The U.S. Narcotic Farm just outside Lexington, KY, was a legendary meeting place for America’s drug addicts. This performance interweaves verbal, visual, and musical memories of a place that was a crossroads for drug addicts from 1935-1975. Authors Nancy Campbell and JP Olsen will read and screen portions of their works on this historic place, […]
A roller coaster ride through the myriad of elaborate hoaxes and schemes pulled off over the years by the infamous underground media prankster, provocateur and trickster par excellence Alan Abel, offering and unprecedented glimpse into a life and bizarre career designed to provoke and amuse – while at the same time making people question everything […]
An unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics gives the Alloy Orchestra the ability to create any sound imaginable as they perform live accompaniment to classic silent films. Working with an outrageous assemblage of peculiar objects, they thrash and grind soulful music from unlikely sources. They’ll be performing the soundtrack to Rupert Jillian’s 1925 […]
Buy Local Movement Important to Turning Economy Positive: Noted Entrepreneur and Author Laury Hammel Headlines and Talented Local Musicians Ben Karis-Nix and Ashley Pond to Perform at 2nd Annual Buy Local Bash! Shop ‘til you drop at your local, independently owned businesses, then join Capital District Local First to celebrate being local from 6-9pm. Local […]
Eliza Gilkyson has built a reputation as one of the most original and influential folk artists of our time over the course of 13 albums (most recently, Beautiful World on Red House Records). Robert Jensen, whose book All My Bones Shake: Radical Politics in the Prophetic Voice is forthcoming on Soft Skull Press, is a […]
Ras Moshe has been playing in various groups throughout New York City for almost 20 years, with William Hooker, Sabir Mateen, Steve Swell, Marc Edwards and others. His style has been compared to post-1965 John Coltrane and Frank Wright, among others. Born and raised in New York, and with a family history rich in the […]
For this workshop, the Sanctuary teams up with SACC TV Channel 16 - Schenectady’s public access television stations. Learn the skills and tricks of creating dynamic video pieces for television that go beyond “talking head” interviews. Learn about collecting b-roll, covering edits, and adding meaning and illustration to your interviews and documentary works. Get in […]
Digital Media Labs (DML) are all ages (14+) monthly workshops introduced by popular demand. Whether you are working on a documentary, making a music video, or learning to blog and post video to the Internet, these sessions will benefit you. Bring your own digital media projects and ideas, or just commune and share skills with […]
Video and web artist and all-around culture jammer Frank Lopez of subMedia.TV visits us from Vancouver, BC! His work includes the post- Katrina music video George Bush Don't Like Black People (downloaded over one million times and counting) and the vlog It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine […]
I Need that Record (2008) is a documentary feature examining why more than 3,000 independent record stores have closed across the U.S. in the past decade. Greedy record labels, media consolidation, homogenized radio, big box stores, e-commerce, shoddy “stars” pushed by big money, and the digital revolution all pose threats to the very well-being of […]
Digital Media Labs (DML) are all ages (14+) monthly workshops introduced by popular demand. Whether you are working on a documentary, making a music video, or learning to blog and post videos on the Internet, these sessions will benefit you. Bring your own digital media projects and ideas, or just commune and share skills with […]
The International Brass & Membrane Corps features Newman Taylor-Baker on drums, Charles Burham on violin, Joe Daly on tuba, and Ted Daniel on assorted brass. Ted began his professional career playing local gigs with his childhood friend, the legendary guitarist Sonny Sharrock. Since then he has played and recorded with Archie Shepp, Dewey Redman, Andrew […]
The Sanctuary Youth Media Team hosts yet another animation whirlwind! Geared specifically for youth (18 & under), this workshop teaches the skills and techniques behind stop motion animation while encouraging spontaneous creativity and fun. Participants will work in groups to brainstorm and create short animated pieces that will be uploaded to the web for the […]
A play by poet and activist Michael Anthony Reyes Benavides and former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Luis Rosa, directed by Michael Anthony Reyes Benavides. Imagine 27 years of your life living in a space 6 feet by 9 feet. Imagine being confined in isolation with no human contact. Imagine the shakedowns, the strip searches, and […]
Percussionist William Hooker, the genre-bending Free Jazz legend, will improvise a sound track to pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux’s 1920 silent film classic, The Symbol of the Unconquered, originally advertised as a chance to come see “the annihilation of the Ku Klux Klan.” Co-sponsored by the Department of the Arts at RPI and the Albany […]
The poet icon and political activist Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) will perform with Rob Brown, one of the New York City downtown music scene’s most in-demand saxophonists, in a reading of his new book Somebody Blew Up America and Other Poems. One of the 13-part “Free Jazz from the Sanctuary” series recorded live at The Sanctuary […]
The Splatto Festival Chorus is a rare assembly that brings together Todd Reynolds (Bang on a Can, Yo Yo Ma, and Meredith Mond) on violins/laptop; Ed Mann (Zappa) on percussion/electronics; David Barrett (Banda Elastica, Splatter Trio) on saxophones; Michael Bisio on bass. One of the 13-part “Free Jazz from the Sanctuary” series recorded live at […]
The Kahnawake Mohawk ironworkers who helped to build the famed bridges and skyscrapers of New York City lived with their families in 10 square blocks in Brooklyn - a neighborhood known as Little Caughnawaga. In Little Caughnawaga: To Brooklyn and Back (2008) Reaghan Tarbell traces her family roots to create a portrait of this vibrant […]
Readings from Capital Region writers Chase Twichell, Sam Truitt, Christian Peet, Laura Didyk, and others in celebration of Fence magazine’s brand new anthology of poetry, creative nonfiction, short fiction and more. Area authors Christian Peet, Sam Truitt, Jibade-Khalil Huffman and Laura Didyk will read in celebration of the publication of A Best of Fence, a new […]
The photographs are on display in the Underground Gallery at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, available for viewing an hour before, during and an hour after events and by arrangement. Upstate Girls is a look at part of working class America, that, despite sweeping technological advances, remains essentially unchanged since the heyday of the Industrial […]
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