2021 Events and Performances
2/21: ‘Schmoozing with Soul Clap’ live stream talk show
A special program for black history month for our weekly live stream talk show ’Schmoozing with Soul Clap.’
Also a new Soul Clap EP release and features Nona’s new collaboration on 'What If There Was No America.'
WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arKkggD3sNM
3/31: Bessie Smith: Jackie Kay in conversation with Bernardine Evaristo & Songs by Nona Hendryx
The British Library and Faber Social present a celebration of Bessie Smith, pioneering blues singer and one of the biggest stars of the 1920s and 30s.
As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, writer and poet Jackie Kay found in Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise. Kay talks to award winning novelist Bernardine Evaristo about new her book on Bessie's life, which mixes enthralling biography with fiction, poetry and prose.
Plus a selection of Bessie Smith’s songs performed by special guest singer Nona Hendryx, most famously of the group Labelle.
6/19: “I Dream A Dream That Dreams Back At Me”
LINCOLN CENTER, NYC
Curated by Carl Hancock Rux
Featuring Nona Hendryx, Vernon Reid,
Helga Davis and Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely
Original Lyrics by Lynn Nottage
Conceived and curated by the award-winning poet and artist Carl Hancock Rux, I Dream a Dream That Dreams Back at Me is an experiential site-specific event celebrating the Juneteenth emancipation holiday. Move across the Lincoln Center campus and experience the performance unfolding around you in multiple distinct parts—ending with a seated concert. The evening begins at Hearst Plaza with a musical introduction featuring vocalists Nona Hendryx, Marcelle Lashley and Kimberly Nichole performing original music by Vernon Reid and Nona Hendryx, with lyrics by Lynn Nottage. The performers wear paper dress creations crafted by designer Dianne Smith while standing in the Paul Milstein Pool, symbolizing the river journey taken by abolitionist Harriet Tubman while leading enslaved Americans to freedom.
The event continues with a musical recitation of a deconstructed National Anthem, remixing the works of Francis Scott Key and James Weldon Johnson, sung from on high by the multidisciplinary artist and vocalist Helga Davis. The evening culminates with a full-length performance by the acclaimed rock and roots musician Toshi Reagon with her band BIGLovely, who will be joined onstage at Damrosch Park by Hendryx, Reid, Lashley, Nichole and Davis. The size, scope and impressive talent inherent in this celebration of Black excellence emphasizes America’s ongoing struggle for greater equity. As Rux points out in his program notes for I Dream, “we must realize that we all need to be emancipated before we can collectively get to The Other Side.”
8/28: “Uptown Saturday Night”
APOLLO THEATER
Harlem Music Festival
This special celebration signaling the return of live arts & culture in NYC will be a music salute to the late R&R and R&B Hall of Fame Great Lloyd Price lead by Ray Chew and the Harlem Music Festival All-Stars. The event will also be a 50th anniversary salute to Harlem’s “Summer of Soul Music Festival”.
10/9: The Flea House Party Opening
THE FLEA, NYC
The Flea Collective appointed the first-ever Key Resident Company, marking the continuation of partnership and restoration of this relationship with former resident artists Five new members appointed to the Board of Directors, with new co-chair Nona Hendryx
New programming aesthetic focusing on experimental work by Black, brown, and queer artists, including: Spring 2022 premiere marking the return of live, in-person performance commissioned and produced by The Flea Arden: A Ritual for Love and Liberation conceived by Carrie Mae Weems, Diana Oh, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peter Born, and Niegel Smith.
Read the full press release: https://theflea.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Press-Release_The-Flea-announces-new-strategic-direction-10721-2.pdf
10/28: “Trouble in Mind” Preview
Following an experienced Black stage actress through rehearsals of a major Broadway production, Alice Childress's wry and moving look at racism, identity, and ego in the world of New York theatre opened to acclaim off-Broadway in 1955. At the forefront of both the Civil Rights and feminist movements, the prescient Trouble in Mind was announced to move to Broadway in 1957...in a production that never came to be.
Play by Alice Childress
Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright.
Roundabout’s American Airlines Theater through January 9, 2022
Running time: two hours and ten minutes including one intermission.
Tickets $39-$149.
Sets by Arnulfo Maldonado, costumes by Emilio Sosa, lights by Kathy A. Perkins,
Sound by Dan Moses Schreier, hair and wigs by Cookie Jordan, original music by Nona Hendryx.
Cast: LaChanze as Wiletta Mayer, Michael Zegen as Al Manners, Chuck Cooper as Sheldon Forrester, Danielle Campbell as Judy Sears, Jessica Frances Dukes as Millie Davis, Brandon Micheal Hall as John Nevis, Simon Jones as Henry, Alex Mickiewicz as Eddie Fenton and Don Stephenson as Bill O’Wray.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/shows/tickets.php?tixid=23581&showid=333626?utm_source=BWW&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ticketcentral&utm_content=buybutton
11/17: Silent Disco with Toshi Reagan and Bill Coleman
WESLEYAN COLLEGE
World-renowned singer, composer, musician, curator, activist, producer, and storyteller Toshi Reagon will be joined by two featured guests for an evening of music and conversation: vocalist, record producer, songwriter, musician, author, and actress Nona Hendryx of Labelle; and artist manager, producer, remixer, music supervisor, performer, recording artist, writer, and DJ Bill Coleman. This live-streamed improvisational performance from the Free Center in Middletown is the inaugural event of Toshi Reagon's 2021-2022 artist residency at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts.
12/1: The Shape of Things with Carrie Mae Weems
PARK AVENUE ARMORY
Land of Broken Dreams Convening & Concert Series
Thursday, December 9–Saturday, December 11, 2021
This monumental series of installations is accompanied by LAND OF BROKEN DREAMS, a large-scale, multidisciplinary convening and concert series that will activate the Armory with a wide range of conversations, presentations, and performances featuring artists, poets, singers, dancers, thinkers, and scholars sharing work and exploring some of the most urgent issues facing society today.
Sunday, December 17
12:00pm–10:00pm
Features 20+ artists, discussions, performances, and experiences from 12-10pm. Nona is featured at these specific times:
6:15pm: Nona Hendryx & Aja Monet, moderated by Kimberly Drew in The Colonels Room
9:00pm: Nona Hendryx in the Board of Officers Room: Music & Presentations
12/10: 41st Annual John Lennon Tribute
SYMPHONY SPACE
Ani DiFranco, Bettye Lavette, Joan Osborne, KT Tunstall, Nona Hendryx, and more artists TBA perform John Lennon classics!
Theatre Within, in association with Music Without Borders, presents the 41st Annual John Lennon Tribute charity concert. A New York City tradition since 1981, the Tribute joyously celebrates John Lennon’s life, music and timeless message of peace and love.
Proceeds will help support the “John Lennon Real Love Project” songwriting program, which Theatre Within provides at no cost to public elementary schools. In addition, Theatre Within provides the John Lennon Real Love Project, and many other free workshops (over 200 this year) in creative expression, to children, teens and adults impacted by cancer.