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 presents Jo Andres’ short film Dreaming Out Loud (1990), with a live score and discussion on the legacy of Andres’ work and its echoes across music, dance and film.
ISSUE Project Room presents Jo Andres’ award-winning film Black Kites (1996), and a unique performance featuring the film’s source text based on the 1992 wartime journals of Bosnian visual artist Alma Hajric, as part of the 2024 Brooklyn Book Festival.
ISSUE Project Room hosts a long table discussion around the public art project, Exorcism = Liberation, by Puerto Rican-born, Brooklyn-based artist and choreographer Yanira Castro. During this year’s critical American election, "I came here to weep" is but one of several slogans in the project's call-to-action.
ISSUE presents Sold Licker Glass, the second commission from 2024 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Axine M. As a composer and technologist, her residency continues to explore the user experience and the effects of capitalism on our identities and relationships.
After more than 20 years, American composer Frankie Mann will make her return to New York at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn to open ISSUE's Fall 2024 Season. Collaborators David Behrman, Allison Easter, Sarah Hennies and John King will join the evening.
Commemorating 10 years since the murder of Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY, ISSUE participates in a series of community activations happening across NYC sparked by The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist to contend with an important question: what does it mean to support Black life through embodied ritual?
Join ISSUE Project Room and Figure 8 Recording to celebrate the summer with a drink at our 22 Boerum Pl. theater!
