The Future is Present is an ongoing creative laboratory that brings together journalists, artists, academics, organizers and young people. TFP has created dinner parties on the history of voter suppression, short films, a collection of songs, an archive of documents that map out possible, equitable, and loving futures - and scripts for community based performances. TFP defines performance broadly and centers the cultivation of intimacy as a necessary and radical act of democratic and liberating practice.

What is THE VOCAL ASSEMBLY?
The human voice is the center of social and sacred practice. As a vehicle for communication, the voice mediates the world, but the voice is also an incredibly sophisticated instrument that can do so much more than speaking. TFP: VOCAL ASSEMBLY lives inside the possibility of the human voice - in song, chant, laughter, grief. It lives in the open space of improvisation, intimate relation, and collaborative practice as methods for social change.  

Over the course of five weeks, members of the MIT community led by Associate Professor of Theater Arts Charlotte Brathwaite along with the core group of TFP collaborators Journalist June Cross, dramaturg/activist Sunder Ganglani, composer Justin Hicks and writer/researcher Janani Balasubramanian will cultivate a relationship to the archive of founding and sacred texts of Boston’s Ujima Project. Together we will interrogate the texts offered by Ujima and MIT members as material for discourse and artistic experimentation. These texts will transform into 12 hour durational performance scores. Everyone involved in the process and members of the public are invited to lend their own voices and presences in the spirit of creative care-taking and collaborative practice.

INFO Session - Wed, Sept. 29 7pm-8pm ET via zoom (https://mit.zoom.us/j/98853173828)
INFO Session - during the first meeting on Mon, Oct 7-10pm ET in W97

Timeline: Oct. 4 – Nov 5, 2021
Four 2hr meetings per week
Public Activations:  October 15 + November 5, 2021
Locations:  TBD + MIT Building W97

Timeline at a glance:
Week 1:  Oct. 4 – 8 includes 4 sessions 7–9pm
Week 2:   Oct. 11 – 15 includes 4 sessions 3 sessions 7–9pm + one Friday session which is a 12hr durational public activation [event extract times TBD; Location: TBD Boston]
Week 3:  Oct.18 – 22 includes 3 sessions 7–9pm
Week 4: Oct 25 – 29 includes 4 sessions 7–9pm
Week 5: Nov 1 – 5 includes 3 sessions 7–9pm and one Friday session which is a 12hr durational public activation [event extract times TBD; Location:  MIT campus]

Each session consists of:
2 hours of programming 4 times per week
- song, singing/chanting embodying text

This form will be an opportunity for the collaborative artists (Charlotte Brathwaite, Justin Hicks, Janani Balasubramanian, and Sunder Ganglani) to learn about you and your interest in the project.

Please contact Associate Professor Charlotte Brathwaite at cbrath@mit.edu for more info!