Citywide Festival Kicks Off at Carnegie Hall on February 12 with Flying Lotus, followed by Sun Ra Arkestra with Kelsey Lu and Moor Mother; Nicole Mitchell and Angel Bat Dawid; Chimurenga Renaissance and Fatoumata Diawara; Carl Craig Synthesizer Ensemble; and Theo Croker
Festival features 80+ Events Including Many Presented by Prestigious Partner Institutions Extending Scope of Festival with Exhibitions, Talks, Films, Theater, and Online Offerings
| This February and March, Carnegie Hall presents Afrofuturism, a citywide festival exploring the thriving aesthetic and cultural movement that looks to the future through a Black cultural lens, intersecting music, visual art, literature, politics, science fiction, and technology.
Featuring more than 80 events, the festival kicks off at Carnegie Hall with a performance by Flying Lotus on February 12 and includes musical programming as well as talks, performances, exhibitions, and online offerings presented by 70+ leading cultural and academic institutions across New York City and beyond. At Carnegie Hall, festival concerts by celebrated artists in February and March explore Afrofuturism’s boundless sonic essence through jazz, funk, R&B, Afrobeat, hip-hop, electronic music, and more. In addition, education and social impact programming and special events created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute invite New Yorkers of all ages to consider the infinite possibilities of Afrofuturism. Festival partner events include performance art celebrating trans and gender non-conforming artists at the MCC Theater; an online discussion between award-winning authors Samuel R. Delany and Namwali Serpell; an immersive listening experience at National Sawdust that offers access to unreleased tracks and the creative process of musical giant, the late Lee “Scratch” Perry; a Black Feminist Futures series that highlights the powerful and long-standing relationship between Afrofuturism and Black feminism presented by the Schomburg Center; and the art exhibit, eMeLe-K: El futuro es ya / The future is now, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in the context of today, the future, at Tamayo Gallery (LATEA) and LES Gallery. To create this imaginative festival, Carnegie Hall’s programming team consulted with prominent experts, including writer and academic Alondra Nelson and Mark Dery, the cultural critic who first coined the term “Afrofuturism” in his landmark 1993 essay, “Black to the Future.” The Hall further brought together an Afrofuturism Curatorial Council, made up of five of the most knowledgeable authorities in the Afrofuturism field—Reynaldo Anderson, King James Britt, Louis Chude-Sokei, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Ytasha L. Womack—to help shape the festival’s line-up of events.
More than 70 leading cultural institutions from across New York City and beyond extend the scope of the festival with a diverse array of live and online events, including exhibitions, performances, talks, and more. The multidisciplinary public programming explores African and African diasporic philosophies, speculative fiction, mythology, comics, and more. A range of online offerings also includes film screenings, exhibitions, and talks with leading thinkers and creatives in this multitiered experience. HIGHLIGHTS OF AFROFUTURISM FESTIVAL CONCERTS AT CARNEGIE HALL At Carnegie Hall, the Afrofuturism festival concerts showcase renowned artists in jazz, electronic music, dub, house, Afro-beat, and more—performing one-night only shows, unique artistic collaborations, and double bills in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage and Zankel Hall. |
 ♦ The festival kicks off with the Carnegie Hall debut of Flying Lotus on Saturday, February 12 at 8:00 p.m. The Grammy Award–winning producer, composer, rapper, filmmaker, and visionary founder of the independent record label Brainfeeder exists as a musical world unto himself. Flying Lotus synthesizes a vast range of influences—musical and otherwise—into an expansive, yet unmistakable sound that makes him one of today’s foremost artists. The “heir apparent to a near-celestial Afrofuturist force” (The Face) presents his transportive electro-acoustic musical blend in this special one-night-only performance (Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage) |
 ♦ The Afrofuturism festival continues at Carnegie Hall with the Sun Ra Arkestra with special guests Kelsey Luand Moor Mother on Thursday, February 17 at 9:00 p.m. Under the longtime leadership of founding saxophonist Marshall Allen, the Sun Ra Arkestra is as vital and cheekily unpredictable as ever. Blending jazz and blues with electronic and extraterrestrial influences, these true pioneers of Afrofuturism carry on the inimitable vision and spirit of their late, enigmatic founder—composer, pianist, bandleader, poet, and cosmic philosopher Sun Ra. Joining the Arkestra for this festival performance are two equally irrepressible guest artists who are carrying on Sun Ra’s torch, each of them a prolific collaborator across numerous perceived genre boundaries: cellist, composer, and polymuse Kelsey Lu and poet, composer, and Black Quantum futurist Moor Mother. (Zankel Hall)♦ The next week features Nicole Mitchell and Angel Bat Dawid on Thursday, February 24 at 7:30 p.m. For this evening’s double bill, innovative flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell—praised for making music that is “exciting, invigorating, and keeps you on the edge of your seat” (New York Amsterdam News)—brings her Black Earth Ensemble to perform Xenogenesis Suite, inspired by renowned Afrofuturist author Octavia E. Butler. The former first woman president of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Mitchell celebrates endless possibility by creating what she calls “visionary worlds through music that bridge the familiar with the unknown.” Angel Bat Dawid—the “blazingly original” Chicago-based clarinetist and bandleader who “captures the unbridled sound of obstacles overcome, history revered, and a future imagined” (Pitchfork)—joins forces with LuFuki and Dr. Adam Zanolini to form Autophysiopsychic Millennium, exploring the performance methodology of instrumentalist and composer Dr. Yusef Lateef in what they describe as an Afrofuturist Participatory Sonic Convocation. (Zankel Hall) |
 ♦ The festival continues in March with a double bill featuring Chimurenga Renaissance and Fatoumata Diawara on Friday, March 4 at 9:30 p.m. Comprised of Tendai “Baba” Maraire and guitarist Hussein Kalonji, Chimurenga Renaissance brilliantly blends experimental hip-hop with traditional African music to create a captivating and consistently surprising “trans-Atlantic mélange” (NPR) that speaks to a range of postmodern and politically conscious sensibilities. Also featured on this evening’s program is Grammy Award-nominated singer, songwriter, and actress Fatoumata Diawara—one of the most relevant female voices of the new generation of African artists—who covers a gamut of styles from blues, funk, and rock to syncopated Afro-pop, always honoring her past, but with a sound and message that confidently looks to the future. (Zankel Hall)♦ Carl Craig Synthesizer Ensemble takes the stage on Saturday, March 19 at 10:00 p.m. A creative visionary, Grammy Award-nominated composer, world-class DJ, and founder of seminal record label Planet E Communications, Carl Craig is an elder statesman in the world of electronic music production and performance—a true legend of the genre. The common thread that runs through Craig’s broad musical canon is a resounding fascination with futurism, as embodied by the Synthesizer Ensemble in which he imbues a flexible and collaborative human touch into the more synth-driven, pulsing traits of techno. (Zankel Hall)
♦ Grammy Award-nominated trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Theo Croker closes out the festival concerts at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, March 26 at 9:00 p.m. with a performance that blends post-bop, funk, and electronic music in a sonic celebration of Afro-origin. As showcased in his new album BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST, Croker explores the forgotten hero’s journey toward self-actualization within the universal origins of Blackness. (Zankel Hall) In addition to these festival performances, Carnegie Hall also presents The Black Angel of History: Myth-Science, Metamodernism, and the Metaverse, curated by Afrofuturism Curatorial Council member Reynaldo Anderson and the Black Speculative Arts Movement, throughout the festival.
This special exhibition in the Zankel Hall Gallery is an analysis of visual culture and technology within the genre of Afrofuturism. It functions as an avatar for the Afro-Speculative, examining the power that creativity wields in the struggle for various freedoms of expression and the politics of resistance. (February 3 – June 16, free to Zankel Hall concertgoers) To accompany audience members’ journey through Afrofuturism, a festival playlist featuring music by the festival artists—available on Apple Music and Spotify—explores the transportive beats of Flying Lotus, Sun Ra Arkestra’s intergalactic jazz and blues, the mesmerizing sounds of the Carl Craig Synthesizer Ensemble, Fatoumata Diawara’s powerful vocals, and many others. HIGHLIGHTS OF AFROFUTURISM FESTIVAL PARTNER EVENTS BY GENRE Afrofuturism festival partner programming features more than 60 events in person and online in multiple genres presented by diverse cultural and academic institutions across the city and beyond, ranging from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, to The Studio Museum in Harlem and National Sawdust, to others such as Willie Mae Rock Camp, Society of Illustrators, AfriFuTrinity: Quantum Cosmic Futures, Black & Brown Comix Arts Festival, and Women in Comics Collective International. For a full list of festival partners, please see below. MUSIC: AXIOM The Juilliard School presents AXIOM, conducted by faculty member Jeffrey Milarsky. Dedicated to performing masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries, the program—available in person and online—features George Lewis’s Assemblage, Marcos Balter’s Bladed Stance, Anthony Braxton’s Composition No. 46, and Tania León’s Indígena, in an evening exploring Afrofuturism compiled in consultation with composer George Lewis. The Creator Has a Master Plan: An Afrofuturist Cypher Hosted by Poetica Bey, this performance celebrates the past and future with an Afrofuturist cypher in honor of Sadat X of Brand Nubian, Freedom Williams, Norman “Starship” Connors, DJ Jedi, and “Media Assassin” Harry Allen, with special guests and hip-hop legends. Featuring a 24-hour global cypher with DJs from around the world, this event is presented by the Black Speculative Arts Movement, Black Pot Mojo Arts, and the Department of Africology and African American Studies, Temple University. Craig Harris’s Nocturnal Nubian Ball for Conscientious Ballers and Cultural Shot Callers Craig Harris’s Nocturnal Nubian Ball (for Conscientious Ballers and Cultural Shot Callers) is the culmination of Harlem Stage’s Afrofuturism series. Presented by Harlem Stage and filmed at Bryant Park, this presentation highlights Harris and the Nation of Imagination, with special guest Marshall Allen from the Sun Ra Arkestra. Available online through February 28. AACM: Black to the Future This docu-concert celebrates the role the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) has played in being a platform for Black imagination and Black experimental thought from 1965 to today. |
 Masma Dream World + CollobohMarch 3 at 9:00 p.m. Public Records, 233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NYMasma Dream World explores the shadow self, using frequency based sensory activation across electronics and vocals. Her captivating live performances resonate more as ritual than recital, embodying stories passed down from her Gabonese ancestors. The presentation also features Nigerian maestro Colloboh, who maneuvers man’s connection to machine, instigating modular synthesis and electronics into transcendent spaces. |
 Spatial…No Problem—A Lee “Scratch” Perry Immersive Listening ExperienceMarch 12 at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. March 19 at 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. National Sawdust, 80 North 6th Street, Brooklyn, NYThis event offers access to unreleased tracks and the creative process of a musical giant, the late Lee “Scratch” Perry, who joined with Mouse on Mars (MOM) in 2020 for a final experiment: a journey into immersive audio realized via the hyper fidelity of next-generation spatial sound. Curated by Louis Chude-Sokei, this immersive listening experience will be mixed by MOM and mapped to National Sawdust’s custom sound system. THEATER/POETRY/PERFORMANCE ART: Jubilee for a New Vision—A Celebration of Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Artists For this festival event, Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko, Ayla Xuan Chi Sullivan, and Roger Q. Mason of the New Visions Fellowship—a new initiative of National Queer Theater and the Dramatists Guild of America—showcase excerpts from new works that amplify the trans and gender non-conforming experience in scene, song, and performance that envision Black Futures that transform systemic invisibility into fonts of joy, community, and infinite imagination. |
 The Rayla Universe: An Afrofuturism LARP ExperienceFebruary 26—March 20, 3914 North Clark Street, Chicago, IL Online: bcafcon.orgPresented by the Black & Brown Comix Arts Festival and Otherworld Theatre Company, this event invites audiences to be immersed in an Afrofuturism LARP (live action role-playing game) experience. It’s the year 2212 and Planet Hope is in turmoil. Rayla Illmatic is tasked with teleporting to find the missing Neo Astronauts, leaving behind all she knows to help her planet. But all roads lead to the land of her ancestors, Earth. This LARP is an adaptation of Ytasha L. Womack’s novel Rayla 2212. Jaamil Olawale Kosoko: Black Body Amnesia February 27 at 6:00 p.m. New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, New York, NY Blending poetry and memoir, conversation and performance theory, Black Body Amnesia enlivens a personal archive of visual and verbal offerings written and organized by poet, performance artist, educator, and curator Jaamil Olawale Kosoko. TALKS/LECTURES: ALL ARTS Talk Series: Cinema of the Afrofuture Curator and filmmaker Celia C. Peters is featured in a live-streamed discussion with artists, academics, authors, and changemakers at the forefront of Afrofuturist thought—an accompaniment to the Afrofuturism: Blackness Revisualized film festival. |
 Black Feminist FuturesFebruary 19, March 9 and 24 at 12:00 p.m. Online: nypl.org/locations/schomburgThe Black Feminist Futures series features programs that highlight the powerful and long-standing relationship between Afrofuturism and Black feminism. Presented by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the programs include Dr. Kinitra Brooks, Sheree Renée Thomas, Tananarive Due, Andrea Hairston, Dacia Polk, Tanya Denise Fields, Dr. LaWana Richmond, and more as part of the Schomburg Center’s 10th Annual Black Comic Book Festival. |
 Authors Talk: Tim Fielder and Ytasha L. WomackMatty’s Rocket Book One February 20 at 8:00 p.m. Online: blackmetropolis.net“OG Afrofuturist” Tim Fielder is interviewed by Ytasha L. Womack for Matty’s Rocket Book One. This reissue of Matty’s Rocket, in conjunction with Literati on behalf of NBA All-Star Stephen Curry’s Underrated book club, brings back the full story of Matty Watty, a daring space pilot that has adventures in a 1930s-1940s alternative past featuring down home folks, Flash Gordon-like spaceships, and alien oddities. This event is presented by Dieselfunk Studios. Apollo Live Wire: Black Notes / Femme Futures February 22 at 6:30 p.m., Online: apollotheater.org This online multimedia experience, presented by the Apollo Theater and featuring DJ LiKUiD and internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and composer Frae-Frae: Daughter of Drexciya, contemplates the future of Black life while examining past and present Black women who have shifted the ways in which we think about, practice, and experience the arts, sciences, politics, and social justice. |
 The Comic Book Spectrum: Race, Gender, and Comics February 26 at 1:30 p.m. Online: womenincomicscollective.orgPresented by Women in Comics Collective International, this panel discussion is part of a series that focuses on the effect that race and gender representation have on the comic book industry. It also serves as a platform where multimedia professionals can talk about their backgrounds, work, and thoughts related to the ever-changing spectrum that is comics. Afrofuturist Writing March 9 at 7:00 p.m. Online: italianacademy.columbia.edu This online event features an evening of readings and discussion between award-winning authors Samuel R. Delany and Namwali Serpell. Reclaiming the Future: Black Women’s Voices and Abrams Megascope In honor of Women’s History Month, Sistah Scifi’s Isis Asare hosts an online conversation with four Black women creators who are making moves in the comics industry: Tananarive Due, Ytasha L. Womack, Tanna Tucker, and Jazmine Joyner. Their discussion focuses on Afrofuturism, Black creative culture, struggles and triumphs, and their vision for the future of comics and sequential art. Afrofuturism: Art and Politics—A Symposium Presented by the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, this discussion features leading scholars, critics, and artists who gather to explore Afrofuturism as both, and at once, an aesthetic mode and a political practice. EXHIBITIONS: eMeLe-K: El futuro es ya / The future is now El futuro es ya is inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in the context of today, the future. Presented by Teatro LATEA and The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, the exhibition taps into multiple ways in which Afrofuturism highlights issues related to race, gender, class, and other social identities. Such explorations are conducted in an expanded field of representation where speculative visualization abets a truer understanding of the history and cultural heritage of the African diaspora in the Americas and around the world. |
 Fear of a Black Planet: The Virtual Show January 29–March 26, Online: ucrarts.ucr.eduBlack Kirby functions as a rhetorical tool by appropriating comic legend Jack Kirby’s bold forms and energetic ideas combined with themes centered around Afrofuturism, social justice, representation, magical realism, and hip-hop culture as a methodology for creating visual communication. Presented by UCR ARTS and Black Kirby, this virtual exhibition samples from Kirby’s style, but also remixes it with the formal and conceptual influences from many other artists, pop culture, and artistic expressions. Jennie C. Jones: Dynamics February 4–May 2, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Dynamics is an exhibition by American artist Jennie C. Jones, who considers listening to be a conceptual practice that underwrites her visual art while channeling a legacy of radical Black sonic practitioners in her work. For Dynamics, her pieces comprise multiple components, taking the form of diptychs and triptychs—arrangements that Jones compares to chords in music. Far more than “viewers,” visitors are encouraged to experience the social and physical dynamics of perception as they explore Jones’s works, including a sound installation. Afrofuturismo: Las Caras Lindas de mi Gente Negra Presented by Centro Cívico Cultural Dominicano, ISE-DA, and the Black Speculative Arts Movement, this exhibition and symposium identify 21st-century contemporary expressions of Afrofuturismo and Afro-Latinx futurity that are emerging in the areas of metaphysics, visual studies, performance, art, science, and technology. FILM: Fly Away Home: Blacknuss Afrofuturism Film Series This online film and discussion series about the past and present history of the presence of “Black” in cinema features archival, recent, and new Afrofuturist works. Afrofuturist Cinema: Black Metropolis: 30 Years of Afrofuturism, Comics, Music, Animation, Decapitated Chickens, Heroes, Villains, and Negroes is a feature-length documentary on the life and career of “OG Afrofuturist” Tim Fielder. Presented by the New York Film Academy, the documentary is available to watch in person or online, and features revealing interviews with groundbreaking cultural critics, Afrofuturists, colleagues. |
 Studio Screen: Afrofuturistic Films of Adebukola Bodunrin March 10 at 7:30 p.m., Maysles Documentary Cinema 343 Lenox Avenue, New York, NY Online: studiomuseum.orgThe Studio Museum in Harlem and Maysles Documentary Center present in-person and online screenings of work by Nigerian Canadian film and video artist Adebukola Bodunrin. This screening explores rich examples of theories and aesthetics representative of Afrofuturist ideals and includes a post-screening discussion with the artist. HIGHLIGHTS OF FESTIVAL EVENTS BY HALL’S WEILL MUSIC INSTITUTE In education and social impact programs created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI), young musicians, teachers, and creators from New York City and across the US explore the infinite possibilities of Afrofuturism throughout the Hall’s 2021-–2022 season. A selection of the new work inspired by the theme of Afrofuturism will be featured online and at live events including Make a Joyful Noize by hip-hop duo Soul Science Lab (February 3 in Zankel Hall); AfroCosmicMelatopia with Mwenso and the Shakes—a concert showcasing original music and art inspired by the festival theme created by young artists and creators from the WMI community, and featuring Mwenso and the Shakes (February 27 in Zankel Hall); as well as Journey Into AfroCosmicMelatopia, an art exhibit and dance party (March 25 in the Resnick Education Wing). Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber lead a free workshop for six rising musicians (March 31–April 3). The residency culminates in a performance, Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber’s Cosmic Riddem, Esoteric Rambunction & Eclectic Blue Cheer Pt. Five (April 3 in Zankel Hall). In addition, WMI invites families and children with caregivers to enjoy a free, day-long Afrofuturism-themed Spring Family Day (April 10 in the Resnick Education Wing). Click here for a complete Afrofuturism festival event schedule as of January 2022. Click here to view the Afrofuturism festival video including commentary from members of the festival’s Afrofuturism Curatorial Council.
The Sun Ra Arkestra concert is generously underwritten by Olivier and Desirée Berggruen. Support for Afrofuturism is provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation and Bank of America. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Support for The Black Angel of History exhibit and other visual arts components of the Afrofuturismfestival has been provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. About Carnegie Hall Festivals Carnegie Hall’s large-scale, citywide festivals bring together performances and events designed to stimulate the curiosity of audiences, offering them the opportunity to explore compelling and important topics. In partnership with many of the greatest cultural institutions in New York City and beyond, the Hall’s festivals feature programming that creates journeys of discovery across the spectrum of the arts, including music, dance, theater, film, literature, and more. Carnegie Hall’s first major international festival, Berlin in Lights, was presented in November 2007, exploring the vibrant city that is Berlin today. It was followed by two citywide festivals examining the dynamic culture and distinctive history of American music—Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worldsin fall 2008 and Honor! A Celebration of the African American Cultural Legacy in spring 2009. Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, exploring Chinese music and culture took place in fall 2009. These were followed by JapanNYC, an ambitious two-part festival in December 2010 and spring 2011; Voices from Latin America in November/December 2012; Vienna: City of Dreams in February/March 2014; Ubuntu: Music and Arts of South Africa in October/November 2014; La Serenissima festival in February 2017, celebrating the music and arts from the Venetian Republic; The ’60s: The Years That Made America in 2018, exploring the turbulent decade that was the 1960s through the lens of arts and culture, including music’s role as a meaningful vehicle to inspire social change; Migrations: The Making of America in 2019, tracing the journeys of people from different origins and backgrounds who helped to shape and influence the evolution of American culture; Voices of Hope—the Hall’s first-ever online festival in spring 2021; and the upcoming Afrofuturism festival in February–March 2022. About Carnegie Hall For more information on Carnegie Hall’s 2021–2022 season, please visit carnegiehall.org |
