Artichoke Dance Company presents Immersive Performance Tours of Gowanus on Saturday, June 28, and Sunday, June 29, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.
Combining an informational walking tour with interactive experiences and site performances, tours will travel through Gowanus to various sites near and along the Gowanus Canal.
The tour brings audiences to sites in Gowanus that are significant to the superfund remediation of the canal and the rezoning of the neighborhood, both of which are currently underway. At stops along the way, Artichoke Dance Company performs dance works that physicalize the geography’s significance, reflecting on the place and envisioning a sustainable future.
“What we’re seeing in Gowanus now is the result of years of planning, organizing and envisioning both around the canal clean up and neighborhood development. Every week something new pops up and this performance tour brings people into contact with those developments as well as the area’s history and challenges in relation to climate change,” reflects Artichoke Dance Company’s Director Lynn Neuman, who has been active in the community for over a decade. “As a community, we advocated for and won many benefits for Gowanus through the rezoning. Now we are seeing some of this being put into action, like the development of park spaces along the canal.”
This is Artichoke Dance Company’s eighth production, highlighting Gowanus and involving area residents and organizations. In 2024 and 2023, the Company hosted other iterations of Immersive Tours of Gowanus. In 2022 the company produced Brooklyn Utopias Along the Canal, Just Gowanus in 2019, the Gowanus Visions Festival of Art and Action in 2018, and Global Water Dances on the Gowanus Canal in 2017. In these events, Artichoke Dance Company collaborated with local, environmentally focused, and community-based organizations and artists to bring awareness to, and involvement in, Gowanus.
The starting location of the tours will be shared with ticket holders 2 days prior to the tour. Tickets are on a sliding scale from $10-$50 available online at artichokedance.org/events. Tours last approximately 2 hours and travel approximately one mile.
GOWANUSCANAL.US is the website showcasing the 35-year documentation of the superfund waterway by photojournalist Mark D Phillips.
