Carnegie Hall

(January 18, 2022, New York, NY)—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.

“In developing this festival over the past several years, it’s been exciting to see how Afrofuturism embraces such a diverse array of art forms and the intrinsic role it plays in pop culture,” said Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s Executive and Artistic Director. “With the incredibly valuable guidance of our Afrofuturism Curatorial Council and in collaboration with our festival partners, we look forward to taking audiences on a vivid journey into this forward-looking theme. It offers the opportunity to experience different genres of music and to expand upon the Hall’s explorations of Black culture undertaken in a number of our previous festivals which have paid tribute to the African American cultural legacy, including programming that examined music and art created in the time of slavery and the Great Migration and during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. With Afrofuturism, we invite people to join us on a journey of discovery, to be inspired, and to imagine new and empowering visions of the future.”

“Audiences should look forward to being transformed,” said Ytasha L. Womack in a video introducing the festival. “They should look forward to feeling both a deeper sense of self and a sense of being connected to a larger universe.”

The festival is “going to be a constellation of ideas and concepts, not only for music, but art, education, philosophy, and literature,” said Louis Chude-Sokei. “Afrofuturism is still undefined, meaning it’s still quite energetic and quite powerful.”

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 Lu and 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.

“The Black Angel of History has returned in our hour of decision,” said Reynaldo Anderson. “Black speculative artists from near, abroad and across the sea, inspired by its message have plumbed the souls of Black folk to share the vision.”

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 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
February 17 at 7:30 p.m., Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway, New York, NY
Online: juilliard.edu/event/154216/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
February 19 at 7:00 p.m., Online: bsam-art.com

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
February 19 at 7:30 p.m., Online: harlemstage.org

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
February 19 at 8:00 p.m., Online: aacmchicago.org

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 + Colloboh March 3 at 9:00 p.m. Public Records, 233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY Masma 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 Experience
March 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, NY

This 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
February 21 at 7:00 p.m.
The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, 511 West 52nd Street, New York, NY

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 Experience
February 26—March 20, 3914 North Clark Street, Chicago, IL
Online: bcafcon.org

Presented 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
February 17 at 4:00 p.m., Online: allarts.org/afrofuturism

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 Futures February 19, March 9 and 24 at 12:00 p.m. Online: nypl.org/locations/schomburg The 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. Womack
Matty’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.org

Presented 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
March 17 at 5:00 p.m.
Online: sistahscifi.com

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
April 2 at 1:00 p.m., Online: thebrooklyninstitute.com

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
January 13–February 24
Tamayo Gallery (LATEA) and LES Gallery,
The Clemente, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY

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.edu

Black 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
February 18 at 2:00 p.m., Centro Cívico Cultural Dominicano
619 West 145th Street, New York, NY

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
February 6, 13, 27; March 6 & 20 at 4:00 p.m.
Online: weflyawayhome.com

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:
The Expanded Universe … A Screening of Black Metropolis
March 9 at 6:30 p.m., New York Film Academy, 17 Battery Place, New York, NY
Online: nyfa.edu/afrofuturism

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.org

The 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~Conduction #5 (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).

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Afrofuturism Festival Event Listings & Video

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.

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Afrofuturism Festival Partners (as of January 2022)

• Abrams Books
• The Africa Center
• African American Future Society
• AfriFuTrinity: Quantum Cosmic Futures
• ALL ARTS
• American Composers Orchestra
• Americas Society
• Apollo Theater
• Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) [Chicago, IL]
• Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts [Riverside, CA]
• Black & Brown Comix Arts Festival [Chicago, IL]
• Black Kirby
• Black Pot Mojo Art
• Black Speculative Arts Movement [Philadelphia, PA]
• Blacknuss Network [Chicago, IL]
• Blacktronika, University of California San Diego Department of Music
• Brooklyn Institute for Social Research
• Brooklyn Museum
• Centro Cívico Cultural Dominicano
• Chicago History Museum
• The Children's Art Carnival
• China Institute
• The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center
• Congo Square Preservation Society [New Orleans, LA]
• Department of Africology and African American Studies, Temple University [Philadelphia, PA]
• Department of Philosophy and Black Studies at the City College of New York
• Department of Philosophy at Lehman College, CUNY
• Department of Philosophy at Manhattan College
• Dieselfunk Studios
• Dramatists Guild of America
• Fabulize Magazine
• Flushing Town Hall
• Google Arts & Culture
• Harlem Stage
• HarperCollins
• ISE-DA
• Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University
• Jazzmobile
• Jeremy McQueen’s Black Iris Project
• The Joyce Theater
• The Juilliard School
• Keyes Art Projects
• The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
• Literati
• Louis Armstrong House Museum & Archives
• Maysles Documentary Center
• MCC Theater
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• National Black Theatre
• National Queer Theater
• National Sawdust
• New York Film Academy
• New York Live Arts
• Otherworld Theatre Company [Chicago, IL]
• Public Records
• RefractionDAO
• Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Sistah Scifi
• Smithsonian Folkways Recordings [Washington DC]
• Society of Illustrators
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• The Studio Museum in Harlem
• Studio Visceral
• Teatro LATEA
• United African Association
• Universal Hip Hop Museum
• University of California, Riverside [Riverside, CA]
• URB ALT Media
• West Harlem Arts Collaborative
• Willie Mae Rock Camp
• Women in Comics Collective International
  
  

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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 Afrofuturism festival has been provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.
 

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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 Worlds in 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
Since it opened in 1891, Carnegie Hall has set the international standard for musical excellence as the aspirational destination for the world’s finest artists. From Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Mahler, and Bartók to George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, and The Beatles, music making by a long list of artists representing the best of every genre has filled Carnegie Hall over the years. The Hall’s unique history has grown out of its stunning acoustics, the beauty of its three concert halls, and its location in New York City, where it has played a central role in helping to elevate the city into one of the world’s great cultural capitals. The Hall presents a wide range of performances each season on its three stages—the renowned Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, intimate Weill Recital Hall, and innovative Zankel Hall—including concert series curated by acclaimed artists and composers; citywide festivals featuring collaborations with leading NYC cultural institutions; orchestral performances, chamber music, new music concerts, and recitals; and the best in jazz, global, and popular music. Complementing these performance activities, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute creates wide-reaching music education and social impact programs that annually serve more than 800,000 people in the New York City area, nationally, and internationally, and even more through a growing number of initiatives online.

For more information on Carnegie Hall’s 2021–2022 season, please visit carnegiehall.org

Photos and artwork: Flying Lotus by Tim Saccenti, Sun Ra Arkestra by Sibylle Zerr, Fatoumata Diawara by Aida Muluneh, Colloboh by Micah E. Wood, Lee “Scratch” Perry photo courtesy of Artis, Rayla 2212 art by Keron Grant, Black Feminist Futures event artwork by John Jennings, The Comic Book Spectrum: Race, Gender, and Comics event photo by Teenie Harris, Fear of a Black Planet: The Virtual Show artwork by Black Kirby.

For high resolution images of Afrofuturism festival artists, please contact the Carnegie Hall Public Relations Office at 212-903-9750 or publicrelations@carnegiehall.org.

Ticket Information

Tickets to Afrofuturism festival concerts are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 West 57th Street, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website, carnegiehall.org.

For Carnegie Hall presentations taking place in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, a limited number of seats, priced at $10, will be available day-of-concert beginning at 11:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday and 12:00 noon on Sunday until one hour before the performance or until supply lasts. The exceptions are Weil Music Institute and gala events. These $10 tickets are available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis at the Carnegie Hall Box Office only. There is a two-ticket limit per customer.

In addition, for all Carnegie Hall presentations in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage a limited number of partial view (seats with obstructed or limited sight lines or restricted leg room) will be sold for 50% of the full price. For more information on this and other discount ticket programs, including those for students, Notables members, and Bank of America customers, visit carnegiehall.org/discounts. Artists, programs, and prices are subject to change.

Tickets for events held in Carnegie Hall’s Resnick Education Wing can be purchased exclusively by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website, carnegiehall.org; they are not available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office.

For tickets to Afrofuturism festival partner events, please contact the specific venue.

Please note: To support a safe reopening for in-person events and in accordance with the advice of medical and public health experts, everyone entering Carnegie Hall will be required to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 with a vaccine approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). As of February 14, 2022, everyone coming to Carnegie Hall will be required to show proof of full vaccination as well as proof that they are fully up-to-date on CDC-recommended boosters, based on their eligibility. In addition, everyone on Carnegie Hall’s premises will be required to wear a properly fitting mask over the nose and mouth except when eating or drinking in designated areas.