage with gigantic Tangram pieces. http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=121

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faHMok_H4ys

One of my favorite performing arts venues in New York is, without a doubt, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or BAM. Located in Fort Greene just a few steps away from Atlantic/Pacific or Nevins station, BAM has two theatres within walking distance of each other,

The city block sized Howard Gilman Opera House exterior is clean, serene white, and you’d never expect the burst of artistic, eclectic goodness you find inside, both in decoration and in programming. Go up the escalator and you find yourself in the BAMCafé, one of my favorite chill-out spaces in New York. What they’ve done with the space is breathtaking and inventive; you feel as if you are hanging out on the set of a BAM production. Bright orange rafters stretch out over clusters of tables, chairs, and couches. The ceiling is lined with metal weather grating and mesh, behind which shine lots of tiny lightbulbs. The huge arched windows dance with spiraling lights. Look above you and you see floating white sculptures of human bodies flying, arms outstretched. (A few months ago it was a gigantic chandelier made out of sea-foam-green electrical cords). And on Friday and Saturday nights during the theatre season, you can see free music performances by new and experimental musicians. The band this Saturday night when I went described themselves as “mariachi bluegrass.”

Yeah yeah, sounds cool, but I bet ticket prices are astronomical. Not at all. General admission at the opera house is as low as $25 a ticket, $10 for student rush. When’s the last time you went to an opera for $25? When’s the last time you went to an opera like this? is the real question.

BAM has distinguished itself as a large performing arts venue that gives new, experimental art forms a place to be seen. I have yet to be disappointed by a BAM production: Robert Wilson’s envisioning of Peer Gynt continues to be one of the main reasons I am an artist. Why not have a production of The Magic Flute with video projections? Who wouldn’t want to watch Cate Blanchett saunter around the stage as Hedda Gabler? I always leave the theatre feeling that much more in love with New York for giving a place like BAM a home.