Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision Festival Explores Current State of Criminal Justice System

New York Live Arts' Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision explores the current state of our criminal justice system through a panel discussion, readings, and a performance on Thursday, April 19, as part of the organization's five-day festival. Events presented at Live Ideas will look at four key democratic institutions: the criminal justice system, the press, big tech, and our electoral process. Day one will explore our criminal justice system.

Composer and musician Tamar-kali, who wrote the score for the Oscar award-winning film Mudbound, will read Ida B. Wells' legendary 1900 speech against lynching, Lynch Law in America. Visual artist Aisa Tandiwe-Bell will read a statement by Mamie Till-Mobley on the death of her son Emmet Till, who was killed in 1955 by lynching. Playwright (The Peculiar Patriot) Liza Jessie Peterson will read text by Sandra Bland on Black Lives Matter. Sandra Bland was a 28-year-old black woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, in 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. The readings will start at 4:00 pm.Admission is free.

Following the readings will be a panel discussion, Bending Towards Justice, on the current state and future vision of the criminal justice system in America. Moderator
Max Kenner, Founder/Director, Bard Prison Initiative, will speak with former prosecutor Adam Foss, Director/Founder, Prosecutor Impact, a Boston-based organization that offers training to prosecutors. Meg Reiss, Executive Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College, Michelle Jones, scholar, activist, and playwright, and Steven Teles and David Dagan, co-authors Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration, will also join the conversation. The discussion begins at 5:30 pm and opens with a short play reading of an excerpt from The Duchess of Stringtown, written by Michelle Jones and Anastazia Schmid. Tickets start at $10.

Writer/performer Dahlak Brathwaite weaves a timely exploration of the American criminal justice system through his stirring one-man show Spiritrials, His multidimensional play blurs the line between hip-hop and dramatic performance. Brathwaite intertwines autobiographical and fictional, music and monologue to examine his place in what appears to be a cultural rite of passage as a young black male. Spiritrials is written and performed by Brathwaite, scored by Brathwaite and Dion Decibels, and directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Sean San Jose. The performance begins at 8:00 pm. Tickets start at $25.

An annual interdisciplinary humanities festival, Live Ideas is a high point of the New York Live Arts season. This year's festival, Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision, presented April 18-22, 2018, at New York Live Arts, will offer five days of activity designed to imagine the future and understand the past of an open and democratic society. Bringing together artists, activists, journalists, and scholars, Live Ideas 2018: Radical Vision is co-curated with Live Arts by culture creator Brian Tate, president of The Tate Group, and presented in partnership with the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College with curatorial input from Roger Berkowitz, the Center's director.

Tickets start at $15 and may be purchased at 212 924 0077 or online at newyorklivearts.org

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