Arts for Art Announces Fall 2019 Season
25 Years of Arts for Art
- Special tribute to poet and Lower East Side cultural iconoclast Steve Cannon
- Outdoors In Gardens series in Lower East Side Community Gardens.
- El Taller in East Harlem hosts Arts for Art for the 4th annual showcase of Latino and Native FreeJazz artists.
- FreeJazz returns to Weeksville Heritage Center in central Brooklyn for a community focused weekend of music and poetry.
Arts for Art is pleased to announce upcoming fall 2019 performances, featuring the vanguard artists of the NYC FreeJazz community. Under the banner Healing for a Suffering World, this season begins our celebration of 25 years of Arts for Art programming bridging communities through the transformative power of art and music.
Based in the Lower East Side, Arts for Art has provided risk taking artists with the opportunity to present their work since the founding of the Vision Festival in 1996. Born out of the Sound Unity Festivals of 1984 and 1986 and the Improvisors Collective of the early 90s, Arts for Art has built a community for artists facing a dearth of opportunity after the decline of the loft scene of the 60s and 70s and the emergence of the conservative movement of the 80s. Through emphasis on a collective approach to programming, Arts for Art and the Vision Festival has created a welcoming, fertile environment for the presentation of the creative music known as FreeJazz in the Lower East Side and beyond.
With the introduction of new programming every year, Arts for Art has grown from presenting only the Vision Festival, to hosting year-round events in a variety of venues throughout NYC. The fall 2019 season sees the continuation of programs which have become annual traditions and newer partnerships aiming to spread FreeJazz to wider audiences.
As Arts for Art enters its 25th year, we are proud to highlight many artists present during the early days of AFA including Steve Swell, Lisa Sokolov, William Parker, Daniel Carter, Rob Brown, Karen Borca, Jason Hwang, Dave Sewelson, and Charles Downs. In particular, September 28 will honor the late trumpeter Roy Campbell on the occasion of his birthday; and September 6 features a full evening of performances dedicated to poet, playwright, and novelist Steve Cannon.
Presented below is a schedule that reflects the best Arts for Art has to offer. A variety of formats, venues and media, presented at low or no cost to maximize accessibility to our local community.
Statement from Executive Director Todd Nicholson
Twenty-five years of Vision. Twenty-five years of Arts for Art. It was around this time in 1995 that a small group of musicians, dancers, poets and artists banded together to begin planning for the first Vision Festival. At the time, none of us knew that we would still be going strong in 2019-20. The founding of Arts for Art and our programming is a political act of self-determination holding to the belief that art really moves people and that to move people is a powerful political act.
We will celebrate this milestone throughout the year with In Gardens, Evolving, new and existing partnerships with Weeksville, El Taller Latino Americano, and others. There will be a few surprises along the way, culminating in the 25th annual Vision Festival.
Program Descriptions
September 6, 6pm at the Clemente
A special evening of tribute performances to Steve Cannon - community leader, poet, and founder of A Gathering of the Tribes. Cannon deeply supported AFA and the wider jazz scene, including a number of appearances at the Vision Festival starting with its inception in 1996. Organized jointly with Tribes, this evening features poets and musicians closely connected to Cannon and the LES including Anne Waldman, William Parker, and the Sun Ra Arkestra (which used to perform in Cannon’s backyard).
September 7 - October 5 at 6BC Garden, Children’s Magical Garden, First St. Green
Continuing a 14 year annual tradition, In Gardens brings free outdoor concerts to three Lower East Side community gardens, featuring world class performances in an accessible, relaxed environment. Poetry readings continue to pay tribute to Steve Cannon.
October 10-13, 7pm at El Taller Latino Americano
Bridging the Lower East Side and East Harlem, Arts for Art’s annual series at El Taller emphasizes improvisers from marginalized America -- the original peoples, those brought here unwillingly, and those who have immigrated.
October 18-20, 7pm at Weeksville Heritage Center
Arts for Art's partnership with Weeksville celebrates Jazz’s African American roots in one of America’s first free black communities with three evenings of forward thinking programming aiming to amplify the history of jazz in Brooklyn.
Tributes to Steve Cannon
Friday, September 6 at the Clemente
Flamboyan Theater, 107 Suffolk St, New York, NY 10002
6:45 Poetry Readings
Yuko Otomo // Lydia Cortes // Edwin Torres // Steve Dalachinsky
7:30 What It Is
William Parker - bass / Patricia Nicholson Parker - dance / James Brandon Lewis - tenor sax
Devin Brahja Waldman - alto sax / Melanie Dyer - viola / Val Jeanty - percussion, electronics
8:30 Poetry Readings
Anne Waldman // Tracie Morris w/ Graham Haynes and Elliott Sharp
9:00 Sun Ra Arkestra
In Gardens
Saturday, September 7 at 6BC Garden
630 E 6th St between Ave B and C
1:30 Lisa Sokolov - voice, piano
2:30 Sheila Maldonado - poetry // Danny Shot - poetry
3:30 Patrick Holmes - clarinet / Adam Lane - bass / Ryan Sawyer - drums
4:30 Daniel Carter - woodwinds / William Parker - bass
Sunday, September 8 at 6BC Garden
630 E 6th St between Ave B and C
1:30 Steve Swell - trombone / Frode Gjerstad - clarinet, alto sax / William Parker - bass
2:30 Frank Perez - poetry // Mariposa - poetry
3:30 Sarah Bernstein Veer Quartet
Sarah Bernstein - violin, composition / Sana Nagano - violin
Leonor Falcon - viola / Nick Jozwiak - cello
4:30 Aquiles Navarro - trumpet / Tcheser Holmes - drums
Saturday September 14 at Children's Magical Garden
129 Stanton St, just east of Essex
1:30 Rob Brown - alto sax / Juan Pablo Carletti - drums
2:30 Luciann Berrios - poetry // Janice Lowe - poetry
3:30 Val Jeanty - percussion / Patricia Nicholson - dance
4:30 Michael Wimberly - drums / Waldron Ricks - trumpet / Larry Roland - bass
Sunday September 15 at Children's Magical Garden
129 Stanton St, just east of Essex
1:30 Nick Lyons - alto sax / Bill Payne - clarinet / Adam Lane - bass
Michael Wimberly - percussion
2:30 Nancy Mercado - poetry // Poonam Srivastava - poetry
3:30 Karen Borca Trio
Karen Borca - bassoon / Jackson Krall - drums / Hilliard Greene - bass
4:30 We Feel Quartet
Luke Stewart - bass / Daniel Carter - multi instruments / No Land – poetry
Miriam Parker – dance
Saturday September 21 at Children's Magical Garden
129 Stanton St, just east of Essex
1:30 Mara Rosenbloom - synth / Sam Newsome - soprano sax
2:30 Poets TBA
3:30 Jason Kao Hwang - violin / Anders Nilsson - guitar / TA Thompson - drums
4:30 Amirtha Kidambi - voice
Sunday September 22 at First St Green
33 E. 1st St
1:30 Dave Sewelson - baritone sax / William Parker - bass
Steve Swell - trombone / Marvin Bugalu Smith - drums
2:30 Papoleto Melendez - poetry // Melanie Maria Goodreaux - poetry
3:30 Sam Newsome Trio
Sam Newsome - soprano sax / Hilliard Greene - bass
Reggie Nicholson - drums
4:30 Michael Bisio - bass / Kirk Knuffke - cornet / Fred Lonberg-Holm - cello
Saturday September 28 at First St Green
33 E. 1st St
1:30 Matt Lavelle - trumpet / Daniel Carter - woodwinds / Tom Cabrera - drums
2:30 Latasha Diggs - poetry // No Land - poetry
3:30 Michael TA Thompson Quartet
TA Thompson - drums / Christopher Dean Sullivan - bass
Bill Pernice - piano / Lee Odom - clarinet, alto sax, soprano sax
4:30 Whit Dickey - drums / Brandon Lopez - bass / Rob Brown - alto sax
Sunday September 29 at First St Green. Tribute to Roy Campbell
33 E. 1st St
1:30 Charles Downs - drums / Will Greene - tenor sax
Jonah Rosenberg - keyboard / Henry Fraser - bass
2:30 K.J. Holmes - dance / Matt Lavelle - trumpet
3:30 Jaimie Branch Trio
Jaimie Branch - trumpet / Luke Stewart - bass / Mike Pride - drums
4:30 For Roy: “Circulation of Celestial Triangles Leaving Imhotep facing the East"
Matt Lavelle, Lewis Barnes, Ryan Fraiser, Jaimie Branch, Kirk Knuffke, Daniel Carter, Dave Hofstra,
TA Thompson, led by William Parker
Saturday October 5 at Children's Magical Garden
129 Stanton St, just east of Essex
1:30 The Rasslers
Mark Ehrhardt - drums / Chet Mazur - vocals / Tim Mullins - guitar
Nick Romanenko - bass
2:30 Patricia Spears Jones - poetry // Nicole Wallace - poetry
3:30 Ava Mendoza - guitar / James Brandon Lewis - tenor sax
Shayna Dulberger - bass / Daniel Carter - woodwinds
4:30 Welf Dorr Unit
Welf Dorr - alto sax / Keisuke Matsuno - guitar / Dmitry Ishenko - bass
Kevin Shea – drums
Arts for Art at El Taller
215 E. 99th St., NYC 10029
Friday October 11
7:00 TBA
8:00 Melanie Dyer Trio
9:00 Angelica Sanchez Trio
Angelica Sanchez - piano / William Parker – bass
Randy Peterson - drums
Saturday October 12
7:00 Brandon Lopez – bass / Ingrid Laubrock - tenor, soprano sax
Brandon Seabrook – guitar / Tom Rainey - drums
8:00 Tony Malaby Quartet
Tony Malaby – tenor sax / Leo Genovese – piano / William Parker – bass
Billy Mintz - drums
9:00 James Brandon Lewis Trio
James Brandon Lewis - tenor sax / Luke Stewart - bass / Warren Trae Crudup - drums
Sunday October 13
4:00 TBA
5:00 Aruan Ortiz Trio
6:00 Ingrid Laubrock - tenor, soprano sax / Nick Dunston - bass / Francisco Mela - drums
Arts for Art at Weeksville
158 Buffalo Ave, Brooklyn NY 11213
Friday October 18
7:30 David Mills - poetry
8:30 Gerald Cleaver Trio
Brandon Lopez - bass / Brandon Seabrook - guitar / Gerald Cleaver - drums
Saturday October 19
7:30 Fred Moten - poetry
8:30 William Parker
Sunday October 20
4:00 Tracie Morris - poetry
5:00 TBA
About Arts for Art
Founded in 1996, Arts For Art (AFA) is a New York City based tax-exempt organization dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Free Jazz - an American indigenous art form in which improvisation is principle. Free Jazz embodies music, dance, poetry, and visual arts. It is recognized for its variety of highly developed and personalized improvisational languages. AFA works not only to preserve the legacy of Free Jazz, but to ensure a vital future through its re-imagination by new generations of artists. Spearheaded by the internationally renowned Vision Festival, AFA's programming brings together multiple generations of vibrant, diverse and highly skilled artists. To further our goals of diversity and accessibility, we foster education initiatives and produce events that build community amongst artists and audiences.
Facebook: facebook.com/artsforart
Twitter: twitter.com/artsforart
Instagram: instagram.com/artsforart
A Gathering of the Tribes
Located on the Lower East Side of New York City, Tribes has been in existence since 1991. In that year, Steve Cannon, poet, playwright, novelist, and retired professor from the City University of New York, converted a portion of his apartment into an informal salon. Despite his loss of eyesight to glaucoma, he encouraged the exchange of alternative points of view traditionally overlooked by mainstream media. The ideas raised in the discussions served as inspiration to the pieces later published in A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine.
In 1993, a further transformation of the space by Dora Espinoza, a Peruvian photographer, produced Tribes Gallery. Since then, Tribes has evolved into a performance venue and meeting place for artists and audiences to come together across all artistic disciplines, all levels of complexity, and all definitions of difference. In this pan-disciplinary, multi-cultural environment, artists exchange ideas, create peer relationships and find mentorship. Through Tribes’ publications, readers encounter a unique synthesis of literature, visual art, criticism and interviews with promising artists of all kinds.
El Taller Latino Americano (The Latin American Workshop) is a 501(c)(3) community-based non-profit arts and education institution founded in New York City in 1979 to bridge the gap between Latin Americans and North Americans through the language of art, dance and music.
Weeksville Heritage Center
Weeksville Heritage Center is a one-of-a-kind 21st-century cultural institution with a 180-year history. The organization’s mission is to document, preserve and interpret the history of the 19th century African American community of Weeksville, Brooklyn—one of America’s many free black communities—and to create and inspire innovative, contemporary uses of African American history through education, the arts, and civic engagement. Using a contemporary lens, Weeksville activates this unique history through the presentation of innovative, vanguard and experimental programs.
Funding Credits
Funding for In Gardens is provided by Council Members Carlina Rivera and Margaret Chin
Funding for El Taller and Weeksville is provided by NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the Tinker Foundation
General Operating support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts