Anna Martine Whitehead: FORCE! an opera in three acts

THE BROOKLYN RAIL’S NEW SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT #1133
NOVEMBER 18, 2024

“Artist, educator, and abolitionist Anna Martine Whitehead joins Brooklyn Rail contributor Re’al Christian for a conversation on the occasion of FORCE! an opera in three acts, opening at The Chocolate Factory Theater in Queens, New York, on November 22. FORCE! brings together a constellation of characters who become fractals for the abundant relationships blooming in the shadows of the state and carceral power. Whitehead will discuss how the constellation imagines a strange sisterhood with the power to disintegrate walls, traveling through silence, sound, and rhythm to construct a meditation on often-overlooked spaces—prison waiting rooms.”

The New York City presentation of FORCE! an opera in three acts is co-commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School as the culmination of Whitehead’s 2022–2024 VLC Fellowship.