Bill T. Jones, New York Live Arts announce Oliver Sacks festival

Today, New York Live Arts announces their first annual festival of arts and ideas in New York City, a series called Live Ideas. The inaugural festival, from April 17-21, 2013, is devoted to “The Worlds of Oliver Sacks.” The festival will include film, theatre, dance and musical performances, as well as a number of lively discussions on various Sacksian themes. It is curated by celebrated nonfiction writer Lawrence Weschler, in collaboration with the extraordinary Bill T. Jones, Executive Artistic Director of New York Live Arts.

Jones comments, “The first edition of Live Ideas affords us a rare opportunity to collaborate with the inimitable Dr. Sacks. Perhaps more than anyone in recent history, Dr. Sacks has contributed to our growing understanding of the role of creative expression within the mind-body connection.”

Dr. Sacks says he is honored to have his work celebrated in this way, and adds that the festival “brings together a number of my own passions—music, ferns, cephalopods among them—alongside many of the neurological conditions I have spent a lifetime studying: Parkinson’s disease, Tourette’s syndrome, stereo vision, etc. The connections of these conditions with the dramatic arts is a deep one.”

Tickets go on sale today for New York Live Arts Members and Associate Artists, and the general public may begin making reservations for free events and purchasing tickets on February 8, 2013. Tickets or a festival pass may be purchased online, by phone at 212-924-0077 or in person at the box office.

We hope you can join us!