LIVE IDEAS 2018: Radical Vision Festival Looks Into Activism
By: A.A. Cristi Apr. 09, 2018
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Day three of New York Live Arts' Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision festival, Saturday, April 21, looks at our electoral process through readings, a workshop, panel discussions, and a performance spectacle.
Opening the day will be a reading with actor and composer Andrew Lippa, who will present text by Harvey Milk, followed by arrangements of speeches by Bella Abzug, American lawyer, U.S. Representative, social activist, and a leader of the Women's Movement, read by her daughter Liz Abzug. Filmmaker Shola Lynch (Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed (2004) and Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (2013)) will read text by Shirley Chisholm, American politician, educator, and author, who became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. The reading will start at 11:30 am.
From 1:00-2:30 pm, Fordham Law Professor, political activist, and former New York gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout will share the fundamentals of working with, protesting against, and/or participating in local government in this hands-on workshop, Hands-on Politics. Tickets start at $10 or pay what you can. In the panel By the People, Alexander Guerrero (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University) and Belgian writer David Van Reybrouck (Against Elections: The Case for Democracy) ask the radical question if we should abandon the traditional methods of voting and use lotteries to select our officials. Roger Berkowitz, Director of the Hannah Arendt Center, will moderate the discussion. The panel begins at 3:15 pm. Tickets start at $10.
Beginning at 5:30 pm, Gabriel Stricker (former Vice President of Policy and Communications, Google Fiber, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., and former Chief Communications Officer, Twitter), journalist Noam Cohen (The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse), author Virginia Eubanks (Automating Inequality), Meredith Whittaker (Executive Director and co-founder of AI Now Institute at NYU), and moderator Bianca Bosker (journalist, author, and co-founder of the Tech section of the Huffington Post) will ask if our democracy has been hacked, debating the role and influence on our lives by tech companies. The panel begins at 5:30 pm. Tickets start at $10.
Ending day three of Live Idea: Radical Vision, Resistance & Friends, cutting-edge performances hosted by Drag King Elizabeth (Macha) Marrero from the Bronx, will feature Portland-based extended technique vocalist, composer, and performer Like a Villain (Holland Andrews), multi-octave and multi-genre singer Joseph Keckler, artist Marguerite Hemmings, dancer/choreographer Keely Garfield, poet and performer Saul Williams, and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. This event begins at 8 pm, tickets start at $25.
An annual interdisciplinary humanities festival, Live Ideas is a high point of the New York Live Arts season. This year's festival, Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision, presented April 18-22, 2018, at New York Live Arts, will offer five days of activity designed to imagine the future and understand the past of an open and democratic society. Bringing together artists, activists, journalists, and scholars, Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision is co-curated with Live Arts by culture creator Brian Tate, president of The Tate Group, and presented in partnership with the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College with curatorial input from Roger Berkowitz, the Center's director.
April 18-22, 2018Contents Under Pressure: Democracy in Crisis
Keynote conversation
April 18, 2018, 6:30 pm
New York Live Arts, Theater
Admission: Tickets start at $15 Join Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and Professor Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, in conversation with Bill T. Jones regarding how our system of government is impacted by the postmodern pressures of relentless media, corporate ambitions, and a deeply divided electorate. Opening performance by mezzo-soprano vocal artist Alicia Hall Moran with artist and puppeteer Matt Acheson.
Public Readings on Democracy
April 19 & 20, 2018, 4:00-5:00 pm
April 21, 2018, 11:30 am-12:30 pm
New York Live Arts, Lobby
Admission: Free, $10 suggested donation An array of today's artists, activists, and thinkers will read seminal texts on democracy by such radical visionaries as Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Cesar Chavez, Frederick Douglass, Audre Lorde, Harriet Tubman, Yuri Kochiyama, Gloria Anzaldúa, Berta Cáceres, Grace Lee Boggs, Abraham Lincoln, Harvey Milk, Henry David Thoreau, Alexis de Tocqueville, among others.
Bending Towards Justice?
Panel discussion
April 19, 2018, 5:30-7:00 pm
New York Live Arts, Studio
Admission: Tickets start at $10 It is widely known that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and that people of color are disproportionately affected. Join us for a conversation on the current state and future vision of criminal justice in America, with Adam Foss (Director/Founder of Prosecutor Impact), Meg Reiss (Executive Director, the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College), Michelle Jones (scholar, activist, playwright, and formerly incarcerated), Steven Teles and David Dagan (co-authors Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration), and moderator Max Kenner (Founder/Director, Bard Prison Initiative). The discussion will open with a short play reading of an excerpt from The Duchess of Stringtown, written by Michelle Jones and Anastazia Schmid.
Spiritrials
Primetime performance
April 19, 2018, 8:00-9:15 pm
New York Live Arts, Theater
Admission: Tickets start at $25
A timely exploration of the American criminal justice system, this multidimensional play blurs the line between hip-hop and dramatic performance. Writer/performer Dahlak Brathwaite weaves through the autobiographical and the fictional, music and soliloquy to examine his place in what appears to be a cultural rite of passage as a young black male. Written and performed by Dahlak Brathwaite, scored by Brathwaite and Dion Decibels, and directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Sean San Jose.
Panel discussion
April 20, 2018, 5:30-7:00 pm
New York Live Arts, Studio
Admission: Tickets start at $10 A free press was so important to the Founding Fathers that they included its protection in the First Amendment, alongside free speech. With the three branches of our government now controlled by one party, does the Fourth Estate - the press - have a higher obligation to hold the government accountable? Farai Chideya (author, political reporter and analyst, and program officer for journalism at the Ford Foundation), Bret Stephens (The New York Times contributing columnist), Roger Berkowitz (Director of the Hannah Arendt Center), and moderator Rebecca Carroll (writer, editor and producer at WNYC and host of the forthcoming podcast Black Folks) will discuss the role of the press in an endangered liberal democracy.
The End of Journalism
Primetime performance
April 20, 2018, 8:00 pm
New York Live Arts, Theater
Admission: Tickets start at $25
A monologue by Mike Daisey The End of Journalism explores how journalism in America ended, peeling back layers of "real" and "fake" news to find the darkly hilarious truth about the world we've made. Daisey is hailed as the pre-eminent monologist in the American theater today.
Hands-on Politics
Workshop with Zephyr Teachout
April 21, 1:00-2:30 pm
New York Live Arts, Studio Admission: Tickets start at $10 or pay what you can Tocqueville argued in Democracy in America (1835-40) that Americans showed how democracy in the modern world might look: when they want something done, they form democratic associations to accomplish it. Just fifty or sixty years ago, one in four people held leadership positions in local politics. Fordham Law Professor, political activist, and former New York gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout will share the fundamentals of working with, protesting against, and/or participating in local government.
Panel discussion
April 21, 3:15-4:45 pm
New York Live Arts, Studio
Admission: Tickets start at $10
In the face of gerrymandering, voter suppression, campaign finance abuse, election tampering, and a disillusioned electorate, is now the time to reinvigorate our electoral system or get rid of it? What are the alternatives? Alexander Guerrero (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University) and Belgian writer David Van Reybrouck (author, Against Elections: The Case for Democracy) discuss if we should abandon the traditional methods of voting and use lotteries to select our officials. Roger Berkowitz (Director of the Hannah Arendt Center) will moderate this discussion. Has Democracy Been Hacked?
Panel discussion
April 21, 2018, 5:30-7:00 pm
New York Live Arts, Studio
Admission: Tickets start at $10 Tech companies that wield such tremendous influence over our lives are themselves subject to interference and manipulation. What is the way forward for democracy in the digital age? Gabriel Stricker (former Vice President of Policy and Communications, Google Fiber, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., and the former Chief Communications Officer, Twitter), journalist Noam Cohen (author, The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse), Virginia Eubanks (Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY and author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor), and moderator Bianca Bosker (award-winning journalist, author, and co-founder of the Tech section of the Huffington Post) will discuss the topic.
Resistance & Friends
Primetime performance
April 21, 2018, 8:00-9:15 pm
New York Live Arts, Theater
Admission: Tickets start at $25 An evening of cutting-edge performances hosted by Drag King Elizabeth (Macha) Marrero from the Bronx. Featuring Portland based extended technique vocalist, composer, and performer Like a Villain (Holland Andrews), multi-octave and multi-genre singer Joseph Keckler, Choreographer/dancer Marguerite Hemmings, Drag Queen/performance artist Ragamuffin, poet and performer Saul Williams, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, and Choreographer/dancer Keely Garfield will re-imagine her latest group work Mandala for this performance.
Learn a Song of Resistance with Cynthia Hopkins
April 22, 2018, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
New York Live Arts, Lobby
Admission: Free, $10 suggested donation Throughout human history, communal singing has served as a source of both solace and empowerment for societies in crisis. Voices raised together in song can energize and propel through uplifting expressions of solidarity and resistance. Drawing on legacies of protest songs that have fueled social justice movements of the past, singer/songwriter and performance artist Cynthia Hopkins invites everyone to learn a new song of resistance against current threats to human rights.
The Secret Court
Theatrical reading
April 22, 2018, 12:30-2:15 pm
New York Live Arts, Theater
Admission: Tickets start at $15
This staged reading is of a new play based on the 1920 ad hoc disciplinary tribunal of five administrators at Harvard University formed to investigate charges of homosexual activity among the student population that began with the suicide of a student. The affair went unreported until 2002. The Secret Court has been written by members of the Plastic Theatre and was conceived by Tony Speciale. Co-presented with the Abingdon Theatre.
Panel discussion
April 22, 2018, 3:30-5:00 pm
New York Live Arts, Studio
Admission: Tickets start at $10
In a remarkably short span of time, President Donald J. Trump has transformed our culture. His achievement is not measured in his ability to build a border wall, heighten mass incarceration, impose a travel ban, or launch a military strike against North Korea. It is that these ideas are now seriously discussed and debated, when two years ago that would have been impossible. Do progressives have a viable and strategic response to his next presidential campaign? Are artists key to helping shape that response? Multimedia artists/activists Betty Yu, Erin Markey, Xenobia Bailey, Emily Johnson, and moderator Tanya Selvaratnam will discuss these questions and others. Prayers of the People
Primetime performance
A secular liturgical performance inspired by Martin Luther King's words
April 22, 2018, 6:00-7:15 pm
New York Live Arts, Theater
Admission: Tickets start at $25
2018 marks the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This participatory performance appropriates the structure of an Episcopal liturgy and brings to life the words of Dr. King. Conceived by Kenyon Victor Adams (little ray) and directed by Bill T. Jones, the cast includes Kenyon Victor Adams, Vinson Fraley, Rebecca L. Hargrove, Cynthia Hopkins, Walker Jackson, and Padraic Costello. Audience participation (chanting of text and following directions to stand, sit, kneel) is strongly encouraged.
Democrazy Ball April 22, 2018, 7:30-10:00 pm
Admission: Tickets start at $10
Take up space as an act of resistance and release pent up political angst on the dance floor with festival-goers and participants. High energy layered dance music by DJ JLMR and special guest performance by spitfire cabaret artist Daphne Always. Hosted by Tyler Ashley, The Dauphine of Bushwick.
FUNDING SUPPORT
Support for New York Live Arts is provided by Con Edison, the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Harnisch Foundation, the Alice Lawrence Foundation, the Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Metropolitan Capital Bancorp, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the National Performance Network, the New England Foundation for the Arts, New York Community Trust, The O'Donnell Green Music and Dance Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the Theatre Development Fund, and the Wege Foundation.
BRIAN TATE | THE TATE GROUP
Brian Tate is a culture creator and marketing strategist with deep experience in curating public programs that engage audiences across traditional divides of race, age, gender, and income. He has built forward-looking projects at the intersection of arts and ideas for more than 20 years, and he is expert at centering artists in the discussion of human justice. He is president of The Tate Group, a consulting firm that focuses on cultural initiatives, strategic marketing, partnership development, and community engagement. Narrative change around issues of equality is at the core of its practice.
The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College is the world's most expansive home for bold and risky humanities thinking about our political world inspired by the spirit of Hannah Arendt, the leading thinker of politics and active citizenship in the modern era. NEW YORK LIVE ARTS
Located in the heart of Chelsea in New York City, New York Live Arts produces and presents dance, music, and theater performances in its 20,000 square-foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square-foot studios. New York Live Arts offers an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of performing artists. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and is the company's sole producer, providing support and the environment to originate innovative and challenging new work for the company and New York's creative community.
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