Looking Back | Looking Forward: Culture in a Changing America by Park Avenue Armory

PARTICIPANTS

Cover Photo: James Ewing

CONVERSATION SERIES: INTERROGATIONS OF FORM LOOKING BACK | LOOKING FORWARD: CULTURE IN A CHANGING AMERICA Saturday, February 17, 2018 from 12:00pm to 8:15pm Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory Artists, thinkers, activists, academics, and community leaders gather for a symposium of conversations, performances, salons, and open studios exploring artistic, social, and political perspectives on the extraordinary world-changing events of 1968, the fifty years that followed, and the promise of the next fifty years. Artistic interventions and multi-disciplinary conversations across visual and performing arts, activism, literature, film, and poetry will take place in the historic period rooms—including the Board of Officers Room, Veterans Room, and second-floor Company Rooms.

Presented in Collaboration with The Aspen Institute Arts Program & ArtChangeUS

@AspenInstitute

@ArtChangeUS

SEASON SPONSORS

Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic programming has been generously provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, the Altman Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Kaplen Brothers Fund, the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation. armoryonpark.org | @ParkAveArmory | #PAAInterrogations

STILL I RISE Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

SESSION ONE 12:00-12:45PM Remembering 1968 Veterans Room David Levering-Lewis, Beth Lew-Williams, and Cheryl Wall discuss 1968 as a pivotal year in our nation’s history with moderator Eric Foner. Introductory reading by poet lê thi diem thúy. The Peculiar Patriot Board of Officers Room The National Black Theatre presents excerpts of The Peculiar Patriot (National Black Theatre/Hi-ARTS, 2017), created and performed by Liza Jessie Peterson, which confronts the complex and critical issue of mass incarceration. The performance is followed by a conversation with Peterson and Jonathan McCrory.

1:00-1:45PM Salons First and Second Floors Salon and open studio hosts include: Cannupa Hanska Luger, Beatrice Glow & Alecz Inca, Camille Zamora & Monica Yunus, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Armory Arts Education Program. Screenings include: Nancy Buirski’s Rape of Recy Taylor and LaMont Hamilton’s This Da Good Part.

2:00-2:45PM 1968 and Beyond Veterans Room Mandy Carter, Harry Gamboa Jr., Roger Harris, and George Stonefish discuss 1968 as a pivotal year in our nation’s history with moderator Jack Tchen. Introductory reading by poet lê thi diem thúy. Memorable Movements Board of Officers Room Michelle Dorrance, Teresita Fernández, and Davóne Tines join in a collaboration followed by a discussion about the energy of the arts coming out of the 1960s. The conversation will be moderated by Damian Woetzel.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

SESSION TWO

SESSION THREE

3:00-3:45PM

6:00-6:45PM

Visualizing Change Veterans Room Melissa Calderón, Cannupa Hanska Luger, and Jasmine Murrell discuss the power of visual art to unearth hidden histories and expose societal issues with moderator Kalia Brooks Nelson. Introductory reading by Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán.

Salons First and Second Floors Salon and open studio hosts include: OlaRonke Akinmowo, Lizania Cruz, Beatrice Glow & Alecz Inca, Camille Zamora & Monica Yunus, and the Armory Arts Education Program. Screening of Nancy Buirski’s Rape of Recy Taylor. Conversation with LaMont Hamilton and Greg Tate, following a screening of This Da Good Part.

The Cycle of History: The Rape of Recy Taylor Board of Officers Room Producer/Director Nancy Buirski and Susan Fales-Hill discuss the timeliness of her latest film, The Rape of Recy Taylor (2017).

4:00-4:45PM Salons First and Second Floors Salon and open studio hosts include: OlaRonke Akinmowo, Joseph Cuillier & Shani Peters, Beatrice Glow & Alecz Inca, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Armory Arts Education Program. Screenings include: Nancy Buirski’s Rape of Recy Taylor and LaMont Hamilton’s This Da Good Part. Performance of Le Dernier Sorcier presented by Camille Zamora and Monica Yunus.

5:00-5:45PM The Power of the Word Veterans Room Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Kamilah Forbes, Ebony Noelle Golden, and lê thi diem thúy discuss the impact of history on literary and artistic practices with moderator Roberta Uno. Discussion is followed by a performance of selections from 125th & FREEdom by Ebony Noelle Golden and ensemble. Art, Music & the Movement Board of Officers Room Dick Griffin joins his friend of over fifty years Walter C. Jackson to tell stories of growing up in 1960s Mississippi, the untimely assassination of their friend and neighbor activist Medgar Evers, and the impact of those formative years on their artistic development. Camille Zamora moderates.

6:45-7:30PM Looking Forward, Looking Back Veterans Room Johanna Fernández, Charon Hribar, and Paola Mendoza address the impact of the protest movements of the 1960s—in particular the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968—on current movements that challenge systemic racism, poverty, and gender inequality in American society. Invocation by George Stonefish. Looking Back, Looking Forward Board of Officers Room Thelma Golden, Virginia Johnson, and Sade Lythcott discuss the creation (in 1968/1969) of three of New York City’s most enduring cultural institutions and the shaping of the city’s cultural agenda over the last fifty years. Moderated by Tom Finkelpearl.

7:30-8:15PM No More Water / The Fire Next Time First Floor Hall Meshell Ndegeocello, in collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite, presents selections from No More Water | The Fire Next Time: The Gospel According to James Baldwin, an ever-evolving multi-disciplinary performance of artistic and activist responses to James Baldwin, featuring Jebin Bruni, Justin Hicks, with special participation by LaToya Ruby Frazier, Staceyann Chin, Jadele McPherson, Paul Thompson, and others.

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MAP SECOND FLOOR Company M

Concessions

Company G

Company E

Company D

Company C

PARK AVENUE

FIRST FLOOR Parlor

Veterans Room

Colonels Room

Board of Officers Room

Entrance PARK AVENUE The Free Black Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Library is located on the second floor in the hallway.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

FIRST FLOOR SALONS PARLOR

COLONELS ROOM

1:00-1:45PM, 4:00-4:45PM, 6:00-6:45PM Screening: The Rape of Recy Taylor (90 mins) Nancy Buirski Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in Alabama in 1944. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives, but not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. The Rape of Recy Taylor (2017) exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals the intimate role of Rosa Parks in Recy Taylor’s story. An attempted rape against Parks was but one inspiration for her ongoing work to find justice for countless women like Taylor. The 1955 bus boycott was an end result, not a beginning. The film tells the story of black women who spoke up when danger was greatest; it was their noble efforts to take back their bodies that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and movements that followed. More and more women are now speaking up after rape. The 2017 Global March by Women is linked to their courage. From sexual aggression on ‘40s southern streets to today’s college campuses and to the threatened right to choose, it is control of women’s bodies that powered the movement in Recy Taylor’s day and fuels our outrage today.

The Last Sorcerer (Le Dernier Sorcier) Camille Zamora & Monica Yunus 150 years ago, mezzo-soprano, composer, and vocal pedagogue Pauline García Viardot wrote a salon opera using a libretto by her lover, the Russian novelist and playwright Ivan Turgenev. A chamber opera in two acts, this astonishingly beautiful work focuses on themes of power, progress, and the restoration of natural order – a true feminist eco-fable, 150 years ahead of its time. Viardot’s original manuscript was held in a private collection for over a century, and as such, the work essentially vanished without a trace. Re-discovered in 2011, the original manuscript was acquired by Harvard Houghton Library, which subsequently gave permission to publish and record the world premiere of the work. 1:00-1:45PM, 6:00-6:45PM Listening Room Preview the upcoming world premiere recording of Pauline García Viardot’s re-discovered operatic masterwork, featuring Jamie Barton, Sarah Brailey, Eric Owens, Michael Slattery, Camille Zamora, Adriana Zabala, Manhattan Girls Chorus (Michelle Oesterle, Founder and Artistic Director), Myra Huang, Liana Pailodze, and narrator Trudie Styler. 4:00-4:45PM Performance Excerpts of Pauline García Viardot’s re-discovered operatic masterwork are performed by Camille Zamora, Monica Yunus, Krysty Swann, Adriana Zabala, Michael Slattery, Jorell Williams, and Myra Huang.

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SECOND FLOOR SALONS COMPANY C 1:00-1:45PM Workshop: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Queer and Trans People BEAD PROJECT Cannupa Hanska Luger Two inch beads made from clay, unfired, are requested from our communities to complete a monumental beaded portrait which will be created by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger from a photograph taken by First Nations photographer Kali Spitzer. This community collaboration acknowledges our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Queer and Trans people. In Canada alone, the number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women was at 4,000 in 2016 as noted in research gathered by the Native Women’s Association of Canada. We are aware that the narrative of MMIWQT expands beyond a specific region, and by acknowledging this number and this place for this specific portrait and creating collectively, we can move forward and continue to address MMIWQT in all of our respective homelands. This community engagement is meant to activate our processing of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People through the action of doing and feeling in a collective effort to say “this is enough.” As you create, we ask you to hold awareness that each one of these beads represents an individual from our Indigenous communities that we have lost. 4:00-4:45PM Workshop: The Black School Joseph Cuillier and Shani Peters Inspired by community-run schools founded throughout Black American history, The Black School is an experimental art school that combines art making workshops with presentations and group discussions on radical Black political theory. Visiting artists teach art making techniques such as creative writing, screen printing, collage, photography, and other forms of image making. Following study and discussion, students create collaborative site-specific projects that address community needs. Building on the principles of the Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights movement and The Black Panther Party’s Liberation Schools during the Black Power movement, The Black School uses a socially engaged proactive practice to educate Black/PoC students and allies on how to become radical agents of social and political change. This project was commissioned by The Laundromat Project’s Create Change program.

6:00-6:45PM Poster Making Workshop: We the News Lizania Cruz Join Lizania Cruz for a 45 minute hands-on poster workshop, which includes readings from zines and a handson poster making activation from her project We the News. The poster will honor and recreate a new affirmation for immigrants and allies inspired by the 1968 poster “I AM A MAN” held by Memphis Sanitation Workers in the strike of February 12, 1968. Lizania co-creates spaces of sanctuary through the use of language, personifying the role storytelling plays in uniting, empowering, and building community. This project was commissioned by The Laundromat Project’s Create Change program.

COMPANY D 1:00-1:45PM, 4:00-4:45PM Film Installation: This Da Good Part (19mins) LaMont Hamilton This Da Good Part is a three channel film installation and the third element of the umbrella project Five on the Black Hand Side by artist LaMont Hamilton. This work debuted as an installation at the Schomburg Center in Harlem in conjunction with the New York premiere of dance piece Dapline! (with André Zachery). Five on the Black Hand Side is a long form meditation on the handshake “the dap,” which looks at the gesture as both a symbol of unity and one that expresses strength, defiance, and resistance—a complex language. The dap originated during the late 1960s among black G.I.s stationed in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. At a time when the Black Power movement was burgeoning, racial unrest was prominent in American cities, and draft reforms sent tens of thousands of young African Americans into combat, the dap became an important symbol of unity and survival in a racially turbulent atmosphere. Using a montage of original and archival footage This Da Good Part traverses this environment animating the dap in attempts to visualize the idea fellowship imbued in the gesture. 6:00-6:45PM Conversation: This Da Good Part LaMont Hamilton and Greg Tate discuss the evolution of “the dap” and the creation of LaMont’s film installation This Da Good Part.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

COMPANY E

COMPANY M

1:00-1:45PM, 4:00-4:45PM Open Studio Rehearsal: Dance Theatre of Harlem School Robert Garland & Dance Theatre of Harlem students Shortly after the assassination of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook were inspired to start a school that would offer children — especially those in Harlem, the community in which Mitchell was born — the opportunity to learn ballet and the allied arts. Now in its fifth decade, Dance Theatre of Harlem has grown into a multi-cultural dance institution with an extraordinary legacy of providing opportunities for creative expression and artistic excellence that continues to set standards in the performing arts. Dance Theatre of Harlem has achieved unprecedented success, bringing innovative and bold new forms of artistic expression to audiences in New York City, across the country, and around the world through its international touring company, school, and Dancing Through Barriers®, a national and international education and community outreach program.

1:00-1:45PM, 4:00-4:45PM, 6:00-6:45PM Virtual Reality Experience: Mannahatta VR: Envisioning Lenapeway Beatrice Glow & Alecz Inca Long before Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609, Manhattan or Manaháhtaan, as originally named by the Indigenous Lenape people, was a place of gathering and exchange amongst diverse nations. Today, Broadway runs along a portion of the original matrix of trails that connected Manaháhtaan to the broader northeast region and the Great Lakes. Artist Beatrice Glow and The Wayfinding Project at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU partnered with Alecz Inca of Highway 101, ETC (Experiential Tech Community) to build Mannahatta VR, an interactive virtual reality experience that brings together the past and present of one Broadway block. This project was developed through consultation with Native culture bearers, ecologists, educators and technologists. In the process, we ask ourselves how can we expand knowledge of Indigenous Manhattan? What does a sustainable Indigenous future look like?

COMPANY G 1:00-1:45PM, 4:00-4:45PM, 6:00-6:45PM Art of the Future Salon Armory Arts Education Members of the Armory Youth Corps and Armory Teaching Artist Corps host The Art of the Future where participants engage directly with the makers and minds of tomorrow. Join in a larger than life game inspired by how the art of the future will keep challenging and rebuilding existing structures by making new ones, where you are just as likely to be asked to consider what the art of 2068 will be about as you are to make it yourself. Salon content imagined by Advisory Board members: Jonatan Amaya, Katie Burke, Lilia Chunir, Sharlyn Galarza, Nancy Gomez, Terrelle Jones, Oscar Montenegro, Mercedes Samuels; and Armory Artist Corps members: Hawley Hussey, Larry Jackson, Drew Petersen, and Vickie Tanner.

2ND FLOOR HALL 4:00-4:45PM, 6:00-6:45PM Interactive biblio installation: The Free Black Women’s Library OlaRonke Akinmowo OlaRonke Akinmowo’s Free Black Women’s Library is an interactive and mobile trading library that features a collection of 900 books written by Black women. Each month the Library pops up in a different location throughout the NYC area and has traveled to Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Detroit. Bring a good book written by a Black woman and get a good book written by a Black woman. The library also features readings, performances, film screenings, workshops, art making and critical conversations. The goal and purpose of the library is to center and celebrate the voices of Black women from all over the world. The library is intergenerational and diasporic. All races, genders and ages are welcome to trade books with the library. OlaRonke Akinmowo was 2017 Create Change Resident at The Laundromat Project.

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MEET THE PARTICIPANTS OLA RONKE AKINMOWO

MELISSA CALDERÓN

AHIMSA TIMOTEO BODHRÁN

BETTY’S DAUGHTER ARTS COLLABORATIVE

Ola Ronke Akinmowo is a ritual artist, cultural worker, set decorator, radical mama, community healer, yoga teacher, and Womanist scholar. Her research and artistic practice focuses on exploring the complexities of race, culture, spirituality, and gender. She is also the Creator and Director of the Free Black Women’s Library, an interactive mobile trading library that features a collection of 900 books written by Black women as well as performance, readings, film screenings, workshops and critical conversation. She has received fellowships and grants from Culture Push, The Laundromat Project, Center for Whole Communities, Brooklyn Artists Council and Citizens Committee of NY.

Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán is a multimedia artist, activist/ organizer, critic, and educator, who employs visual, acoustic, performative, textual, and terrestrial approaches to produce solo/collaborative work. He is the author of Antes y después del Bronx: Lenapehoking and South Bronx Breathing Lessons; and editor of the international queer Indigenous issue of Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. He is completing an intersecting book/multimedia project, Yerbabuena/Mala yerba, a womanist/queer/trans multiracial (Indigenous, African, Latinx, Arab, Jewish) remapping of New York and California. Appearing in 22 nations, his work has been awarded 23 residencies in the U.S. and abroad.

NANCY BUIRSKI

Nancy Buirski is the Director/Producer/Writer of The Rape of Recy Taylor that was awarded the prestigious Human Rights Nights Special Prize for Human Rights at the 74th Venice Biennale and is a nominee for the NAACP Image Award for Best Documentary Film. Buirski is the Director/Producer of By Sidney Lumet (2015; American Masters), World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. She produced/directed Afternoon of a Faun (2013), World Premiere at the 51st New York Film Festival, International Premiere at the 64th Berlinale and record-breaking U.S theatrical release with Kino Lorber. She is Director/Producer of the Oscar shortlisted, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning The Loving Story (2012) and a Producer of Loving by Jeff Nichols, among others.

Self-taught artist Melissa Calderón creates conceptual work around themes exploring social and political landscapes, drawing upon historical and philosophical references of power, fragility, and perception. Her work has been exhibited at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Queens Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, and The Portland Museum of Art, among others. Melissa is currently working on a NYC Percent for Art Commission to be installed in the South Bronx, and is showing work at El Museo del Barrio in NYC and the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. She is born, bred, and currently resides in the Bronx.

Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC is a cultural consultancy and arts-accelerator that co-creates and implements systems, strategies and solutions for the arts and culture field and individual artists nation-wide.

MANDY CARTER

Mandy Carter is a southern Black lesbian activist with a 51year movement history of social, racial, and LGBTQ justice organizing since 1967. She is a co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition, a national civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of our Black LGBTQ and same-gender loving people. NBJC’s mission is to end racism, homophobia, and LGBTQ/SGL bias and stigma. Since 2003, NBJC has provided leadership at the intersection of national civil rights groups and LGBTQ/SGL organizations, advocating for the unique challenges and needs of our African American LGBTQ/SGL community often relegated to the sidelines. Carter lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

LIZANIA CRUZ

MICHELLE DORRANCE

JOSEPH CUILLIER

SUSAN FALES-HILL

Originally from Dominican Republic and now residing in Bed-Stuy, Lizania Cruz is a participatory designer and artist interested in how migration affects notions of citizenship, identity, and ways of belonging. For these mediums, she utilizes different frameworks to grant participants an active role in shaping the narrative. In 2016 she launched her ongoing project Flowers for Immigration, a photo project that tells the stories of immigrant bodega flower workers through their flower arrangements. The project was featured on Fusion News, Hyperallergic, and KQED Arts. Cruz was a 2017 Create Change artists-in-residence at Laundromat Project, where she started developing a physical newsstand that collects and shares immigrants’ stories. Her work has received national recognition from organizations such as AIGA and TDC.

Joseph Cuillier is a Harlem based socially engaged artist, designer, and educator. He received a MFA in Graphic Design from Pratt Institute in 2013. Cuillier will be a 2018 artist-in-residence and exhibitor at the New Museum, and is a 2016-2017 recipient of the A Blade Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art, supporting his project The Black School. He has exhibited artwork and projects at Columbia University, The Center for Book Arts, BronxArtSpace, University of Virginia, Naropa University, Pioneer Works, MoCADA, and NY Art Book Fair at MoMa PS1.

DANCE THEATRE OF HARLEM

Dance Theatre of Harlem has occupied a distinguished place in New York City’s cultural landscape and at the forefront of American artistic achievement for almost 50 years. Established in 1969 out of the turmoil of the Civil Rights era and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., DTH began as a school, built a professional dance Company, and continues to be a strong economic and cultural anchor for Harlem. The founders were Karel Shook and Arthur Mitchell, the first African American to become a principal dancer with a major US ballet company (NY City Ballet). The founders envisioned a powerful center for self-reliance, artistic relevance, and individual responsibility through dance training, performance and community engagement. Under the current leadership of Artistic Director Virginia Johnson, that vision endures through DTH’s passionate commitment to developing classical artists of color, creating access and opportunity in ballet, and using the arts to transform the lives of all people.

Michelle Dorrance, founder and artistic director of Dorrance Dance, is one of the most sought after tap dancers of her generation and “one of the most imaginative tap choreographers working today” (The New Yorker). A 2015 MacArthur Fellow, 2014 Alpert Award Winner, and 2013 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award Winner, Dorrance performs, teaches and choreographs throughout the world. Mentored by Gene Medler, Dorrance grew up performing with the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble and has since performed with STOMP, Savion Glover’s ti dii, Manhattan Tap, Barbara Duffy & Co, JazzTap Ensemble, Rumba Tap, Ayodele Casel’s Diary of a Tap Dancer, Mable Lee’s Dancing Ladies, Harold Cromer’s original Opus One, Derick Grant’s Imagine Tap and Jason Samuels Smith’s Charlie’s Angels/Chasing the Bird.

Susan Fales-Hill is a television writer, producer, author, and arts advocate. She began her career as a writer’s apprentice on the Cosby Show. At twenty-eight, she became the head writer of its spin-off, A Different World. She co-created Showtime’s first scripted series, Linc’s. She is the author of two novels, and an acclaimed memoir about her mother the late actress/singer/dancer Josephine Premice, Always Wear Joy. Her writings have appeared in Vogue, Architectural Digest, and The New York Times. She hosts a podcast on NYPR, “Icons and Innovators,” celebrating creators who have influenced world culture, and her TED Talk is available at TEDxMET. She is a graduate of the Lycee Francais de New York and Harvard College.

JOHANNA FERNÁNDEZ

Johanna Fernández is a former Fulbright Scholar to Jordan and Professor of History at Baruch College, where she teaches 20th Century U.S. history and African American History. She is author of When the World Was Their Stage: A History of the Young Lords Party, 1968–1976 (Princeton University Press). Fernandez is the writer and producer of the film, Justice on Trial: the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal and she is featured in the critically acclaimed documentary about Mumia Abu-Jamal, Long Distance Revolutionary. Her writings have been published internationally, from Al Jazeera to the Huffington Post. She gives interviews often and has appeared in a diverse range of print, radio, online and televised media.

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TERESITA FERNÁNDEZ

Teresita Fernández’s work is characterized by an interest in perception and the psychology of looking. Her experiential, large-scale works are often inspired by a rethinking of the meaning of landscape and place, as well as by diverse historical and cultural references. She is a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Artist’s Grant, and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award. Appointed by President Obama, she was the first Latina to serve on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Her works have been exhibited internationally. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

TOM FINKELPEARL

Tom Finkelpearl is the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. In this role he oversees city funding for nonprofit arts organizations across the five boroughs and directs the cultural policy for the City of New York. Prior to his appointment by Mayor Bill de Blasio, Commissioner Finkelpearl served as Executive Director of the Queens Museum for twelve years starting in 2002, overseeing an expansion that doubled the museum’s size and positioning the organization as a vibrant center for social engagement in nearby communities. He also held positions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, working on the organization’s merger with the Museum of Modern Art, and served as Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program.

ERIC FONER

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is one of the country’s most prominent historians. His publications have concentrated on the intersections of intellectual, political, and social history and the history of American race relations. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010), was awarded the Bancroft Prize, Pulitzer Prize for History, and The Lincoln Prize. As co-curator of two award-winning historical exhibitions, and through frequent appearances in the media, he has also endeavored to bring historical knowledge to a broad public. His most recent book is Battles for Freedom: The Uses and Abuses of History, a collection of his articles in The Nation.

KAMILAH FORBES

Co-founder and artistic director of HiARTS, Kamilah Forbes is an award-winning director and producer. In her diverse body of work, Forbes is noted for having a strong commitment to the development of creative works by, for, and about the Hip-Hop Generation. Over the last 16 years, Forbes has led the Hip-Hop Theater Festival as it has grown from a fledgling project into an independent nonprofit organization with a truly national scope. Forbes has received numerous accolades for her work in the arts, including a Josephine Abady Award, AUDELCO Award nomination, NAACP Image Award, numerous Helen Hayes Award nominations, DC Commission Distinguished Artist Award, Tony Award, and The Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Theatre Artist.

HARRY GAMBOA JR.

Harry Gamboa Jr. is an artist, writer, and educator. He is the founder and director of Virtual Vérité (2005-2017), the international performance troupe, and co-founder of Asco (1972-1985), the Los Angeles-based performance group. He is a faculty member of the Photo/Media Program at California Institute of the Arts and a lecturer with the Chicana/o Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. His work has been exhibited by art spaces internationally, such as LACMA, Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Liverpool, Centre Pompidou, Museo de Bellas Artes (Mexico City), and others. His work has been featured in a variety of publications, and he is the author of Urban Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gamboa Jr. (1998).

BEATRICE GLOW

Beatrice Glow leverages multisensory storytelling – installations, experiential technology collaborations, olfactory art and participatory performances – to shift dominant cultural narratives. She has been named an American Arts Incubator artist, Artist-in-Residence at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, Honolulu Biennial artist, Wave Hill Van Lier Fellow, Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Finalist, Hemispheric Institute Council Member, Franklin Furnace Fund grantee and Fulbright Scholar. Solo exhibitions include “Aromérica Parfumeur” at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile; “Lenapeway” and “The Wayfinding Project” at NYU; “Rhunhattan” at Wave Hill; and “Floating Library” on the Hudson River. She was recently featured in Duke University Press’ Cultural Politics Journal and contributed to post at MoMA.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

EBONY NOELLE GOLDEN

Artist, strategist, and scholar, Ebony Noelle Golden stages site-specific rituals and live art performances that profoundly explore the complexities of freedom in the time of now. Her current artistic work, 125th and FREEdom, explores migration, gentrification, and emancipation, and is slated for a 2019 world premiere. She is the founder of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, a cultural consultancy and arts accelerator providing strategic and creative services for the arts and culture sector and independent artists nation-wide. Golden is a Public Artist in Residence with the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs where she works with the Office to Combat Domestic Violence. She is also an artist-in-residence at the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics at New York University.

THELMA GOLDEN

Thelma Golden is Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem where she began her career in 1987 before joining the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988. After a decade at the Whitney, she returned to the Studio Museum in 2000 as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs, and was named Director and Chief Curator in 2005. Golden was appointed to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House by President Obama in 2010, and in 2015 joined the Barack Obama Foundation’s Board of Directors. Golden is a 2008 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and is the recipient of the 2016 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. Golden is an active lecturer and panelist speaking about contemporary art and culture at national and international institutions, including TED and TEDx conferences. Born in St. Albans, Queens, Golden currently resides in Harlem.

DICK GRIFFIN

Composer, trombonist, and artist Dick Griffin was born in Fannin, Mississippi, and lives in New York. He has performed with the Sun Ra Arkestra and began a longtime collaboration with saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk. He has also worked with many other musicians, including Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, and Michael Jackson. He has played at prestigious events such as the 1980 Olympics, and with symphony orchestras such as the Harlem Philharmonic and the Symphony of the New World. He has also performed in several Broadway shows, including The Wiz, Me & Bessie, Raisin, and Lena, starring Lena Horne.

LAMONT HAMILTON

LaMont Hamilton is an autodidact artist working in Chicago and New York. Hamilton’s approach is inter-disciplinarian, spanning fields of research, image, sound, and performance. This includes the modern dance piece Dapline! along with collaborator André Zachery which was called “rich in emotional nuance and gestural beauty” by The New York Times and included in their “Best of Dance 2015.” Hamilton has received several fellowships and awards including Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Artadia Award and ArtMatters Grant, and MFAH’s Dora Maar Fellowship. Additionally Hamilton has been an artist in residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell Colony, Camargo Foundation, Duke University, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art.

DR. ROGER F. HARRIS

Dr. Roger F. Harris served three years of active duty with the United States Marine Corps, including a thirteen-month tour of duty with a combat unit in Vietnam. After his return to the USA, he devoted 41 years to Boston’s public K-12 schools. For eleven years he was a mentor principal to the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has been the recipient of numerous civic and community awards, including the Massachusetts Principal of the Year Award, and the U.S. Department of Education’s National Distinguished Principal Award. He has most recently served as Faculty Director and Assistant Professor of Practice at Boston University’s School of Education.

CHARON HRIBAR

Charon Hribar is the Director of Cultural Strategies for the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice. Over the past 15 years, Hribar has been dedicated to the work of political education, leadership development, and integrating the use of arts and culture for movement building with community and religious leaders across the country. Believing that music is a powerful tool for social change, Hribar is a vocalist who uses and teaches the art of protest music to embody the connections of culture, art, and history and promote collective action. She received her Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Drew University where she also served as the coordinator of Drew University’s PREP (Partnership for Religion and Education in Prisons) Program at Northern State Prison in Newark, NJ. Hribar is a trainer with Beyond the Choir, a collective working with social justice organizations to craft resonant messaging, plan strategic campaigns, and mobilize larger bases of support.

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ALECZ INCA

Holder of a master degree in communication sciences, Alecz Inca is interested in the transdisciplinary intersections between media studies, gamification, and philosophy. Convinced about the revolutionary potential of virtual and augmented reality, Inca focuses on the evangelization of this medium. This is achieved through various means, including developing VR/AR applications that encapsulate dioramas, first person experiences, interactive virtual environments, 3D scans and 360° videos. Inca also founded Highway101 Experiential TechGnology Community; co-founded VR Café that popped up in Montreal and Paris; and initiated series of Meetups to organize and curate Jump Into VR Fest, a three-day event dedicated to VR/AR that took place in New York on Sept 15-17, 2017.

WALTER C. JACKSON

Walter C. Jackson was born in rural Mississippi but grew up in Jackson. He received his BS from Jackson State University and MFA from The University of Tennessee. Jackson is the recipient of: NEA AIR Grant; NYFA Grants; and Roswell AIR. His exhibitions include The Sculpture Center, P. S. 1, Pittsfield Museum, and the Mississippi Museum of Art. His works are in the collection of The Tennessee Museum of Art, The Schomberg Collection, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Anderson Museum. Currently Jackson lives and work in central New York state.

VIRGINIA JOHNSON

Virginia Johnson is a founding member and former principal dancer of Dance Theatre of Harlem, and now serves as the company’s Artistic Director. Her 28-year performance career brought her acclaim in a broad range of works including Creole Giselle, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Fall River Legend, each of which was filmed and broadcast on television. After retiring from the stage, she founded POINTE Magazine and served as Editor-in-Chief from 2000-2009. Her honors include a Young Achiever Award from the National Council of Women, the Dance Magazine Award, a Pen and Brush Achievement Award, and the 2009 Martha Hill Fund Mid-Career Award.

LÊ THI DIEM THÚY

lê thi diem thúy was born in southern Vietnam and raised in southern California. She often explores in her work the role of the body as the site of memory. She is the author of the novel The Gangster We Are All Looking For, and the solo performance works Red Fiery Summer, the bodies between us, and Carte Postale. She has been awarded residencies from the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation, and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute For Advanced Study, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and United States Artists. Her most recent work is the installation sông song/river song, which traces two moments of American violence.

DAVID LEVERING LEWIS

Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies of W.E.B. DuBois, Lewis has also won the Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize. Lewis received fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation; the American Philosophical Society; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In May 2015, he received the Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., Distinguished Service Prize from the Society of American Historians and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, from Columbia University.

BETH LEW-WILLIAMS

Beth Lew-Williams is an assistant professor of History at Princeton University. Her research is focused on race and migration in the United States, with an emphasis on Asian Americans. Her book, The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America (Harvard University Press, 2018), explores how U.S. immigration policies incited racial violence and how the violence, in turn, provoked new exclusionary policies. She received her PhD in history from Stanford University and has held fellowships from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

CANNUPA HANSKA LUGER

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multi-disciplinary artist of Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota descent. His work communicates stories of complex Indigenous identities coming up against 21st century challenges, including violence, capitalism, and misconceptions. Using social collaboration, monumental sculpture, land response, ceramic, video, sound, fiber, steel, paper, and performance, Luger provokes diverse publics to engage with Indigenous peoples and values apart from the lens of colonial social structuring. Luger holds a BFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts and his work is collected and exhibited nationally and internationally.

SADE LYTHCOTT

Sade Lythcott is the daughter of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, founder of the National Black Theatre (NBT) and legendary champion of African-American culture in New York. In 2008, Sade was appointed CEO of the NBT, and is also cochair of the Coalitions of Theatres of Color. Prior to joining the NBT family, Lythcott has performed with several Offand Off-Off Broadway theater companies. In 2012 Lythcott wrote and produced highly acclaimed musical A Time To Love, garnering 3 AUDELCO nominations and the Key to Harlem for her excellence in the Arts. She is a recipient of the 2015 Rising Star Award from 651 ARTS and the Larry Leon Hamlin Legacy Award from Black Theatre Network.

JONATHAN MCCRORY

Jonathan McCrory is an Obie Award-winning and AUDELCO -nominated Harlem-based artist who has served as Artistic Director at Dr. Barbara Ann Teer’s National Black Theatre since 2012. He has directed numerous productions, including Dead and Breathing, HandsUp, Hope Speaks, Blacken The Bubble, Asking for More, Last Laugh and Enter Your Sleep. He is a founding member of Harlem9 and The Movement Theatre Company. McCrory sits on the National Advisory Committee for Black Theatre Commons and is a member of ArtEquity, SCD, and Emerge NYC. A Washington, D.C., native, McCrory attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts and New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

PAOLA MENDOZA

Paola Mendoza was a national organizer and the Artistic Director for the Women’s March on Washington, the largest one-day mass mobilization in history. For her day job, Paola is a critically acclaimed film director. Her award-winning movies have premiered at the most prestigious film festivals around the world. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and she is a Tribeca All Access, Film Independent, and Independent Film Week fellow. She is a co-founder of The Soze Agency and has been the creative director for campaigns fighting for immigration reform, criminal justice reform, and incarcerated mother’s and women’s rights. She is a co-founder and member of the critically acclaimed Resistance Revival Chorus.

JASMINE MURRELL

Jasmine Murrell is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist born in Detroit, Michigan. She employs several different mediums to create sculptures, painting, land art, installations, and films that blur the line between history and mythology. She has a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA from Hunter College. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally for the past decade, in venues such as Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Bronx Museum, African-American Museum of Art, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, and The Whitney Museum. Her work has been published in the Artforum, The New York Times, The Amsterdam News, Metro Times and Hyperallergic.

NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE Founded by visionary Dr. Barbara Ann Teer in 1968, National Black Theatre (NBT) is a nationally recognized cultural and educational institution. Dr. Teer pioneered “the healing art of Black theatre as an instrument for wholeness in urban communities where entrepreneurial artists of African descent live and work.” In 1983, Dr. Teer expanded the vision of NBT by purchasing a 64,000-square-foot building on 125th Street and Fifth Avenue (renamed “National Black Theatre Way” by local law in 1994). This was the first revenue-generating Black arts complex in the country, an innovative arrangement through which for-profit businesses who shared NBT’s spiritual and aesthetic values rented retail space to subsidize the arts. Out of her vision, NBT houses the largest collection of Nigerian new sacred art in the Western hemisphere and is considered the authentic representation of a model whose time has come.

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MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO

Meshell Ndegeocello is a bassist, vocalist, and songwriter, whose music incorporates a wide variety of influences: funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, reggae, and rock. She has garnered critical acclaim throughout her career, including ten career Grammy Award nominations. Ndegeocello has worked with The Rolling Stones, Prince, Madonna, Chaka Khan, Terrence Blanchard, and Cassandra Wilson. She has also collaborated with Billy Preston, John Mellencamp, Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, Redman, Lizz Wright, Lalah Hathaway, Zap Mama, Cody Chestnut, Toshi Reagon, and many others. In 2016, Ndegeocello worked with collaborators to create Can I Get a Witness: The Gospel According to James Baldwin, an evolving work of music theater inspired by The Fire Next Time (1963), Baldwin’s polemic about race in America.

KALIA BROOKS NELSON

Kalia Brooks Nelson, PhD, is a New York-based independent curator and educator. She is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Brooks Nelson holds a PhD in Aesthetics and Art Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. She received her M.A. in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts in 2006, and was a Helena Rubinstein Fellow in Critical Studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program 2007/2008. She has served as a consulting curator with the City of New York through the Department of Cultural Affairs and Gracie Mansion Conservancy. Brooks Nelson is also currently an ex-officio trustee on the Board of the Museum of the City of New York.

SHANI PETERS

Shani Peters is a multi-disciplinary artist based in New York City. Her practice encompasses community building, activism histories, and the creation of accessible imaginative experiences. Peters holds a B.A. from Michigan State University and an M.F.A. from the City College of New York. She has presented work at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem; Seoul Art Space Geumcheon in South Korea; and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare. Selected residencies include the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, The Laundromat Project, and Project Row Houses. Her work has been supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Rauschenberg Foundation, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

LIZA JESSIE PETERSON

Liza Jessie Peterson is a renowned actress, poet, playwright, educator, and activist. She has worked both professionally and artistically with adolescents detained at Rikers Island for 20 years, and as a program counselor for the Department of Corrections, a reentry specialist, a teaching artist, GED instructor, and a life skills workshop facilitator. She was recently featured in Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th (Netflix) and was a consultant on Bill Moyers documentary RIKERS (PBS). Her plays include The Peculiar Patriot, which she performed in over 35 penitentiaries across the country and recently premiered at National Black Theater. Liza’s book, ALL DAY; A Year of Love and Survival Teaching Incarcereated Kids at Rikers Island, is available on-line and in bookstores now.

GEORGE STONEFISH

George Stonefish is a First Nation member [American Indian] who is 1/2 Delaware; 1/4 Ottawa; 1/8 Ojibwa; 1/16 Pottawatomi; and 1/16 Miami, from Ontario, Canada. He was raised in New York City and has spent most of his life working for the First Nation [American Indian] community on both a national and local level. He started his activism at an early age whenhe went to the takeover of Alcatraz by First Nation students in 1969 with his grandmother and uncle. Since then, he has participated in the defense of Native Nations as a member of their warrior societies and promoted their struggles though his weekly radio program on Native issues from 1978 to 1983.

GREG TATE

Greg Tate is a writer, musician, and a founding member of the Black Rock Coalition. In 1999, he and Jared Nickerson formed Burnt Sugar which has, to date, produced 16 albums under Tate’s direction on Burnt Sugar’s own Avant Groidd imprint. Tate was a Staff Writer at Village Voice from 1987-2003. His writings on culture and politics have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Artforum, Rolling Stone, among many others. He was recently acknowledged by The Source magazine as one of the ‘Godfathers of Hiphop Journalism’ for his groundbreaking work on the genre’s social, political, economic, and culture implications in the period when most pundits considered it a fad.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

JOHN KUO WEI TCHEN

ROBERTA UNO

THE LAUNDROMAT PROJECT

CHERYL A. WALL

John Kuo Wei Tchen is the Clement A. Price Chair of Public History & Humanities at Rutgers University – Newark, beginning Fall 2018. He is founding director of the Asian/Pacific /American Studies Program & Institute and co-founded the Museum of Chinese in America. He is the senior advisor for the PBS documentary with Ric Burns and Lishin Yu on the Chinese Exclusion Act. Currently he is grappling with foundational histories of dispossession, enslavement, and trade for the United States. His Below the Grid Project is pioneering creative historical storytelling with smart, location-sensitive wearable tech.

The Laundromat Project brings socially relevant and socially engaged arts programming to laundromats and other everyday community spaces in order to reach as many neighbors as possible. They are particularly committed to long-term and sustained investment in communities of color as well as those living on modest incomes.They amplify the creativity that already exists within communities by using arts and culture to build community networks, solve problems, and enhance our sense of ownership in the places where we live, work, and grow.

DAVÓNE TINES

Davóne Tines, deemed a “…singer of immense power and fervor…” by Los Angeles Times and a “...charismatic, fullvoiced bass-baritone...” by The New York Times, commands a broad spectrum of opera and concert performance as a singer and creator. Recent engagements include: the Dutch National Opera, Finnish National Opera, San Francisco Opera, Paris Opera, London Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Ojai Music Festival, Baltic Sea Festival, National Sawdust, BAM, and the American Repertory Theater in collaborations with Kaija Saariaho, John Adams, Matt Aucoin, Caroline Shaw, and Peter Sellars.

Roberta Uno is a theater director and dramaturg, and is the Director of Arts in a Changing America (ArtChangeUS) at the California Institute of the Arts. She founded and was the Artistic Director of the New WORLD Theater from 1979-2002, a theater dedicated to the work of artists of color in Amherst, Massachusetts. An SDC member, she directed, produced or dramaturged over 200 works at New WORLD Theater. She is currently directing the development of Try/Step/Trip by Dahlak Brathwaite. She is also the editor of the new anthology, Contemporary Plays by Women of Color (Routledge:UK).

Cheryl A. Wall, Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English at Rutgers University, is the author of Women of the Harlem Renaissance, Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition, and A Very Short Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance. She edited Writings of Zora Neale Hurston in two volumes for the Library of America and Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women, among other books. Her latest work, On Freedom and the Will to Adorn: The Art of the African American Essay, will be published later this year.

DAMIAN WOETZEL

Damian Woetzel has taken on multiple roles in arts leadership following a 20-year career as Principal Dancer with New York City Ballet. Woetzel is the Director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program, Artistic Director of the Vail Dance Festival, Director of the DEMO series at the Kennedy Center, and is active as an independent director and producer. Woetzel served for 8 years on President Obama’s Committee on Arts and Humanities (PCAH) where he worked to create the national Turnaround Arts education program. He holds a Master in Public Administration Degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. In July, Woetzel will become the seventh president of The Juilliard School in New York City.

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CAMILLE ZAMORA

Camille Zamora is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Sing for Hope. An internationally acclaimed soprano, she has appeared with collaborators ranging from Plácido Domingo to Sting, with ensembles including London Symphony and LA Opera, and in live broadcasts on NPR, BBC Radio, and Deutsche Radio. A graduate of The Juilliard School, she has been recognized by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and named one of CNN’s Most Intriguing People, NY1’s “New Yorker of the Week” and one of the “Top 50 Americans in Philanthropy” by Town & Country. Camille has performed and spoken about citizen artistry at Skoll World Forum, the Global Social Business Summit, and the UN.

ABOUT ARTCHANGEUS

Arts in a Changing America (ArtChangeUS) is a five-year initiative that embraces the dramatic demographic transformation of the United States and its profound impact on arts and culture. Based out of the California Institute of the Arts, ArtChangeUS is creating a vast network for artists, idea producers, and organizations across sectors to reframe the national arts conversation at the intersection of arts and social justice. ArtChangeUS serves as an urgently needed catalyst that brings unheard leadership voices in the arts to the forefront of social discourse, arts production and community change.

ABOUT ASPEN INSTITUTE ARTS PROGRAM

The Aspen Institute Arts Program was established to support and invigorate the role of arts and culture in public life through initiatives, convenings, and strategy work across the United States. Directed by Damian Woetzel, it brings together artists, advocates, educators, government officials and others to exchange ideas and develop policies and programs that strengthen the reciprocal relationship between the arts and society. By examining how artists shape our views of community and country, the Arts Program draws us into causes of social concern and helps uncover creative solutions based in empathy and shared understanding.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

ABOUT THE ARMORY

Part American palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory is dedicated to supporting unconventional works in the visual and performing arts that need non-traditional spaces for their full realization, enabling artists to create, students to explore, and audiences to consume epic and adventurous presentations that can not be mounted elsewhere in New York City. Since its first production in September 2007, the Armory has organized and commissioned immersive performances, installations, and cross-disciplinary collaborations by visionary artists, directors, and impresarios in its vast Wade Thompson Drill Hall that defy traditional categorization and push the boundaries of their practice. In its historic period rooms, the Armory presents small-scale performances and programs, including its acclaimed Recital Series in the intimate salon setting of the Board of Officers Room and the Artists Studio series in the newly restored Veterans Room. The Armory also offers robust arts education programs at no cost to underserved New York City public school students, engaging them with the institution’s artistic programming and the building’s history and architecture. Built between 1877 and 1881, Park Avenue Armory has been hailed as containing “the single most important collection of nineteenth century interiors to survive intact in one building” by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall, with an 80-foot-high barrel vaulted roof, is one of the largest unobstructed spaces in New York City. The Armory’s magnificent reception rooms were designed by leaders of the American Aesthetic Movement, among them Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White, Candace Wheeler, and Herter Brothers. The building is currently undergoing a $215-million renovation designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Platt Byard Dovell White Architects as Executive Architects.

PARK AVENUE ARMORY ARTS EDUCATION

Arts Education is one of the three prime missions of the Armory, offering a unique environment for student engagement by allowing world-class artists to think outside the box, creating immersive environments free from the constraints of fixed seats, proscenium, or stage. The lack of formality has minimized these perceived barriers to entry, allowing students to absorb and react freely. Through programs offered at no cost to participants, students from underserved New York City public schools in all five boroughs are exposed to the work and creative process of innovative artists from many disciplines; they explore epic works with the Armory’s experienced corps of multi-disciplinary Teaching Artists and staff; and they express their own interpretations. The Armory Youth Corps is a group of New York City public high school students and graduates who are immersed in the art and creative processes of the Armory’s artists through paid internships over multiple years. They advise the Armory staff and teaching artists, create events for peers and students, and preview productions, bringing their years of combined experiences in the arts to every endeavor. Today, the Youth Corps Advisory Board invite you to participate in their Salon in Company G. In addition, Youth Corps members are also working as house managers, photographers, and front of house staff for today’s programming.

Production Acknowledgements Steinway & Sons

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