AFROFUTURIST INVERSE - PROGRAM

: S D L R ION T A O R E W L

CCE D A E F O R ALTE THE AGE ND

PIA A O T U BLACK

AFROF

UTURIS T MAY 12 INVERSE , 6PM

Image by BLACKMAU

New York Live Arts is located in Lenapehoking. We acknowledge and pay respect to the Lenape people, the elders and ancestors, past, present and coming in the future. We acknowledge and offer deep gratitude to Lenapehoking - the land and waters of the Lenape homeland.

Special thanks to our partners, collaborators and sponsors

Live Ideas 2021 is co-curated by Reynaldo Anderson and New York Live Arts in partnership with the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM).

Live Ideas 2021

ALTERED-WORLDS: BLACK UTOPIA AND THE AGE OF ACCELERATION Contemporary Afrofuturism may be defined as an emerging social philosophy of the African diaspora and Africa.

Today, partly because of a crisis in globalization, social media and other technological advances, second wave Afrofuturism is emerging as the High Culture of the African diaspora and is the cultural vibranium of a rising virtual African civilization. The 2021 edition of Live Ideas, Altered-Worlds: Black Utopia and The Age of Acceleration, will explore this second wave of Afrofuturism as an alternative to the social anomie, reactionary impulses and neo-fascism of late capitalism. The five-day inter-disciplinary hybrid festival will unfold across multiple dimensions through installations, conversations and performances at the intersection of arts, techno-culture, sci-fi, social sciences, philosophy and the imagination.

AFROFUTURIST INVERSE MAY 13, 5PM (EST) Demo 1 INFINITUM: An Afrofuturist Tale’s Tim Fielder Under the Hood Art Demonstration Conducted by Tim Fielder This live art presentation will focus on the techniques of visual afrofuturism utilized for the groundbreaking graphic novel, INFINITUM: An Afrofuturist Tale, published by HarperCollins Amistad. The artwork, produced by author/illustrator, Tim Fielder, will showcase how the bridge between the analog and digital worlds blend towards a hybrid form of fully rendered storytelling.

Demo 2 Afrofuturist VR Demo Conducted by Micheline Hess Enjoy a live demo with comic artist, Micheline Hess as she showcases how she sculpts a 3D character entirely in VR! During this demo, she will discuss inspiration, methodology and how she began her journey into digital sculpting during quarantine.

Afrofuturist Comics Roundtable With Julian Chambliss, Greg Anderson Elysée, Tim Fielder, Jason Reeves and Regine Sawyer Afrofuturist Inverse is supported in part by Dieselfunk Studios

SUPPORT Without our wonderful friends at Crux, we would not have been able to create such an innovative and interactive virtual performance space.

INTERSPACE is the vision of the Crux team and we highly recommend them if you’re looking for your next digital venue! Click here to learn more and reach out to them.

Support for Live Ideas is provided by: Partners for New Performance: Julie Orlando (Chair), Alexes Hazen, Linda Hirschon, Andrea Rosen, Nina Stricker.

Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Ford Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Google, Marta Heflin Foundation, Alex Katz Foundation, Lambent Foundation, Alice Lawrence Foundation, The Poss Family Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Semel Charitable Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

Support for discounted tickets provided by Con Edison.

Live Ideas receives public funds from Humanities New York, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council with special thanks to Council Member Corey Johnson.

Enjoy this presentation and your experience at Live Arts?

Please consider making a donation so we continue to support artists like this and their critical work!

Donate at newyorklivearts.org/support/donate

CALENDAR & EVENTS Virtual Events MAY 10 7PM

Live Ideas Gala 2021 Digital Gala | $100 Digital Event Tickets

MAY 12 6PM

Insighting and Foresighting: The Extraordinary Prescience of Octavia Butler INTERSPACE | Tickets start at $10

MAY 12 7PM

Interspace Exhibition Opening INTERSPACE | FREE with RSVP

MAY 13 5PM

AFROFUTURIST INVERSE INTERSPACE | FREE with RSVP

MAY 14 1PM

Live Ideas Symposium INTERSPACE | Tickets start at $15

MAY 14 7PM

Saul Williams: The Motherboard Suite Livestream | Tickets start at $20

MAY 14 8PM

ALTER-WORLDS (( COSMIC FUNK )) AFTER-PARTY Livestream | FREE

MAY 15 12PM

Upcycling Movement Revolutions & Re:INCARNATION INTERSPACE | Tickets start at $25

MAY 15 7PM

Saul Williams: The Motherboard Suite Livestream | Tickets start at $20

Box Office

Tickets can be purchased at newyorklivearts.org.

Discounts

FESTIVAL PASSES: $50/$35/$25 virtual pass Use code liveideas2021 and get 50% off the virtual pass when you buy 1 live in-person ticket to The Motherboard Suite or Drexcia Redux: An Afrofuturist Cabaret.

Installation Theater Hours: May 12 7pm-10pm, May 13 following the Viewing Hours performance, approx. 8pm-10pm, May 14 following the performance, approx. 8pm – 10pm, May 15 2pm – 8pm Lobby Hours: May 12-14 3pm-10pm, May15 2pm-8pm Studio Hours: May 12 8:30-10pm, May 13-14 5pm- 7:30pm & 9:30pm-10p, May 15 2pm – 8pm

Live In-person MAY 11 7PM

Installation Opening: Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another, Baïlaurâ & Drexciya Redux FREE with RSVP

MAY 12 730PM

Drexciya Redux: An Afrofuturist Cabaret Studio | Tickets start at $20

MAY 13 7PM

Saul Williams: The Motherboard Suite Theater | Tickets start at $45

MAY 13 830PM

Drexciya Redux: An Afrofuturist Cabaret Studio | Tickets start at $20

MAY 14 7PM

Saul Williams: The Motherboard Suite Theater | Tickets start at $45

MAY 14 830PM

Drexciya Redux: An Afrofuturist Cabaret Studio | Tickets start at $20

MAY 15 7PM

Saul Williams: The Motherboard Suite Times Square | FREE

MAY 15 8PM

Cosplay @ Time Square Times Square | FREE

COVID precautions

In-person audience will be required to provide proof of negative results from a PCR or rapid antigen COVID-19 test or COVID-19 full vaccination, as well as temperature checks on event day in order to gain entry. More info

Directions

219 W 19th Street, New York, NY 10011 (Between 7th & 8th Aves) Subway: 1 to 18th Street, 2/3, F, M, L and A/C/E to 14th Street.

BIOGRAPHIES Tim Fielder is an Illustrator, concept designer, cartoonist, and animator born in Tupelo, Mississippi,and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He has a lifelong love of Visual Afrofutuism, Pulp entertainment, and action films. He is known for his graphic novel series, Matty’s Rocket, and his TEDx Talk on Afrofuturism. His most recent work is the critically acclaimed graphic novel, INFINITUM: An Afrofuturist Tale, published by HarperCollins Amistad. www.dieselfunk.com Insta: @Dieselfunk Twitter: @Dieselfunk -Born and raised in New York City, Micheline Hess is the author and illustrator of the award-winning, fantasy-adventure comic, Malice in Ovenland’. Having graduated from Parsons School of Design with a Master’s Degree in Design & Technology, Micheline loves using Virtual Reality to create visual narratives that elevate and inspire Black women and girls. www.michmasharts.com Insta - @michmasharts Twitter - @michmasharts -Greg Anderson Elysée is a

Brooklyn, NY born HaitianAmerican writer, educator, filmmaker, and model. He has been teaching various forms of filmmaking, including narrative and documentary, from elementary level to the elderly since 2012. A former journalist for theOuthousers.com, he also ran his own column, (Heard It Thru) The Griotvine, where he showcased independent creators of color and LGBTQ creators. He also wrote for the independent pop culture news website Bleeding Cool. He is known through the community for doing this on a broader scale, all while presenting his thoughts on diversity.

Is’nana: The Were-Spider was his first comic series, and is a multi award winner, including 2018 Fan Award, Rising Star, and Best Male Character, and 2019 Best Writer and Story of the Year (Glyph Awards). Is’nana is based on Anansi the trickster god of the Akan people of Ghana, whose stories have spread for centuries throughout Africa as well as the Caribbean. The Gentleman: Darkness of the Void and Marassa, both published

by Evoluzione Publishing, debuted in 2018. Elysée has also published work with Lion Forge via the nationally recognized project Puerto Rico Strong. webwaycomics.ecwid.com -Jason Reeves is the owner of 133art, a comic book publishing imprint and printer. He is also a freelance illustrator from time to time. His clients have included: HASBRO, Esquire Magazine, USA Today, Wizards of the Coast, Heavy Metal Magazine, Frontline Detroit Coalition.

with MV Media and Hiro!

Unlimited are banding together to tackle an important piece of the publishing puzzle, distribution with BIC Distro. Its focus is to get Black Indie content out to the wider audience with the help of comic retailers, bookstores, and anywhere books are sold.

For more on Jason, 133art, 133art Printing, and BIC Distro visit: 133art.com and bicdistro.com To pre-order Pax Samson visit: simonandschuster.com -Regine L Sawyer is the writer/ Jason has co-created, written, publisher at Lockett Down and Illustrated the award winning Productions and the Coordinator/ OneNation,Kid Carvers, and Founder of the Women in RET:CON. Comics Collective International.

This August his newest original Regine is known for her award graphic novel Pax Samson (cowinning series ‘Eating Vampires’. created with Rashad Doucet) will lockettdown.com and be released from publisher Oni womenincomicscollective.org Press/Lionforge. 133art has also Twitter: @LockettDown teamed up with MV Media to -produce the Changa and the Jade Julian C. Chambliss is Professor Obeliskcomic adaptation. 133art of English and the Val Berryman is also 1/3 of the partnership with Curator of History at the MSU Nerdsoul Podcast and Legends Museum at Michigan State Press, who have come together to University. In addition, he is a broadcast the pop culture virtual co-director for the Department variety show: The Rent Party. of English Digital Humanities and Literary Cognition Lab (DHLC) and a core participant in the In addition to being a comic MSU College of Arts & Letters’ publisher133art, in partnership

Consortium for Critical Diversity in a Digital Age Research (CEDAR).

His research interests focus on race, culture, and power in real and imagined spaces. His recent writing has appeared in American Historical Review, Phylon, Frieze Magazine, Rhetoric Review, and Boston Review. An interdisciplinary scholar he has designed museum exhibitions, curated art shows, and created public history projects that trace community, ideology, and power in the United States.

United States.

Chambliss is co-producer and host of Every Tongue Got to Confess, a podcast examining communities of color. Every Tongue is the winner of the 2019 Hampton Dunn New Media Award from the Florida Historical Society. In addition, he co-produced and cohosted the Florida Constitution Podcast, a limited series podcast the won the 2019 Hampton Dunn Internet Award from Florida Historical Society. He is the producer and host of Reframing History, a podcast exploring humanities theory and practice in the United States.

Website: julianchambliss.com Twitter: @JulianChambliss

He is co-editor and contributor for Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men: Superheroes and the American Experience, a book examining the relationship between superheroes and the American Experience (2013). His recent Co-curator of the book projects include Assembling Live Ideas Festival the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Dr. Reynaldo Anderson currently Essays on the Social, Cultural, and serves as an Associate Professor Geopolitical Domain (2018), Cities of Communication and Chair of Imagined: The African Diaspora the Humanities department at in Media and History (2018), and Harris-Stowe State University in Reframing Digital Humanities: Saint Louis Missouri. Reynaldo Conversations with Digital has earned several awards Humanists (2021). His current for leadership and teaching exhibition for MSU Museum, excellence and he is currently the Beyond the Black Panther: Vision Past Chair of the Black Caucus of Afrofuturism in American of the National Communication Comics explore Afrofuturist Association (NCA). Reynaldo has theme comics produced in the not only served as an executive

board member of the Missouri Arts Council, he has previously served at an international level working for prison reform with C.U.R.E. International in Douala Cameroon, and as a development ambassador recently assisting in the completion of a library project for the Sekyere Afram Plains district in the country of Ghana. Reynaldo publishes extensively in the area of Afrofuturism, communication studies, and the African diaspora experience. Reynaldo is currently the executive director and cofounder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM) a network of artists, curators, intellectuals and activists. Finally, he is the coeditor of the book Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness published by Lexington books, co-editor of Cosmic Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent published by Cedar Grove Publishing, the forthcoming volume The Black Speculative Art Movement: Black Futurity, Art+Design to be released by Lexington press in 2018, and the co-editor of Black Lives, Black Politics, Black Futures, a forthcoming special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies.

LIVE ARTS CONTRIBUTORS New York Live Arts is deeply grateful to all the individuals listed below for their vital gifts to New York Live Arts over the last year: $500,000 and higher Anonymous Slobodan Randjelović & Jon Stryker $100,000-$499,999 Eleanor Friedman Ruth & Stephen Hendel Alex Katz Foundation Ellen M. Poss Jane Bovingdon Semel & Terry Semel / Semel Charitable Foundation $50,000 - $99,999 Zoe Eskin Suzanne Karpas Barbara & Alan Marks $25,000 - $49,999 Anonymous Patricia Blanchet / Ed Bradley Family Foundation David Dechman & Michel Mercure Adam Flatto Lorraine Gallard & Richard H. Levy Helen & Peter Haje James C. Hormel & Michael P. Nguyen in memory of Linda Grass Shapiro Charla Jones Amy Newman & Bud Shulman Randy Polumbo / Plant Construction Matthew Putman Alanna Rutherford Diana Wege $10,000 - $24,999 Bloomberg Philanthropies Alexes Hazen Colleen Keegan Julie Orlando Andrea Rosen Ruby Shang $5,000 - $9,999 Derek Brown & Deborah Hellman Paula Cooper & Jack Macrae Agnes Gund Bill T. Jones & Bjorn Amelan Jeffrey B. & Wendy Liszt Deborah Ronnen Melissa Schiff Soros Cindy Sherman Williams Family Foundation

$1,000 - $4,999 Anonymous Gerald Appelstein Charlotte & Charles Buchanan Jonathan J. Cohen Charitable Fund Jeannie Colbert Kim Cullen Joan Davidson Lil and Jim DeMarse Dobkin Family Foundation Margaret Doyle Philip Gallo Mimi Garrard Judith & Steven Gluckstern Michael & Deborah Goldberg Otho Kerr Glenn Ligon Anna Maltby & Akshay Patil Tommy McCall & Victor Zonana Nancy Meyer & Marc Weiss Susan Micari Meridee Moore & Kevin King Thomas Nichols & Daniel Chadburn Deborah Pines Rita Salzman The Susan Stein Shiva Foundation Catharine R. Stimpson Kristalina & Jack Taylor Kate Whitney & Franklin Thomas James & Azin Wilcox Bruce & Megumi Williams Timothy Wu & Eric Murphy $500 - $999 Arthur Aviles Timothy Benning The Marshall Frankel Foundation Sharon Gerstel Olivia Katz Kenneth Machlin John Sansone Deborah Swiderski Gifts and commitments between 4/1/2020-3/31/2021

Support is provided by the Alice Lawrence Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Arnhold Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Con Edison, Dance/NYC, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., Ford Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Humanities New York, Hyde & Watson Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Joseph & Joan Cullman Foundation, MAP Fund, Marta Heflin Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, New Music USA, O’Donnell Green Music & Dance Foundation, Samuel Levy Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Studio Institute, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, William Penn Foundation.

New York Live Arts is supported by public funds from Humanities New York, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council with special thanks to Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

STAFF & BOARD Artistic Leadership

Executive Leadership

Board of Directors

Bill T. Jones Artistic Director

Kim Cullen Executive Director & CEO

Stephen Hendel Co-Chair

Janet Wong Associate Artistic Director

Development

Richard H. Levy Co-Chair

Dave Archuletta Chief Development Officer

Helen Haje Vice Chair

Kyle Maude Producing Director

Ali Burke Individual Giving & Special Events Manager

Slobodan RandjeloviĆ Vice Chair

Hannah Emerson Producing Associate

Erin Baskin Institutional Giving Manager

Veronica Falborn Producing Associate & Production Stage Manager

Bianca Bailey Member Services & Education Coordinator

Davin DeCicco Producing Assistant

Candystore Development Assistant

Kim Cullen Chief Executive Officer Ex-Officio

Hans Rasch Institutional Giving Assistant

Bjorn Amelan

Production Hillery Makatura Director of Production

Finance & Operations

Creative Director

Nupur Dey Director of Finance

Programming, Producing & Engagement

Bjorn G. Amelan Communications Tyler Ashley Director of Communications

Gregory English Rentals Coordinator

Alan Marks Treasurer Alanna Rutherford Secretary Bill T. Jones Artistic Director Ex-Officio

Sarah Arison Aimee Meredith Cox LaToya Ruby Frazier Charla Jones Colleen Keegan Amy Newman Randy Polumbo

Human Resources

Ellen M. Poss

ADP TotalSource

Matthew Putman Jane Bovingdon Semel

Mayadevi Ross Digital Media Coordinator

Legal Services

Ruby Shang

Hannah Seiden Front of House Coordinator

Lowenstein Sandler, PC Pro-Bono Counsel

Catharine R. Stimpson

Liliana Dirks-Goodman Graphic Designer Pentagram Pro-Bono Branding Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist Raja Feather Kelly Faye Driscoll Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company Vinson Fraley, Jr., Barrington Hinds, Chanel Howard, Dean Michael Husted, Shane Larson, s. Lumbert, Marie Paspe, Nayaa Opong, Huiwang Zhang

Diana Wege Board Emeritus Derek Brown Terence Dougherty Eleanor Friedman Advisory Council Margaret Doyle, Chair Alberta Arthurs Beverly D’Anne Lisa Frigand Jenette Kahn Susan Micari Alton Murray Lorraine Gallard Lois Greenfield Martha Sherman