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.
PAN_ACT
"Archway" is a massive outdoor installation by Eli Keszler, presented as part of Make Music New York. Tuned and extended piano wires up to 380 feet long will be stretched around a massive space, overlapping to form sculptural shapes and a mechanically driven, intense harmonic resonance.
An evening with electronic music visionaries Rashad Becker and Valerio Tricoli, and a short film by Mark Fell. Becker creates precise, phantasmic sound designs encouraging audiences to focus their hearing. Tricoli explores music's ability to hover between the "here and now" of the event and the shady domain of memory.
This solo vocal performance by Catherine Christer Hennix marks the close of her installation Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis. On view in ISSUE's 22 Boerum hall June 15-19, this event is the last opportunity to see the installation, which is the composer's first 4-channel computer assisted work since 1969.
PAN_ACT
ISSUE and Goethe-Institut present a free talk with composer, philosopher, scientist and visual artist Catherine Christer Hennix in conversation with Henry Flynt. A new, expanded realization of “The Illuminatory Sound Environment” including works by both artists, is installed at ISSUE's 22 Boerum theater June 15-19.
PAN_ACT
ON VIEW THROUGH JULY 19TH: Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis is a new, four-channel work by Catherine Christer Hennix. An expanded realization of the "Illuminatory Sound Environment", a concept developed in 1978 by Henry Flynt, this work is on view daily as a sound installation from 12-10pm.
ISSUE presents a duo performance by celebrated singer-songwriter Josephine Foster with her husband and collaborator, guitarist Victor Herrero. Esteemed for her timeless and arresting voice, Foster’s rock and folk veiled work has reimagined a disparate spectrum of references in a distinctive body of songwriting.
ISSUE hosts the NY premiere of Friend of Essex—a film homage to the prolific Black gay author Essex Hemphill. Written and Directed by Amir Dixon, the film mixes one-on-one interviews, group interviews, narrative pieces and poetry inspired by Hemphill’s writing and the 1989 film Tongues Untied.
ISSUE and Unseen Worlds present a rare North American performance by Ethiopia's most famous living pianist and composer, Girma Yifrashewa. A highly accomplished performer, Yifrashewa performs works by Chopin, Schumann, Debussy, and Mozart, as well as a set of his own compositions informed by Ethiopian harmonies.