Impact Festival

The new Impact Festival runs from September 12-October 22, 2006 and features 2 weeks of dance, 19 plays, 24 films, 3 concerts, 6 exhibitions, and 10 debates. The goal is for a festival of theater, film, comedy, music, visual arts and debate focused on human rights, social justice and politics.
 
 
Impact Fesitval
IMPACT FESTIVAL
WHERE CULTURE AND POLITICS COLLIDE
SEPTEMBER 12—OCTOBER 22, 2006
 
IMPACT: Where Culture and Politics Collide brings to New York City national and international works in theater, film, dance, music, visual art, comedy and debates with partners as diverse as The New York Public Library and The Apollo Theater. Scheduled to open on September 12th the festival continues through October 22nd with works by artists, scholars and children designed to provoke dialogue and action and encourage people to participate in the democratic process.
From award-winning playwright Ariel Dorfman’s adaptation of Kerry Kennedy’s important book Speak Truth to Power to an evening of comedy entitled Laughing Liberally to the Palestinian and Israeli actors in Six Characters in Search of a Plot. From veteran choreographer Liz Lerman’s searing examination of genocide to the artwork of children displaced by Hurricaines Katrina and Rita to the premiere of Eve Ensler’s dark, intimate play The Treatment, delving deep into the mind of a soldier, like those at Abu Ghraib, asked to use various “techniques” in his interrogation of prisoners. Documentary films and talkbacks; a tribute concert to Miles Davis, providing a forum for discussing race relations in America; a debate series curated with The New York Public Library, all are part of the festival.

The Culture Project was founded because art has the power –and in our view obligation—to move hearts and minds by shining a light on social, moral, human rights and ethical issues. Direct action is unquestionably vital. Reporting and research must be brought to bear. But art, through its unique ability to create a heightened reality that gets past defenses, has the power to reach where other means may not.