Healing Arts is a global campaign by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization
Wednesday 17 September | 7:30 - 9PM Pless Hall Black Box Theatre, 82 Washington Square East, New York, 10003
The NYU John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress, in partnership with the NYU Steinhardt Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL) and NYU-TV, presents this year's NYU Constitution Day, "The Inauguration Project."
The first radio broadcast of a U.S. president’s inaugural address occurred on March 4, 1925, at the swearing in of Calvin Coolidge for his second presidential term. To acknowledge the centenary of this milestone, NYU’s Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL) explores how audiences perceive the inaugural addresses of U.S. presidents when actors of different identities present them using verbatim performance. How do audiences engage with a President’s inaugural address and their vision for the United States of America when the identity of the President is unknown?
This event will feature verbatim performances of multiple inaugural speeches from across the last 60 years. Audiences will experience the anonymized performances, and then try to determine which President is speaking, culminating in a reveal of each of the original speakers of the excerpts. A conversation about the excerpts and the audience’s perceptions of the speakers will follow the performance.
The Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL) creates ethnodrama and verbatim documentary theatre performances and investigates their results with actors and audiences. VPL performs words and gestures collected from found media artifacts and interview-based data. Through the investigations of these performances, VPL aims to disrupt assumptions, biases, and intolerances across a spectrum of political, cultural, and social narratives. VPL is a project of the Program in Educational Theatre in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Inspired by its founder, former Congressman and NYU President Emeritus, John Brademas Center of New York University pursues a collection of initiatives in the areas which formed the core of John Brademas' life in public service: the state of Congress and the legislative process in democracies; the shifting dynamics in foreign policy and international affairs; and, the present state and future prospects for higher education, the humanities, arts and culture. With a growing reputation as a home for informed and civil debate on politics, public policy and other major issues facing the nation and global community—the Brademas Center undertakes programs at NYU's campuses in New York City and Washington, D.C., and increasingly around NYU’s global network.
NYU-TV offers video production services and a wide library of cultural and factual programming to the NYU community. Our comprehensive, professional video production and post-production services are available to NYU schools, departments, and groups and are tailored for your event or production.
