Sanctuary for Independent Media Announces Spring Schedule

The spring 2017 season at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy kicks off next month with a spectacular opening weekend (including the previously announced concert by the great African singer Salif Keita) and continues with a wide array of events including concerts, film screenings, speakers, gallery exhibitions, workshops and more.

Admission to events is by donation ($10 suggested; $5 student/low income) unless noted. Advance tickets are available online at www.MediaSanctuary.org

Here are the details for the spring 2017 schedule of events:

Sunday, April 2, 7pm
$40
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear the Golden Voice of Africa in a small listening room—one of the world’s most extraordinary singers, Afropop pioneer, and a direct descendent of Sundiata Keita, the Mandinka warrior king who founded the Malian empire in the 13th century. A benefit for the Salif Keita Global Foundation program on albinism.

MEKLIT
Saturday, April 8, 7pm
$15
Meklit’s music is imbued with poetry and multiplicity, from hybridized sounds of Tizita (haunting and nostalgic music) drawing from her Ethiopian heritage, to jazz, folk songs, hip-hop and art rock. She aptly describes her music as emanating from “in-between-spaces.”

“NATIONAL BIRD”
Monday, April 17
FREE
4:30pm: Be The Media! “Source Protection Workshop” with Sonia Kennebeck
6pm: Gallery opening and community meal
7pm: “National Bird” screening with filmmaker Sonia Kenneback and panel discussion with members of the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars
This film follows whistleblowers who, despite possible consequences, are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war.

THE NILE PROJECT
Friday, April 21, 7pm
$15
Capturing cross-cultural musical collaborations among artists sharing diverse relationships to world’s longest river, kindred harps and resonant lyres from the Nile’s sources in East Africa and Ethiopia to its deltas in Sudan and Egypt have reunited to learn new musical modes while buzzing timbres and ingenious polyrhythms support vocals in six languages.

“ECONOMIC UPDATE” WITH RICHARD WOLFF
Saturday, April 29
3pm: Unleashing the Power of High School Environmental Advocates
5:30pm: Dinner with The Yes Men ($50 fundraiser for creative resistance at The Sanctuary for Independent Media)
7pm: “Economic Update” with radio host Richard Wolff
A hopeful vision of how to achieve the transition to economic democracy, aimed directly at the many people who will no longer tolerate the current system’s suffocating inequality and political corruption — those looking for
a concrete program of action. “Economic Update” is heard Wednesdays at 4pm PM on WOOC 105.3FM and online at mediasanctuary.org.

“THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES”
Wednesday, May 10
4:30pm: Be The Media! “Media & Activism Workshop” with filmmaker Brett Story
7pm: “The Prison in Twelve Landscapes” screening with filmmaker Brett Story
More people are imprisoned in the United States at this moment than in any other time or place in history, yet the prison itself has never felt further away or more out of sight. This film unfolds as a cinematic journey through a series of landscapes across the U.S. where prisons do work and affect lives.

“INSANE CLOWN PRESIDENT”
Friday, May 12, 7pm
Dispatches from the 2016 election providing an eerily prescient take on our democracy’s uncertain future by Matt Taibbi, contributing editor and columnist for Rolling Stone.

BIKE FEST
Saturday, May 13, 5pm
$20 (sliding scale)
It’s Troy Bike Rescue’s seventh annual Bike Fest fundraising
celebration! This volunteer-run community bike project has been recycling and redistributing bikes for 15 years now. Bike Fest is a fantastic party, and a great way to help TBR continue its mission of Pedal Power to the People!

MICHAEL BISIO ACCORTET
Saturday, May 20, 7pm
$15
Chronicling 30-plus years of acclaimed Troy-native bassist Michael Bisio’s life as a composer in song form and otherwise, balancing freedom and swing in a euphorically compelling quartet with Art Bailey on accordion, Kirk Knuffke on cornet and Michael Wimberly on drums.

RAHIM ALHAJ TRIO
Wednesday, May 24, 7pm
$15
Iraqi-American virtuoso oud musician-composer Rahim AlHaj, a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship awardee and two-time Grammy nominee, performs around the world speaking out against oppression in his ongoing mission to “give voice to the voiceless.”

FREEDOM FESTIVAL @ FREEDOM SQUARE
Featuring TAINA ASILI Y LA BANDA REBELDE
Saturday, June 3, 3pm
FREE
Free music, free food, free arts activities and lots more to celebrate and motivate the spirit of creative resistance outdoors at Freedom Square — featuring the Local 518 band that rocked the stage at the Women’s March on Washington. Rain location is next door at the Sanctuary for Independent
Media.

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Another New Show Announced for The Egg