: 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 DREXC
IYA RED U MAY 12 X: AN AFROF , 730PM UTURIS T & MAY 13-14, 8 CABARET 30PM
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.
DREXCIYA REDUX: AN AFROFUTURIST CABARET a collaboration between 3LD and Renegade Performance Group with New York Live Arts
MAY 12, 730PM & MAY 13-14, 830PM Hosted by Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte MX Oops and Triggered Music so real, it ain’t real Choreography, emcee, and Costume Design by MX Oops Music composition by MX Oops and TRIGGERED MUSIC Video design by MX Oops nia love COUNTERcurrents Choreographed & Directed by nia love Projection Designer, Digital Filmmaker Laura Perez and Aidan Un Writer and Research team Benin Ford Music by Val Jentry aka Val Inc., and Billy Eckine UFlyMothership ÜFly Co-creator,Dancer, Vocalist, Songwriter, & Projection Design by Tendayi Kuumba & Greg Purnell Co-creator, Performer, Sound Designer, Creative Director, & Costume Designer by Greg Purnell Music by UFly Mix
Renegade Performance Group Salt Choreographer, Projection Design by André M. Zachery Live Sound Mixer, Sound Design by Espii Proctor Music by Drake Text by Earl Lovelace
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
BIOGRAPHIES Renegade Performance Group is a Brooklyn-based dance company creating innovative artistic work from Black and African Diaspora aesthetics and expressions through contemporary dance, site-specific performance and technology. Renegade Performance Group collaborates with artists of all genres on projects that stretch performance presentation. Renegade Performance Group was founded in Brooklyn in 2007 to engage a new generation of audience to performance, media, and culture. The company was formed as an artistic outlet to foster dialogue compelled by the human experience. Since the company’s inception, RPG has performed throughout NYC, domestically, and internationally. RPG has received several residencies, awards and support for its ongoing work from institutions such as the Jerome Foundation, CUNY/Dance Initiative, the Brooklyn Arts Council, Harlem Stage, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, MoCADA, Danspace Project, The Studio Museum of Harlem, 3LD Art & Technology Center and The Kennedy Center. Additionally, the company supports and promotes our
home borough’s small-business owners, local artisans and local commerce.....Brooklyn based, Brooklyn strong. André M. Zachery André M. Zachery is a Brooklynbased interdisciplinary artist and the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group. He holds a BFA from Ailey/ Fordham University and MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts from CUNY/Brooklyn College. His practice, research and community engagement artistically focuses on merging of choreography, technology and Black cultural practices through multimedia work. André is a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Gregory Millard Fellow in Choreography and 2019 Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Choreography. He has worked on major projects across artistic mediums as a choreographer, media designer and consultant with artists such as Daniel Bernard Roumain, Cynthia Hopkins, Davalois Fearon, Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE, Arin Maya, Rags & Ribbons, The Clever Agency, Kendra Foster, Manhattan School of Music, Burwell & Sasser and Spike Lee.
Sadah Espii Proctor (Espii) is a VR director and sound/ media designer for theatre and immersive experiences. Named by American Theatre Magazine as one of “6 Theatre Artists to Know” for multimedia storytelling, her work encompasses global stories of women, social issues, and the African Diaspora, often with an Afrofuturist/Cyberpunk lens. She received her M.F.A. in Performance and Interactive Arts from Brooklyn College and is a proud alumna of Virginia Tech. Visual collaborations have included Kimbra and Sophia Brous (EXO-TECH), Sasha Velour, Neycha, Soul Science Lab, and Hi-ARTS. Proctor works regularly throughout New York City and across the country as a sound and video designer in places like JACK, Brooklyn Museum, Pioneer Works, Portland Stage, Passage Theatre, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, and La MaMa. She’s received developmental support for her work as a Member of NEW INC through the Kate Spade Fellowship, Creative to Founder Lab at NY Media Center, Digital Art Resident at Con Artist Collective, Researcher-in-Residence at Virginia Tech’s Spatial Music Workshop, and XR Lab Fellow at NYU Tandon/Timewave Festival. She’s also given back
as a mentor at institutions such as #BUILTBYGIRLS, Elgin Community College, MIT, and NYU. MX OOPS & TRIGGERED MUSIC MX OOPS is a multimedia performance artist and educator whose work centers hybridity, encouraging ecstatic disobedience as a path toward embodied wellness. In collaboration with experimental sound and media artist, TRIGGERED MUSIC, they push the walls of club culture, walls already dripping wet with liberation. Their work is NYC-based, while centering the party as a queer site of transnational Afro-diasporic imagining. www.mxoops.com (instagram) @mx_oops (instagram) @triggered_music UFly Mothership (Tendayi Kuumba & Greg Purnell) UFlyMothership is a collaborative partnership of Tendayi Kuumba & Greg Purnell. Together they create multimedia experiences through sound, visuals, fashion & movement. UFly have been creating music & performance since 2017. Past works include Dance Mission Theaters D.R.I.T. Festival “Harriet’s Gun, visual album U.F.O.”The Mixtape”’, & U.F.O (Unidentified Fly Objects):
Stardust Melanin. Each piece created is a sonic portal of self discovery. Welcome aboard. nia love and Laura Perez nia love director/choreographer Her career spans forty years, beginning in 1978 becoming one of the youngest international apprentices with Ballet Nacional de Cuba. Received a BFA/BS in Theater Directing and pre Medicine from Howard University and an MFA in Choreography from Florida State University. In 1996 studied Butoh and toured with Japanese Butoh master Min Tanaka and received the honorary Fulbright Fellow in 2002-03. love has two Bessie Awards; 2017 Dance PerformanceAward Outstanding Performance (Skeleton Architecture), and Outstanding Music Composition/ Sound Design. love, a recipient of the 2019 Gibney Presents Residency and Gibney|DiP, Urban Bush Women’s 2019-20-(21) Choreographic Center Initiative Fellowship (extended award due to COVID pandemic), a recipient of 2020 MAP Fund, 2020-21 Artist in Residence at Bryn Mawr College, 2021 MANCC (Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography) Residency, the Movement Research Rosin Fund Residency. She is currently the
Brooklyn Arts Exchange ArtistIn-Residence Co-Advisor and New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Advisor. love presently serves as an Assistant professor adjunct at Queens College and New school|Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. Laura Sofía Pérez projection designer An interdisciplinary artist who works in video, installation, sound, and performance. She received her MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts. Exhibitions include “WAVEFORM” (Curated by CultureHub LA), Shatto Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2019), “No Limits Within,” California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, CA (2017), “Homeless” (Curated by Void Projects), Miami, FL (2017), “Without a Song,” Fundación ACE, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2014), and “WIMMIN,” Glasshouse, Brooklyn, NY (2013). Residencies include SUB30 artist in residence at Fundación ACE, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2014), La Práctica at Beta-Local, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2019), and BAiR Emerging at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Canada (2020). She participated in the AfA Masterclass Program with Terike Haapoja (2020).
Benin Ford writer/researcher Originally from Memphis, TN, Benin Ford is a painter and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He was awarded the 2013 Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters and Sculptors Grant, and has exhibited at Exit Art, New York, NY, and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN. He has guest lectured at New York University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He received an MFA/MS in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute. His current painting projects continue to explore the political and visual unconscious of 70s and 80s commercial network television. His current research and writing projects include collaborative study in nia love’s g1, and an extended essay on J. M. W. Turner’s, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On. Aidan Un Originally from the suburbs of Paris, France, Aidan Un is a FrenchKorean-American filmmaker and photographer based in West Philadelphia. He works primarily in the genre of documentary and is interested in questions of culture, place, and identity. Recent and past works include:
documentation of Kulu Mele African Dance and Drum Ensemble’s 50th Anniversary project Ogun & the People (2018/19); video and photo documentation of Intercultural Journeys (2015-19); editing and co-producing of “Dancing the Divine”, a film by Sattriya artist Madhusmita Bora (2018); video and photo documentation of movement artist and cultural worker Lela Aisha Jones and her company FlyGround (2014-19); filming and editing “The Street Pearls Mixtape” a 17min short film about Hip Hop dance artist Mark Wong which screened at the Philadelphia Asian American Festival in November 2017, and most recently collaboration with nia love in her 7-year project g1(host):lostatsea iteration UNDERcurrents. Aidan’s work has been featured at BlackStar Film Festival, Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, Mustard Seed Festival, The Outlet D. Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte (Emcee) is a multidisciplinary artist who synthesizes creative practice and genealogy in pursuit of reparations for Afro—Indigenous peoples. Tim was a Riggio Fellow at The New School, is a graduate fellow at The Watering Hole, and is a 2021 Laundromat Project
Create Change fellow. Prolific is the author of Ofrenda para las ancestras, and their Blues poem Purple is available on all streaming services. Edwaujonte hails from Uniondale, NY, and lives in Bed-Stuy.
(NCA). Reynaldo has 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 3LD believes in the power of recently assisting in the technology to amplify human completion of a library project for experience and human expression, the Sekyere Afram Plains district provoking empathy and complex in the country of Ghana. Reynaldo reflection, thought and action. publishes extensively in the area We exist to produce original of Afrofuturism, communication works in theater, performance, studies, and the African diaspora dance, media and hybrid forms; to experience. Reynaldo is currently explore the narrative possibilities the executive director and cocreated by digital technology; to founder of the Black Speculative foster artists’ self expression Arts Movement (BSAM) a network and skill through training of artists, curators, intellectuals initiatives; and to provide an open and activists. Finally, he is the coenvironment free of censorship in editor of the book Afrofuturism which artists can create new tools 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness and modes of expression and published by Lexington books, co-editor of Cosmic Underground: excel across a range of disciplines. A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent published by Cedar Co-curator of the Grove Publishing, the forthcoming Live Ideas Festival volume The Black Speculative Dr. Reynaldo Anderson currently Art Movement: Black Futurity, serves as an Associate Professor Art+Design to be released by of Communication and Chair of Lexington press in 2018, and the Humanities department at the co-editor of Black Lives, Harris-Stowe State University in Black Politics, Black Futures, Saint Louis Missouri. Reynaldo a forthcoming special issue has earned several awards for leadership and teaching excellence of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. and he is currently the Past Chair of the Black Caucus of the National Communication Association
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.
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