The Clemente is pleased to host the annual Arts for Art & Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies Conference on the Legacies of Black Creative Arts / Spirit of the Ancestors
Addressing the profound unifying spirituality underlying traditional and cutting-edge Black Creative Arts and the struggle for justice and non-erasure.
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The Clemente Flamboyan Theater | 107 Suffolk Street, near Delancey in NYC
FREE in-person & streaming, but please register by clicking the buttons below:

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​Organized by Carter Mathes - author, Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University; Patricia Nicholson - Arts for Art Founder; Artistic Director, Michael Heller - author, Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh; Kehinde Alonge - PhD candidate in English at Rutgers University

SCHEDULE
10:00 AM Panel - Ancestral Spirits from the African Diaspora
Moderator:
Carter Mathes, Associate Professor, Department of English / Director, Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, author of Imagine the Sound.
Panel:
Nelson Maldonado-Torres - Co-Chair of the Frantz Fanon Foundation / President Emeritus of the Caribbean Philosophical Association / Professor Extraordinarious at the Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa / Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa. 
Nana Sula Janet Evans - priestess, singer, songwriter, artist, author, and founding spiritualist of the Temple of Light - Ile' de Coin-Coin in New Orleans, LA.
Maricruz Rivera Clemente, PhD - Corporación Piñones Se Integra (C.O.P.I.) Founder & ED / Corredor Afro - Co-Founder 
Marta Moreno Vega - CCCADI - Founder / Global Afro-Latino and Caribbean Initiative (GALCI) / Creative Justice Initiative (CJI) - Co-Founder / Corredor Afro - Co-Founder / Afro-Global Network - Founder

Followed by a Q&A

12:30 pm Panel -  Spirit Speaks through History and Present in Black Improvised Arts 
Moderator:
Anthony Jermaine Ross Allam, Director of Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Center for Repair of Historical Harms & recipient of United Theological Seminary “Spirit of United Award”
Panel:
Adam Zanolini - Executive Director, Elastic Arts Foundation / AACM member
James Brandon Lewis - musician, composer, and PhD candidate at UArts
Fay Victor - Sound Artist, improvising vocalist, composer, educator, member of We Have Voice
Katea Stitt - WPFW/Pacifica Radio Program Director
Lee Mixashawn Rozie - musician, author, educator in Indigenous & Black Creative Music
William Parker -musician, author, activist, and educator

Followed by a Q&A

3:00 pm Convergence Roundtable: Improvising the Future Together
Through honoring our spirituality and the ancestors and visionaries who laid the way, we come together to find healing paths forward. This roundtable brings together members of the first two panels for a free flowing conversation and exchange of ideas
Co-Moderators:
Patricia Nicholson, Founder of Improvisers Collective, Arts for Art, RUCMA, Artists for a Free World, dancer, poet and Michael Heller, Associate Professor, Music Department, University of Pittsburgh, author of Loft Jazz, editor Jazz and Culture journal

Roundtable followed by Q&A

5:00 - Performance

This event was supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Thanks to Rutgers University - New Brunswick and the University of Pittsburgh for their support.