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PAC NYC: Creating an arts center at Ground Zero

Jeff Lunden goes behind the scenes of PAC NYC, the arts centre built on the site of the World Trade Center in New York, as it prepares to open its door for the first time.

September 2023 sees the opening of PAC NYC – the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York. It’s the final building in the new piazza, situated on the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, which was destroyed on the 11th September 2001, when hijackers seized US passenger jets and crashed them into the Twin Towers, killing thousands of people.

Jeff Lunden follows PAC NYC’s artistic director Bill Rauch and his behind the scenes team, as they get the specially built, flexible theatres ready for their opening season.

We’ll also be talking to some of the on stage creatives who’ve been commissioned to make works for this very special season, including theatre maker Bill T. Jones, whose piece Night Watch is about the shootings in a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina and a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Choreographer Annie-B Parsons talks about how it feels as a New Yorker to create her commission The March.

For many New Yorkers and also for people from across the world, the site remains a sacred space and we’ll be hearing from Paula Berry, who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks about why for her this arts center is on sacred ground and is a place to celebrate life.

Presenter and Producer: Jeff Lunden
Exec Producer: Andrea Kidd

(Photo: The Perelman Performing Arts Center, NYC. Credit: The Â鶹Éç)

Available now

27 minutes

Last on

Tue 24 Oct 2023 22:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 24 Oct 2023 03:32GMT
  • Tue 24 Oct 2023 10:32GMT
  • Tue 24 Oct 2023 17:32GMT
  • Tue 24 Oct 2023 21:32GMT
  • Tue 24 Oct 2023 22:32GMT