Harlem Stage announced its Spring 2019 Calendar and tickets are on sale!
From January through June, feast on a smorgasbord of events to add to your list during the New Year.
January 10, 2019 ~ Dive Deeper: Stinney ~ Democratic Ideals and Racism
Co-presented with ProtoTYPE Festival and the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF), Dive Deeper: Stinney ~ Democratic Ideals and Racism is an examination of the Cradle to Prison Pipeline, around the creative response of artists as they witness, experience and analyze the collective trauma of being Black in America. The discussion will feature members of the creative team of Stinney: An American Execution Frances Pollock (composer), Imani Mosley (dramaturg) and Wendel Patrick (project advisor for Stinney) in conversation with Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder in Residence PolicyLink and Board member of Harlem Stage.
January 14 ~ Dive Deeper: Navigating the Hyphenated Space: Theater-Music-TV-Film.
Harlem Stage Board Members and multi award winning artists LaChanze, Tamara Tunie and Ron Simons share their process and journey in thriving in multiple artistic spaces as artists, creators and producers. Join us for a dynamic conversation around creating your own narrative, using your social capitol to feed the larger pantheon of the performing arts and the importance of philanthropy in sustaining culture.
Moderated by Jonathon McCrory, Director of Theatre Arts—National Black Theatre.
Cutting their teeth during the golden age of Hip Hop in cyphers, poetry slams and battles, multi-award winning playwrights and performers Liza Jessie Peterson, Nsangou Njikam and Will Power have rocked the mic and moved the needle on issues central to liberation and community. This powerful trifecta of carriers of the culture have created solo and ensemble work for the theater and move fluidly from stage to lecture hall to community center to prison day room using their voices and platforms to instigate shifts. Come hear from three of the brightest theater makers of today and experience a mini performance from their new work(s).
Moderated by Raymond Codrington, Executive Director—Hi-Arts.
February 13, 2019 ~ Babylon: Beyond Borders an International Dialogue Around Contemporary Exile is presented in partnership with the Bush Theatre (London), Market Theatre Lab (Johannesburg) and Pequeno Ato (São Paulo).
his international event, taking place in four countries around the world at the same time, connected via live stream, is Inspired by the Arab Springs where different squares “came to life” and were politically burned simultaneously all over the world. Babylon seeks to find an artistic action between four artists on four continents that will function as a response to their collective commitment to #Disruption.
February 13, 2019 ~ Uptown Nights: Sarah Elizabeth Charles and Scope
As an extension of the international Babylon Festival—which is a collaboration between four countries: Brazil, South Africa, the UK and the United States —Sarah Elizabeth Charles & SCOPE perform music from their most recent release “Free of Form” (the very first release on Christian Scott’s Stretch Music Label) as well as new material that will be debuted for the upcoming release of SCOPE’s fourth album. All the music performed will center around Sarah and her band SCOPE’s continuous efforts throughout their ten years together to utilize the bandstand as a space in which freedoms can be expressed and commonality, justice and empathy can be communicated. Music is borderless and this set of material will reflect the emotional and creative permeability of this art form.
February 14, 2019 ~ Uptown Nights: Mo Beasley’s Urbanerotika
UrbanErotika is a live neo-burlesque variety show celebrating erotic love through poetry, spoken word, music, dance, and multimedia arts. “The house that Lust built, and Love saved from damnation…” will feature works that range from the soft and sensual to the bold and audacious; reflecting the full spectrum of romantic and sensual love in a healthy journey of fantasy and desire. Featuring: Regie Cabico, The SoulFolk Experience, Nemiss ChiYork, Peter ‘Rainmaker’ Seaton, Shannon Lower, Zyra Lee Vanity, Shye Poet and delicious surprises.
Artists will pay a special tribute to the sensual and erotic work of Ntozake Shange. An original muse, and now ancestral guide.
March 9, 2019 ~ Uptown Nights: Guthrie Ramsey’s Musiqology Presents Hide/Melt/Ghost, presented with support from The University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Science and the University of Pennsylvania Department of Music.
Pianist, composer and professor Guthrie Ramsey brings his book, ‘Soundproof: Black Music, Magic and Racial Intimacies’, alive with an ensemble of musicians and poets that revisits music from the past through current styles like gospel, jazz, soul and hip-hop. This multi-media concert explores how enslaved African Americans used music as proof of their humanity, as a soundtrack for paranormal events like spirit possession and as a melting pot in which diverse African cultural groups became an African American people. Black music is a powerful cultural transaction with magical qualities; it can occupy the past, present and future. This musical presentation makes explicit how black music “makes” social bonds and community values.
March 16, 2019 ~ Tilt Kids Festival 2019, co-presented as part of Tilt Kids Festival 2019, produced by the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York
Featuring AJOYO by Yacine Boularès and Sarah E. Charles (Ages 3+) Join us for a special afternoon featuring performances presented with the Tilt Kids Festival! Harlem Stage partners with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) to present a program from international artists whose work appeals to kids and their families. Young people and the young at heart are invited to engage in our instrument making workshop then join the band in a joyful music celebration of AJOYO led by French-Tunisian musician Yacine Boularès; described as a “mystic brew blending African tradition, jazz and soul.” This program is performed in English.
March 22, 2019 ~ REPERTORIO ESPAÑOL: EL CORONEL NO TIENE QUIEN LE ESCRIBA/ NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL (1pm) ~ Two FREE Performances!
Based on Gabriel GarcÍa Márquez’s Novel El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba. Adapted by Jorge Alí Triana & Verónica Triana, Directed by Jorge Alí Triana
The story covers a few months in the life of a colonel whose pension, delayed 15 years by an overwhelming bureaucracy, becomes an obsession. Reduced to penury despite his veteran status, the protagonist and his wife live in anticipation of his pay. But every Friday the only apparent contact with the outside world comes and goes with the same declaration from the postmaster, “Nothing for the colonel. No one writes to the colonel.” The show is performed in Spanish with English super titles.
REPERTORIO ESPAÑOL: EL CORONEL NO TIENE QUIEN LE ESCRIBA/ NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL (7:30PM)
Based on Gabriel GarcÍa Márquez’s Novel El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba Adapted by Jorge Alí Triana & Verónica Triana, Directed by Jorge Alí Triana
The story covers a few months in the life of a colonel whose pension, delayed 15 years by an overwhelming bureaucracy, becomes an obsession. Reduced to penury despite his veteran status, the protagonist and his wife live in anticipation of his pay. But every Friday the only apparent contact with the outside world comes and goes with the same declaration from the postmaster, “Nothing for the colonel. No one writes to the colonel.” The show is performed in Spanish with English super titles.
March 23, 2019 ~
UPTOWN NIGHTS: WEPA! MOVEMENT, CULTURE AND MUSIC THE CURTIS BROTHERS AND CIRCA ’95 This event forms part of Carnegie Hall’s Migration: The Making of America Festival.
Harlem Stage and the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) present a two part series of music and conversation celebrating the courageous and resilient Caribbean immigrants who traveled across land and sea and arrived in El Barrio, aka Spanish Harlem, seeking a bright future. What did they bring with them? What was left behind? What was reinvented? Spoken word, hip-hop, DJ and Afro-Latin jazz will be the vehicles that transport us to sunny beaches, sofrito, five floor walk-ups and sun kissed dreams of belonging.
Puerto Rican and Dominican by way of the Bronx and Washington Heights—Circa ’95, Patty Dukes and Reph, who rhyme seamlessly through English and Spanish, will showcase music and stories inspired by their families’ migration to New York City during the golden era of hip-hop. The Curtis Brothers, African American and Puerto Rican, will explore West Africa’s influence on American music from Latin America by mapping rhythms that evolved from the African slave trade: from samba, hip-hop, R&B, gospel, to blues, jazz and rock music. This is a jam you don’t wanna miss!
Wepa! Movement, Culture and Music is presented in partnership with the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI). March (date and time TBD) CCCADI will present a panel discussion on RACE, MYTH, ART AND JUSTICE. Learn more at www.cccadi.org
April 5, 2019 ~ Uptown Nights: Manhattan Sings! presented in collaboration with Manhattan School of Music.
Manhattan School of Music’s Jazz Orchestra and growing vocal program, led by conductor and arranger Jim McNeely, celebrate the longstanding vocal tradition in jazz music
April 9, 2019 ~ Stretch Music Intensive
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah returns to MSM to lead a FREE masterclass on his genre blind Stretch Music. All music students, musicians and lovers of the jazz idiom and all its variabilities are welcomed to join this immersive workshop centered on improvisation, technique and thriving as a working artist today. Hosted by Manhattan School of Music.
Manhattan School of Music
120 Claremont Ave, New York, NY 10027
Bossi-Comelli Studio
April 11, 2019 ~ Stretch Music & Jazz Then and Now: Steve Turre Quintet
Jazz Then and Now is a conversation series, presented as part of the Stretch Music Residency that brings together innovative thought leaders in the field in dialogue on the history, the present and the future of jazz. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah will be in conversation with composer and trombonist Steve Turre on improvisation, technology, collaboration, the importance of the historical lineage and more. The conversation will be preceded by a live performance with the Steve Turre Quintet.
April 12, 2019 ~ Stretch Music Festival
(Decolonializing Sound) The 3rd year of the Stretch Music Residency is focused on liberating sound from antiquated belief systems that inhibit our ability to truly hear one another. I have always felt the best way to communicate is to truly listen. So this year we’re intent on breaking down value distinctions surrounding how we hear and interpret composition, dispelling long held and completely false notions that cultures that prioritize melody & harmony are more valid then cultures that prioritize rhythm. Ending this notion is essential to truly hearing one Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah returns to MSM to lead a FREE masterclass on his genre blind Stretch Music. All music students, musicians and lovers of the jazz idiom and all its variabilities are welcomed to join this immersive workshop Edison Award winning centered on improvisation, and Grammy nominated Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah curates and performs his final Stretch Music Festival under his three year residency with Harlem Stage.
May 2, 2019 ~ E-Moves (5/2/19)
E-Moves celebrates twenty years of commissioning, presenting and nurturing choreographers of color across the spectrum of contemporary dance idioms to create new work! In this edition we uplift the cogent power of Hip-Hop dance to transport the crowd and push the boundaries of movement. Born out of social dance in urban community park cyphers, basement ballrooms and now seen across the globe on esteemed stages and concert halls Hip-Hop dance is a prayer and a roar. Two commissioned choreographers FLUXX and Omari Mizrahi/Les Ballet Afrik will present a work in progress and a world premiere respectively. E-Moves choreographers also include It’s Showtime NYC, Joseph Webb and Barédu Ahmed aka Long Arms (L.A.) and pop-up performers Sun Kim, Cein Lockefeller, Soraya Lundy and Tweet Boogie. Pop-up performers curated by Adesola Osakalumi.
May 3, 2019 ~ E-Moves (5/3/19)
E-Moves celebrates twenty years of commissioning, presenting and nurturing choreographers of color across the spectrum of contemporary dance idioms to create new work! In this edition we uplift the cogent power of Hip-Hop dance to transport the crowd and push the boundaries of movement. Born out of social dance in urban community park cyphers, basement ballrooms and now seen across the globe on esteemed stages and concert halls Hip-Hop dance is a prayer and a roar. Two commissioned choreographers FLUXX and Omari Mizrahi/Les Ballet Afrik will present a work in progress and a world premiere respectively. E-Moves choreographers also include It’s Showtime NYC, Joseph Webb and Barédu Ahmed aka Long Arms (L.A.) and pop-up performers Sun Kim, Cein Lockefeller, Soraya Lundy and Tweet Boogie. Pop-up performers curated by Adesola Osakalumi.
May 4, 2019 ~ E-Moves (5/4/19)
E-Moves celebrates twenty years of commissioning, presenting and nurturing choreographers of color across the spectrum of contemporary dance idioms to create new work! In this edition we uplift the cogent power of Hip-Hop dance to transport the crowd and push the boundaries of movement. Born out of social dance in urban community park cyphers, basement ballrooms and now seen across the globe on esteemed stages and concert halls Hip-Hop dance is a prayer and a roar. Two commissioned choreographers FLUXX and Omari Mizrahi/Les Ballet Afrik will present a work in progress and a world premiere respectively. E-Moves choreographers also include It’s Showtime NYC, Joseph Webb and Barédu Ahmed aka Long Arms (L.A.) and pop-up performers Sun Kim, Cein Lockefeller, Soraya Lundy and Tweet Boogie. Pop-up performers curated by Adesola Osakalumi.
May 9, 2019 ~ E-Moves (5/9/19) ~ Program B (5/9–5/11) Omari Mizrahi/ Les Ballet Afrik, It’s Showtime NYC and pop-up performers Soraya Lundy (5/9), TweetBoogie (5/10 & 5/11)
E-Moves celebrates twenty years of commissioning, presenting and nurturing choreographers of color across the spectrum of contemporary dance idioms to create new work! In this edition we uplift the cogent power of Hip-Hop dance to transport the crowd and push the boundaries of movement. Born out of social dance in urban community park cyphers, basement ballrooms and now seen across the globe on esteemed stages and concert halls Hip-Hop dance is a prayer and a roar. Two commissioned choreographers FLUXX and Omari Mizrahi/Les Ballet Afrik will present a work in progress and a world premiere respectively. E-Moves choreographers also include It’s Showtime NYC, Joseph Webb and Barédu Ahmed aka Long Arms (L.A.) and pop-up performers Sun Kim, Cein Lockefeller, Soraya Lundy and Tweet Boogie. Pop-up performers curated by Adesola Osakalumi.
May 10, 2019 ~ E-Moves (5/10/19) Program B (5/9–5/11) Omari Mizrahi/ Les Ballet Afrik, It’s Showtime NYC and pop-up performers Soraya Lundy (5/9), TweetBoogie (5/10 & 5/11)
E-Moves celebrates twenty years of commissioning, presenting and nurturing choreographers of color across the spectrum of contemporary dance idioms to create new work! In this edition we uplift the cogent power of Hip-Hop dance to transport the crowd and push the boundaries of movement. Born out of social dance in urban community park cyphers, basement ballrooms and now seen across the globe on esteemed stages and concert halls Hip-Hop dance is a prayer and a roar. Two commissioned choreographers FLUXX and Omari Mizrahi/Les Ballet Afrik will present a work in progress and a world premiere respectively. E-Moves choreographers also include It’s Showtime NYC, Joseph Webb and Barédu Ahmed aka Long Arms (L.A.) and pop-up performers Sun Kim, Cein Lockefeller, Soraya Lundy and Tweet Boogie. Pop-up performers curated by Adesola Osakalumi.
May 11, 2019 ~ E-Moves (5/11/19) Program B (5/9–5/11) Omari Mizrahi/ Les Ballet Afrik, It’s Showtime NYC and pop-up performers Soraya Lundy (5/9), TweetBoogie (5/10 & 5/11)
E-Moves celebrates twenty years of commissioning, presenting and nurturing choreographers of color across the spectrum of contemporary dance idioms to create new work! In this edition we uplift the cogent power of Hip-Hop dance to transport the crowd and push the boundaries of movement. Born out of social dance in urban community park cyphers, basement ballrooms and now seen across the globe on esteemed stages and concert halls Hip-Hop dance is a prayer and a roar. Two commissioned choreographers FLUXX and Omari Mizrahi/Les Ballet Afrik will present a work in progress and a world premiere respectively. E-Moves choreographers also include It’s Showtime NYC, Joseph Webb and Barédu Ahmed aka Long Arms (L.A.) and pop-up performers Sun Kim, Cein Lockefeller, Soraya Lundy and Tweet Boogie. Pop-up performers curated by Adesola Osakalumi.
May 16, 2019 ~ Uptown Nights & Carnegie Hall City Wide: Tia Fuller
Multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader Tia Fuller is one of the leading performers on the jazz scene, as well as a member of Beyoncé’s touring band. An instrumental triple threat—she plays alto and soprano saxophone, and flute—she is a much sought-after performer who has played with such jazz luminaries as Wycliffe Gordon, Don Byron, Jon Faddis, and Nancy Wilson. Not only a stellar performer, Fuller is also a dedicated educator and full-time professor at the Berklee College of Music.
The Harlem Stage Annual Gala will build on the theme established last year, #DISRUPTERS: Then and Now in celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance, a creative reaction to the countless racial and social crises currently plaguing our nation, and a moment to acknowledge the artists who refuse to take a back seat during these momentous times. The evening will feature performances and presentations by the ground breaking artists for which we are known, a dinner, and an awards ceremony.
May 31, 2019 ~ Chamber Music America
Celebrate the 7th Annual National Chamber Music Month with Chamber Music America, featuring the music of jazz drummer and bandleader, Kendrick Scott, “blessed with great feel, technical prowess and impeccable taste” (The San Diego Union-Tribune), who will be joined by his ensemble, Oracle. The program will also include new contemporary works performed by the Attacca Quartet. Whether you’re an avid classical music listener, jazz fan, or an adventurous concertgoer, this program will have something for you. This concert is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. CMA’s National Chamber Music Month is an annual initiative, which promotes performances, residencies, interactive discussions, and other events across the country to increase awareness of the small ensemble music field.
June 15, 2019 ~ Spill the Tea ~ Celebrating Pride
in its 2nd annual Pride program, Harlem Stage gives voice to the unique experiences of Southern Black Gay Men. E. Patrick Johnson will discuss his collection of oral histories for his book, Sweet Tea, and how he adapted the book to a stage play and then to a documentary film. Following the conversation he will perform an excerpt from the collected oral histories and from the forthcoming documentary film, Making Sweet Tea. Tavia Nyong’o moderates the discussion. The Illustrious Blacks aka ManchildBlack and Monstah Black bring their ethereal vocals, celestial sonics and earthly musical messages from the cosmos in a gravity defying performance and DJ set. The AfroFuturistic, Funky, Fly and Fierce duo fuse music, dance, theater & fashion as the main ingredients to expand minds, shake booty’s and encourage all to be bold, be brave and be you! #LiveTheHypeLife
Thursday, August 15, 2019 ~ Black Woodstock: 50th Anniversary Celebration and conversation with the artists of yesterday, today and tomorrow about arts and activism. Performers including Nina Simone, The 5th Dimension, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson and more came together in celebration of Black music, culture and pride. The free concerts, six in total, took place in Marcus Garvey Park with more than 100,000 people attending.
Harlem Stage is located at 150 Convent Avenue at 135th Street in Harlem