ArtsWave has announced the new season of its cross-venue, multidisciplinary series, “Flow, An African American Arts Experience.” New this year, the organization has created a subscription service, The Flow Pass, to give arts lovers access to all five presentations for one price.
Launched in 2020, the annual Flow series aims to give Black artists and ensembles a chance to tell their stories and showcase their work stages and gallery walls across Greater Cincinnati.
The 2023-2024 Flow season features a mixture of theater, dance, classical music and visual art.
Highlights include a production of “Clyde’s” at Playhouse in the Park, the Taft Museum of Art exhibition “African American Modernism” and August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned” at Ensemble Theatre.
Cincinnati Ballet will perform “Mercurial Landscapes” at the Aronoff Center. The mixed-bill program features choreography by Rena Butler of New York’s Gibney Dance Company. Costumes for the show came from Cincinnati designer Asha Ama Daniels. Daniels was the recipient of this year 2023 ArtsWave Black & Brown Artist Commission.
The final Flow event of the season is a conversation with celebrated conceptual artist Charles Gaines on his immersive public art project, “The American Manifest,” coming to Cincinnati in spring 2024.
The works consists of “Moving Chains,” a massive outdoor art installation as well as a “Roots” installation at Cincinnati Art Museum. It also includes an original musical composition, “Manifestos Four,” to be performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Social parties will take place before each event, including one at the new Lempicka by Jeff Ruby on Walnut Street.
The tentative schedule for each event is available below. ArtsWave advises that dates are subject to change.
The Flow Pass costs $185. Subscribers can get a second pass for $50 off. Orders placed before Sept. 30 will include a limited-edition print of “Acts of Holding Dance,” featured in BLINK 2022 by Wendi Yu from Cincinnati-based Elementz.
Those interested can subscribe on the ArtsWave website.
Schedule
“Clyde’s” – Playhouse in the Park: Friday, Oct. 20 | Flow Social at 6 p.m., performance at 7:30 p.m.
- Written by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage and directed by Timothy Douglas, “Clyde’s” is the story of a truck-stop operated by a group of people recently released from prison.
“African Modernism in America” – Taft Museum of Art: Thursday, Feb. 8 or Saturday Feb. 10 | Cocktails and exhibition at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 8, and brunch and exhibition starts at 10 a.m. on Feb. 10
- The exhibit features more than 60 dynamic and vivid works of art created in Africa during the 1950s and ‘60s.
August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned” – Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati: Friday, Feb. 16, Saturday, Feb. 17 or Thursday, Feb. 22. Flow Social at 5:30 p.m., performance at 7 p.m.
- Written and originally performed by playwright August Wilson, this autobiographical tour-de-force chronicles Wilson’s days as a struggling young writer.
“Mercurial Landscapes” – Cincinnati Ballet at P&G Hall, Aronoff Center: Friday, April 5 | 5:30 p.m. Flow Social at Lempicka by Jeff Ruby, performance at 7:30 p.m.
- Four dynamic contemporary works are featured in this mixed-repertory evening of dance.
“The American Manifest” – Harry T. Wilks Studio, Music Hall, Spring 2024 (TBD)