KATHERINE HUBBARD (A '15)
BACK ON BACK

Back on back is a performance lecture that considers the body in motion, the necessity of distraction, and the potential of conjunctives all in relation to the organizing priority of the brain. The work will use video to mark a visual correlate for ‘vision for action’ a mode of perception that is differentiated from ‘vision for perception’ in how the brain processes it’s surroundings. By stripping grammar from language and structuring narrative through movement Hubbard makes space for the recognition of and in turn the temporary release from haunting.

MELANIE CREAN, SHAUN LEONARDO (A '04) & SABLE ELYSE SMITH (A '15)
MIRROR / ECHO / TILT

In Mirror / Echo / Tilt the artists will ask members of the public to participate in physical reenactments that locate a series of current events within their bodies through gesture, voice, and proximity. Utilizing testimony, news reports, and memory, participants will recreate intensely contested moments of police violence through shifting perspective. This performance, marked by voice and movement, poses the questions: What does it mean to enact and to activate? How do we measure our collective complicity in both systemic violence, trauma, and the legacy of constructed racial representations?

The piece will be conducted in memory of Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Jamar Clark, Laquan McDonald, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, Ramarley Graham, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin… and countless others.

Mirror / Echo / Tilt is a collaborative project between artists (Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, Sable Elyse Smith), educators, and individuals affected by the criminal justice system. The project investigates the range of factors contributing to cycles of police confrontation and incarceration, while questioning how images of people caught in those cycles are constructed through the media. Working toward a series of videos, performances, and a toolkit that reframes personal narratives of imprisonment, we insert counter narratives told through first person voice into the dominant media discourse, which commonly alienates and criminalizes black and brown bodies. By working with new forms of participatory engagement, we also aim to facilitate the sharing of perspective needed for polarized groups to discuss and enact change in seemingly impenetrable systems of justice.

This work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by Jerome Foundation, The SHS Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and general operating support from the New York State Council on the