Safe Harbor Pics

Here are just a few of the wonderful pictures taken by Edwin Anglero at our Safe Harbor Benefit in December. If you'd like to see more send an email to jon@dtetc.org or stay tuned to the blog.


DTE Community & Culture Youth Award winner Solomon Goodwin and Martha.



Solo artist Tiye Giraud performs




DTE board members Trac Vu and Pat McGillicuddy announce the winners of the Safe Harbor Raffle.



Community & Culture Award winner Ray Hall poses with Martha.

Benefit Teaser

Last Friday night's Safe Harbor benefit was a really fun (and, for the staff, really Long!) evening!



Thanks to everyone who played a part in making the night what it was, whether that meant volunteering your time, getting your organization to partner with DTE for the event, or just showing up and adding to the good vibes in the room.

Stay tuned to the blog for a full re-cap of the Safe Harbor Benefit, with pictures from DTE friend and Red Hook resident, Edwin Anglero.

Ray Hall

This post is the third in a series leading up to Dance Theatre Etcetera's Safe Harbor Benefit. In each post we will profile one of the awardees of this year's DTE Community & Culture Awards. Today we profile Raymond Hall*.

After working for Honeywell International for over a decade, Raymond Hall went to work for Pier 41 Associates in his hometown of Red Hook, Brooklyn. In 1994, Ray and his brother Earl- unhappy with the crime and overall condition of their neighborhood - organized a touch-football league at Coffey Park to engage teens that were not involved in productive after-school activities.

This was the beginning of their organization, Red Hook Rise. A few years later, in order to reach more youth in the area, Ray and Earl organized a basketball league at Coffey Park. Next, Red Hook Rise started the literacy program "Read a Line to Educate Your Mind,” where participants received toys and other gifts during the holiday season as a reward for reading.

Having already made a large impact on local teens, the group set its sights on younger children, from ages 8 to 11, and started the program "Books and Basketball." They set up a reading area near the basketball courts- young athletes were not permitted to play until they had spent time reading - either to themselves or by listening to one of the guest readers invited in from the community. The program is so popular that Borough President Marty Markowitz has stopped by more than once to speak with the children about the importance of reading.

Ray describes his organization’s purpose as meeting whatever needs arise in the community, be it through his annual turkey drive for local families or his extensive work helping with job placement for people in the neighborhood.

For his dedication to the Red Hook community and his commitment to addressing local problems through outreach to local youth, we are happy to recognize Raymond Hall as a recipient of the 2008 Dance Theatre Etcteera Community & Culture Awards.

*portions of this biography were borrowed from a profile done by Partnership for Parks

Tini Wine Bar

Among the fun to be had at DTE's Safe Harbor Benefit in December will be a Best of New York Raffle, where you'll have a chance to win prizes from gems in the neighborhood and around the boroughs. Each week on the blog we'll highlight one of the donating organizations and let you know what you might win. This week we feature Tini Wine Bar:

The Village Voice has this to say about this local Red Hook spot-
"Tini is everyone's secret restaurant dream: Open a comfy little place, uncork
the wine, invite your friends, and voila!—the instant good life."

To get a taste of that good life go to Tini for dinner, brunch, or drinks, or hire them to cater your next event.

Tini gets an extra thumbs-up for supporting local artists.

DTE thanks Tini for their donation to the Safe Harbor Benefit Raffle as part of a dinner & a movie package with Cobble Hill Cinemas. Buy your benefit ticket today to try your luck at the raffle and enjoy an evening full of great food and entertainment.

Brooklyn Brewery

DTE's Safe Harbor Benefit could not happen without the support of our community partners. Each week on the blog we'll highlight one of the organizations donating to the event. This week we feature Brooklyn Brewery:


From The BB website:
"In 1984, Associated Press correspondent Steve Hindy returned from a six-year stint in the Middle East and settled in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood. Hindi had caught the homebrewing bug from diplomats stationed in Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia Kuwait and where alcoholic beverages were forbidden. With his downstairs neighbor, Tom Potter, a former lending officer at Chimical Bank, Hindy quit his job and found the Brooklyn Brewery. Their initial goal was to bring good beer back to New York City."

To make a long story short, and as you already know if you live in New York City, the two men achieved that goal. Today Brooklyn Brewery beer is everywhere. You can pick it up (or request it!) at your local beer distributor, bar, and probably at the bodega on your corner.

You can take a tour of the brewery Saturday and Sunday afternoons from 12pm-5pm, and they also offer a regular Friday night happy hour. You have to check out the Brooklyn Brewwery website for info on all their other events, and to find out where you can buy that essential design piece for every bachelor pad (or bar)- the neon beer sign.

DTE thanks Brooklyn Brewery for their commitment to their community, whether it's their progressive movement to wind-generated power (they were the first NYC company to do so) or their support of Brooklyn-based companies and artists. We thank them, most of all, for their generous sponsorship of the Safe Harbor Benefit. Buy your ticket now to guarantee yourself an evening in early December spent with good people and lots of good beer.

Mark D. Phillips

This post is the third in a series leading up to Dance Theatre Etcetera's Safe Harbor Benefit. In each post we will profile one of the awardees of this year's DTE Community & Culture Awards. Today we profile Mark Phillips.

Mark D. Phillips, president of South Brooklyn Internet, Inc., has had a front row seat for the
digital revolution. A leader in the Internet age, SBI develops and creates marketing
strategies for traditional businesses making their first forays onto the World Wide Web.
SouthBrooklyn.com, the company’s local website, provides information and events from
brownstone Brooklyn to the world.

As an award-winning photojournalist for the Associated Press in New York City, he worked
with the earliest digital cameras and computers. During 1995, Mark completed one of the
first digital photo transmissions from the interior of China while publicizing the world’s
greatest high wire walk over the Yangtze River (jaycochrane.com).

Mark is a winner of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Photography contest in 1992, winning
First Place, Sports Action. “Safe” is part of the permanent collection. In 2001, his
photograph “Satan in the Smoke” from the World Trade Center attack was a world-wide
phenomenon, and is still published on a regular basis.

He is married to Andrea Peyser, an award-winning columnist for the New York Post, and has
a beautiful 9-year-old daughter, Eliza Rose.

For his dedication to supporting businesses and cultural programmers in Red Hook, his unique ability to connect the worlds of media, business and non-profit organizations, and his long-time support of Dance Theatre Etcetera, we are happy to recognize Mark D. Phillips as a recipient of the 2008 Dance Theatre Etcetera Community & Culture Award.

Among the fun to be had at DTE's Safe Harbor Benefit in December will be a Best of New York Raffle, where you'll have a chance to win prizes from gems in the neighborhood and around the boroughs. Each week on the blog we'll highlight one of the donating organizations and let you know what you might win. This week we feature Culture Project:

"Blending prize-winning theater with urgent moral drama, Culture Project brings the national political conversation to life on the New York Stage."

We thank Culture Project for their generous donation of two tickets to see Ronan Noone's highly acclaimed one-man play, The Atheist. Directed by Justin Waldman and starring Campbell Scott, The Atheist has been written about glowingly in The New York Times and Boston Globe, to name just a couple. Theatremania.com calls it "the perfect match of magnificent actor and gripping play." Check out this exciting show, and don't forget to buy your raffle tickets at the Safe Harbor benefit for your chance to win this and other great prizes.

LeNell's

Among the fun to be had at DTE's Safe Harbor Benefit in December will be a Best of New York Raffle, where you'll have a chance to win prizes from gems in the neighborhood and around the boroughs. Each week on the blog we'll highlight one of the donating organizations and let you know what you might win. This week we feature LeNell's:



LeNell's Ltd., a Wine & Spirit Boutique, boasts NYC's largest bourbon selection, and has the southern pedigree to match it. The woman who runs it all (you can guess her name) says this:

"I like to think I brought with me many good things from my Southern upbringing that give my shop a totally different feel than most liquor stores. The store extends a warm invitation to chat a spell about wine, whiskey, and whatever. I found the perfect neighborhood for my business in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where everybody knows everybody and folks look out for one another. Of course, PaPa still thinks I'm a "high class bootlegger." Come see me sometime!"

LeNell has been written up too many places to list here, but you can get an idea.



We thank LeNell for her generous contribution to the DTE Safe Harbor Benefit- a private whiskey lesson and bourbon tasting for four. To win that great prize and others, though, you have to be there.

Tom Fox

This post is the second in a series highlighting the winners of this year's Dance Theatre Etcetera Community & Culture Awards. The awards are given to "visionary leaders who embrace the notion that commerce, culture and education work together to achieve dynamic communities." This week we feature Tom Fox:

Tom Fox is the President and CEO of New York Water Taxi, an innovative small-scale waterborne transportation company linking waterfront neighborhoods, parks and cultural attractions in New York Harbor.

As President of The Fox Group, he consults on parks and open space development and preservation. Tom designed and directed the Mayor Willie Brown’s Park Renaissance Campaign, which generated $300 million in new funding for San Francisco's parks and created a new planning and management structure for the Recreation and Park Department.

Tom has played a leadership role in the redevelopment of Manhattan's West Side waterfront. He was a citizen member of the West Side Task Force and the West Side Waterfront Panel and the first president of the Hudson River Park Conservancy, where he assembled the property along this 4.5 mile waterfront, engaged the adjacent communities in completing the Concept and Financial Plan for this $450 million Park, created interim improvements and facilitated innovative public and private sector projects including the construction of the $120 million Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex.

Tom founded the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, spearheaded the establishment of New York City's first comprehensive open space policy and played a leadership role in the passage of New York State's 1986 Environmental Quality Bond Act. He directed the design of the award-winning 40-mile Brooklyn/Queens Greenway and was a founding co-chair of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition. Tom served as vice president of the Green Guerrillas and the American Community Gardening Association and was the first Assistant Chief of Interpretation at Gateway National Recreation Area in 1976.

Mr. Fox has received numerous awards and appointments, most recently being honored by the NY/NJ BayKeeper for his contribution to the environment in New York Harbor and by the New York Harbor Schools for his commitment to providing internships and apprenticeships for inner city youth. He currently serves on the Board of Directors, or advisory board, of the State Council on Waterways, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, Friends of the Hudson River Park and Vietnam Veterans of America, Manhattan Chapter 126.

Tom received a B.S. in Biology at Brooklyn College and a Loeb Fellowship in Advanced Environmental Design, at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

The Sharps Family

This post is the first in a series leading up to Dance Theatre Etcetera's Safe Harbor Benefit. In each post we will profile one of the awardees of this year's DTE Community & Culture Awards. Today we profile the Sharps family. Stay tuned for the rest of the awardees and for a post highlighting the individual accomplishments of this vital local family.



David, Sarah, Dalia and Sophie Sharps have been living in Red Hook since 1995. When they first arrived the waterfront was a place few people ventured, but amidst the packs of wild dogs, tow pounds and decaying piers, they embraced Red Hook's beauty- its stunning light, its sunsets, full front views of Lady Liberty, beautiful Civil-war era buildings and small neighborhood feeling. They shared a vision that it was a community worth celebrating and fighting for.

NYC EDC & Community Board 6 waterfront town hall meetings were held aboard Barge #79. Garbage transfer stations were defeated. “Save The Red Hook Graving Dock” campaigned to contest the loss of the area’s last remaining shipyard. Through it all, no matter what one’s views might be on waterfront development and Red Hook’s future, the Barge has been a venue where people come together.

The Sharps first worked with Dance Theatre Ecterera (DTE) in 1998 during the production of Safe Harbor, when performers led thousands through the streets of Red Hook. That production featured a vignette aboard the Barge that included Dalia, age 6, reciting Shakespeare, David juggling as a “merman” and Sophie at age 4 rocking in her chair with undeniable conviction. Since then, DTE and the Sharps have collaborated on projects including Red Hook Partners, the Earth & Surf Parade, Angels & Accordions, and the Red Hook Waterfront Festival.
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Also at the benefit, you'll have a chance to enter DTE's raffle to win great prizes from community partners. DTE thanks The Waterfront Museum for its generous donation of a Family Juggling Lesson aboard the barge. Make sure to buy your ticket now for a chance to enjoy the festivities of the Safe Harbor Benefit and to enter in the running for a chance at this one-of-a-kind experience.

DTE First Benefit Astounding Success

After a day of hanging lights, tasting food, painting walls and hanging up overalls, the DTE Housewarming party and first ever benefit was underway! Thank you to everyone who helped to make it such a huge success! Hundreds of friends of DTE filled our new office space as we honored community leaders:

• Congresswoman Nydia M. Velazquez (New York 12th District)
• Greg O'Connell (Developer, Harbor View Associates)
• Millie Henriquez-McArdle (Division Director, South Brooklyn Community High School/Good Shepherd Services)
  
• Independence Community Foundation

We munched on delicious food from local restaurants, listened to the lovely accordion ensemble from Angels & Accordions led by Bob Goldberg, and jammed with musicians Akil Dasan and Navigante.

Students from DTE's Performing Arts Workshops at the Brooklyn International High School and South Brooklyn Community High School blew away the audience with previews of their upcoming performance pieces.
The night capped off with DJ Sinton spinning some great music for a rocking dance party!

Don't forget about the Greg O'Connell Overall Art Project - thanks to all the artists who donated time and creativity to help out our organization!

(DTE Staff After the Event)

DTE Benefit - Only 1 Week Away

We're all hard at work! Hope to see you at the benefit!

Invitations for the Benefit

Designed by Sean Keepers