Arts For Art is a multi-cultural,
artist-initiated organization whose purpose is to build awareness
and understanding of avantjazz and related expressive movements
while encouraging a sense of community amongst artists and their
audiences. Our principal activities are the presentation of innovative,
creative music, dance, multi-media performances, spoken word, and
the exhibition of visual arts. Arts for art, inc. Is particularly
dedicated to the presentation of experimental american music from
an afro-american perspective and traditions. Avantjazz is a direct
outgrowth of jazz, historically an african-american music. Yet avantjazz
has gone world wide gaining audience and artists from all cultures.
Thus our programming is multi-racial, reflecting this development
of avantjazz into a multi-cultural music.
Avantjazz was developed in new york's lower east side and is acclaimed
and supported worldwide, yet avantjazz has remained underexposed
and without support in its place of origin. Thus our goals are to
acknowledge and sustain the legacy of this artform, while insuring
its future by establishing a place for its future development.
From the beginning arts for art and the vision festival have carried
a message of clear social awareness. The very institution of arts
for art is a political act of self-determination. We hold to the
belief that art really moves people and that to move people is a
powerful political act.
Avant-Jazz: a definition
Avantjazz is art that exhibits a disciplined disregard for traditional
boundaries. While avantjazz is an outgrowth of african american
musical forms, e.g. blues and jazz, it has made a break from these
traditional forms. Avantjazz is free to draw from any tradition
in creating structures and frameworks for improvisation. It is also
free to disregard all conventions. The avantjazz musician has the
creative freedom to incorporate music of asian, african, native
american, and european cultures, or possibly doing away with conventional
song forms or rhythmic structures. That is their freedom. It is
not a freedom from melody or composition or rhythm. It is the freedom
to choose any tradition or vocabulary as part of their palette when
either composing or improvising. This aesthetic extends to all art
forms presented at the vision events as they inspire and help evolve
art and thinking.
Archived Events: (click below to see more)
Vision Festivals
Collaborations
Club Series/Other
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Over
the past year, the Vision Festival has worked closely with Rise
Up Creative Music and Arts (RUCMA), a new creative music organization
founded in 2007. RUCMA is built around a grassroots coalition of
musicians and music lovers who have united to address a variety
of creative, political and practical concerns relating to New York's
artistic culture. Most essential in this regard is a coordinated
effort among both organizations to build an innovative new center
for creative music and arts in lower Manhattan. This proposed center
would fulfill three essential needs within the New York music scene: