The Village Trip – Get ready for 15 days of “hi-jinks and high ideals!”

By Liz Thomson and Cliff Pearson, Artistic Directors

The planning started a year ago, as rain flooded subways forcing the cancellation of our concert in Washington Square Park. On September 14, the sun will rise on The Village Trip 2024, as we kick-off the annual celebration of arts and activism with a block party on West 4th Street with David Amram, Avram Pengas, Our Band, and a bunch of Music Inn all-stars.

Fifteen days of rainbow-colored, family-friendly festivities to entertain, enliven and engage. A community festival for a unique community that remains a world unto itself which, for 150+ years, has given the wider world so much—movements that broke the boundaries of art, literature, theater, dance, music, and social justice.

We like to think The Village Trip, with its eclectic mix of what historian Kathleen Hulser calls “hi-jinks and high ideals,” reflects it all. This is the sixth festival and, since it returned to “rally the Village” after the rude interruption of Covid, it has evolved in ways no one could have predicted in 2018, when Suzanne Vega tipped her hat in Washington Square Park. It’s grown from three days to 15 and across the East Village/LES.

It’s been a fun few months. We’re kids in a cultural candy store, wanting it all! It’s gratifying that people now come to us with ideas, keen to celebrate their own beloved Village. Or as indie rock trio BETTY, puts it – to plug into “the electricity that runs from this power point that can and has ignited the world.”

The Village is proud to be the woke-est of woke communities, and we’re proud to be hosting the NYC premiere of the biopic of the man who, in the 1930s, advised everyone “best stay woke.” Curt Hahn’s documentary Lead Belly: The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll will have two showings at The Loft at City Winery (Sept. 15). Each is followed by a Q&A with Alvin Singh II, Lead Belly’s great-nephew, and Anna Canoni, granddaughter of Woody Guthrie – Lead Belly’s road buddy and a frequent guest at his home at 414 East 10th Street.

From river to river, history has been made across the Village. Each year The Village Trip celebrates diverse aspects of it. Indeed, Artist Emeritus David Amram has lived much of it—hanging out with the abstract expressionists who changed the course of art, jamming with Parker, Monk and Mingus who changed the course of jazz, and composing for the great Joe Papp, who changed the course of theater.

We mark the 70th anniversary of Shakespeare in the Park in a unique evening with David and Gail Merrifield Papp, who in 1965 joined what was then the New York Shakespeare Festival. She went on to marry its founder, becoming a driving force at the Public Theater with groundbreaking productions like A Chorus Line and The Normal Heart. Our handpicked line-up of musicians will bring to life some of the pieces Amram composed for Joe, and actors will deliver some of his favorite soliloquies as David and Gail lead the celebrations of The Music of the Bard: Words & Music of Shakespeare in the Park, 1956-1967 (Joe’s Pub, Sept. 16).

The inimitable Janis Siegel, passionate West Villager and festival regular, brings two shows to the Blue Note: The Colors of My Life from the Cy Coleman songbook, with Yaron Gershovsky (Sept. 15); and Something to Live For: Celebrating the Music of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn with John di Martino (Sept. 22).

Take the A-Train, Ellington’s signature tune, was more than simply a musical celebration of the city’s newest subway line – the Jazz Express linked two iconic neighborhoods. Among those who made the journey from Harlem was James Baldwin, “poet of the revolution,” whose centennial we honor with Go Tell It On the Mountain: James Baldwin in Words & Music (Judson Church, Sept. 24), directed by actor and playwright Daniel Carlton, who presided over Let Freedom Ring at TVT23 – footage of which was broadcast on Dr Martin Luther King’s birthday. Baldwin wrote many important works in the Village, including Another Country. Nehemiah Luckett’s powerful new composition inspired by that novel will receive its premiere as part of our Baldwin celebration.

The intersection of arts and activism is central to Village history, as Professor Ruth Feldstein will show in The Village Trip Lecture, Performing Politics in the Village: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement. Feldstein will examine the ways in which Harlem and Greenwich Village provided artistic and political possibilities for women who, years before “intersectionality” entered public discourse, insisted that liberation could not separate race from sex (Sept. 18).

Come the 1970s, The Cockettes, a no-holds-barred theatrical troupe, took “liberation” to a whole other level, exploring gender fluidity and sexual identity. Their proto-punk shows came to CBGB – Blondie and The Ramones opening! Founding member Fayette Hauser will give a talk and slideshow and introduce two rarely seen Cockettes films (Gay Center, Sept. 26).

This year’s 40+ events include walks, talks, films, an art show, and lots of music, including classical and new music. A grand celebration of Irish music honors the lives of Mick Moloney and Dan Milner, two of its beloved exponents (Bitter End, Sept. 23), and we’re showcasing Laura Nyro, the singer-songwriter Bette Midler called “the very essence of New York City,” with Stoned Soul Picnic: Diane Garisto & The Laura Nyro Project (Bitter End, Sept. 21). And with ¡Ache! (The Clemente, Sept. 20) we welcome back Latin jazz legend Bobby Sanabria and his band Ascensión with special guest Antoinette Montague. It will be a “hi-energy” evening!

Come feel “the rhythm of life,” as Cy Coleman put it! We’ll wrap up TVT24 on September 28 in Washington Square Park: our signature free concert will feature Janie Barnett, Tish & Snooky and the aforementioned BETTY – an all-girl line-up that includes two sister acts and promises to deliver the most fun you’ve had all year. We look forward to welcoming all cool cats!

---

Full program details at TheVillageTrip.com