Following the success of the inaugural Summer Youth Series, the Office of Council Member Crystal Hudson worked with nearly one dozen community partners to organize its second annual Spring Senior Series. Our office has organized eight weeks (March 21 to May 9) of programming specifically to meet the needs and interests of older adults. From film screenings and dance classes to museum tours and fitness classes, older adults in District 35 will have the opportunity to take part in free programming and enjoy the rich cultural institutions that service the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Prospect Heights.
Space is limited and registration is required for most events. Be sure to check this page for updates, as more events may be added.
Fri, March 21: Film Screening – 9 to 5 (1980)
Fri, March 28: Healthy Aging: Fitness for Older Adults
Fri, April 4: Restorative Movement
Sat, April 5: Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra Concert
Wed, April 9: African Art Tour & Discussion
Wed, April 16: African Art Tour & Discussion
Fri, April 18: Film Screening: Corrina, Corrina (1994)
Tues, April 22: Steel Pan Workshop
Wed, April 23: Macbeth in Stride at BAM
Thu, April 24: Music and Singing Class
Tues, April 29: Dance Class with Ballroom Basix
Wed, April 30: Steel Pan Workshop
Thu, May 1: Permanent Collection Art Tour
Wed, May 7: Sing-Along Workshop
Wed, May 14: Brooklyn Botanic Garden Community Tour
Film Screening: 9 to 5 (1980)
Friday, March 21, 2025, 10am; Brooklyn Academy of Music (80 Lafayette Avenue)
The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Senior Cinema program offers older adults ages 65 and older free admission to repertory classics, with complimentary popcorn and soda. On March 21, BAM will be screening the classic film “9 to 5,” starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton.
The film, directed by Colin Higgins, is an office satire about three female secretaries who decide to get revenge on their tyrannical, sexist boss by abducting him and running the business themselves. The trio, one of whom has been passed over for promotion because she is a woman, spend a night together having drug-induced fantasies of killing the slave-driving chauvinist. One of them panics the following day when she suspects she really has poisoned the tyrant. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Healthy Aging: Fitness for Older Adults
Friday, March 28, 2025, 11am; Neighborhood Care Crown Heights (546 Eastern Parkway)
Staying active as you get older is a great way to put your health first. Your local health ally, EmblemHealth Neighborhood Care, makes it easier to add fitness to your routine. Celebrate healthy aging with a day full of community and fitness for all abilities, including Zumba, line dancing, chair yoga, and more! Registration is required.
Restorative Movement
Friday, April 4, 2025, 12pm; Mark Morris Dance Group (3 Lafayette Avenue)
Join Jaimé Yawa Dzandu – a movement artist, choreographer, and educator with roots from Hampton, Virginia, and Wusuta Dzigbe, Ghana, West Africa – for a restorative movement class. You are only as limber as your spine is supple. Seated or standing, this class draws from a variety of somatic techniques including Gyrokinesis, Pilates, and Yoga to focus on breath, alignment, balance, core strength, flexibility, and expanding one’s kinesphere.
Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra Concert
Saturday, April 5, 2025, 7:30pm; St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church (157 Montague St)
In a landmark event for music history, the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra presents the U.S. premiere of newly rediscovered ballet music by Giuseppe Verdi on April 5, 2025, at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights. This extraordinary performance marks the first time these lost pages of Verdi’s music have been heard in the United States.
In 1848, for a French-language production of Nabucco at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Giuseppe Verdi was asked to compose ballet music—a requirement of French grand opéra. He delivered, writing new music that was woven into Act III following the opening chorus. While it’s long been known that Verdi created this ballet, the score itself was thought to be lost. That changed when an uncovered manuscript among Verdi’s preserved materials was found in the basement of his Villa Verdi in Sant’Agata. What survives are two fully orchestrated pieces—part of what is believed to have been a larger set—now set to be heard for the first time in over 175 years. Since its discovery, the piece was performed only once before in 2021 at Festival Verdi in Parma in a concert by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna conducted by Roberto Abbado.
The Ballet and The Bard: Verdi’s Lost Score and the Sounds of Shakespeare program also features a 20th-century tribute to Shakespeare. Selections from William Walton’s thrilling score to the 1949 film Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario arranged by Christopher Palmer and featuring dramatic monologues from Jose Espinosa (Take Me Out, Broadway). Joining Maestro Nuzzo and the BCO in the Walton work will be the New York Choral Society and Grace Chorale of Brooklyn. The program also includes selections from Dmitri Shostakovich’s curious musical take on the play Hamlet.
“Discovering a lost score from a great composer is always rare,” reflects Philip Nuzzo, Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra’s Artistic Director and Conductor. “Being able to have the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra perform the US premiere of a work by Verdi, never heard here before, is a special moment for our players and myself. 175 years in a basement is a long time for a work to be hidden, but I am honored to be able to bring it to the US and even more special to premiere it here in Brooklyn.”
African Art Tour & Discussion
Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 2pm; Cultural Museum of African Art, Inc. (1360 Fulton St, 2nd Floor)
Join Dr. Eric Edwards for a tour of his groundbreaking collection of African art, collected over decades and spanning the 4,000 year history of the continent. The Cultural Museum of African Art invites you to explore, learn, and celebrate the richness of African culture—a celebration that contributes to the collective tapestry of our global heritage. Beyond the artifacts and artworks, the museum’s mission extends to fostering a greater understanding among all cultures. By showcasing the intricate beauty of African art, the museum aims to ignite a profound sense of unity—a recognition that, despite our diverse paths, we share a common humanity. The stories told within the museum’s walls are not just African stories; they are stories that resonate with the human experience.
African Art Tour & Discussion
Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 2pm; Cultural Museum of African Art, Inc. (1360 Fulton St, 2nd Floor)
Join Dr. Eric Edwards for a tour of his groundbreaking collection of African art, collected over decades and spanning the 4,000 year history of the continent. The Cultural Museum of African Art invites you to explore, learn, and celebrate the richness of African culture—a celebration that contributes to the collective tapestry of our global heritage. Beyond the artifacts and artworks, the museum’s mission extends to fostering a greater understanding among all cultures. By showcasing the intricate beauty of African art, the museum aims to ignite a profound sense of unity—a recognition that, despite our diverse paths, we share a common humanity. The stories told within the museum’s walls are not just African stories; they are stories that resonate with the human experience.
Film Screening: Corrina, Corrina (1994)
Friday, April 18, 2025, 10am; Brooklyn Academy of Music (80 Lafayette Avenue)
The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Senior Cinema program offers older adults ages 65 and older free admission to repertory classics, with complimentary popcorn and soda. On March 21, BAM will be screening the film “Corrina, Corrina,” starring Whoopi Goldberg and Ray Liotta.
Businessman Manny Singer (Ray Liotta) needs a reliable nanny to watch his daughter, Molly (Tina Majorino), in the absence of her late mother, yet the early applicants are unimpressive. Molly has barely talked since her mother’s death, but when Corrina Washington (Whoopi Goldberg) gets the girl chatting, she lands the job. Although some think their relationship is ahead of its time for the 1950s, African-American Corrina and Manny, who is white, soon appear to be headed for romance. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Steel Pan Workshop
Tuesday, April 22, 2025, 1PM; Fort Greene Council Grace Agard Harewood Older Adult Center (966 Fulton Street)
Join TropicalFete for a steel pan workshop intended to introduce students to the steel pan, a unique and versatile instrument that is native to Trinidad and Tobago. Students will learn about the history and culture of the steel pan, as well as the basics of playing the instrument. The class will be taught by an experienced steel pan instructor who will guide students through the learning process. Students will start by learning the basics of hand technique, such as how to grip the sticks and how to strike the notes. They will then learn about the different scales and chords that can be played on the steel pan.
“Macbeth in Stride” at BAM
Wednesday, April 23, 2025, 6:30pm; Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theater (651 Fulton Street)
A dazzling theatrical event created by Obie Award-winning artist Whitney White, who performs with an ensemble and a live band, Macbeth in Stride examines what it means to be an ambitious woman through the lens of one of Shakespeare’s most iconic characters.
This sensational production uses pop, rock, gospel, and R&B to trace the fatalistic arc of Lady Macbeth, while lifting up contemporary Black female power, femininity, and desire. Directors Tyler Dobrowsky and Taibi Magar (Underground Railroad Game, Is God Is) co-stage this groundbreaking production, with choreography by Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop). Read more at: https://www.bam.org/macbeth.
Music and Singing Class
Thursday, April 24, 2025, 12pm; Mark Morris Dance Group (3 Lafayette Avenue)
Join Heather Curran for a music and singing class at Mark Morris Dance Group. In Music & Singing classes, students explore the joy of singing while developing musicianship skills, such as ear training and sight reading. Our classes draw from folk, classical, Broadway, and contemporary songbooks with a focus on breathing, vocal technique, rhythm, melody, song interpretation, and creativity. All levels balance working together as an ensemble and individually as soloists.
Heather Curran, a South Florida native, graduated from the University of South Florida with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater performance. During her time there, she was an instructor for USF Summerplay Theater Camp and helped create an arts outreach program at the university community center that extended arts classes to children of families in the Florida court system. She was Assistant/Dramaturg to Ann Reinking’s Broadway Theater Project for four years. Currently, she is performing, recording, and teaching in the New York area as a member of Actors Equity. Some of her favorite roles include Franya in William Wade’s Warsaw, understudy to Kate Baldwin as Milady in George Stiles’ Three Musketeers (Starring Aaron Tveit), Irene Molloy in Hello, Dolly!, and Cinderella in Into the Woods. Her voice can be heard on John Tartaglia and William Wade’s ImaginOcean (Off Broadway/National & International Tour) and the New York Times bestselling children’s books The Kissing Hand and Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully. She also teaches music theater at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and Mark Morris Dance Center, where she is also an instructor for their Sing for PD program. She is also program coordinator for the Broadway’s Babies children’s program at a shelter in New York City.
Dance Class with Ballroom Basix
Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 1:30pm; Willoughby Senior Center (105 N. Portland Avenue)
Join Ballroom Basix at the Willoughby Senior Center from 1:30-3pm for a free dance class with ballroom experts, catered specifically to the needs and abilities of older adults!
Steel Pan Workshop
Wednesday, April 30, 2025, 1pm; Fort Greene Council Grace Agard Harewood Older Adult Center (966 Fulton Street)
Join TropicalFete for a steel pan workshop intended to introduce students to the steel pan, a unique and versatile instrument that is native to Trinidad and Tobago. Students will learn about the history and culture of the steel pan, as well as the basics of playing the instrument. The class will be taught by an experienced steel pan instructor who will guide students through the learning process. Students will start by learning the basics of hand technique, such as how to grip the sticks and how to strike the notes. They will then learn about the different scales and chords that can be played on the steel pan.
Permanent Collection Art Tour
Thursday, May 1, 2025, 12pm; Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway)
Join TropicalFete for a steel pan workshop intended to introduce students to the steel pan, a unique and versatile instrument that is native to Trinidad and Tobago. Students will learn about the history and culture of the steel pan, as well as the basics of playing the instrument. The class will be taught by an experienced steel pan instructor who will guide students through the learning process. Students will start by learning the basics of hand technique, such as how to grip the sticks and how to strike the notes. They will then learn about the different scales and chords that can be played on the steel pan.
Senior Sing-Along Workshop
Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 1:30pm; Brooklyn Conservatory of Music (58 7th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217)
As part of Council Member Hudson’s Spring Senior Series, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music is hosting a Senior Sing-along led by faculty member Jalen Hicks. All levels and voices types are welcome. Jalen has led the Park Slope Center for Successful Aging Choir for this last year and is a professional singer, actor and dancer. Registration is required.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Community Tour
Wednesday, May 14, 2025, 10:30am; Brooklyn Botanic Garden (990 Washington Avenue)
RESCHEDULED FROM APRIL 11
Discover spring blooms and other highlights of the season in this free tour of Brooklyn Botanic Garden led by trained Garden Guides.
*The information collected for this event may be used by Brooklyn Botanic Garden for marketing purposes.