The Future is Present: Cultivating Intimacy in Process and Practice
The Future is Present (TFP) is a co-created performance laboratory that amplifies the life-affirming demands of young Black and Indigenous activists. It engages a core group of Black and Indigenous youth artist-activists working in tandem with adult movement leaders, artists, and researchers. The project’s creative team includes Charlotte Brathwaite, Sunder Ganglani, Justin Hicks, and Janani Balasubramanian, along with producer Alyssa Simmons and coordinator Anna Krist. It is a continuation of the work begun in Casting the Vote, a dinner, a conversation, and a performance aimed at engaging youth with the history of voting rights and the ideals of democracy. The Future is Present is a co-created response to the events of 2020 that seeks to transform ourselves into the world we want, one person at a time.
Charlotte Brathwaite’s genre-defying works illuminate the realities and the dreams of the marginalized and center unheard, unseen, and overlooked stories. Dealing with subject matter from the historical past to the present and the distant future, her work brings to light issues of social justice, race, sex, power and the complexities of the human condition. Current projects include Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin created with Meshell Ndegeocello and The Future is Present (TFP), a collaborative performance laboratory that amplifies the life-affirming demands of young Black and Indigenous activists.
June Cross, a native New Yorker, is a writer and documentary producer who covers the intersection of poverty, race and politics in the United States. She runs a program in journalistic documentary at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her most recent film, Whose Vote Counts, aired on Frontline | PBS in October 2020. She is best known for an Emmy-winning documentary about her own family, Secret Daughter, which aired on Frontline in 1996. She has worked for CBS News and PBS Newshour.
Sunder Ganglani is respected for his collaborative practice across disciplines that brings particular attention to the social dimensions of contemporary performance. As co-producing Artistic Director at The Foundry Theatre in New York City, Sunder commissioned, developed, and produced new works including Ariana Reines’ TELEPHONE, Claudia Rankine’s THE PROVENANCE OF BEAUTY and most recently W. David Hancock’s MASTER.
Justin Hicks is a multidisciplinary artist and Drama Desk Award-nominated composer/vocalist who uses music and sound to investigate identity and value. His work has been featured at Performance Space New York, The Public Theater, Paisley Park, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and festival steirischer herbst in Graz, Austria among many others. Hicks has collaborated with notable visual artists, musicians, and theater-makers including Abigail DeVille, Steffani Jemison, Cauleen Smith, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Lynn Nottage.
Our lecture series is made possible by generous support from the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, and MIT Transmedia Storytelling Initiative.