By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

GOVERNORS ISLAND — Brooklynites enjoyed first-class passage this past weekend to a historic 172-acre island temporarily transformed into a magical land filled with good-humored zaniness, art and music.

A free ferry shuttled passengers (along with sprites, cowgirls and others) all day between Fulton Ferry Landing and Governors Island, which opened for the summer season last week. There they found an idyll transformed by the arts group FIGMENT into a large-scale “collaborative artwork.� Art was everywhere, and visitors lost no time joining in to paint, wrap, sing and draw.

Dreams were built in boxes, walls of slate were covered with chalk drawings and sayings, and medieval-style Dagorhir combat games (using padded weapons) were fought in a dappled glade. Gnomes and garden herbs were put up for adoption, trees were decorated, and children skipped about in their newly painted socks as if they had woken up inside one of their happy dreams.

From high atop Fort Jay, dancers performed on a cannon, then wrapped it in white gauze. Sounds from hidden speakers, set off by someone walking by, echoed around coves and courtyards. DJs spun music next to graffiti painters and musicians played modified Furbies, while the wind powered hand-made instruments.

The cumulative effect was not an island filled with art, but rather a whole environment transformed into a colorful, twinkling place where anything might happen.

“I’ve never seen so many fairies on one ferry,� one visitor laughed as various winged persons boarded the 5:20 back to Brooklyn.

While FIGMENT will not return en masse this season, the group has worked with the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC) and Black Rock Arts Foundation to create a popular mini-golf course on the island, which will remain available.

A full slate of artistic and cultural activities are planned for this season, and the ferry will run to the island from Brooklyn on weekends when activities take place. (In Manhattan, the ferry runs once an hour between the Battery Maritime Building and the island every weekend.)

Governor’s Island is also a cyclist’s paradise. Every Friday between June 5 and Oct. 9, visitors can borrow a bike for free, for up to one hour, from Bike and Roll. For the first time they can bike to Picnic Point, a new eight-acre picnic area on the island’s southwestern corner that has never before been open to the public.

Governors Island is open to the public every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from May 30 through Oct. 11 for the 2009 season. For a full list of programs and events on the Island, visit www.govisland.com.

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