Jillian Hollis dancing on the red stage.
A woman lying on her back on the red stage singing karaoke.


 

AN ALARM-RED STRUCTURE, STAGE, AND CREATIVE HUB STOOD IN ASTOR PLACE.
 
FOR ACTIVATION AND OCCUPATION BY YOU—THE ARTIST, ACTIVIST, RABBLE-ROUSER,
PERFORMER, TEACHER, STUDENT, DREAMER, NEIGHBOR, AND BYSTANDER!


Situated on Astor Place, one of the city’s most historic and iconic plazas, Rashid Johnson’s Red Stage was a public invitation to experiment and create after a year of chronic anxiety. Drawing on histories of conceptual art and speaker’s corners, the sculpture was a literal and metaphorical platform for participation and contestation as we built a future within and beyond the pandemic.
 
Throughout the month of June, artists responded to the invitation to celebrate and interrogate the necessity of public space through the frameworks of resurgence, assembly, remedy, call and response, civic action, and play. Musician Jason Moran sonically ushered in the possibility of freedom on the Sunday after Juneteenth; artist Charlotte Brathwaite in collaboration with Sunder Ganglani, Kai Pelton, and y.o.u. initiated Echo Location, an intimate public reading embraced by song; nightlife makers Papi Juice hosted The Portal, inviting a constellation of talent that asked us to reconsider our relationships to public space and each other; Chinatown Art Brigade led a teach-in on abolition in Asian-American communities; C. Spencer Yeh and friends hosted a karaoke night; For Freedoms brought in joyous civic action leading up to the New York City primary elections; The Stonewall Protests with Black Trans Liberation took over the stage on Pride Sunday for a day of pride, joy & revolution; comedic performer Morgan Bassichis created and presented a soon-to-be hit musical, and so much more. View the full schedule here.
 
We called all artists, organizers, community-builders, makers, and passersby to join us on The People’s Platform. The invitation was open for you to answer the emergency call: what new ways of togetherness are born from times of crisis?
 

PARTICIPANTS INCLUDED:

 

ALEXANDRA WATSON
ALSARAH
ARINMAYA & EDSON SEAN
ART IN ODD PLACES
BLACK & PINK
BLACK LUNCH TABLE
BLACK PAINTERS ACADEMY
BLACK TRANS LIBERATION
BROKEN BOX MIME THEATER
BROOKLYN MUSIC SCHOOL
C. SPENCER YEH
—CHARMAINE LEE
—CHELSEA SCOTT
—DAREN HO
—JACK CALLAHAN
—LU ZHANG
—MEG CLIXBY
—NICK JAMES SCAVO
—TRISHA BAGA
CANDYSTORE
CEA WEAVER
CHINATOWN ART BRIGADE
CYRÉE JARELLE JOHNSON
DENNIS REDMOON DARKEEM
DIPTI DESAI & JESSICA HAMILTON
DJ REKHA
DJ SHIRINE
DONCHRISTIAN JONES & MERCY
DOUBLE DUTCH DREAMZ
EMILY JOHNSON
—ALICIA BAUMAN MORALES
—ANGELICA MONDOL VIAÑA
—ANNIE WANG
—ASHLEY PIERRE LOUIS
—LINDA LA
—MONICA STEFFEY
—RAVEN CHACON
—SARAH DIAMOND
—STACY LYNN SMITH
—SUGAR VENDIL
ETHAN PHILBRICK
FABNYC
FOR FREEDOMS
GEORGE STONEFISH & JOHN SCOTT RICHARDSON
GROWNYC FARMER’S MARKET
HARRIET'S APOTHECARY
HEIDI LATSKY DANCE: MEREDITH FAGES & JILLIAN HOLLIS
HUMEYSHA
JASON MORAN
JENNIFER LOVE WILLIAMS
JERRON HERMAN
JOE’S PUB & MAKE MUSIC NEW YORK
—CELISSE
—CHÉ BUFORD
—MAL SOUNDS
—THE JUNETEENTH LEGACY PROJECT
JOSELIA REBEKAH HUGHES
KEIOUI KEIJAUN THOMAS
KYLE DACUYAN
LANA HOMERI
MARCHING COBRAS
MAYA JEFFEREIS
MELODIA WOMEN’S CHOIR OF NYC
MOON MOTHER APOTHECARY

MORGAN BASSICHIS
—APRIL CENTRONE
—BROOKE LOBER
—DEAN SPADE
—EMMA ALABASTER
—IRA KHONEN TEMPLE
—ITA SEGEV
—IZZY MUSTAFA
—PAM FLEMING
—RABBI MIRIAM GROSSMAN
—SHIRLY BAHAR
—SIERRA MOHAMED
—TAMAR GHABIN
—ZOË AQUA
NANDINI BAGCHEE
NELSON BANDELA
NEW YORK LIVE ARTS
—BUBBLE_T
—DJ HANNAH LOU
—LINDA LA & THE PERFECT POISON
—OOPS!
—RAGGA
—SWITCH N’ PLAY
PABLO HELGUERA
PAPI JUICE
—BRANDON WASHINGTON
—DJ ADAM R
—DJ PAULICAKES
—FORREST WU
—JADALAREIGN
—LA MANO
—LINDA LA
—MARIACHI LOCO DE NY
—RAYLY AQUINO
—OSCAR NÑ
QUEER|ART
RISA PUNO
SIMRAN JEET SINGH
SOFT POWER VOTE
SONNY SINGH & ERNEST STUART
SUNDER GANGLANI, KAI PELTON, AND CHARLOTTE BRATHWAITE
SUNLOVE
THE FREE BLACK WOMEN'S LIBRARY
THE STONEWALL PROTESTS
THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED
TIFFANY LENOI JONES WITH GRADUATING STUDENTS
—OONA ERVIN
—NICO SHIELDS
—NYLA CEPEDA
—RONNIE GIBSON
—ZEKE TISHCOFF
TOM FINKELPEARL
TOTAL FREEDOM
URBAN ASSEMBLY SCHOOL OF PERFORMING ARTS
—AFRIKA GARRY & TAYLOR TARRATS
—ARIANA PONCE
—JAYLYNN VANN
—QUINCY SIMPSON
—SHANAYSHA BENNETT
USHKA
VEGGIE MIJAS
WHAT WOULD AN HIV DOULA DO?
WOW CAFÉ THEATER
ZAHRA ALZUBAIDI & ZAFER TAWIL

 

Lead project support for Red Stage was provided by Max and Monique Burger, Burger Collection Hong Kong; Molly Gochman; The O’Grady Foundation; and an anonymous donor. Red Stage is also supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The project would not have been possible without site support and collaboration from the NYC Department of Transportation’s Temporary Art Program (DOT Art) and the Village Alliance.
 
Major Creative Time programming support for 2021 has been generously provided by Arison Arts Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, Teiger Foundation, the Destina Foundation, The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, Open Society Foundations, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and The Willem de Kooning Foundation. We are also grateful for the support of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA); public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) in partnership with the City Council; and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.