Free Indigenous Drumming and Dance at the Boathouse

Brooklyn FAM is back for a sixth year, this time at the Boathouse, with five free hours built around Indigenous voices from North, Central and South America. The Red Blanket Singers open at 11 with Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape drum and dance, and Ballet Folklórico Juveníl de Brooklyn takes the floor at noon. It runs rain or shine, moving the whole program inside the Boathouse if the weather turns.

Most of the afternoon is built for joining in. The drumming circle comes with 40 instruments, from Taíno and Mesoamerican hand drums to West African djembe, and Taíno percussionist William Ruíz shows you how to hold a rhythm. The Red Blanket Singers play twice, 11 to 12 and 1 to 2, and the listing is direct, come ready to learn and dance. Wampum is a workshop rather than a souvenir: from 12:30 to 3:30 you help master carver Tecumseh Ceaser weave one six-foot bead belt. The things you take home come from the craft tables — your own corn-husk doll, a two-ounce jar of malagueta salve, jacla hoop earrings.

Admission is free, and you claim a ticket on Eventbrite before you go. Doors open at 10:45. Take the Q or the Franklin Avenue Shuttle (S) to Prospect Park — the B runs weekdays only — and come in by the Ocean Avenue entrance just south of Lincoln Road, since the Lincoln Road gate on Ocean is closed for construction. The lake's east shore is about a seven-minute walk south of the Boathouse; the stretch opposite the LeFrak Center looks west across several hundred metres of open water. Sunset on 1 November is 4:52, the first evening after the clocks go back, so treat the walk as a chance to watch the lake go dark rather than a promised show of sun on the water. Flatbush Avenue is a few minutes east of the gate. The photo at the top is from an earlier Brooklyn FAM festival, shot in October 2024 — photo by Gregory Horan.