OPENING ALERT Media Contacts: Elizabeth Cooke, New York Live Arts 212.691.6500x210 / [email protected] Lillian Goldenthal, Polskin Arts & Communications Counselors 212.593.6355 / [email protected] NEW YORK LIVE ARTS’ JAMES BALDWIN, THIS TIME! BEGINS NEXT WEEK WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 TO SUNDAY, APRIL 27 LAUNCHES THE YEAR OF JAMES BALDWIN IN NEW YORK CITY Features an array of theater, visual art, dance, video and literature events with artists Carrie Mae Weems, Jamaica Kincaid, Stew, Carl Hancock Rux, Colman Domingo, Fran Lebowitz, Colm Tóibín, Charles O. Anderson and Patricia McGregor James Baldwin, writer, January 9, 1963. Photograph by Richard Avedon © The Richard Avedon Foundation WHAT: Taking place next week, April 23 – 27, New York Live Arts’ second annual Live Ideas festival, James Baldwin, This Time! , will inaugurate “The Year of James Baldwin,” a city-wide celebration in 2014 - 15 of the continuing artistic, intellectual and moral presence of James Baldwin on the occasion of what would have been his 90th year. James Baldwin, This Time! will present no fewer than 18 events in an array of theater, visual art, dance, video and literature. Curated by celebrated non-fiction writer Lawrence Weschler in conjunction with Bill T. Jones, highlights of the five-day festival include the world premiere of the theater work Nothing Personal, based on the 1964 collaborative book by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon, directed by Patricia McGregor and starring Colman Domingo; a preview of Carl Hancock Rux’s play Stranger on Earth, featuring vocalist Marcelle Davies-Lashley; an intimate evening with award-winning composer Stew, who shares his creative process surrounding his new Baldwin inspired work, Notes of a Native Song; the New York premiere of choreographer Charles O. Anderson’s Restless Natives; and the world premiere of choreographer Dianne McIntyre’s Time is Time. Also featured during the festival are an original video installation, driven by Baldwin’s voice, by contemporary visual artist Hank Willis Thomas; the speaking program “Jimmy at High Noon,” featuring poet Nikky Finney, actors Jesse L. Martin and André De Shields and others reading Baldwin’s work and discussing its impact; and an Opening Keynote Conversation featuring photographer Carrie Mae Weems, novelist and essayist Jamaica Kincaid and Bill T. Jones, Executive Artistic Director of New York Live Arts. Complete programming information and a schedule for James Baldwin, This Time! can be found below. The 2014 Live Ideas Festival, James Baldwin, This Time! is being presented by New York Live Arts as part of “The Year of James Baldwin” in partnership with Harlem Stage and Columbia University School of the Arts Office of Community Outreach and Education. Other collaborators include: The New School and its Vera List Center for Art and Politics; the School of Writing; NYU; and others to be announced as the year progresses. WHO: Bill T. Jones, Executive Artistic Director Maya Wiley, Counsel to Mayor DeBlasio of New York Live Arts Joy-Ann Reid, The Grio’s Managing Editor Carrie Mae Weems, photographer Five Mualimm-ak, Civil Rights Activist Jamaica Kincaid, novelist and essayist Jumaane Williams, Brooklyn City Stew, composer Councilman Carl HancockRux, director and performer Kyle Abraham, Live Arts Resident Colman Domingo, director and performer Commissioned Artist Fran Lebowitz, essayist Matthew Brim, Assistant Professor of Colm Tóibín, novelist and poet Queer Studies, College of Staten Island Charles O. Anderson, choreographer Laura Flanders, host and founder, GRITtv Dianne McIntyre, choreographer Aisha Karefa-Smart, Author, educator Patricia McGregor, director and niece of James Baldwin Hank Willis Thomas, visual artist Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Nikky Finney, poet Curator, The Studio Museum in Harlem Darryl Pinckney, writer Patricia Cruz Executive Director, Harlem Jesse L. Martin, actor Stage André De Shields, actor Steven G. Fullwood, author, editor and Vijay Iyer, musician curator Marcus Gardley, playwright Michele Wallace, author Rich Blint, Columbia faculty member and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, author Baldwin scholar Nikky Finney, poet John Guare, playwright Edward Hirsch, poet Lawrence Weschler, James Baldwin, This Yusef Komunyakaa, poet Time! Co-curator Ed Pavlić, poet Rachel Cohen, writer Meghan O’Rourke, poet Diedra Harris-Kelley, Co-Director of the Nathalie Handal, poet Romare Bearden Foundation Marcelle Davies-Lashley, vocalist David Leeming, Baldwin and Delaney Ursula Rucker, poet biographer WHEN: Wednesday, April 23 through Sunday, April 27 WHERE: New York Live Arts New York Live Arts Theater 219 W 19th Street, New York, NY 10011 TICKETS: Tickets: FREE - $60 | Festival Passes $175 T: 212-924-0077 | newyorklivearts.org/liveideas Box Office hours: Monday-Friday 1 - 9pm | Saturday-Sunday 12 - 8pm OVERVIEW OF EVENTS VISUAL ART INSTALLATIONS HANK WILLIS THOMAS (Video installation) This innovative video installation, A person is more important than anything else…, will be driven by the cadence and intonation of James Baldwin’s voice, for Baldwin was also an orator whose delivery was almost as forceful as his ideas. Artist Hank Willis Thomas will weave audio, images, and video together in a fluid- moving, digital stream of consciousness that connects Baldwin’s 20th century discourse with the concerns and urgencies of the 21st. In recent years Thomas’s career has been surging throughout the world; in New York City he is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery. Dates: Ongoing throughout the festival Times: Ongoing throughout the festival Tickets: FREE WALL MURAL OF NEW YORKER “LETTER FROM A REGION OF MY MIND” The November 1962 issue of The New Yorker magazine (in which the piece Letter From a Region of My Mind first appeared later to become the basis for Baldwin’s great book The Fire Next Time) will be reproduced as a mural by visual artist Samantha Holmes: the text, often a single streaming column, is flanked on all sides by advertisements incongruously hawking all manner of luxury goods. Dates: Ongoing throughout the festival Tickets: FREE READINGS, LECTURES, PANELS & CONVERSATIONS “JIMMY AT HIGH NOON” (A Series of Five Daily Readings) Presented in partnership with Columbia University School of the Arts, this noon-time series features poets, actors, musicians, essayists and scholars reading from a range of James Baldwin’s classics, as well as discussing his impact on their lives and thinking. Speakers include poet Nikky Finney; writer Darryl Pinckney; actors Jesse L. Martin and André De Shields; musician Vijay Iyer; and playwright Marcus Gardley, among others to be announced at a later date. “Jimmy at High Noon” will be overseen by director Patricia McGregor, with dramaturgy by Columbia faculty member and Baldwin scholar Rich Blint. Dates: Every day, Wednesday April 23 - Sunday, April 27 Time: 12:00pm Tickets: FREE Location: New York Live Arts Studios BALDWIN’S CAPACIOUS IMAGINATION & INFLUENCE Roberta Uno, former artistic director of New WORLD Theater which staged a ground-breaking Baldwin production in conversation with playwright John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation and A Free Man of Color), moderated by Live Ideas curator Lawrence Weschler. Date: Wednesday, April 23 Time: 2:30pm Tickets: $15 Location: New York Live Arts Studios OPENING KEYNOTE CONVERSATION Featuring Bill T. Jones, renowned choreographer and Executive Artistic Director of New York Live Arts in a conversation moderated by James Baldwin: This Time! co-curator Lawrence Weschler with visual artist and MacArthur Fellow, Carrie Mae Weems and celebrated novelist and essayist, Jamaica Kincaid (Autobiography of My Mother, Lucy, A Small Place). Approaching Baldwin from a range of disciplines, these highly accomplished cultural figures share Baldwin’s commitment to the necessary excavation of the dense, complex and contradictory history of the nation. From the stunning visual imagery of Weems, to the startlingly honest and demanding prose of Kincaid, this conversation reaches across genres to address issues of importance to Baldwin, but crucial for our own transformation--this time! Date: Wednesday, April 23 Time: 8:00pm Tickets: $60 Location: New York Live Arts Theater BALDWIN & DELANEY Rachel Cohen, whose critically acclaimed A Chance Meeting braids a sequence of seminal encounters across American cultural history, including Baldwin’s with both Richard Avedon and Norman Mailer, will read from a third chapter, focusing on the young writer’s life-transforming encounter with the sublime painter Beauford Delaney, at the latter’s Greenwich Village apartment. Following her reading, Cohen will engage Diedra Harris-Kelley, Co-Director of the Romare Bearden Foundation and Baldwin and Delaney biographer David Leeming, in a conversation about Delaney’s enduring importance in Baldwin’s life. Two original Delaney paintings will be on view during the program courtesy of Jim Levis Fine Art. Date: Thursday, April 24 Time: 2:00pm Tickets: $10 Location: New York Live Arts Theater JAMES BALDWIN THIS TIME Newly appointed Counsel to Mayor DeBlasio, Maya Wiley moderates a conversation on what Baldwin might have made of everything from the burgeoning prison-industrial complex and the recent gutting of the Voter Rights Bill through the Barack Obama presidency. Distinguished panelists include Lawrence Weschler, The Grio’s Managing Editor Joy-Ann Reid, Civil Rights Activist Five Mualimm-ak, and Brooklyn City Councilman Jumaane Williams. Date: Thursday, April 24 Time: 5:30pm Tickets: $15 Location: New York Live