Dick Gregory is Keynote Speaker at 1st Annual Globesity Fest

Legendary social activist Dick Gregory will deliver the keynote speech at the first annual Globesity Festival: Hunger Strike Theater, it was announced by the Festival's artistic directors Penny Arcade and Michael Premo.  The week-long multidisciplinary festival, which kicks off Monday, October 22 (through Sunday, October 28) at New York City's Theater for the New City (155 First Ave.), will be FREE to the public.  

The Festival is comprised of performances, speakers and panel discussions committed to raising awareness of, and sharing solutions to, the dangers of over-consumption and to promote the body's ability to self-heal.  In their search for clarity, all participating performers will undergo their own 10-day juice fasts during the conception of original work that will premiere at the festival.

On October 22 at 8PM, the Festival will officially begin with a community forum, monologue slam and keynote speech from Civil Rights activist (and king of comedy) Dick Gregory, who is no stranger to fasting.  As a close friend to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, Gregory would regularly fast in support of political campaigns including publicizing world famine, protesting the Vietnam War and urging Ayatollah Khomeini for the release of US military hostages.  During one 40-day fast, he jogged from New York to Los Angeles. 

The Festival will also feature participating performers Penny Arcade, John Fleck, Phoebe Legere, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, Darius James, Rick Shapiro, Zeroboy and The Last Poets, among many others, including younger artists like Eric Lockley and Janie Martinez.

The Globesity Festival was created and produced by Australian filmmaker Robert Mac and is sponsored by self-made Australian businessman Joe Cross, who suffers from a rare and debilitating immune condition for which he finds substantial healing through juice fasting.  This ancient practice produces both mental clarity and physical detoxification, and is a well-documented avenue towards overall health.  Cross is a veteran of juice fasts lasting up to 40 days, and during the festival he will be undergoing a 60-day juice fast. His journey, including the Globesity Festival in its entirety, will be filmed as part of a feature documentary film called Faster, directed by festival creator Robert Mac and produced by Mac and John Miller-Monzon.

"Globesity" is the over-consumption of all natural elements that sustain life on Earth – some of the most valuable being water, minerals, oil and food. America is suffering from a massive imbalance between what we consume and what we produce. According to Forbes, we are currently the fattest nation in the developed world, and while our nation makes up just 5% of the world's population, we consume 25% of the world's energy resources. But we're still not satisfied, and we seek fulfillment at the malls and on our plates.  The Globesity Festival aims to show how "doing without" on a larger, global scale, and rethinking our diets and overall consumption choices, can actually cleanse and strengthen the overall health of the planet and its inhabitants.  "Doing without" in its simplest form—fasting—heals and strengthens.    

For further information about the Globesity Festival, please visit www.theglobesityfestival.org or call 917-547-1292.  A complete schedule of events will be announced shortly.