Planet Justice:
Are You Here For It?
Slow Factory has been invited to co-curate Live Ideas, the annual arts & culture festival from Bill T. Jones’ New York Live Arts. The 2023 edition of Live Ideas, PLANET JUSTICE: are you here for it?, explores the idea that climate justice is rooted in social justice, anti-colonialism, global collaboration, human rights, and the rights of nature to thrive. An antidote to the doom and gloom of the climate crisis, the festival offers five days of art and action with performances, interactive installation, workshops, outdoor festival, symposium, and more.
Planet Justice // May 17-21, 2023
Accessibility: Slow Factory makes every effort that our spaces are accessible to as many as possible. New York Live Arts is wheelchair accessible and ADA Compliant. Study Hall & Outdoor Festical have live ASL interpreters. It is an enclosed space, although we encourage wearing masks we are not mandating since the CDC has lifted the emergency status on COVID we expect less people wearing masks. If you are immunocompromised, and cannot be in a closed space, Study Hall will be livestreamed here on Friday May 19 at 2:30pm ET.
Opening Performance & Cocktails: Wednesday May 17, 6pm - New York Live Arts Lobby
On view daily May 17 - 31
“Beyond the drumroll, a wake up call” — a performance and interactive exhibition by Collis Browne, Slow Factory and guest collaborators, urging guests to reckon with the necessary climate action needed before reaching irreversible climate disaster. The drum is the oldest instrument, representing our connection to the rhythms of life and nature. Slow Factory Labs has created drums using their plant-based Slowhide instead of plastic drum heads. In 2020 we entered the Decade of Action according to the United Nations, and as of 2023, no decisive action has been taken by any global government. With the drums symbolizing the years left to take climate action, guests are invited to beat the drums, sound the alarm, and give our governments, communities and companies a wake up call!
Friday, May 19
2:30-6:30pm - New York Live Arts Theater
219 W 19th St, New York
A climate and social justice summit examining art, design, education,dance, performance, science, technology and fashion’s role in collective liberation.
Opening Keynote: Vandana Shiva
Maytha Alhassen, Rachel Cargle, Wawa Gatheru, Elena Gonzales, Ijeoma Oluo, Moderated by Céline Semaan
Changing Everything from an Accessibility Perspective — Jen White-Johnson
Equity Design the Future — Antionette Carroll
Seeding justice — Vivien Sansour
From the Amazon to the World — Zaya Ribeiro
As Above So Below —Xin Liu
Saturday, May 20
1-6pm - Outdoors
219 W 19th St, New York
Featuring
Xiuhtezcatl
Mykki Blanco
Pierre Kwenders
DJ Ushka
Collis Browne & the Slow Factory Liberation Orchestra
Fogo Azul Drum Parade
Botanical Workshop with Original Rose
Upcycling Workshop with Makayla Wray
Sky High Farms
More in the Planet Justice Series:
Dance & Movement Performances
May 17, 18 & 20
730pm - New York Live Arts Theater
New York Premiere
Since its construction in 2012 at the epicenter of the Amazon, the planet’s so-called ‘green-lungs’, the giant Belo Monte Dam has earned its rightful place as the emblem of man’s destruction of nature. In Altamira 2042, an interactive performance installation by Brazilian artist Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha, a polyphony of voices, sonorities, timbres, tremblings evoking the sounds and secrets of the Xingu River take over the space. Flash drives and LED loud-speakers carried and activated by the performer herself become the medium of transmission and amplification of both human and non-human voices emanating from the river and its banks. This haunting, shamanic solo performance is a result of da Cunha’s long-term research on Amazonian river ecosystems destroyed by Man. The work calls for an “Amazonization” of the world, a battle in which life stands its ground against the destructive forces of progress. The Belo Monte Dam becomes the myth of the enemy.
May 18 & 19
8pm - New York Live Arts Studio
World Premiere
Opening Night Reception: May 18, 9pm - New York Live Arts Lobby
With support from the Québec Government Office in New York
World Premiere — A new work by the Bessie Award winning Canadian artist of Cree, Métis and European descent whose radical works articulate a deepening of consciousness and awareness through body-based investigation in order to uncover our connection to the environment, the earth and ancestors. Hello, Buffalo is presented with support from the Québec Government Office in New York.
May 20 & 21, 8:30pm
Co-presented offsite at Pioneer Works
World Premiere
Using the 1997 film Titanic as a departure point, Titanic Depression by Dynasty Handbag, alter-ego of artist Jibz Cameron in collaboration with video artist SUE-C, addresses issues of class, gender roles, gratuitous wealth, and the environmental impact of climate change. The event—more so a live, multimedia experience than solely performance—features the artist moving deftly in and out of characters, using her outrageous physicality and unique improvisational skills in the retelling of Titanic as an allegory for our present environmental and humanitarian crisis.
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