Programs | Live Ideas

Live Ideas 2021
Altered-Worlds: Black Utopia and The Age of Acceleration
May 11-15

Live Ideas 2021: Altered-Worlds/Black Utopia and the Age of Acceleration will be a hybrid festival May 11-15, 2021 with virtual and live in-person programming! Scroll down for more information!

LIVE IDEAS 2021 BROCHURE

Contemporary Afrofuturism may be defined as an emerging social philosophy of the African diaspora and Africa. Today, partly because of a crisis in globalization, social media and other technological advances, second wave Afrofuturism is emerging as the High Culture of the African diaspora and is the cultural vibranium of a rising virtual African civilization. The 2021 edition of Live Ideas, Altered-Worlds: Black Utopia and The Age of Acceleration, will explore this second wave of Afrofuturism as an alternative to the social anomie, reactionary impulses and neo-fascism of late capitalism. The five-day inter-disciplinary hybrid festival will unfold across multiple dimensions and brings together an illustrious group of artists, writers, thinkers, activists including Tiffany E. Barber, adrienne maree brown, d. Sabela grimes, Ayana Jamieson, John Jennings, Ari Melenciano, Jasmine Murrell, Qudus Onikeku, Rasheedah Phillips, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Sheree Renée Thomas, tobias c. van Veen, Saul Williams, André M. Zachery, and many more.

Live Ideas 2021 is co-curated by Reynaldo Anderson and New York Live Arts in partnership with the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM).

The five-day hybrid festival will unfold across multiple dimensions at the intersection of arts, techno-culture, sci-fi, social sciences, philosophy and the imagination. Highlights of the festival include the world premiere of The Motherboard Suite featuring Saul Williams and six choreographers and directed by Bill T. Jones, an interactive installation by Jasmine Murrell, a symposium delving into second wave Afrofuturism, an immersive Afrofuturist Cabaret, an exploration of Afrobeats and entrepreneurship through the work of Nigerian choreographer Qudus Onikeku, and more.

Live Ideas Altered-Worlds: Black Utopia and The Age of Acceleration is co-curated by Dr. Reynaldo Anderson in partnership with the Black Speculative Art Movement (BSAM).

Flyer artwork: Dr. Nettrice Gaskins

Grand Opening - May 11
on view
May 11-15
Live Arts Lobby, Theater, Studios
daily hours specific to location please see below

RSVP Here

Live Ideas 2021 - Installations

The festival kicks off May 11 at 7:00pm for the public in-person opening of three visual installations available and free to view, daily hours below. Grand Opening – May 11 Jasmine Murrell: Freeing yourself … located in Live Arts Theater and Lobby 3LD & Renegade Performance Group:...

Wed, May 12 @ 7pm-9pm (EST)
Thurs, May 13, 7pm-9pm (EST)

@ INTERSPACE - Live Arts Virtual Environment

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BLACK SPECULATIVE ARTS MOVEMENT: Selected works - Curating the End of The World & Red Spring

INTERSPACE opens on May 12 featuring selected works from the first two installments of Live Arts’ previously unveiled massive online exhibitions presented by BSAM:Curating the End of the World (organizers Dr. Reynaldo Anderson, Tiffany E. Barber and Stacey Robinson) and...

Wed, May 12 & Thurs-Fri May 13-14 @ 8:30pm

@ New York Live Arts Studios

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Drexciya Redux: An Afrofuturist Cabaret

In collaboration with 3LD and Renegade Performance Group with MX OOPS & TRIGGERED MUSIC, Epsii Proctor, UFly Mothership, André M. Zachery and more Audiences will be submerged inside Drexciya Redux: An Afrofuturist Cabaret in the 3rd floor studio transformed into...

Live Arts:
Thurs-Fri, May 13-14 @ 7:00pm
Tickets start at $45 each (sold in set of 2)

Times Square:
(Father Duffy Square @ 46th & Broadway)
Sat May 15 @ 7:00pm
Free with RSVP

Online streaming:
May 14-15 @ 7pm (ET) tickets below

@ New York Live Arts Theater

RSVP & Tickets here

Saul Williams: The Motherboard Suite

Saul Williams and musical collaborators Maria Bauman, Kayla Farrish, Marjani Forté-Saunders, d. Sabela grimes, Jasmine Hearn, and Shamel Pitts. The Motherboard Suite brings to life a suite of music by musician, poet, actor Saul Williams inspired by his multi-tiered project MartyrLoserKing. Directed by...

Wed, May 12 @ 6pm-7:15pm (ET)

@ INTERSPACE - Live Arts Virtual Environment

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Insighting and Foresighting: The Extraordinary Prescience of Octavia Butler

A Conversation with adrienne maree brown and Ayana Jamieson It is apparent that Octavia E. Butler has been showing us the future with uncanny accuracy. She showed us the consequences of depleting our natural resources, she wrote about the effects of Climate Change, the uneven wrath...

THURS, MAY 13
5pm- 7pm (ET)

@ INTERSPACE - Live Arts Virtual Environment

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AFROFUTURIST INVERSE

Demo 1 INFINITUM: An Afrofuturist Tale’s Tim Fielder Under the Hood Art Demonstration Conducted by: Tim Fielder This live art presentation will focus on the techniques of visual afrofuturism utilized for the groundbreaking graphic novel, INFINITUM: An Afrofuturist Tale, published by HarperCollins Amistad. The artwork, produced by author/illustrator, Tim Fielder,...

Fri, May 14 @ 1pm-5:30pm (ET)

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Symposium - Altered-Worlds: Black Utopia and the Age of Acceleration

“To create high art—work that is functional and aesthetically “cool” or pleasing—in the face of those who would deny its very existence, declaim it as “primitive,”… is itself an act of resistance that subverts the master narrative that suggests our work is imitative or inconsequential, incapable of rising...

FRI, May 14 @
8pm–11pm (ET)

@ INTERSPACE - Live Arts Virtual Environment

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ALTER-WORLDS (( COSMIC FUNK )) AFTER-PARTY

Join us for the Alter-Worlds (( Cosmic Funk )) After Party on Twitch! [ http://twitch.tv/pandemixDJs ]With panelists and DJs Stacey Robinson & tobias c. van Veen throwing down Afrofuturist cuts from across the cosmos, from outerspace dub and funk to interstellar hip-hop, from Detroit techno...

Panel, Screening & Conversation
Sat, May 15 @ 12-4pm (EST)

@ INTERSPACE - Live Arts Virtual Environment

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Re:INCARNATION and Afrobeats, Migration and Entrepreneurship

12p – 1:15pm Panel: UPCYCLING MOVEMENT REVOLUTIONS: AFROBEATS FROM NIGERIAN STREETS TO WORLD STAGES – ART VALUE AND AGENCY Onye Ozuzu, Qudus Onikeku, Adila Omotosho, Ambrose Idemudia in conversation, moderated by d. Sabela grimes and hosted by Osubi Craig Panel conversation exploring the Afrobeats dance movement with a...

Sat, May 15 @ 8pm-10pm
Times Square
Father Duffy Square
at 46th &Broadway
Free

Cosplay @ Time Square

(Father Duffy Square at 46th and Broadway) In partnership with BSAM, Lot Radio, and Times Square Arts Immediately following the performance of The Motherboard Suite in Time Square, the Lot Radio will spin Techno and new sounds from the African Diaspora. Come to Time Square in your most imaginative Afrofuturistic...

Exhibition on View Now

Curating The End Of The World

Organized by Reynaldo Anderson, Tiffany E. Barber and Stacey Robinson with the Black Speculative Arts Movement, this two-part exhibition brings together an international cadre of artists whose work responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-black violence, climate change, poor governance, trans-humanism, and an accelerating, technologically driven economic system on the verge...