Co-created by Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, Jessica Grindstaff, and Dianne Berkun Menaker, Port(al) is a musical and civic exploration of the world through the lens of port cities – where human life and the oceans that connect and sustain us meet. Vividly evoking and honoring Brooklyn’s ghosts, Port(al) spins oral histories from recently passed figures like historian Howard Zinn (who worked as an apprentice in the Navy Yard) and activist Clarence L. Irving, Sr. (who had been a riveter in the Navy Yard) into stunning compositions; looks into the legacy of machinist and drag king Rusty Brown; and considers the power of the first live radio singing performance, by mezzo soprano Eugenia Farrar. Reflected in this swirl of text and song, performance, guided audio tour, and séance are the early prison ships that floated in Wallabout Bay and left over 11,500 victims in their wake, all buried near Navy Yard in the early 1800s; Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”; women’s, immigrants’, and Black Americans’ labor during wartime; the rise of queer culture into the public eye; and more. Ebbing, flowing, and interweaving throughout the piece are the voices of the youth chorus speaking to their relationship to their very own time and place, and their future.