{"id":189838,"date":"2026-04-08T18:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189838\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T18:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:14:12","slug":"local-express-book-kennison-queens-gazette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189838\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Express: Book Kennison – Queens Gazette"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Book Kennison (co-creator\/producer\/performer) is a perform\u00adance artist who uses juggling, movement, sound, and text. With no formal training, he\u2019s achieved great proficiency as a circus performer, writer, and music producer, and he combines his talents into spellbinding, seemingly effortless work. As a writer and musician, he\u2019s created work for companies like Midnight Circus, Circus Flora, and Hideaway Circus, and in his long career on stage he\u2019s appeared with companies as di\u00adverse as The 7 Fingers and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. With an uncompro\u00admising commitment to the artist\u2019s life and the pursuit of new ideas and techniques, his career, after more than 20 years, is just be\u00adginning. Book first moved to Astoria in 2012.<\/p>\n

NB: Other than the amazing diversity, what do\/did you love most about living in Queens (or Queens in general)? How has Queens changed over the years?<\/p>\n

BK: I love getting off the train in Queens after being in the city and taking a big exhale. It\u2019s a place you can truly relax, reflect, be yourself, and be at your own pace. To me, it\u2019s like living in an idyllic small town. We love our caf\u00e9, our bodega, our laundromat, and all the little quirks of our neighborhood that make it feel like home. The small businesses here are all so warm and generous, and it truly feels like we\u2019re maintaining something special here.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a0\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NB: How does Queens inspire you? What are some of your favorite places to be inspired in Queens?<\/p>\n

BK: Socrates Park and the newly re-opened Rainey Park have great views of the river and the city, and in the summer they\u2019re great places to hang out, think, read, and maybe do a little movement session. I\u2019m also a big fan of the Noguchi Museum, his work and his space is always inspiring. The fact that all these places are so close to\u00adgether in our little pocket of Queens is an incredible blessing.<\/p>\n

NB: What advice do you have for read\u00aders who are hoping to develop their creative or artistic practice? Is artistic talent innate and\/or can it be taught\/developed? How im\u00adportant is daily practice? Do you ever get stage fright\/camera shy\/performance anxi\u00adety or have advice about overcoming it?<\/p>\n

BK: Having an artistic practice is in\u00adseparable from the fact of being an artist. Whether or not talent is innate, the artist must develop themselves by developing a practice. What you see on the stage is the result of a lifetime of research, refinement, and devotion. At 3AM, our team all started as circus artists or dancers; the movement arts in particular require a dedication to the body and mind in order to work day-in and day-out and over the course of a career.<\/p>\n

NB: How important is personal con\u00adnection and communication (networking?) in your industry?<\/p>\n

BK: Personal connections are every\u00adthing in the circus and theater industry\u2013\u2013 I\u2019m always amazed at how often I work with someone I met twenty years ago, who\u2019s now in a completely new role. To run our space, we rely completely on our network in New York and beyond.<\/p>\n

NB: What are your favorite restaurants, cafes, theaters, book\u00adstores, exhibits, museums, communi\u00adties, and venues in Queens? Favorite places to perform in Queens?<\/p>\n

BK: There\u2019s the aforementioned Noguchi Museum, and of course PS1 and The Museum of the Moving Image. Everyone at 3AM is a big fan of Hidalgo Mexican Food, Caf\u00e9 9, and Il Miglio Pizzeria. Our favorite place to perform is our own venue: 3AM Theatre! But we\u2019d love to work with Socrates Park on an outdoor in\u00adstallation sometime in the future.<\/p>\n

NB: Do you have any events or projects coming up that you\u2019d like to promote? Your answer to this ques\u00adtion helps with our production sched\u00adule. Can you tell us more about your W3AM show?<\/p>\n

BK: Yes! Our variety show is called W3AM, and in April we\u2019ll be playing it all month on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There\u2019s no better place to see circus in New York\u2013\u2013our com\u00adpany members and friends are all true artists and so good at their disciplines. And it\u2019s not just circus! Every show features dance, live music, readings, and a DJ set post-show. Somehow, it all fits together perfectly, and every\u00adone always has a great time. It\u2019s a spe\u00adcial night, and truly a hidden gem in Queens. (For ticket): https:\/\/ticketstripe.com\/events\/3998108727886878)<\/p>\n

NB: How do you know when something you\u2019re working on (or piece, or any type of art) is \u201cdone\u201d (finished editing, complete)?<\/p>\n

BK: For live performance pieces, it\u2019s hard to say; the piece will natu\u00adrally continue to evolve over the course of its life on stage. The way we work at 3AM, there\u2019s often a deadline to present the piece, even if it doesn\u2019t exist in any form yet, and by present\u00ading it to an audience, we learn a lot about how we want to evolve it.<\/p>\n

NB: Can you tell us more about how your \u201cwork explores the inter\u00adsection of contemporary circus and physical theatre, blending high tech\u00adnical skill with immersive narratives and experimental stage design\u201d?<\/p>\n

BK: Our work is always big on visual spectacle\u2013\u2013lights and set pieces. What is revealed and ob\u00adstructed by lights, shadows, and ob\u00adjects. Even in our relatively small space in Astoria, we manage to create a striking visual world that the audi\u00adence can get lost in. We believe there\u2019s nothing more magical than high-level movement technique com\u00adbined with iconic visual propositions; when those two elements are in serv\u00adice of a compelling narrative, what you have is an unforgettable show. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to accom\u00adplish in our little corner of Queens.<\/p>\n

\u2014Nicollette Barsamian<\/p>\n

The Local-Express interview se\u00adries was originated on July 3, 2013 by Nicollette Barsamian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Book Kennison (co-creator\/producer\/performer) is a perform\u00adance artist who uses juggling, movement, sound, and text. With no formal training,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-189838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}