Culture Project Presents IMPACT 2012 Festival, 7/14-8/26

Culture Project Artistic Director and Founder Allan Buchman announces today IMPACT 2012, a festival focusing on human rights, social justice, and political action. The 44-day festival, with more than 35 events, will take place at Culture Project at 45 Bleecker Street in Noho. See below for highlights; full schedule available at CultureProject.org.

IMPACT 2012 will consist of theater, music, documentaries, satirical political comedy, and new art created by emerging and established artists along with provocative conversations focusing on subjects crucial to the decision making process and the preservation of our democracy and constitution.

Culture Project first presented IMPACT in 2006 to great acclaim. IMPACT 2006 hosted the world premieres of Eve Ensler’s The Treatment, Iris Bahr’s Dai (enough), and the stage adaptation of Speak Truth to Power, among many others.

“We originally conceived IMPACT to energize conversations around critical issues and to establish critical mass around significant creative ideas and individuals,” shares Allan Buchman, Artistic Director and Founder of Culture Project. “Now with one of the most critical elections of our time just around the corner and our own theater to work in, we have a golden opportunity to undertake and accomplish some thing of great significance.”

Each week’s events will focus on a different theme facing the nation, with different artists-in-residence developing new works to be presented each Saturday evening.

Week 1 (July 16-22): “WE” THE PEOPLE: Immigration, Education & Incarceration

Week 2 (July 23-29): SINKING SHIP: Banks, Government, Home Foreclosures & Occupy

Week 3 (July 30 - August 5): THE CORPORATE AGENDA: Healthcare, Energy, & Environment

Week 4 (August 6-12): THE BLIND EYE: Women & Veterans

Week 5 (August 13-18): DEMOCRACY MATTERS: Voter Suppression & Citizens United

Week 6 (August 19-26): MANIFEST DESTINY: American Foreign Policy & the Media

Events include a performance by The Citizens Band; a screening of acclaimed documentary To Be Heard; conversations with Sam Seder and Jose Vargas; performances by Urbana Poetry Slam, a comedy night curated by Iranian-American comedienne Negin Farsad, and two Directors’ Weekends. More details below.

IMPACT SCHEDULE

*All events and times are subject to change. Up-to-the-minute information can be found at CultureProject.org

Directors' Weekends

July 14, 7pm & 15, 5pm
August 25, 7pm & 26, 5pm

Over two weekends during IMPACT, in series of 10-15 minute pieces, 14 directors are invited to develop present pieces of their own choosing in response to a particular topic. The first Directors Weekend (July 14 and 15) will focus on issues surrounding the 2012 election and the second (August 25 at and 26) will focus on foreign policy. Participants to include Joe Barros, Reginald Douglas, Vanessa Lancellotti, Sara Lyons, Ashley Monroe, Jonathon Musser, and Michael Rau, among others.

To Be Heard (film and discussion)

July 16, 7pm

Produced and directed by Edwin Martinez, Roland Legiardi-Laura, Deborah Shaffer, and Amy Sultan, To Be Heard is the story of three teens from the South Bronx whose struggle to change their lives begins when they start to write poetry. Hailed as "one of the best documentaries of the year" by The New York Times, the screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Roland Legiardi-Laura and a larger conversation about education and literacy.

Conversation: Immigration with Jose Antonio Vargas

July 18, 7pm

Jose Antonio Vargas, a multimedia storyteller and founder of Define American, whose story was recently featured on the cover of TIME (along with the story of nearly 12 million undocumented Americans), joins IMPACT for a conversation on immigration in the context of the upcoming national election.

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