Now is the Time: Artists Go to Work – Part I

THIS IS PRECISELY THE TIME WHEN ARTISTS GO TO WORK.

THERE IS NO TIME FOR DESPAIR, NO PLACE FOR SELF-PITY, NO NEED FOR SILENCE, NO ROOM FOR FEAR. WE SPEAK, WE WRITE, WE DO LANGUAGE. THAT IS HOW CIVILIZATIONS HEAL.

— TONI MORRISON

A NOTE FROM THE CONVENERS

Welcome to Now is the Time: Artists Go to Work—an evening that takes its name and its spirit from a conviction Toni Morrison held fiercely: that artists, precisely in moments of crisis and uncertainty, must show up, make work, and imagine otherwise. As we mark the 250th anniversary of this nation’s founding, we refuse the temptation to frame that milestone as a destination reached or a story concluded. Instead, we gather here at the Park Avenue Armory to ask harder, more generative questions — about what has been built, what has been broken, and what remains stubbornly, beautifully possible. This convening is the first of two, and it begins not with answers but with the kind of urgent, open, collective thinking that only artists can catalyze.

SCHEDULE

WELCOME & PERFORMANCE

7:00PM – 7:50PM

Park Avenue Armory Curator of Public Programming and Scholarin-Residence Tavia Nyong’o welcomes audiences to the event and offers a framework for both the evening and the continued work of the following months, on behalf of Now is the Time conveners Avery Willis Hoffman (Artistic Advisor, The Toni Morrison Foundation; Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director, Court Theatre at University of Chicago; former Program Director, Park Avenue Armory) and Tina M. Campt (Director, The Princeton Atelier; Roger S. Berlind Professor in Humanities, Princeton University).

Singer, composer, musician, curator, and producer Toshi Reagon takes the Veterans Room stage with her band BIGLovely, including bassist Fred Cash, drummer Matt Graff, guitarist Karma Chogyi Marco, and vocalists Josette Newsom and Carla Duren.

INTERMISSION

Tonight, we are honored to welcome three visionaries who have each, in their own inimitable way, made that thinking their life’s work. Staceyann Chin brings the fire and precision of a poet who has never flinched from the truth. Terri Lyne Carrington arrives as a Grammy Award-winning drummer, composer, producer, and educator whose music reaches across and beyond genre to touch something essential in us. And Toshi Reagon—singer, composer, musician, producer— reminds us that creativity and community are not separate callings but one. We invite you into this conversation and this concert as participants. The work, as Morrison always knew, belongs to all of us.

— Tavia Nyong’o, Avery Willis Hoffman, and Tina Campt

CONVERSATION

THE PRACTICE OF MAKING SANCTUARY: A CONVERSATION WITH STACEYANN CHIN AND TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON

8:00PM – 8:45PM

Poet, performer, and activist Staceyann Chin and Grammy Award-winning drummer, composer, producer, and educator Terri Lyne Carrington discuss their respective artistic practices and community building initiatives, in conversation moderated by Avery Willis Hoffman

Staceyann Chin’s Kindred on the Rock is located in the rural farming district of Point Hill, St Catherine, Jamaica. A MenDiGap Connection hub, the location fosters belonging for Black and Brown individuals in the African diaspora with a focus on bridging the gap between displacement and stewardship of land. Kindred on the Rock unlocks opporunities for all members of the local community and domestic and international visitors alike to delve into the social, (agri)cultural, and historical heritage of Jamaica and by extension, Africa and its diverse diaspora.

As Founder and Artistic Director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Terri Lyne Carrington has built institutional sanctuaries—ensembles, apprenticeships, curricula, and performance spaces—where women musicians can develop their artistry. Through the national mentorship program Next Jazz Legacy, the landmark songbook New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers, and her activist recordings with Social Science, Carrington insists that jazz cannot sound like freedom until the conditions that produce it are actually free. Her vision of “jazz without patriarchy” is a blueprint for what it means to make a space where all people can fully arrive.

CONVERSATION SERIES: MAKING SPACE AT THE ARMORY

NOW IS THE TIME: ARTISTS GO TO WORK PART ONE

saturday, march 28, 2026 at 7:00pm veterans room

Presented in collaboration with the toni morrison foundation and the princeton atelier

Making Space at the Armory is made possible with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF).

Bloomberg Philanthropies is Park Avenue Armory’s 2026 Season Sponsor. Leadership support for the Armory’s artistic programming has been generously provided by the Anita K. Hersh Philanthropic Fund, Charina Endowment Fund, Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Pinkerton Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the Thompson Family Foundation, and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Major support was also provided by the the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Shubert Foundation, the SHS Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and Wescustogo Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory’s Artistic Council. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature as well as the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council under the leadership of Speaker Julie Menin.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

TINA CAMPT

Tina Campt is Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities at Princeton University, in the Department of Art and Archeaology and the Lewis Center for the Arts. Campt is a Black feminist theorist of visual culture and contemporary art, Lead Convener of the Practicing Refusal Collective and the Sojourner Project, and Director of the Princeton Atelier. Campt’s scholarship bridges the divide between vernacular image-making in black diasporic communities and the interventions of black contemporary artists in reshaping how we see ourselves and our societies. Campt has published five books and received the 2020 Photography Catalogue of the Year Award from Paris Photo and Aperture Foundation for her co-edited collection, Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography.

TAVIA NYONG’O

Tavia Nyong’o is a scholar and curator of performance. He is the author of The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (2009), which won the Erroll Hill Award for Best Book in Black Performance Studies; and Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (2018), which won the Barnard Hewitt Award for Best Book in Theater and Performance Studies. He writes regularly for Frieze, Artforum, The Baffler, and other venues. He is currently Chair and Wiliam Lampson Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Yale University and Curator of Public Programming and Scholar-inResidence at Park Avenue Armory. He was recently awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in Theatre Arts and Performance.

AVERY WILLIS HOFFMAN

Dr. Avery Willis Hoffman is the new Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director of Court Theatre at University of Chicago. Previously, she served as inaugural Artistic Director of Brown Arts Institute (2020-2024) and inaugural Program Director for Park Avenue Armory, where she curated Culture in a Changing America Symposium (2017-2020), among others. At Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Avery led content development for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (2010-2015). For two decades, she has collaborated with director Peter Sellars. Avery earned a DPhil and MSt in Classics from Oxford, as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA in Classics and English from Stanford.

TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON

Terri Lyne Carrington is an NEA Jazz Master, Doris Duke Artist, and four-time Grammy award-winning drummer, composer, producer, and educator. She serves as Artistic Director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, as well for the Next Jazz Legacy apprenticeship program. In collaboration with vocalist Christie Dashiell, Carrington released We Insist 2025!, reimagining Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, affirming her mission of using jazz as a tool for social activism. She has performed on over 100 albums and currently holds honorary doctorates from York University, Manhattan School of Music, and Berklee College of Music.

STACEYANN CHIN

Staceyann Chin is a multidisciplinary artist who identifies as Caribbean, Black, Asian, lesbian, feminist, pro-choice, mother, farmer, and land steward. Her works include the Tony award-winning play Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, memoir The Other Side of Paradise, poetry collection Crossfire, documentary film A Mother Apart, and one-woman shoe Motherstruck, among other projects. She has earned Human Rights Campaign of Power of the Voice (2007), Immigration Equality Safe Haven, and New York State Senate awards and Honors from the Lesbian AIDS Project (2008). Chin founded MendDiGap Inc in 2023, an organization that fosters belonging for Black and Brown individuals in the African diaspora; this project has expanded to Kindred on the Rock, a MendDiGap Hub in Point Hill, Jamaica, and The Blackyard, a safe harbor in Brooklyn, New York.

TOSHI REAGON

Toshi Reagon is a versatile singer, composer, musician, curator, and producer known for her work in sonic Americana. She co-composed music for two Peabody Award-winning films and co-created the opera Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower with Bernice Johnson Reagon. Her expansive career has earned her honors including the APAP Award for Merit in the Performing Arts and the Herb Alpert Award in Music in 2021. She was the 2019 Andrew W. Mellon Creative Futures Artist-in-Residence. As a highly collaborative artist, she has worked with Meshell Ndegeocello, Urban Bush Women, and her band, BIGLovely, among others. Her latest projects include “EcoTones,” the musical You’re Having Too Much Fun So We’re Gonna Have to Kill You, and Toshi Reagon’s Songs of the Living

THE TONI MORRISON FOUNDATION

At the Toni Morrison Foundation, we believe that art is not a luxury—it is essential to our survival, our identity, and our collective future. For over 30 years, we have been dedicated to uplifting artists, writers, and creatives, ensuring that their voices are not only heard but celebrated. Inspired by Morrison’s profound legacy, we provide resources, platforms, and opportunities that empower creatives to tell their stories, push boundaries, and leave a lasting impact. Through exhibitions, literary initiatives, and cultural collaborations, we cultivate a world where art continues to thrive—because without it, we lose not only expression but the very essence of what makes us human.

THE PRINCETON ATELIER

Part studio course, part intensive workshop, the Princeton Atelier is above all an experiment in thinking and making, teaching and collaboration. It is an incubator for artistic imagination that draws on the expertise of professional artists from different disciplines who come together to collaboratively create new work. A painter might team up with a composer, a choreographer might join with an electrical engineer, a company of theater artists might engage with environmental scientists, or a poet might connect with a pianist. Using the classroom as a site of inspiration and experimentation, Atelier courses are designed to give students firsthand experience in what it means to draw from different mediums and approaches to create art together. Using the strength of the respective practices, experiences, and methods of an array of artists, each course challenges students to develop their own creative skills in collaboration with others.

PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Benjamin Wygonik Production Audio

Thanasis Psarros Audio Engineer

Patrick Egan Stage Manager

SPECIAL THANKS

Mindy D. Solis

Mary K. O’Connor

Natasha Logan

Ilk Yasha

Devin Malone

The Studio Museum in Harlem

Food Trends

ABOUT PUBLIC PROGRAMMING AT THE ARMORY

Park Avenue Armory’s Public Programming series brings diverse artists and cultural thought-leaders together for discussion and performance around the important issues of our time viewed through an artistic lens. Launched in 2017, the series encompasses a variety of programs including large-scale community events; multi-day symposia; intimate salons featuring performances, panels, and discussions; Artist Talks in relation to the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall programming; and other creative interventions.

Highlights from the Public Programming series include: Carrie Mae Weems’ 2017 event The Shape of Things and 2021 convening and concert series Land of Broken Dreams; a daylong Lenape Pow Wow and Standing Ground Symposium held in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the first congregation of Lenape Elders on Manhattan Island since the 1700s; “A New Vision for Justice in America” conversation series in collaboration with Common Justice, exploring new coalitions, insights, and ways of understanding question of justice and injustice; Culture in a Changing America Symposia exploring the role of art, creativity, and imagination in the social and political issues in American society today; the 2019 Black Artists Retreat hosted by Theaster Gates; 100 Years | 100 Women, a multiorganization commissioning project that invited 100 women artists and cultural creators to respond to women’s suffrage; a Queer Hip Hop Cypher, delving into the queer origins and aesthetics of hip hop with Krudxs Cubensi and author and scholar Dr. Shante Paradigm Smalls; the Archer Aymes Retrospective, exploring the legacy of emancipation through an immersive art installation curated by Carl Hancock Rux and featuring a concert performance by mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran and pianist Aaron Diehl; legendary artist Nao Bustamante’s BLOOM; Art at Water’s Edge, a symposium inspired by the work of director and scholar May Joseph on artistic invention in the face of climate change; Symposium: Sound & Color – The Future of Race in Design, an interdisciplinary forum exploring how race matters in creative design for live performance; Juke Joint, a two-day event spotlighting the history of the juke joint in Black American social history and its legacy in music and culture, including performances by Pamela Sneed and Stew; Hapo Na Zamani, a 1960s-style happening curated by Carl Hancock Rux with music direction by Vernon Reid in collaboration with Harlem Stage; Hidden Conversations, a celebration of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer with National Black Theatre; Corpus Delicti in collaboration with the NYC Trans Oral History Project; Guttural (Conducted Contact), a musical encapsulation of the African diaspora by multidisciplinary artist Richard Kennedy, closing The Radical Practice of Black Curation symposium with Princeton University; Antagonisms: A Gathering, a symposium investigating group dynamics led by playwright and essayist Claudia Rankine, renowned postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha, and acclaimed cultural historian Saidiya Hartman, and opened by Guggenheim fellow and choreographer Shamel Pitts’ [Essence of] TOUCH OF RED; Dorian Wood’s Canto de Todes / Song for All, a 12-hour durational chamber and electronic composition and installation mixing a genre-defying canon of folk, pop, and experimental music of Central and Latin America; the largest installation in North America of Yoko Ono’s ongoing project Wish Tree, accompanied by a two-day symposium A Dream You Dream Together exploring Ono’s legacy and tribute concerts featuring experimental electronic music duo Matmos and soprano Alicia Mall Moran with Carl Hancock Rux; and Lenapehoking, an evening of music with Brent Michael Davids including the world premiere of his work “Ode to Joe.”

Notable Public Programming salons include: the Literature Salon hosted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose participants included Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori-Parks, and Jeremy O. Harris; a Spoken Word Salon co-hosted with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; a Film Salon featuring the works of immersive artist and film director Lynette Wallworth; “Museum as Sanctuary” led by installation artist and Artist-in-Residence Tania Bruguera, curated by Sonia Guiñansaca and CultureStrike, and featuring undocu-artists Julio Salgado and Emulsify; a Dance Salon presented in partnership with Dance Theater of Harlem, including New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan and choreographer Francesca Harper, among others; Captcha: Dancing, Data, Liberation led by visionary artist Rashaad Newsome; Seasons of Dance, a contemporary dance salon featuring conversations with “mother of contemporary African dance” Germaine Acogny, Tanztheater Wuppertal dancer Malou Airaudo, and dancers from The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] at the Armory; Day for Night: A Salon on Art and Nightlife, an afternoon salon bringing together scholars, writers, artists, and nightlife makers to enlighten nightlife as an art form, and discover the ways social and performative dance have intertwined in recent years, presented in conjunction with R.O.S.E; Black Theater Advance with National Black Theatre; and Caftan – Style as Liberation and Cultural Exchange, exploring the legacy of André Leon Talley.

Artist Talks have featured esteemed artists, scholars, and thought leaders, such as: actor Bobby Cannavale; architects Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, and Elizabeth Diller; artist and composer Heiner Goebbels; choreographers Kyle Abraham, Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray, Trajal Harrell, Bill T. Jones, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, and Justin Peck; comedian Morgan Bassichis; composers Seth. A. Cluett, Alexandra Gardner, Georg Friedrich Haas, Philip Miller, Samy Moussa, Thuthuka Sibisi, Tyshawn Sorey, and Philip Venables; composer and director Michel van der Aa; composer, vocalist, and scholar Gelsey Bell; conductors Amandine Beyer and Matthias Pintscher; curator Ana Janevski; designer Peter Nigrini; directors Claus Guth, Robert Icke, Richard Jones, Sam Mendez, Satoshi Miyagi, Ariane Mnouchkine, Ben Powers, Peter Sellars, Yuval Sharon, Simon Stone, Ian Strasfogel, Ivo van Hove, and Alexander Zeldin; illustrator Ned Asta; Juilliard president Damian Woetzel and Juilliard Provost and Dean Ara Guzelimian; musicians Helmut Deutsch, Nona Hendryx, Meredith Monk, Kathinka Pasveer, Miah Persson, and Davóne Tines; New Yorker editor David Remnick; James Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theater Workshop; performance artists Marina Abramović and Helga Davis; RoseLee Goldberg, Founding Director and Chief Curator of Performa; playwrights Ted Huffman, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Tony Kushner, Lynn Nottage, Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Anne Washburn; Dr. Augustus Casely Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art; visual artists Nick Cave, Anne Imhof, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Julian Rosefeldt, Hito Steyerl, and Ai Wei Wei; and writers and scholars Anne Bogart, Robert M. Dowling, Joseph Drew, Emily Greenwood, Ebony L. Haynes, Hua Hsu, and Carol Martin

ABOUT PARK AVENUE ARMORY

Part palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory supports unconventional works in the performing and visual arts that cannot be fully realized in a traditional proscenium theater, concert hall, or white wall gallery. With its soaring 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall—reminiscent of 19th-century European train stations—and an array of exuberant period rooms, the Armory provides a platform for artists to push the boundaries of their practice, collaborate across disciplines, and create new work in dialogue with the historic building. Across its grand and intimate spaces, the Armory enables a diverse range of artists to create, students to explore, and audiences to experience epic, adventurous, relevant work that cannot be done elsewhere in New York.

The Armory both commissions and presents performances and installations in the grand Drill Hall and offers more intimate programming through its acclaimed Recital Series, which showcases musical talent from across the globe within the salon setting of the Board of Officers Room; its Artists Studio series curated by Jason Moran in the restored Veterans Room; Making Space at the Armory, a public programming series that brings together a discipline-spanning group of artists and cultural thought-leaders around the important issues of our time; and the Malkin Lecture Series that features presentations by scholars and

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

writers on topics related to the Armory and its history. In addition, the Armory also has a year-round Artists-in-Residence program, providing space and support for artists to create new work and expand their practices.

The Armory’s creativity-based arts education programs provide access to the arts to thousands of students from underserved New York City public schools, engaging them with the institution’s artistic programming and outside-the-box creative processes. Through its education initiatives, the Armory provides access to all Drill Hall performances, workshops taught by Master Teaching Artists, and in-depth residencies that support the schools’ curriculum. Youth Corps, the Armory’s year-round paid internship program, begins in high school and continues into the critical post-high school years, providing interns with mentored employment, job training, and skill development, as well as a network of peers and mentors to support their individual college and career goals.

The Armory is undergoing a multi-phase renovation and restoration of its historic building led by architects Herzog & de Meuron, with Platt Byard Dovell White as Executive Architects.