Zuoxiao Zuzhou is a Chinese singer whose accented, croaky voice is hardly ever in tune. But for his fans he's the voice of a generation — one of the very few voices who dare to speak out. After a collaboration, Cowboy Junkies member Michael Timmins called him "China's Leonard Cohen."
This month’s blast of arctic air may have roused climate-change skeptics. But the composer Laura Kaminsky and the painter Rebecca Allan were unfazed. Holed up in their apartment in Riverdale in the Bronx on one of the coldest days in decades, these longtime artist-activists were doing what came naturally: fighting the planet’s warming.
In the wake of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Black Lives Matter supporters are finding creative ways to make sure the movement is acknowledged everywhere.
When ordering at Starbucks, people have changed their name to “Black Lives Matter” so that, when their order is up, the baristas have to yell out their new moniker.
At the New Orleans Swing Dance Festival the all African-American dance troupe The Rhythm Ambassadors were presented along side an African-American iteration of the Preservation Hall All-Star band with African-American vocalist Taryn Newborne to deliver the message that the African-American Lindy Hoppers were going to be protest until their rhythm is better presented...i.e.
The Comfort Illusion is a solo aural performance that highlights the effects our everyday actions can have on the environment. Through mixed media storytelling using sound and lighting, Adams narrates the life of "The Overkiller" a fictional villian who negatively impacts the earth and the lives of the people around him through smaller everyday decisions. This character constantly prioritizes convenience over care and responsibility (ie.
Few opera choruses are as moving as the one a group of prisoners sings in Act I of Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” Released temporarily from their cells, the inmates almost whisper a hymnlike paean to liberty: “Oh, what a joy to breathe freely again in the open air.”
Demonstrators aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement sang their way into handcuffs during a Bronx foreclosure auction Monday to protest the housing crisis that continues to plague the borough.
They serenaded a courtroom of real estate investors with the lyrics, "Y'all are speculating off people's pain. With all due respect, you should be ashamed."
Bus Regulation: The Musical (2019 – 2023) is a Trilogy of roller-skating Musicals inspired by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Starlight Express’ performed in three of the UK’s biggest post-industrial city-regions – Greater Manchester, Strathclyde and Merseyside – in collaboration wi
As the world watches Cairo burn, I can’t help but think that the flames of protest engulfing Egypt were sparked by Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on December 17 after police confiscated his vegetable cart. The desperation that he expressed through his act of self-immolation caught on, literally, and spread across the country, into Algeria, and now to Egypt.
Rage Against the Machine have always been rabble rousers, but the political statement that got them banned from Saturday Night Live sounds positively prosaic compared to other acts of protest they committed in their heyday, like shutting down the New York Stock Exchange or sporting a "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal" shirt on live television.
The Propaganda Machine is a battle cry delivered in the language of extreme metal. On Sahil Makhija’s fourth solo album as Demonstealer, he takes aim at the right-wing politicians, racist nationalists, disinformation artists, and religious extremists who manipulate and exploit the masses, in his native India and all over the world. He doesn’t mince his words; just about every lyric on the album could easily be printed on a protest sign.
During the 2020 and 2021 social protests in Chile, Colombia, and Peru, Latin American fans of K-pop, Korean popular music and culture that mixes rhythms, styles, dance routines and has a defined aesthetic, went from using social networks to support their favorite artists to using them to sabotage the hashtags of conservative influencers that discredited the mobilizations.
Last month, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, dozens of women gathered outside the supreme court building in Santiago, Chile—a country now beset by popular uprisings against inequality—for a feminist flash mob.
The Voice of Dissent
“I am not here to entertain you; I am here to disturb you. Those who are here for entertainment, I request them, please go.” It’s unusual, if not rare, for a live performer to begin by saying that to the audience. The compact of patronage that’s implicit is what Sambhaji Bhagat smashes right at the onset of his performance. For him, this art is a quest for the truth that will liberate the people he represents.
A New York blogger impersonating David Koch successfully prank called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. David Koch is one of the two wealthy brothers who were big donors to his political campaign and GOP efforts generally.
“He describes it as a “family theme park unsuitable for small children” – and with the Grim Reaper whooping it up on the dodgems and Cinderella horribly mangled in a pumpkin carriage crash, it is easy to see why.
Banksy’s new show, Dismaland, which opened on Thursday on the Weston-super-Mare seafront, is sometimes hilarious, sometimes eye-opening and occasionally breathtakingly shocking.
On March 21, just days after eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were killed in the Atlanta-area shootings, thousands gathered at Columbus Park in Manhattan for a rally against anti-Asian violence. Activists took turns addressing the surge in hate crimes and hate incidents toward the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, when an 8-year-old stepped onto the stage. “Stop the hatred!” Chance yelled into the mic.
When Rage Against the Machine arrived in Philadelphia to play their 15-minute set as part of Lollapalooza ’93, the Los Angeles band knew they had a problem. Zack de la Rocha, the band’s incendiary frontman who was as outspoken on the mic as he was loud in his cadence, had no voice. A month of playing shows on a tour to support their self-titled debut album released the previous November had taken its toll on the frontman’s vocal cords.
There is no embassy of Iran in Jerusalem.
We ask why.
We are a group of artists living and creating in Jerusalem, trying to create a new reality. one which we can identify with. A reality of dialogue between the people, not dominated by mass media and governments.
The Embassy as we imagine it will be functioning as a bridge for trading ideas, dreams and giving silent voices a sound through art.
Alejandro Ghersi, the Venezuelan-born artist behind Arca, is part of a relatively recent and growing diaspora, and at a time when the political situation back home is at a fever pitch, it feels difficult not to see the ways this album relates to the anguish of that experience.
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