Harlem Stage Announces 2022-23 Season Featuring BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED & More

Harlem Stage has announced highlights of its 2022-2023 season, whose centerpiece is a seven-event series conceived by Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence Carl Hancock Rux, and programmed collaboratively with Cruz, Managing Director Eric Oberstein, and Programming Manager Yunie Mojica, devoted to deepening and unpacking understandings of the Black Arts Movement, its intersections with the larger Black Power Movement, and its historic and cultural relevance in today's America. Bookended by discursive, expansive introduction and closing events, the five other programs in Black Arts Movement: Examined reconsider the movement's film, poetry, music, theater, and dance, while asking: "what is the relationship between art and politics and what is the role of the politically conscious artist?" As Harlem Stage approaches its 40th Anniversary year, the series poses pertinent questions about art's socially transformative potential, and the values and challenges of understanding our present through the past.

The Black Arts Movement was a cultural movement in the 1960s to 1970s that was rooted in music, literature, drama, dance, and visual arts, led by Black artists, activists, and intellectuals. This was the cultural intersection that moved and shaped the ideologies of Black identity, political beliefs, and African American culture. Black Arts Movement: Examined seeks to reawaken a nuanced critical discourse regarding Black aesthetics, while challenging, clarifying, contextualizing, and questioning the evolution and legacy of a controversial arts movement and its impact on Black arts institutions today.

Black Arts Movement: Examined emerged from conversations between Patricia Cruz and Carl Hancock Rux-not only about the Black Arts Movement itself, but about how it might offer a bridge to an exploration of Black art and activism in contemporary America. As a young performer and arts administrator, Cruz, alongside her husband Emilio Cruz, became involved in the Black Artist Group in St. Louis. She describes, "We were suddenly in the center of an amazing group of artists and activists who mixed their dedication to creative work with the idea of building and transforming community, confronting the social and political strictures that reinforced racist oppression. In part as a response to the Civil Rights movement of the '60s, we marched, we protested, and we created art meant to respond to and challenge the status quo."

Cruz continues, "Carl and I spent many hours discussing the parallels between those times 50 years ago to the police killings of Black men, women, and children and the continued oppression that inspires the Black Lives Matter movement of today. The ultimate parallel is the creative response of contemporary artists, looking back and creating forward. As an organization that sits proudly at the intersection of art and social justice, this examination of an arts movement born out of resistance exemplifies the mission of Harlem Stage."

Carl Hancock Rux says, "This series pays tribute to the groundbreaking writers, poets, visual artists, musicians, and intellectuals who attempted to situate their work within the political, economic, social, historical, and artistic context of Black Americans. Employing roundtables, public dialogues, and screenings, Harlem Stage also intends to explore controversial areas of tension between the intellectual, ethical, and commercial imperatives of the Black Arts Movement, its scholarship, and the professional demands many of its leaders imposed upon artists, and whether or not the Black Arts Movement's libertarian, racism-countering goals were ever truly achieved."

The series kicks off with an introductory conversation with Cruz and Rux, followed by a performance from The Francesca Harper Collective, with work inspired by the Black Arts Movement (October 14 & 15). On November 11, Harlem Stage will screen central Black Arts Movement artist Amiri Baraka's film Dutchman, based on his play of the same name, and widely recognized as Baraka's greatest work in any genre. Playwright, journalist, librettist, novelist, poet, and screenwriter Thulani Davis and trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser Wadada Leo Smith, a frequent collaborator and Pulitzer Prize-nominated musician and composer, will join for an evening of poetry and music alongside Smith's Kikuyu Ensemble, engaging with Davis' works, Nothing But the Music and The Emancipation Circuit, January 27 & 28. Visionary tap dancer Michela Marino Lerman's Love Movement will perform and re-imagine Max Roach's 1960 album We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (spawned from a collaboration with singer and poet Oscar Brown, Jr.), on February 24 & 25, in an evening dedicated to the Black Arts Movement's music. The movement's theater will be explored in a reading of excerpts from Adrienne Kennedy's pivotal Funnyhouse of a Negro (March 24 & 25). The movement's contributions to dance will be represented through Harlem Stage's signature dance series, E-Moves, this year featuring work in conversation with the Black Arts Movement. The series will culminate in a three-day conference, Black Arts Movement: Then and Now, featuring a keynote address by poet, music critic, and arts administrator A.B. Spellman, as well as panels, discussions, essays, and performances, including a closing-night concert co-presented with Park Avenue Armory, conceived by Carl Hancock Rux and curated by guitarist and songwriter Vernon Reid, May 18-20.

The season also features the continuation of the beloved, eclectic live-and-digital monthly music series, Uptown Nights, with performances from vibraphonist-composer Joel Ross (September 16 & 17); Cuban percussionist and vocalist Pedrito Martinez (digital, September 24-October 3); Haitian-American multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla (October 7 & 8); alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Immanuel Wilkins (digital, November 12-21); and Dallas-based vocal quartet, Kings Return (December 16 & 17). Numerous other dynamic engagements with vanguard artists will occur throughout the season, including Beth Morrison Projects: Song Cycles, an evening with powerhouse composers and musicians Tamar-kali, Yaz Lancaster, and Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa-Nzou Mambano (October 28 & 29), with a free Zoom discussion with the "Song Cycles" artists moderated by Pat Cruz and Beth Morrison preceding the concert (October 13); a program, produced by Harlem Stage board member Jamila Bragg/JamRock Productions, of selected readings of Ntozake Shangé's play, A Photograph: Lovers in Motion, featuring playwright, producer, conceptual theater artist, and Shangé's sister and co-editor of the play, Ifa Bayeza, in conversation with Carl Hancock Rux (November 5); and the WaterWorks showcase of works-in-progress from emerging artists of color including Tariq Al-Sabir, Jennifer CendañaArmas, Shenny De Los Angeles, Vinson Fraley, and Edisa Weeks (December 10). Further Spring 2023 events will be announced at a later date. As a special incentive, Harlem Stage is offering customers who buy tickets to three or more shows a discount of 25% off.

2022/23 Programming Schedule and Descriptions

Uptown Nights: Joel Ross: Being a Young Black Man

Presented in collaboration with The Jazz Gallery

Friday, September 16 & Saturday, September 17, 2022

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25

Reserved Seating

In collaboration with The Jazz Gallery, Harlem Stage presents accomplished vibraphonist- composer Joel Ross and his project, Being A Young Black Man. Commissioned by and originally presented at The Jazz Gallery in 2017 as part of its Residency Commission series, the work is a suite of compositions that examine two main themes: family and faith. It explores experiences and interpretation of Ross' life as A Young Black Man - the interaction with friends and family, the discovery and questioning of faith and beliefs, and witnessing the different events that have taken place throughout the country and world regarding young Black men and women in recent years. Ross will be joined on stage by saxophonists Patrick Bartley and Tivon Pennicott, pianist Jeremy Corren, bassist Junius Paul, and drummer Marcus Gilmore.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Ross and his twin brother took an interest in music by the age of three. Their father, a police officer and choir director helped serve as one of the first musical influences in Ross' life and career. Studying and honing his technique under musician and educator Stefon Harris, Ross discovered his own personal sound. The New York Times states, "Particularly on his own compositions, Mr. Ross and the band treat rhythm as both fundamental and unfixed, while dousing the music in harmonies derived from modern gospel." His refreshing and unique sound is one to witness in this riveting project. Join Harlem Stage and The Jazz Gallery for an intimate, thought-provoking, sonically and visually stunning performance by Edison Award-winning vibraphonist, composer, and educator, Joel Ross.

Uptown Nights DIGITAL: Pedrito Martinez

Saturday, September 24, 2022, 7:30 PM - Monday, October 3, 2022, 5 PM

Online/Vimeo

Price: $5

In the Spring of 2022 Harlem Stage and the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) united to present world-renowned Cuban percussionist and vocalist Pedrito Martinez.

Martinez is a unique and inventive musician who celebrates Afro-Cuban music and folkloric traditions. He grew up in the Cayo Hueso neighborhood of Havana, where he would sit for hours, intently watching the aging "rumberos" in the park across from his house as they played this African-derived combination of percussion, song, and dance. This heavily influenced his musical path and his Uptown Nights concert, Rumba Con Fundamento, is an infectious, high-energy musical experience you can enjoy online for a limited time.

Featuring:

Pedrito Martinez, Percussion, Lead vocals

Issac Delgado, Jr. Keyboard

Sebastian Natal, Bass

Manuel Marquez, Percussion

Xito Lovell, Trombone

Uptown Nights: Leyla McCalla

Album Release Shows: Breaking the Thermometer

Friday, October 7 & Saturday, October 8, 2022

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25

Reserved Seating

Harlem Stage presents the NYC album release shows of Haitian-American artist Leyla McCalla's remarkable new album, Breaking The Thermometer. Derived from a multi-disciplinary theater project commissioned by Duke University, which acquired the complete Radio Haiti archives in 2016, Breaking The Thermometer combines original compositions and traditional Haitian tunes with historical broadcasts and contemporary interviews to forge an immersive sonic journey through a half century of racial, social, and political unrest. PopMatters states, "Breaking the Thermometer is a reminder of the album as a statement, a covenant between artist and listener to intentional and attentional communion. Leyla McCalla's profound creativity asks for such attention in this album and richly rewards it." McCalla's record is a work of radical performance art, historical scholarship, and personal memoir, a wide-ranging and powerful meditation on family, democracy, and free expression that couldn't have arrived at a more timely moment. Join us for an evening of thought-provoking and awe-inspiring music and talent.

Featuring:

Leyla McCalla, Cello, Banjo, Guitar

Shawn Myers, Drums

Markus Schwartz, Haitian Percussion

Pete Olynciw, Bass

Nahum Zydybl, Guitar

Sheila Anozier, Dancer

Black Arts Movement: Examined: Part I: INTRODUCTION

Pat Cruz & Carl Hancock Rux In Conversation

Featuring a Performance by The Francesca Harper Collective

Friday, October 14 & Saturday, October 15, 2022

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $25 / $15

In this introduction of the Harlem Stage series Black Arts Movement: Examined, Harlem Stage Artistic Director & CEO, Pat Cruz, and Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence, Carl Hancock Rux, discuss, examine, and dive into the importance of the movement and the inspiration and meaning behind this curated series. Exploring its profound and innovative successes, this dialogue also turns a critical eye toward the movement's exclusionary principles, which managed to alienate a Black and White mainstream culture.

In this conversation, led by Cruz, a representative of artists who worked and lived through the era of the Black Arts Movement and Rux, representing one of many present-day artists and activists who worked closely with the Black Lives Matter Movement, audience members are invited into a forum of discussion, inviting commentary and questions.

Following a brief intermission, internationally acclaimed dancer/choreographer, Francesca Harper, Artistic Director of Ailey II, presents her dance company, The FHP Collective, with a work-in-progress, Special Response, inspired by the Black Arts Movement.

In Special Response, Harper explores how media and entertainment commodify and profit off of the erasure and harm of others while catapulting some into celebrity culture. How does our society benefit from brutality as it relates specifically to bodies of color? With daring movement created by Harper and artists from the FHP Collective, and costumes created by Elias Gurrola, they create a choreographic work that explores this intersection of transparency and erasure, what it is we care to see and what we choose to disregard. The development of this work has also been supported by Works & Process' LaunchPAD initiative, described as, "Process as a Destination."

Beth Morrison Projects: Song Cycles

Tamar-kali + Yaz Lancaster + Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa-Nzou Mambano

Friday, October 28 & Saturday, October 29, 2022

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25

Reserved Seating

**Dive Deeper Conversation: on Zoom October 13, 2022, 7 PM, FREE

A special collaboration with Beth Morrison Projects, one of the foremost creators and producers of new opera-theater and music-theater, this is an evening of song cycles by three power-house women and non-binary composers showcasing a diversity of musical languages: electro-acoustic, rock-infused, and Zimbabwean classical inspired.

Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa-Nzou Mambano is a Zimbabwean gwenyambira, scholar, composer, and singer whose creative practice centers African healing and self-liberation. Violinist, vocalist, and steel pannist, Yaz Lancaster, is a Black transdisciplinary artist whose music is most interested in practices aligned with relational aesthetics and the everyday; fragments and collage; and liberatory politics. New York native, Tamar-kali, is a second-generation, Oscar-nominated and World Soundtrack Academy award winning musician with roots in the coastal Sea Islands of South Carolina. Together, these ground-breaking artists have composed an evening of breath-taking and exhilarating performances.

Dive Deeper: Free Zoom Conversation

Thursday, October 13, 2022

7 PM
Online/Zoom
Price: Free

Join Harlem Stage and Beth Morrison Projects for a FREE Zoom conversation with composers Tamar-kali, Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa-Nzou Mambano, and Yaz Lancaster. Learn more about the new works that the composers have written, to be premiered as part of the Song Cycles project at Harlem Stage on Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29.

Moderated by Harlem Stage Artistic Director and CEO, Pat Cruz, and Beth Morrison Projects' President and Creative Producer, Beth Morrison.

Selections from A Photograph: Lovers in Motion by Ntozake Shangé

with Ifa Bayeza & Carl Hancock Rux in Conversation

Saturday, November 5, 2022

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $25/$15

Join Harlem Stage for an evening of selected readings of Ntozake Shangé's play, A Photograph: Lovers in Motion, produced by Harlem Stage board member Jamila Bragg/JamRock Productions and featuring playwright, producer, conceptual theater artist, and Shangé's sister, Ifa Bayeza, and Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence and multidisciplinary artist, Carl Hancock Rux, in conversation, focusing on Shangé and Bayeza's collaborative process in editing A Photograph.

Ntozake Shangé was an Obie-award winning playwright, poet, and Black Feminist whose unique structure and style helped in shifting Western cultural aesthetics and enriched the Black Arts Movement. Originally published in 1977, Shangé's play, A Photograph: Lovers in Motion, centers on creative inspirations and complicated relationships in a photographer's San Francisco apartment in the late 1970s during the tail end of the movement. Themes within the poetic drama focus on the impact of childhood traumas, insecurities, consequences of lack of self-love, and self-discovery. In this passionate yet complex story, Shangé challenges audiences' compassion and empathy all while inspiring self-reflection.

Bayeza and Hancock Rux will explore Shangé and Bayeza's process in editing A Photograph, interspersed with readings of excerpts from the work by a cast of actors, illustrating changes the sisters collaboratively made to the piece. Bayeza writes that the play "explores the world of creative artists who learned themselves through the trauma of racism. They struggle to communicate, to create their own image, to create their world and to love."

Join us at Harlem Stage for riveting performances and thought-provoking discussion.

Black Arts Movement: Examined

Part II: FILM

Dutchman Film & Panel Discussion

Presented in collaboration with Maysles Documentary Center

Friday, November 11, 2022

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $25 / $15

Presented in collaboration with Maysles Documentary Center, Harlem Stage presents the film, Dutchman, by Amiri Baraka, which is based on his 1964 OBIE Award-winning one act play of the same name that originally premiered at The Cherry Lane Theater. Following the screening, a talk back discussion will be held and moderated by Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence Carl Hancock Rux.

Having a profound effect on theatergoers and critics, Baraka's play, Dutchman, was adapted as a British film in 1967, produced by Gene Persson; directed by first-time director, Anthony Harvey (Academy Award nominee for his direction of the historical drama, The Lion In Winter); and starring acclaimed actor, Al Freeman, Jr., and two-time Academy Award-nominated actress, Shirley Knight.

Dutchman addresses interracial tension, sociopolitical awareness, and the relevance of African history and culture to Blacks in the United States. Described by The New York Times, the play is "designed to shock with its language and its murderous rage... an explosion of hatred rather than a play. It puts into the mouth of its principal Negro character a scathing denunciation of all the white man's good works, pretentions, and condescensions, proclaiming it bespeaks a promising, unsettling talent." Dutchman, in both its thematic emphasis and dramatic structure, combines avant-garde rituals of irony, emotional power, and social insight; a commentary on a clash between characters from divergent social and philosophical backgrounds, both commenting on the internal divisions of individuals in American society, and both culminating in acts of violence that are at once realistic and symbolic.

Uptown Nights DIGITAL: Immanuel Wilkins

Saturday, November 12, 2022, 7:30 PM - Monday, November 21, 2022, 5 PM

Online/Vimeo

Price: $5

​​Philadelphia area-born alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Immanuel Wilkins has made it his mission to create music that has a profound spiritual and emotional impact. He grew up immersed in the Black church and his music is influenced by that upbringing. In the Spring of 2022, Wilkins and his quartet, featuring pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Tyrone Allen, and drummer Kweku Sumbry, were presented as part of the Harlem Stage monthly music series, Uptown Nights. They performed works from Wilkins' album, The 7th Hand, a suite of seven pieces that is an homage to the Black church. For a limited time, you can experience this powerful concert online.

WaterWorks Emerging Artists Showcase

Tariq Al-Sabir / Jennifer Cendaña Armas / Shenny De Los Angeles / Vinson Fraley / Edisa Weeks

Saturday, December 10, 2022

7:30PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $25/$15

The WaterWorks Emerging Artists program is designed for budding artists of color, to enable and nurture the developmental process in their creative work, instincts, and business skills. Throughout the one-year commission, artists develop an original performance piece, culminating in a work-in-progress showcase, at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. The yearlong program offers commissioning support, mentorship, critical feedback, and professional development opportunities for each artist.

For nearly 30 years, Harlem Stage's early career commissioning program has provided commissioning grants for creating new work at different stages of development by a diverse body of early-career artists of color.

In this culminating performance, Harlem Stage presents: Tariq Al-Sabir, a musician, producer, vocalist, and composer. An accomplished performance artist, Jennifer Cendaña Armas. An interdisciplinary artist and poet, Shenny De Los Angeles. Vinson Fraley, a dancer and choreographer. Edisa Weeks, an educator and choreographer. These visionary and innovative artists have created profound and compelling pieces pulling inspiration from their personal experiences, present-day society, and more. Join us at Harlem Stage for a night of awe-inspiring talent.

Uptown Nights: Kings Return - We Four Kings Holiday Concert

Friday, December 16, and Saturday, December 17, 2022

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25

Harlem Stage presents Dallas-based vocal quartet, Kings Return, celebrating Christmas with their amazing a cappella arrangements of carols and original holiday tunes. Everything from Jazz, Classical, Gospel, and R&B/Soul, there's a little bit of everything for everyone. Performing fan favorites, alongside tracks from their Merry Little Christmas EP and their debut album Rove, Kings Return will also be sharing stories behind their favorite Christmas songs.

Formed in 2016 from pre-existing friendships, the quartet refers to their unique and impeccable sound as "rooted in Gospel, Jazz, R&B, and classical music." Kings Return rose to fame recording and performing covers of well-known ballads and anthems in an Arlington church stairwell. With a nostalgic old-school a cappella tone and beautifully arranged harmonies, the group has brought joy and chills to hundreds of thousands of viewers and audience members. Radio network, Classic FM, refers to their signature staircase performances as "​​enough to take your breath away and send a shiver down your spine." Members - Vaughn Faison, Gabe Kunda, J.E. McKissic, and Jamall Williams - unite as the vocal powerhouse that is Kings Return.

Join Harlem Stage for this intimate and festive Holiday celebration.

Black Arts Movement: Examined Part III: POETRY

Music & Poetry: Thulani Davis + Wadada Leo Smith

Friday, January 27 & Saturday, January 28, 2023

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25

Playwright, journalist, librettist, novelist, poet, and screenwriter Thulani Davis and trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser Wadada Leo Smith, a frequent collaborator and Pulitzer Prize-nominated musician and composer, perform an evening of poetry and music alongside Smith's Kikuyu Ensemble, engaging with Davis' works, Nothing But the Music and The Emancipation Circuit.

Davis, an interdisciplinary scholar, mentored artists including journalist Greg Tate, and collaborated with artists including Laurie Carlos, Jessica Hagedorn, and Ntozake Shangé. She also wrote for The Village Voice for more than a decade, becoming a Senior Editor for the publication. Davis is one of several women poets connected to the Black Arts Movement, whose work continues to breathe impressionistic life into the Black Arts Movement's sonic-social history.

For the last five decades, Smith has been a member of the historical and legendary AACM collective, one of the pioneering ensembles of the Black Arts Movement. He distinctly defines his music as "Creative Music," and his diverse discography reveals a recorded history centered around important issues that have impacted his world. Smith is a recipient of the 2016 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the Hammer Museum's 2016 Mohn Career Achievement Award.

Featuring:

Thulani Davis, Poetry/Words

Wadada Leo Smith, Trumpet

Ashley Walters, Cello

Erica Dohi, Violin

Pheeroan akLaff, Drums

Black Arts Movement: Examined Part IV: MUSIC

Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite Reimagined feat. Michela Marino Lerman

Friday, February 24 & Saturday, February 25, 2023

7:30 PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25

As part IV of the Harlem Stage series Black Arts Movement: Examined, Harlem Stage presents tap dancer, Michela Marino Lerman's Love Movement, who will perform and re-imagine Max Roach's groundbreaking 1960 album, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite.

In 1959, acclaimed jazz musician, Max Roach, embarked upon a collaboration with singer and poet, Oscar Brown, Jr., on a suite of songs commissioned by the youth movement of the NAACP to commemorate the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. What resulted, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, marked a decisive shift challenging jazz music conventions, as its sentiments conveyed a growing impatience with the lagging pace of the American civil rights movement, and demanded a turn toward global anticolonialism. Released on Candid Records in 1960, featuring Roach, and singer Abbey Lincoln, and a host of noted musicians, the music quickly became a global phenomenon.

Winner of the 2019 Hoofer Award, Michela Marino Lerman is a globally sought after tap dance artist, performer, choreographer, bandleader, educator, and all-around creative spirit. The Huffington Post has called her a "hurricane of rhythm" and The New York Times has called her both a "prodigy" and has described her dancing as "flashes of brilliance." Quincy Jones has said she is an "absolute tap dancing star who knows her roots." She was proudly mentored by some of the masters of tap dance including Gregory Hines, Buster Brown, Leroy Myers, Peg Leg Bates, Marion Coles, and Mable Lee. Love Movement, Marino Lerman's ensemble, is a hybrid of the highest levels of musicianship and hoofing. At Harlem Stage, Marino Lerman pays tribute to this groundbreaking album, selected in 2022 by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Black Arts Movement: Examined Part V: THEATER

Excerpts and Conversation

Featuring Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy

Friday, March 24 & Saturday, March 25, 2023

Time: 7:30PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $25 / $15

Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy is one of the seminal plays written during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It represented a radical departure from the naturalistic theater of the time and provided performance opportunities for actors who became the iconic talents of the decades that followed. A reading of excerpts from this groundbreaking work will be presented at Harlem Stage, preceded by a conversation with Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence Carl Hancock Rux, providing further context on the impact of the play and its relationship to the Black Arts Movement.

Funnyhouse of a Negro is a modern classic about the student Sarah, a young Black woman living in New York City, and her search for her identity in a very complex, warring, and fractured world. This search is manifested in her many selves: Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Hapsburg, Patrice Lumumba, and Jesus Christ. Performed by colleges worldwide, this landmark play speaks to students trying to find a place in the world. Funnyhouse of a Negro was first presented Off-Broadway at the East End Theater in New York City on January 14, 1964.

Black Arts Movement: Examined Part VI: DANCE

E-Moves

Thursday-Saturday, April 13-15, 2023

7:30PM

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25

For over 20 years, Harlem Stage's signature dance series, E-Moves, has brought together phenomenal choreographers, artists, musicians, and dancers of color to showcase their choreographic visions and pull audiences into an exploration of movement and message. The Black Arts Movement: Examined series inspires this year's program and will feature works in conversation with the Black Arts Movement. Join us for an evening showcasing emerging, evolving, and established choreographers responding to the legacy of the past while creating dances that lean into the future.

Black Arts Movement: Examined Part VII:

Black Arts Movement: Then and Now Conference

Thursday - Saturday, May 18-20, 2023

Schedule to Be Announced with the Spring Season

Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Price: $35 / $25/ $15 Plus 25% Subscription Package Discounts

Inspired, imagined, and curated by Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Artist-in-Residence, Carl Hancock Rux, the Black Arts Movement Conference is a three-day event featuring a keynote address by poet, music critic, and arts administrator A.B. Spellman, panels, discussions, essays, and performances-including a closing-night concert co-presented with Park Avenue Armory, conceived by Carl Hancock Rux and curated by guitarist and songwriter Vernon Reid-that reflect, examine, and point to the full experience and culture of the Black Arts Movement.

Employing roundtables, public dialogues, and screenings, the convening will explore controversial areas of tension between the intellectual, ethical, and commercial imperatives of the Black Arts Movement. In conversations between pioneers of the Black Arts Movement and a contemporary generation of artists and scholars, the Black Arts Movement Conference centers itself within a dialogue that is both historically and culturally relevant in our ever-changing world.

About Harlem Stage

Harlem Stage is the performing arts center that bridges Harlem's cultural legacy to contemporary artists of color and dares to provide the artistic freedom that gives birth to new ideas.

For nearly 40 years, the organization's singular mission has been to perpetuate and celebrate the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture. Harlem Stage provides opportunity, commissioning, and support for visionary artists of color, makes performances easily accessible to all audiences, and introduces children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts.

Harlem Stage fulfills its mission through commissioning, incubating, and presenting innovative and vital work that responds to the historical and contemporary conditions that shape our lives and the communities the organization serves.

With a long-standing tradition of supporting artists and organizations around the corner and across the globe, Harlem Stage boasts such legendary artists as Harry Belafonte, Max Roach, Sekou Sundiata, Abbey Lincoln, Sonia Sanchez, Eddie Palmieri, Maya Angelou, and Tito Puente, as well as contemporary artists like Mumu Fresh, Jason "Timbuktu" Diakité, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Tamar-kali, Vijay Iyer, Mike Ladd, Meshell Ndegeocello, Jason Moran, José James, Nona Hendryx, Bill T. Jones, and more. Harlem Stage's education programs serve over 2,300 New York City school children each year.

Harlem Stage's investment in this visionary talent is often awarded in the early stages of many artists' careers, and the organization proudly celebrates their increasing success. Five members of its artist family have joined the ranks of MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship awardees: Kyle Abraham (2013), Vijay Iyer (2013), Jason Moran (2010), Bill T. Jones (1994), and Cecil Taylor (1991).

Harlem Stage is a winner of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters William Dawson Award for Programming Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming.

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