Bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz (2011 AIR) returns to ISSUE, joined by Joe McPhee and AC Diamond for their first performance as a trio. This event marks a new shared context for three artists deeply invested in improvisation as a mode of inquiry.
ISSUE presents the premiere of three audiovisual compositions by Matt Mottel (2010 AIR). These works bring Mottel’s distinct artistic sensibility into dialogue with formative figures in his life and in New York’s avant-garde, tracing a lineage that is both deeply personal and central to ISSUE’s history.
Monarch Butterfly by rocío sánchez (2026 AIR) features Melissa Almaguer (tap dance and percussion) and Kenneth Jiménez (double bass). Together, the trio explores the elusive monarch’s migratory journey through sound and movement, with each instrument articulating distinct states of motion.
Isabella Thorpe-Woods presents "Envelop/e," her second program as ISSUE’s 2026 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow. Bringing together choreographers Jade Manns and Ella Dawn W-S for site-specific duets, they navigate presence and absence, repetition and rupture, and the tension between inherited geometries and shifting landscapes.
"Spiriting Off" is a new solo work by luthier Webb Crawford (2026 AIR) for electric guitar, tenor banjo, and five-string banjo.
ISSUE closes the summer season with the return of Matana Roberts (2009 AIR). Opening the evening, Ben Vida (2013 AIR) will perform music from his 2026 release, "Oblivion Seekers" with vocalist Sara Magenheimer.
ISSUE Project Room's 20th Anniversary Series
ISSUE celebrates its 20th Anniversary at our 22 Boerum Pl. theater with projections of work commissioned from Heroes Are Gang Leaders, a literary free jazz ensemble of writers, artists and musicians. The performance titled The Day We Gave The Globes Back, A Sing Along!, was recorded and streamed as a part of the 2020 Brooklyn Book Festival featuring an expansive fourteen-member band that included the full group’s lineup as well as multiple embedded solos and ensemble formations of the group’s various members.
ISSUE Project Room's 20th Anniversary Series
ISSUE celebrates its 20th Anniversary at our 22 Boerum Pl. theater with projections of work commissioned for The Steve Circuit (2020), an episodic series of videos and digital artwork dedicated to the late beloved poet Steve Dalachinsky developed by his wife, painter and poet Yuko Otomo, and interdisciplinary artist and 2010 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence (AIR), Matt Mottel.
ISSUE Project Room's 20th Anniversary Series
ISSUE celebrates its 20th Anniversary at our 22 Boerum Pl. theater with projections of work commissioned for our Isolated Field Recordings Series (2020), which engaged nineteen artists to create new audio field recordings, with associated visuals, in response to COVID-19’s impact on public assembly.
As part of ISSUE Project Room's Fall Season and the 2023 Brooklyn Book Festival, ISSUE presents INFECTION MELODIES + SILENCE: Theodore (ted) Kerr (2022 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow) & Michael R. Jackson in conversation.
ISSUE is pleased to present multidisciplinary artists Lime Rickey International & Masma Dream World as part of ISSUE Project Room's 2023 Fall Season. Introduced to each other’s practice through ISSUE, Lime Rickey International (Leyya Mona Tawil, 2020 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow) and Masma Dream World (Devi Mambouka) will present work with ISSUE for the first time.
ISSUE presents the dance world's favorite doppelgangers, Benedict Nguyễn (2019 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow) and Anh Vo, in their first-ever collaborative performance as part of ISSUE Project Room's 2023 Fall Season. Nguyễn returns to ISSUE this season to perform her own work alongside fellow dancer and writer Vo.
Artists-In-Residence 2023
Interdisciplinary artist and musician BINT presents her second program as an ISSUE Artist-In-Residence. This next iteration of "عيب:Solve et Coagula" will be co-presented at CPR – Center for Performance Research in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Over the course of the year, she will be presenting three commissioned programs mirroring the primary stages of (Arabic) alchemical transmutation.
ISSUE celebrates its 20th Anniversary and Fall 2023 season at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn Heights with internationally renowned musician and composer Roscoe Mitchell, joined by composer/clarinetist John McCowen, plus a performance from duo project BEAM SPLITTER (Audrey Chen and Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø).