New York Live Arts Commissions RE: AWAKENINGS Film

New York Live Arts has commissioned award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison to create a new work for the Live Ideas: The Worlds of Oliver Sacks festival. Titled Re: Awakenings, this new short film by the master behind Decasia and other such classic quickenings of long lost filmstock will also feature an original score by renowned composer Philip Glass. Re: Awakenings will be screened prior to all music, theater and dance performances that are part of the Live Ideas festival and taking place from April 18 - 21 in the theater at New York Live Arts.

Morrison's short film takes as its source material seventeen reels of super-8 footage originally shot by Oliver Sacks from 1969-70 while he was working with the remarkable "human statues" at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, bringing them suddenly back to life through his administrations of the drug L-Dopa. Sacks eloquently chronicled these experiences a few years later in his masterpiece Awakenings­­.

Live Ideas is the latest program initiative for New York Live Arts, the Chelsea-based organization that has become an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry and artists actively engaged with the political, intellectual and cultural currents of our times. Taking place each spring, Live Ideas will concentrate on a different theme, explored through conversation and artistic presentations over several days. The inaugural festival themed The Worlds of Oliver Sacks is comprised of more than 20 events, including performances, films and discussions that showcase works of art and spark conversations that engage the prevalent themes in the acclaimed neurologist's works.