Looking Back | Looking Forward

David Levering-Lewis (Pulitzer Prize winner, biographer of W.E.B. DuBois and Professor of History, New York University), Beth Lew-Williams (Assistant Professor of History, Princeton University), and Cheryl Wall (Professor of English, Rutgers University) discuss 1968 as a pivotal year in our nation’s history with moderator Eric Foner (DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University). Invocation by George Stonefish (First Nations activist, traditional singer & dancer).

The National Black Theatre, established in 1968, 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 work follows protagonist Betsy LaQuanda Ross (played by Peterson), a self-proclaimed “peculiar patriot”, as she makes regular visits to penitentiaries to boost the morale of her incarcerated friends and family, navigating love between barbed wire. The performance is followed by a conversation with Liza Jessie Peterson and Jonathan McCrory (Director of Theatre Arts Program, The National Black Theatre).

The audience is invited to visit our Salons and open studios on the first and second floor; first come, first served. Salon hosts include: Cannupa Hanska Luger (multi-disciplinary artist), Beatrice Glow (artist and multisensory storyteller) and Alecz Inca (founder of Highway 101, ETC), Camille Zamora & Monica Yunus (Le Dernier Sorcier), Dance Theatre of Harlem (Open Studio), and the Armory Arts Education Program (Art of the Future Salon). Screenings include: Nancy Buirski’s Rape of Recy Taylor and LaMont Hamilton’s This Da Good Part.

Virtuosic tap dancer and choreographer Michelle Dorrance, opera singer Davóne Tines, and visual artist Teresita Fernández join in a collaborative discussion about the energy of the arts coming out of the 1960s. The conversation will be moderated by Damian Woetzel (former Principal Dancer of the New York City Ballet, Director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program, and President-Designate of The Juilliard School).

Mandy Carter (Black LGBTQIA activist), Harry Gamboa Jr. (artist) and Roger Harris (Founder & CEO, Urban School Specialists, LLC), and George Stonefish (First Nations activist, traditional dancer & singer) discuss 1968 as a pivotal year in our nation’s history with moderator John Kuo Wei Tchen (Founding Director of Asian/Pacific/American Institute, NYU and co-founder Museum of Chinese in America). Introductory reading by poet lê thi diem thúy.

Producer/Director Nancy Buirski—Loving (2016), By Sidney Lumet (2015), The Loving Story (2011)—and Susan Fales-Hill (author and host of New York Public Radio’s Icons and Innovators) discuss the timeliness of her latest film, The Rape of Recy Taylor (2017), the story of a 24-year-old black sharecropper, who was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Her case was investigated by the NAACP’s rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. The film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women, from sexual aggression on southern streets in 1940 to today’s college campuses, to #MeToo and the recent Women’s Marches.

Melissa Calderón (artist), Jasmine Murrell (interdisciplinary artist, educator), and Cannupa Hanska Luger (multi-disciplinary artist) discuss the power of visual art to unearth hidden histories and expose societal issues with moderator Kalia Brooks Nelson (independent curator and educator).

The audience is invited to visit our Salons and open studios on the first and second floor; first come, first served. Salon hosts include: Beatrice Glow (artist and multisensory storyteller) and Alecz Inca (Founder of Highway 101, ETC), OlaRonke Akinmowo (Free Black Women’s Library/The Laundromat Project), Joseph Cuillier and Shani Peters (The Black School/The Laundromat Project), Dance Theatre of Harlem (Open Studio), and the Armory Arts Education Program (Art of the Future Salon). Screenings include: Nancy Buirski’s Rape of Recy Taylor and LaMont Hamilton’s This Da Good Part. Performance of selections from Pauline García Viardot’s opera Le Dernier Sorcier (1868) presented by Camille Zamora and Monica Yunus.

Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán (artist and organizer), Kamilah Forbes (Executive Producer, Apollo Theater), Ebony Noelle Golden (artist and strategist), and lê thi diem thúy (poet) discuss the impact of history on literary and artistic practices with moderator Roberta Uno (theatre director and Director, Arts in a Changing America). Discussion is followed by a performance of selections from 125th & FREEdom by Ebony Noelle Golden and ensemble.

Dick Griffin (visual artist, composer, and trombonist) joins his friend of over fifty years Walter C. Jackson (sculptor) 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. Soprano Camille Zamora moderates.

The audience is invited to visit our Salons and open studios on the first and second floor; first come, first served. Salon hosts include: Beatrice Glow (artist and multisensory storyteller) and Alecz Inca (Founder of Highway 101, ETC), OlaRonke Akinmowo (Free Black Women’s Library/The Laundromat Project), Lizania Cruz (We the News Project/The Laundromat Project), Camille Zamora & Monica Yunus (Le Dernier Sorcier), and the Armory Arts Education Program (Art of the Future Salon). Screening of Nancy Buirski’s Rape of Recy Taylor. Conversation with LaMont Hamilton (interdisciplinary artist) and Dessane Cassell (Joint Curatorial Fellow, MoMA Film and The Studio Museum in Harlem), following a screening of This Da Good Part.

Thelma Golden (Director and Chief Curator, The Studio Museum in Harlem), Sade Lythcott (Chief Executive Officer, National Black Theatre) and Virginia Johnson (Founding member, Principal Dancer and Artistic Director, Dance Theatre of Harlem) 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 with Tom Finkelpearl (Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs). Invocation by George Stonefish (First Nations activist, traditional singer & dancer).

Johanna Fernández (Professor of History, Baruch College, CUNY), Charon Hribar (Director of Cultural Strategy for the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice and Co-coordinator of Theomusicology and Movement Arts for the Poor People’s Campaign: National Call for Moral Revival), and Paola Mendoza (film director, Artistic Director, Women’s March on Washington) discuss 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. Session moderated by Armory Artist-in-Residence Tania Bruguera.

Legendary bassist, vocalist, and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello, in collaboration with director 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 (keyboards), Justin Hicks (singer-songwriter) with special participation by LaToya Ruby Frazier (photographer), Staceyann Chin (performance artist), Jadele McPherson (interdisciplinary performer), Paul Thompson (Principal, Urban Assembly School of Music and Art, Brooklyn), and others.