Performances & Exhibitions
Performances and exhibitions supported by 7G are a central to helping shape visual culture in the communities we invest in. By showcasing voices and visionaries across a range of mediums and of different backgrounds, art strengthens its position as a vehicle for social change and community engagement.
Art For Change x The Rockaway Hotel
Over the last two summers, The Rockaway Hotel + Spa has partnered with ART FOR CHANGE to offer limited-edition artwork by both established and emerging artists in select guest rooms. Connecting socially conscious art collectors with accomplished contemporary artists, ART FOR CHANGE’s print collection complements the hotel’s rotating selection of works from both locally and internationally renowned artists currently found throughout the hotel. A percentage of sales goes to local nonprofit organizations that work towards empowering the community.
Beach Sessions
The Rockaway Hotel + Spa & the 7G Foundation proudly sponsors Beach Sessions, a pioneering dance series in Rockaway Beach, Queens, NYC. Beach Sessions’ mission is to commission, produce, and present site-responsive choreographic work on New York’s shoreline, creating ambitious new work that expands the boundaries of contemporary dance. The series was established in 2015 by Rockaway Beach resident and performance producer Sasha Okshteyn to support a unique vision for the presentation of dance works in public spaces, and bring the popular outdoor dance festival model to New York City’s public beach. Since its inaugural season, Beach Sessions has presented more than 60 established to emerging artists to an audience of more than 5,000 people. It has built a reputation for bringing New York audiences non-traditional and multi-sensory live performance programming. And has introduced the Rockaways as a promising place for artmaking and cultural events.
Lilac Jam
The Rockaway Hotel and artist and photographer Zoë Buckman co-host Lilac Jam, a monthly curation of music and performance. Each time the gathering assembles, a new lineup of talents performs for a small yet always lively crowd at the beachside venue. Musicians are called up to the stage after observing from the audience, joining their friends for impromptu pieces of soundbite magic. Lilac Jam feels more like a welcoming neighborhood party than a ticketed concert. Lilac Jam's founders, Buckman and the Rockaway Hotel's Michi Jigarjian, have borne a space as intimate as it is inviting
Shikeith x Performa
Philadelphia-born, Pittsburgh-based artist Shikeith created an experimental opera that tangles history, myth, and biography into an epic story of metamorphoses, using the elemental nature of the beach––the ocean, the ebb and flow of the tide, and the never-ending sand––to explore transformation in all its forms. The aesthetic and staging of Shikeith’s first major performance was inspired by his artistic contemplations on hauntology, a concept referring to the return or persistence of elements from the past along with African-American histories attached to the color blue. Working with choreographer Morgan Bobrow-Williams, musical artist Rashad McPherson, and costume designer Carlos Soto, as well as an array of performers from inside the New York queer community, the artist will re-contextualize dominant ideas of Black masculinity in a tale of a contemporary man whose identity is, in part, marked by the history of American colonialism. The Rockaway Hotel was pleased to host Shikeith and performers for a 10-day residency leading up the opening of notes towards becoming a spill.