Live/Reserved Seating
Priority Seating: $25
General Seating: $15

Part I: INTRODUCTION

Pat Cruz & Carl Hancock Rux In Conversation feat. a performance by The Francesca Harper Collective

The Black Arts Movement was a cultural movement in the 1960s to 1970s that was rooted in music, literature, drama, and visual arts, led by Black artists, activists, and intellectuals. This was the cultural intersection that moved and shaped the ideologies of Black identity, political beliefs, and African American culture.

In this introduction of the Harlem Stage series Black Arts Movement: Examined, Harlem Stage Artistic Director & CEO, Pat Cruz, and Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence, Carl Hancock Rux, discuss, examine, and dive into the importance of the movement and the inspiration and meaning behind this curated series. Exploring its profound and innovative successes, this dialogue also turns a critical eye toward the movement’s exclusionary principles, which managed to alienate a Black and White mainstream culture.

In this conversation, led by Cruz, a representative of artists who worked and lived through the era of the Black Arts Movement; and Rux, representing one of many present-day artists and activists who worked closely with the Black Lives Matter Movement, audience members are invited into a forum of discussion, inviting commentary and questions, attempting to reawaken a critical discourse regarding black aesthetics, while challenging, clarifying, contextualizing, and questioning the evolution and legacy of a controversial arts movement and its impact on Black arts institutions today.

Following a brief intermission, FHP Collective, a collective of artists inspired and mentored by internationally acclaimed dancer/choreographer, Francesca Harper, Artistic Director of Ailey II, present a work-in-progress showing of a new work that responds to themes of racial justice and accountability.

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