After celebrating its historic 50th anniversary last year, during a year of lingering COVID, the International African Arts Festival (IAAFestival2022) returns to Brooklyn, revived and stronger than ever.<\/p>\n
IAAF\u2013 New York City\u2019s longest-running celebration of worldwide African music, dance, and culture\u2013 will take place at Commodore Barry Park, located at Nassau and Navy streets in Fort Greene, from Friday, July 1, to Monday, July 4, 10:00am to 9:00pm, rain or shine.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn, get ready: The festival has elevated its lineup of performances and new offerings. But what is also new and elevated is the price. What for years has been a donation event has become a ticketed event, with tickets starting at $15 for general entry; $60 for a weekend pass and $125 for all-weekend VIP experience.<\/p>\n
Be sure to go here to get your tickets in advance, so you\u2019re not caught out there at the entry to the park.<\/p>\n
The International African Arts Festival began in 1971 as a fundraiser for the Uhuru Sasa Shule (\u201cFreedom Now School\u201d), a community-based initiative that educated youth and adults about African culture. The fundraiser was a small festival with about 20 arts and crafts vendors, local entertainers, and food prepared by parents of the students who attended Uhuru Sasa School.<\/p>\n
Almost 2,000 people came to the event and the fundraiser was a major success. That early format of integrating entertainment, food, and marketplace drew increasing crowds annually and the event became known as the African Street Carnival.<\/p>\n
Four years later, the carnival was moved to the field at Boys and Girls High School in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. There, the event became the African Street Festival. Today, and for the last decade+, it has resided at the much larger venue of Commodore Barry Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York City\u2019s longest-running celebration of worldwide African music, dance and culture will take place at Commodore Barry Park, from Friday, July 1, to Monday, July 4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":11053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,12],"tags":[7,30,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-11056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-entertainment","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-entertainment"},"yoast_head":"\n