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CONVERSATION SERIES: MAKING SPACE AT THE ARMORY
SALON/PERFORMANCE: QUEER HIP HOP CYPHER With Krudxs Cubensi and Shanté Paradigm Smalls sunday, may 15, 2022 at 3:00pm Featuring: Ms.Boogie, Odaymar Cuesta of Krudxs Cubensi, Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz, Librada Gonzalez Fernández, Jack Fuller, Ford Kelly, Dr. Jason King, Serena Ebony Miller, Leah Penniman, Naima Penniman, Oli Prendes of Krudxs Cubensi, DJ Rimarkable, Yesenia Selier, Dr. Shanté Paradigm Smalls, Miguel “Miguelo” Valdes, tim’m west, and Nia O. Witherspoon
Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic season has been generously provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, GRoW @ Annenberg, the Richenthal Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory's Artistic Council. Cover photo: Qrcky.
2022 SEASON SPONSORS
Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
ABOUT THE CYPHER It’s an open secret that hip hop is collaborative and competitive, improvisational and obsessed with history. An oppositional culture of the streets, hip hop has thrived through rites and rituals that perpetually return it to the source. The cypher is one such ritual. At core it is an exchange of freestyle bars amongst rappers gathered in a circle. Here the cypher is taken both literally and as a metaphor for this gathering of artists, activists, and the audience making space for joy, healing, critical engagement, fellowship, music, and dance. Decoding the queerness of hip hop past, present, and future of future, and celebrating its multilingual, multicultural, international spirit, this cypher will get you jumping. — Tavia Nyong’o, Curator, Public Programming at Park Avenue Armory 3:00pm – 4:00pm: Second Floor Hallway Celebration of BIPOC Vegan Foodways Opening remarks, including pre-recorded keynote address by Soul Fire Farm Co-Founder and Farm Manager Leah Penniman with dance by Soul Fire Farm Program Manager Naima Penniman Accompanied by vegan catering by Amor Cubano 3:00pm – 7:00pm: 19K Films on Loop Please see page 5 for a list of film titles and credits. 4:00pm – 5:15pm: Veterans Room Hip Hop Heresies Roundtable Panel discussion on the queer aesthetics in hip hop, from the 1990’s underground scene in New York to today, opened with a performance by Creative Capital grant-winner and Priestess of Twerk Nia O. Witherspoon accompanied by cellist Serena Ebony Miller and violinist Jack Fuller. Panelists include: Dr. Shanté Paradigm Smalls, CLAGS Award-Winning Hip Hop Scholar and Dharma Teacher; Ms.Boogie, Afro-Latina Brooklyn-based Emcee and activist; Dr. Jason King, Chair of New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music; tim’m west, educator, poet, youth advocate, and hip-hop artist; and Nia O. Witherspoon, Priestess of Twerk. 5:15pm – 5:30pm: First Floor Hallway Procession Audience moves from the Veterans Room to the Yesenia Selier and batá drummer Miguel “Miguelo” Valdes.
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5:30pm – 7:00pm: Board of Officers Room Black Healing Portal II: Más allá del tiempo / Beyond Time The portal begins with additional excerpts from Archivo Cubanecuir films by Librada González Fernández, followed by performances by Krudxs Cubensi, emceed by poet and Executive Director of the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz with music by DJ Rimarkable.
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ARTISTS STATEMENT BY KRUDXS CUBENSI
The Black Healing Portal (BHP) II: Más allá del tiempo / Beyond Time is an interdisciplinary, multidimensional performative experience and community offering that portrays freedom and transgression in a divine way. It is the reinterpretation of tradition, it is Rap and Afro-Cuban Culture/Religion recreation, it is transformative resilience that combines past, present, and the future, it is curated and dreamed up by the miraculous Krudxs Cubensi DIY Queer Hip Hop Pioneers since 1999 in Cuba relocated to US in 2006, unapologetic life-giving game-changers, intersectional non binary transfeminists, working class independent musicians, Fat, Vegan, Black and Latinx multidisciplinary artivists. The Black Healing Portal II: Más allá del tiempo / Beyond Time takes participants on an extraordinary, transcendental journey that explores race, gender, temporality, religion, class, and sexuality through Art to invert the margins, set parallel reality up, and reactivate sacred cycles. Magic healing is possible because of the Ancestors, Goddess, Planets, and Spirits, their guidance and blessings, and also because of ourselves. Authenticity from radical self-representation. BHP II is in collaboration with artist and thinker Yesenia Selier, Afrocuban performer, dancer, researcher, sacerdotiza, story teller, Ritual artist, and Visionary Healer, as well as archivist Librada González Fernández, trans researcher and archivist born in Cuba. In 2019, González Fernández created Archivo Cubanecuir, a collection dedicated to safekeeping and reclaiming historical documents about the Cuban LGBTQIA+ experience. As an independent archivist, González Fernández strives to prioritize the most marginalized queer narratives that remain ignored by institutional archives. She is currently working on a book that will document the history of trans and gender non-conforming Cubans in drag and burlesque. The first iteration of the Black Healing Portal I was presented by Black Studies Collaboratory (University of California at Berkeley), where Krudxs Cubensi are Artist Fellows of The Abolition Democracy Fellows Program. The event took place at Critical Resistance in Oakland, California on April 20, 2022.
ABOUT THE BLACK STUDIES COLLABORATORY, UC BERKELEY
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Just Futures initiative, the Black Studies Collaboratory aims to bring together artists, activists, and scholars to amplify the interdisciplinary, political and world-building work of Black Studies. The task of building life-affirming institutions is more urgent than ever. BSC takes this moment as an invitation to reimagine African American Studies’ relationship to UC Berkeley and in turn reimagine the institution’s relationship to its surrounding Black communities. It asks, how might the insights and practices of the Black Radical, Black Intellectual, and Black Feminist traditions—which value methodological experimentation, epistemological breadth, and multipositional participation—be used to produce new modes of knowledge production, scholarly engagement, and community practice? Organized around the themes of archives, activism, and arts, the Black Studies Collaboratory consists of The Abolition Democracy Fellows Program, the Global Black Feminisms Summer Lab, the Black Studies Collaboratory Open University course, and a Black Futures Retreat that will be the culmination of the initiative.
Poem: “Welcome”
Welcome everyone, the hers, the they/them, the hims, the creatures in between, welcome to this dimension, welcome to this renegade feminism, welcome to the diaspora of the diaspora, welcome to creativity as form of faith, welcome to blackness, welcome to magnificence, welcome to fatness, welcome to transness, to the nonbinaryness welcome to queerness, welcome to the otherness
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Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
Song: “Black Healing Portal” Spanish text
English text
Los recursos, las riquezas hay que redistribuir, reparations Los complejos de prisiones, La industria armamentista Los cuerpos policiales... No debe existir, Ejercitos militares los ricos y los gobiernos Tenemos que abolir Abolicion. Abolition Liberacion para les hermanes, Liberacion Pa’ les cubanes Liberacion humanos y animales, Reparacion redistribución Emancipacion pa mi pueblo oprimido Pa’ las personas y los, sueños cautivos Abolicion de prisiones y castigo’. Educacion eso es lo que yo pido Medicina verde, libertad de expresion. Libertad ‘e movimiento. Liberacion en las camas, en los edificios, en las calles en mentes en los corazones en los detalles Liberacion para les hermanes, Liberacion Pa’ les cubanes Liberacion humanos y animales, Reparacion redistribución There are things Beyond words, beyond acts, beyond time We want to believe we need to be healed We have the herbs, we honor the life, we share the air We love ourselves i have you u have me Being here is a reason Being us, is the confirmation. Being together, is a proof and here we are the cure, the cure is black is black is black healing portal Odaymar, is black is black is black healing portal BSC, is black is black is black healing portal Abolition, is black is black is black healing portal black ppl, is black is black is black healing portal krudxs, is black is black is black healing portal tha weed, is black is black is black healing portal vegan food, is black is black is black healing portal polyamory, is black is black is black healing portal
Resources, wealth must be redistributed, reparations The prison industrial complex, The military industry Law enforcement should not exist, Military armies the rich and the governments We have to abolish, abolition, abolition Liberation for the sisters, Liberation for the Cubans Human and animal liberation, reparation redistribution Emancipation for my oppressed people For the captive people and dreams Abolition of prisons and punishment. Education that is what I ask for Green medicine, freedom of expression. Freedom of movement. Freedom in the beds, in the buildings, in the streets, in the minds, in the hearts, in the details Liberation for the siblings, Liberation for the Cubans Human and animal liberation, reparation redistribution There are things Beyond words, beyond acts, beyond time We want to believe we need to be healed We have the herbs, we honor the life, we share the air. We love ourselves i have you, u have me. Being alive is a reason Being us, is the confirmation. Being together, is a proof and here we are the cure, the cure is black is black is black healing portal Odaymar, is black is black is black healing portal BSC, is black is black is black healing portal Abolition, is black is black is black healing portal black ppl, is black is black is black healing portal krudxs, is black is black is black healing portal tha weed, is black is black is black healing portal vegan food, is black is black is black healing portal polyamory, is black is black is black healing portal
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ARTIST STATEMENT BY SHANTÉ PARADIGM SMALLS
My scholarly and critical thinking are intertwined with my work as an artist and as someone committed to Black liberation. My love of and investment in hip hop culture and performance span almost my entire lifetime. It is an honor to participate in a day of Black healing and art as it as nodule on the journey of Black communal healing, celebration, sharing, and movement-building. When I say Black, I am also invoking queer and trans and other words and modalities of gender and sexuality that are not prescriptive to patriarchal systems. With Black, I am invoking and including all of us, across time, space, language, diaspora, and difference. Black, here, is not an afterthought, a curse, or a limitation—it is the cosmos itself, the blue-black of existence from which all other forms emerge. Music, performance, film, food, community, ritual, and sacred space are some of my most favorite and vital things in this world. My aspiration is to continue to be a part of gatherings like this, to continue to imagine, invoke, and make space for Black futurity, and above to all: to stay curious, open, and inquisitive. Thank you to all who imagined this day, worked to make it happen, and welcomed us here.
FILMS ON LOOP “Portrait” Film: Ford Kelly © 2022. Music: Pancakes. Musician: Jeff Kaale. “On Virtual” by Wazi Maret Featuring Isis, produced by Wazi Maret, directed by Kalyn Jacobs. Dancers Linda La and Ghrai Devore-Stokes. Editor: Crystal Waterton. “Chronicle X” Written and Co-Directed by Nia O. Witherspoon, Co-Direction: Mei Ann Teo. Composer: Troy Anthony. Light/Installation Tuce Yasak. Assoc. Light: Itohan Edoyi. Set: You-Shin Chen. Sound Design: Bernard “Epic” Foy. Projection: Hao Bai. Performers: Tieisha Thomas, Ghrai Devore-Stokes, Ziiomi Law, Makeda Roney, Grace Galu, Shelley Nicole Jefferson, Danyel Fulton, Syd Nichols. Excerpts from Pick Up the Mic Directed by Alex Hinton “Dickcipline” Written by Ms.Boogie and Cassius Cruz “FEM QUEEN feat. Trannilish” BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER Artists: Ms.Boogie, Trannilish. Director and Camera: Elvin Tavarez. Editor: Jason Batista. Make Up: Zee Roman. Special thanks to BTFA Productions.
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Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
MEET THE PARTICIPANTS MS.BOOGIE
Ms.Boogie is a Afro-Latina Brooklyn-based Mcee and activist. Sex appeal, independence, and the power of femininity are at the top of her agenda as an artist. She stands tall at the intersections of underground and mainstream media as a Black trans woman in the genre of hip hop. She has dedicated her artistry to building a bridge between the avant-garde and conventional gaze of rap and hip hop. Ms.Boogie has been published in Vogue Mexico’s December print issue, The New York Times, and recently acknowledged by People Magazine as a “Talented Emerging Artist Making Their Mark on the Musical Landscape in 2021.”
KRUDXS CUBENSI
Internationally recognized as Krudxs Cubensi, Odaymar Cuesta (b. 1973; Havana, Cuba) and Oli Prendes (b. 1971; Guantanamo, Cuba) are Cuban queer nonbinary artivists, feminist hip hop pioneers, working class independent musicians, and justice fighters standing for Black people, trans people, woman, queers, immigrants, and intersectional beings. They twist powerful crispy flow, fierce feminist rebel lyrics and Afro-Cuban sounds into a unique musical style with uplifting messages and irresistible delivery. Cuesta and Prentes formed their powerful duo in 2004, relocating from Cuba to Austin, Texas in 2006 to escape government censorship. Since its inception, the duo has recorded over 200 original songs, 8 original albums, and 30 art and music videos. They have given over 500 performances in national and international tours, appearing in such prestigious venues as Minneapolis’ First Avenue Theatre Minneapolis, San Francisco’s Brava Theatre and Mission Cultural Center, Austin’s SXSW Film and Music Festival, New York City’s Lincoln Center, and DC’s Kennedy Center. Awards include: an Astraea Foundation Global Arts Fund grant (2017); Best Hip Hop Video at the Lucas Video Awards in Havana, Cuba (2016); a residency at allgo, a Texan organization supporting queer people of color; and Best Topical Documentary for Somos Krudas at the Lone Star Emmys (produced by Arts in Context with PBS). Krudxs Cubensi was appointed to the Abolition Democracy Program in the Black Studies Collaboratory at University of California at Berkeley in August 2021.
CARIDAD “LA BRUJA” DE LA LUZ
Caridad De La Luz is a multifaceted performer known as La Bruja. She raps, acts, sings, hosts, recites, dances, does stand up comedy, writes plays/poems/songs/scripts, and teaches others how to do the same. She has been one of America’s leading spoken word poets for over 15 years. Awards: Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship 2020-2021, The David Prize Finalist 2021, Puerto Rican Women Legacy Award, Edgar Allan Poe Award from The Bronx Historical Society, honored as Bronx Living Legend by The Bronx Music Heritage Center, Citation of Merit from The Bronx Borough President, named “Top 20 Puerto Rican Women Everyone Should Know.” As of January 2022, she became the new Executive Director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and has created amazing new programs while continuing to offer the mainstay shows that made the cafe famous.
LIBRADA GONZÁLEZ FERNÁNDEZ
Librada González Fernández es una investigadora y archivista trans nacida en Cuba. En 2019 creó Archivo Cubanecuir, una colección dedicada a preservar y rescatar documentos históricos de la comunidad LGBTI+ cubana. Como archivista independiente, Librada se esfuerza por priorizar las narrativas cuir más marginadas que permanecen fuera de los archivos institucionales. Actualmente trabaja en un libro en el que documentará la historia de personas trans y no binarias cubanas en el transformismo y burlesque. Librada González Fernández is a trans researcher and archivist born in Cuba. In 2019 she created Archivo Cubanecuir, a collection dedicated to safekeeping and reclaiming historical documents about the Cuban LGBTQIA+ experience. As an independent archivist, she strives to prioritize the most marginalized queer narratives that remain ignored by institutional archives. She is currently working on a book that will document the history of trans and gender non-conforming Cubans in drag and burlesque.
JACK FULLER
Jack Fuller (he/she/they) is an artist born and raised in Harlem’s Sugar Hill. They studied at Harlem School of the Arts and LaGuardia High School as a vocalist, instrumentalist, actor, arranger, and songwriter. As a queer child in Harlem, adversity was no stranger. Always misunderstood, always different they reach for communication through their work to understand their art is to understand them. The two spirited/two headed creative force has two albums out, the latest of which is The Build. Fuller is the Music Director, Keys, Violin, and Vox for The Gift Project with All For One Theater. They look forward the releasing their current work The Treatment in 2023.
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FORD KELLY
Ford Kelly is a Black Queer Alien, Educator, and Multidisciplinary Artist. Ford Kelly has a multi-tool kit of creative talents weaving their time between art, music, design and organizing. Whether it be illustrations and design, fashion design and editing, or community organizing, workshops and DJing, they have a passion for all things D.I.Y. In the last decade they have self published work on Queer themes and on Blackness and recently published The Afrofuturist Coloring Book. The main core of their artwork is framed within an Afrofuturist perspective.
JASON KING
Jason King is the Chair of New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, a training program for music industry leaders and creative entrepreneurs. King is a musician, performer, producer, songwriter, scholar, curator, journalist, and widely published scholar, writing on the cultural politics of artists like Beyonce, Drake, Roberta Flack, and Luther Vandross. He is a regular contributor to publications like Pitchfork, Billboard, Slate, Los Angeles Times, Spin, NPR Music, and he is the author of The Michael Jackson Treasures, a Barnes and Noble exclusive biography. King has hosted and produced video and radio series, as well as podcasts, for media platforms like NPR Music, Spotify, and CNN: those series have featured artists like Dua Lipa, Alicia Keys, Moses Sumney, and Miguel. Jason King has been an expert witness in high-profile legal cases for Drake, Katy Perry, Jay Z, Timbaland, Lady Gaga, and Madonna. He is currently working on a biography of Freddie Mercury and producing and directing documentaries.
SERENA EBONY MILLER
Serena Ebony Miller is an actor, string player, composer, and teacher originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Select appearances: Arden: But Not Without You (Bass/Cello), Sancocho Severance (Cello), The Diaries of Romeo & Juliet (Mrs. Montague), Priestess of Twerk (Cello), Romeo & Juliet (Friar Laurence), The Sisters (Composer/ Musician). Additionally, she has performed at The New Ohio, The Cutting Room, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Joe’s Pub, Town Hall, The Bushwick Starr, and Lincoln Center, to name a few.
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LEAH PENNIMAN
Leah Penniman, Co-Director and Farm Manager of Soul Fire Farm, (Li*/Ya/She/He) has over 20 years of experience as a soil steward and food sovereignty activist, having worked at the Food Project, Farm School, Many Hands Organic Farm, Youth Grow, and with farmers internationally in Ghana, Haiti, and Mexico. Li co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2010 with the mission to reclaim the inherent right to belong to the earth and have agency in the food system as Black and Brown people. Her areas of leadership at Soul Fire include farmer training, international solidarity, perennials, writing, speaking, “making it rain,” and anything that involves heavy lifting, sweat, and soil. Li’s book Farming While Black is a love song for the earth and her peoples.
NAIMA PENNIMAN
Naima Penniman (all pronouns) is a freedom-forging futurist rooted in her ancestors’ brilliance. She is a devotee of seeds, a soulful story teller, a multidimensional artist, movement builder, medicine grower, healer, and educator. She serves as the Program Director at Soul Fire, where she equips a returning generation of Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers with the skills needed to reclaim leadership in the food system and chart dignified futures in relationship to land. Poet published in All We Can Save, We Are Each Other’s Harvest, FarmingWhile Black, and Semillas; originating member of Black healers collective, Harriet’s Apothecary; founder of Haitian resilience project Ayiti Resurrect; and CoFounder of Wildseed, a BIPOC-led, land-based community.
DJ RIMARKABLE
Detroit native, Rimarkable, is a DJ, vocalist, songwriter, and producer. She has shared the stage with world stars such as George Clinton, Madonna, and Erykah Badu, as well as legendary DJ colleagues Gene Farris, Francois K, PeteTong, and Roger Sanchez. Her unique sound becomes ceremony with a witches’ brew of House and Techno, in a Soul, Funk and Disco cauldron. Quite literally a party starter, she’s produced several successful, long-running events in New York, Detroit, and the Bay Area over the past 20+ years. In early 2021, Rimarkable signed to UK house music institution Defected, including the Defected Music publishing arm, and stepped up as a presenter for the weekly Defected Radio show. Rimarkable currently resides in Brooklyn, NY where she owns and operates her creative production company, Rimarkable Things.
Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
YESENIA SELIER
Cuban-born performer and researcher Yesenia Fernandez Selier is the recipient of fellowships from CLACSO, Cuban Heritage Collection, the Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection and Tinker Foundation. Her work on AfroCuban culture, encompassing dance, music, and racial identity, has been published in Cuba, the US, Colombia, and Brazil. Selier has worked alongside artists like Teresita Fernandez, Coco Fusco, Septeto Nacional de Cuba, Jane Bunnett, Wynton Marsalis, Chucho Valdés, Pedrito Martinez, and Román Diaz. She wrote and produced the play Women Orishas for Miami Cuban Museum (2013); the performance-procession “Día de Reyes” at Madison Square Park (2015); “Love Vibration,” Queens Museum (2017); “Nigra Suns” at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (2018). Selier coordinates the Global Religions Initiative at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art.
SHANTÉ PARADIGM SMALLS
Dr. Shanté Paradigm Smalls is a scholar, artist, and writer. Smalls’s teaching and research focuses on Black popular culture in music, film, visual art, genre fiction, and other aesthetic forms. Smalls’ first book, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City, which won the 2016 CLAGS Fellowship Award for best manuscript in LGBTQ Studies, will be published by NYU Press in June 2022. Smalls makes music, poetry, and other creative musings.
MIGUEL “MIGUELO” VALDES
Miguel “Miguelo” Valdes (b. Havana, Cuba) has performed across Cuba and the United States in venues like the Tropicana. He has performed with great musicians of many different styles, including Richard Egues, Xiomara Laugart, Emiliano Salvador, Orquesta La Ley, Orquesta Filarmonica de Mexico, Gonzalo Romeu, Grupo Bandula, Elvis Crespo, Celia Cruz, Patato Valdes, Fellove, Israel Lopez (Cachao), Albita Rodriguez, Lena Burke, Emmanuel, Natalia Jimenez, Yomira John, Dennis D’Kalaff, Ricardo Montaner, Miky Tavera, Yuri, McCoy Tyner All Stars, Francisco Mela, Rachel Ferrer, Tony Perez, Kambalache Negro (Peru), Steve Turre, Matt Dillon, Elio Villafranca, Mac Gollehon, Vince Herring, Dion Person, Sexteto NY, Itai Kriss, Abdou M’boup, Alex Matos, Nachito Herrera, Michel Roos Women & New Yoruba’s, Los Hacheros, Cotton Club Big Band, Willy Chirino, Sister Sledge-Debbie Sledge, Jadele Macpherson, Janise Marie Robinson, Frank Owens, Ty Stephens, John Faddis, Terell Stafford, Chucho Valdes and his project Jazz Bata 2. He has also toured and worked regularly with Juan De Marcos Afro Cuban All Stars (Buena Vista Social Club). Albums include Algo Cool…tural (2005), Orumila Agbe Wao (2007), and Transition (2010). Percussionist graduate, Havana National School of Art Instructors (ENIA); Afrocuban Professor, Barnard.
TIM’M WEST
tim’m t. west is an educator, poet, youth advocate, and hip hop artist who has spent decades traveling the nation, speaking about issues at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and social justice. He is the author of several books and hip hop projects, is widely anthologized, and has appeared in multiple documentaries at the intersection of hip hop and Black masculinity. A seasoned educator, west served as inaugural faculty at Oakland School for the Arts and served as Director of Youth Services at Chicago’s Center on Halsted, among other posts. west was named one of 31 icons during LGBT History Month in October 2015. Lead for Teach for America’s National LGBTQ+ Community Initiative. Board Member School Board School, Wordplay-Cincy, Buckeye Flame, and LGBTQ Institute located at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Chair of Chase Elementary LSDMC, Founder and Board Member of Cincinnati Black Pride. Upward Bound alum, former admissions offer. BA, Duke University; MA, New School; MA, Stanford.
NIA O. WITHERSPOON
Nia O. Witherspoon (Smith BA/Stanford PhD) is a Black queer multidisciplinary artist and healing justice practitioner investigating the metaphysics of Black liberation, desire, and diaspora, as they track across the space-time continuum. Combining Black feminism, indigenous epistemologies, ecofeminism, and auto-critogrophy with mediums in writing, performance, sound, and installation, Witherspoon creates portals for communion, witnessing, and healing. Select works: Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Temple to Pleasure (HERE Art Center/Musical Theatre Factory, 2024), Chronicle X: The Dark Girl Chronicles (The Shed, 2021), and MESSIAH (La Mama, 2019). She is a NEFA/NTP recipient; Creative Capital Awardee; Jerome New Artist Fellow; Artist-in-Residence at HERE Art Center and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange; and 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. Her work has been or will be featured by The Shed, JACK, La Mama ETC, Playwright’s Realm, BRIC, HERE, National Black Theatre, BAAD, Movement Research, BAX, Dixon Place, Painted Bride, 651 Arts, and elsewhere. Published in The Journal of Popular Culture; Imagined Theatres; Women and Collective Creation; and IMANIMAN: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands.
PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS María Fernanda, Producer, Park Avenue Armory Caren Celine Morris, Siobhan Petersen, Stage Managers Angela Reynoso, Silas Rodriguez, Production Assistants Barbara Montano, Black Studies Collaboratory at UC Berkeley Cynthia Renta aka LadyLoreNew, Makeup Artist to Yesenia Selier Margaret Cardo Racolin, Costume Designer to Yesenia Selier
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ABOUT PUBLIC PROGRAMMING AT THE ARMORY Park Avenue Armory’s Public Programming series brings diverse artists and cultural thought-leaders together for discussion and performance around the important issues of our time viewed through an artistic lens. Launched in 2017, the series encompasses a variety of programs including large-scale community events; multiday symposia; intimate salons featuring performances, panels, and discussions; Artist Talks in relation to the Armory’s Drill Hall programming; and other creative interventions. As the live arts return amidst an ongoing pandemic, the 2022 Public Programming series—titled Making Space and led by Tavia Nyong’o, Curator of Public Programming at Park Avenue Armory—offers a series of intimate talks, salons, symposia, performances, and other activations. As social gathering remains both vital and challenging, we explore how art can address the fault-lines in our racial and social order that 2020 laid bare. How can artists speak to this moment, holding space for discovery, deliberation, and experimenting, while claiming the environment we need? Highlights from the Public Programming series include: Carrie Mae Weems’ 2017 event The Shape of Things and 2021 convening and concert series Land of Broken Dreams, whose participants included Elizabeth Alexander, Theaster Gates, Elizabeth Diller, Nona Hendryx, Somi, and Spike Lee, among others; a daylong Lenape Pow Wow and Standing Ground Symposium held in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the first congregation of Lenape Elders on Manhattan Island since the 1700s; “A New Vision for Justice in America” conversation series in collaboration with Common Justice, exploring new coalitions, insights, and ways of understanding question of justice and injustice in relation moderated by FLEXN Evolution creators Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray and director Peter Sellars; Culture in a Changing America Symposia exploring the role of art, creativity, and imagination in the social and political issues in American society today; the 2019 Black Artists Retreat hosted by Theaster Gates, which included public talks and performances, private sessions for the 300 attending artists, and a roller skating rink; and 100 Years | 100 Women, a multiorganization commissioning project that invited 100 women artists and cultural creators to respond to women’s suffrage. Notable Public Programming salons include: the Literature Salon hosted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose participants included Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori-Parks, and Jeremy O. Harris, a Spoken Word Salon cohosted with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; a Film Salon featuring the works of immersive artist and film director Lynette Wallworth; “Museum as Sanctuary” led by installation artist and Artist-in-Residence Tania Bruguera, curated by Sonia Guiñansaca and CultureStrike, and featuring undocu-artists Julio Salgado and Emulsify; and a Dance Salon presented in partnership with Dance Theater of Harlem, including New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan and choreographer Francesca Harper, among others. Artist Talks have featured esteemed artists, scholars, and thought leaders, such as: architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in conversation with Ai Wei Wei, moderated by Juilliard president Damian Woetzel; director Ariane Mnouchkine and Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright Tony Kushner in conversation with New Yorker editor David Remnick; director Ivo van Hove in conversation with James Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theater Workshop; artist William Kentridge and his collaborators Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi in conversation with Dr. Augustus Casely Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art; Lehman Trilogy director Sam Mendez and adapter Ben Power in conversation with playwright Lynn Nottage; artist and composer Heiner Goebbels in conversation with composer, vocalist, and scholar Gelsey Bell; and choreographer Bill T. Jones in conversation with architect Elizabeth Diller and designer Peter Nigrini, moderated by vocalist and performance artist Helga Davis.
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Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
NEXT IN THE SERIES ARCHER AYMES LOST AND FOUND RETROSPECTIVE: A JUNETEENTH EXHIBITION june 19
SKILLSHARE august 21
Artists-in-Residence activate the Armory as a space for mutual aid through skill share, maker spaces, and master classes.
In commemoration of Juneteenth, Park Avenue Armory presents a critical fabulation of the newly discovered archive of Archer Aymes, subject of Carl Hancock Rux’s Obieaward winning play Talk. At once a magical mystery tour through American history and a searing indictment of the unfulfilled promise of emancipation, this installation features a performance by mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran accompanied by Aaron Diehl. Curated and installed by Rux and Dianne Smith, this retrospective is presented in collaboration with concurrent events at HarlemStage and Lincoln Center.
NEXT AT THE ARMORY HAMLET
ORESTEIA
The Olivier Award-winning director Robert Icke unleashes his visionary creativity at the Armory with the North American premiere of a radical new staging of Shakespeare’s classic. This highly charged staging transforms the traditional family drama into a psychological thriller, transporting the action to our current surveillance society in which rolling media news feeds provide juicy updates of a life lived on screen while blurring the lines between public and private life. Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game, The Last Duel, The French Dispatch, Black Mirror) portrays the obsessive prince consumed by grief, brilliantly embodying his mental decay to boldly examine the devastating effects his anguish has not only on his own psyche, but on his family and country.
Aeschylus’ greatest and final play is a searing familial saga that examines the sins of a family over several decades and explores whether justice can ever really be done. Robert Icke’s Olivier Award-winning adaptation comes to the Armory for its North American premiere following sold-out runs at the Almeida Theatre and in London’s West End. Icke radically reimagines this Greek drama for the modern stage, condensing the tragic trilogy into a single performance that electrifies and devastates in equal measure. Lia Williams (The Crown, His Dark Materials) returns as the enthralling Klytemnestra (Olivier nomination for Best Actress). This daring update allows audiences to investigate the justification of vengeance, the possibility of finding justice in retaliation, and the role of judicial democracy at work—themes that continue to resonate nearly two and a half millennia after the play was written.
RECITAL SERIES
ARTISTS STUDIO
ENSEMBLE CORRESPONDANCES may 17
JASON MORAN may 20 & 21
june 9 – august 13
june 1 – august 13
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Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street