Performance

A rocking show honoring our revolutionary ancestors with an energetic fusion of Afro-Caribbean, reggae, rock, and hip hop freedom sounds to inspire a dance rebellion!

Puerto Rican vocalist Taína Asili carries on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. Her newest artistic work is with la Banda Rebelde (the Rebel Band), a six piece international ensemble based in Albany, NY.

Buy tickets online for Taina Asili y la Banda Rebelde

This dynamic force brings love, resistance, and ancestral remembrance to venues, festivals, conferences and political events across the globe. Powerful vocals laid over an energetic fusion of Afro-Caribbean, reggae, rock, and hip hop sounds, the band’s eclectic style represents the diversity of its members, who have origins in Puerto Rico, Sicily, Greece, Spain, Brazil and Ghana. Taína Asili’s voice exudes strength of Spirit, filling its listeners with the fervor of freedom and inspiring audiences to dance to the movement of rebellion.

Co-sponsored by the Arts Department at Rensselaer, part of iEAR presents!

Join us in welcoming the Either/Orchestra back to Troy. They were one of the first bands to play at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, a sold-out show that was one of our all-time highlights! 

Buy tickets for Either/Orchestra

This concert is part of a four date mini-tour to premiere The Collected Unconscious, a new suite composed by band founder Gershon and based in the pentatonic modes of and triple rhythms of Ethiopian music.  The language of the suite goes far beyond those parameters, recalling Ellington, Mingus, Tito Puente and others in its broad scope.  Based on a sneak preview in Cambridge MA, audiences will find it moving and nostalgic as well as hot, exciting and challenging.  

Our Fall 2011 season opens with music from Mali, featuring Sidi Touré (on guitar, vocals), Jambala Maiga (on kuntigui) and Domu Maiga (on kurbu)!

Tickets are available at the door.

Sidi Touré made his first guitar as a child, constructing it from his wooden writing slate in the ancient town of Gao, Mali. Once the heart of the Songhaï empire and burial place of its Askia kings, the town rests between the Niger and the encroaching ocean of sand known as the Sahara Desert. The Songhai empire was the last of the great empires of the Sahel, reaching its zenith under Soni Alibert (Sunni Ali) in the mid 400’s. Sidi Touré was born here in 1959, but to be born a Touré, a noble family who trace their lineage directly from the Askia kings, carried a significance and onus of a past that reaches directly into the present. Like another Malian noble turned singer, Salif Keita, Sidi Touré faced a conflict between the inexorable pull of music and the expectations of family and society. Touré’s family had been sung about, and sung to, by traditional griots for centuries, but until a small boy challenged the rules, the Touré’s did not sing!

Sidi Touré made his first guitar as a child, constructing it from his wooden writing slate in the ancient town of Gao, Mali. Once the heart of the Songhaï empire and burial place of its Askia kings, the town rests between the Niger and the encroaching ocean of sand known as the Sahara Desert. The Songhai empire was the last of the great empires of the Sahel, reaching its zenith under Soni Alibert (Sunni Ali) in the mid 400’s. Sidi Touré was born here in 1959, but to be born a Touré, a noble family who trace their lineage directly from the Askia kings, carried a significance and onus of a past that reaches directly into the present. Like another Malian noble turned singer, Salif Keita, Sidi Touré faced a conflict between the inexorable pull of music and the expectations of family and society. Touré's family had been sung about, and sung to, by traditional griots for centuries, but until a small boy challenged the rules, the Touré's did not sing!

Our ongoing series of live recordings of local musicians performing before a studio audience continues with drummer Manuel Quintana, electric guitarist Todd Nelson and fret-less bass player Kyle Esposito performing music from their new album, "Here."  They will be joined by John Hines playing trumpet and Bob Resnick on percussion.

Event co-sponsored by iEAR presents!

Check here to read recipes for the raw food reception held after the event, created by raw food chef and holistic health counselor Caryn Halle, with support from May Yaul and Ellie Markovitch. Raw reception co-sponsored by the Honest Weight Food Coop and iEAR Presents!

Raw, extreme and revolutionary, saxophonists Fred Ho and Dr. Salim Washington will concertize with interactive video on the nature and ecology of anti-manifest destiny Marxist visions.  This is a not-to-be-missed event in which the Original Asiatic Black Man meets the Original Africanistic Yellow Man for a convocation of revolutionary love, imagination and musical ecstasy. Rescheduled from Fall 2010.

The Sanctuary is proud to presesnt educational theater at its finest with a new musical production of an original historical play by Michael Monasterial entitled, "Sam Cooke: Where You Been?"

It's an American Pop Fable that illuminates the life and musical genius of an American original. The pop singer who wrote, performed and produced 24 Billboard hits over his 8 years at the top of the charts was also a pioneer in the Civil Rights movement and an inventor of musical styles that are still incorporated in pop and gospel music 50 years later.

Sam Cooke's early years in Mississippi, his rise to fame and his demons that ultimately lead to his untimely demise are explored in this drama, but it is well seasoned with humor, pathos and most of all great, great music. The play has been presented to large houses and standing ovations. So come enjoy this masterpiece as it is honed and crafted to perfection by a multi-talented cast and crew.

Play credits:   The play is directed by Gordon W. Brown and the production stage manager is Alisa Brown, with music by Bruce Berky and choreography by Abby Lappen. It stars Stephen M. Jones, Evelyn Clarke, Dennis Washington and Michael Monasterial as Sam Cooke.

Riot Grrrl roared into the spotlight in 1991: an uncompromising movement of pissed-off girls with no patience for sexism and no intention of keeping quiet. Young women everywhere were realizing that the equality they’d been promised was still elusive, and a newly resurgent right wing was turning feminism into the ultimate dirty word. In response, thousands of riot grrrls published zines, founded local groups, and organized national conventions, while fiercely prophetic punk bands such as Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear, and Bikini Kill helped spread the word across the US and to Canada, Europe, and beyond.

Girls to the Front, the first-ever history of Riot Grrrl, is a lyrical, punk-infused narrative about a group of extraordinary young women coming of age angrily, collectively, and publicly. A dynamic chronicle not just of a movement but of an era, this is the story of a time when America thought young people were apathetic and feminism was dead, but a generation of noisy girls rose up to prove everybody wrong.

plus a special performance with Mountain Man

A firespitting evening with drummer Denardo Coleman, featuring a voice  celebrated for her political, surrealistic, dynamic innovations in  lyricism, and visceral sound. Cortez's literary work and impassioned  activism inspired by the ideals of human dignity and social justice  have been called blues poetics, part of the foundation of hip hop and  performance poetry. Denardo Coleman is a musician, composer, producer and drummer with the Ornette Coleman Quartet.

More about Jayne Cortez:

Jayne Cortez was born in Arizona, grew up in California, and currently lives in New York City and Dakar, Senegal. She is the author of ten books of poems and performer of her poetry with music on nine recordings. Her voice is celebrated for its political, surrealistic, dynamic innovations in lyricism, and visceral sound.

Experience desert defiance and womanly power as Malian diva Khaira Arby and her band invoke the mystery, history, and heart of Timbuktu in concert!  This is the opening event of the Sanctuary's fall 2010 season, celebrating five years of adventurous programming!  Admission to the all-ages show is $10.

For women, singing can be the road to personal power. When their voice is as strong as Malian vocalist Khaira Arby’s, that power can move mountains, change minds, and win battles.