Making Space At The Armory Releases Full Schedule Of Public Events For SYMPOSIUM: SOUND & COLOR – THE FUTURE OF RACE IN DESIGN

Park Avenue Armory announces the full schedule of public events Symposium: Sound & Color - The Future of Race in Design, an interdisciplinary forum exploring how race matters in creative design for live performance, especially in the current moment of creative, technological, and cultural unrest.

Hosted by lighting designer and co-organizer Jane Cox, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, set designer Mimi Lien, and sound designer and composer Mikaal Sulaiman, this event will include a series of conversations and interventions on Saturday, January 14, 2023 and Sunday, January 15, 2023, intended to allow artists, intellectuals, and designers to explore lighting, sound, costume, and set design, as well as augmented reality, as sites of innovation, magic, and transformation.

Full schedule listed below:

Saturday, January 14, 2023

1:00pm - 2:00pm

• Opening Conversation
  Veterans Room
  Set designer Mimi Lien, lighting designer Jane Cox, and sound designer and composer Mikaal Sulaiman in conversation, moderated by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

2:00pm - 3:00pm

• Creating a Collaborative Aesthetic Over Time
  Veterans Room
  Long-term collaborators costume designer Montana Blanco, set designer Adam Rigg, sound designer Palmer Hefferan, and puppet designer and fabricator James Ortiz discuss their collaborative history and work on The Skin of Our Teeth, moderated by director Lileana Blain-Cruz.

3:00pm - 4:00pm

• Presentation of Micro-Commissions
  Presented in collaboration with Design Action
  Second Floor Historic Company Rooms
  Commissions by Barrymore-nominated scenic designer Marie Laster; designer and artisan Danielle DeLaFuente and sound designer Nina Field; queer, nonbinary interdisciplinary artist Gylanni Carrington; Mexican scenic and costume designer Rodrigo Hernandez Martinez; sound designer and composer Elliot Yokum; and lighting designers Christina Tang and Alex Vásquez Dheming.
• Space for Informal Conversations
  Second Floor Hallway

4:00pm - 5:00pm

• Conversations Between Generations
  Veterans Room
  Actor, playwright, and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson in conversation with lighting designer and educator Victor En Yu Tan sharing the experiences of working in culturally specific theaters with younger artists. Moderated by Puerto Rican scenic designer and Head of Scenic Design at DePaul University Regina García.
• Teaching Design and Production through an Anti-Racist Lens
  Board of Officers Room
  Costume designer and Princeton faculty member Sarita Fellows and Head of Lighting Design Training at NYU Tisch Jeanette Yew in conversation with University of Rhode Island Professor Christine Mok.

Sunday, January 15, 2023

1:00pm - 2:00pm

• The Future of Theater Design in XR
  Presented in collaboration with Oregon Shakespeare Festival
  Veterans Room
  Korean director, artist, and producer Scarlett Kim and director Mei Ann Teo in conversation with new media artist and creative technologist LaJuné McMillian; multidisciplinary artist and performer Justin Hicks; costume designer Dede Ayite; Ojibwe and Oneida writer, actor, and interdisciplinary artist Ty Defoe; and dancer Raja Feather Kelly.
• Black Sound Artists Round Table
  Board of Officers Room
  Sound designer and composer Mikaal Sulaiman in conversation with composer, sound design artist, and musician Justin Ellington; Ghanaian interdisciplinary artist Jojo Abot; vocalist, composer, and performance artist Holland Andrews; and duo Mendi + Keith Obadike.

2:00pm - 3:00pm

• Afrofuturism in Conversation with Design for Live Performance
  Veterans Room
  Park Avenue Armory Curator of Public Programming Tavia Nyong'o in conversation with director Shariffa Ali and Taiwanese scenic designer You Shin Chen.
• Culturally Specific Design
  Board of Officers Room
  New York City Center Encores! Producing Creative Director Clint Ramos in conversation with theatrical lighting, projection, and puppetry designer Jeanette Yew. Moderated by Diep Tran, Editor-in-Chief of Playbill.

3:00pm - 4:00pm

• Presentation of Micro-Commissions
  Presented in collaboration with Design Action
  Second Floor Historic Company Rooms
  Commissions by Barrymore-nominated scenic designer Marie Laster; designer and artisan Danielle DeLaFuente and sound designer Nina Field; queer, nonbinary interdisciplinary artist Gylanni Carrington; Mexican scenic and costume designer Rodrigo Hernandez Martinez; sound designer and composer Elliot Yokum; and lighting designers Christina Tang and Alex Vásquez Dheming.
• Space for Informal Conversations
  Second Floor Hallway

4:00pm - 5:00pm

• Darkness and Light: Lighting Design Onstage
  Presented in collaboration with Princeton University's CreativeX
  Veterans Room
  Lighting designers Itohan Edoloyi, Stacey Derosier, Alejandro Fajardo, and Alan Edwards in conversation, moderated by symposium host, Director of the Princeton University Theater program, and lighting designer Jane Cox.
• Costume Design Conversation
  Board of Officers Room
  Hosted by costume designer and founder of Black Trans Liberation Qween Jean with costume designers Dominique Fawn Hill and Devario D. Simmons.

Ongoing Presentations

• Movement Portraits
  19K
  by LaJuné McMillian
• Documentation of the performance work rasgos asiáticos
  An intimate story about the fluidity of borders and time, Virginia Grise's site-specific performance installation (documented here) rasgos asiáticos examines migration and displacement, and unearths hidden histories in the confluence of China, Mexico, and the United States. Created in collaboration with designer Tanya Orellana, rasgos asiáticos is a constructed space for personal and political excavation, revealed through inherited stories, fragmented memories, historical re-imaginings, and recurring dreams.
• Quills Fest VR World Pop Up
  Presented by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
  Colonel's Room
  The Oregon Shakespeare Festival mount a pop-up version of their Quills Fest VR World, a transmedia sandbox that radically expands access to the transformational power of storytelling and imagines a multimodal future of theater. Pop-up works include XR and AR projects in multiple phases of development-from prototypes and works-in-progress to fully completed projects-that boldly explore liveness, interactivity, and immersive storytelling.

Day passes at $45 (plus fees) and weekend passes at $60 (plus fees) are available for purchase online at armoryonpark.org and by phone through the Park Avenue Armory Box Office at (212) 933-5812, 10am to 6pm Monday through Friday. In person box office hours may vary.