Sunday 11:00 – 12:00

Solarpunk Writing Workshop

Sunday 12:00 – 12:30

Chalk Drawing

Sunday 12:30 – 1:30

Yoga

Sunday 1:30 – 2:30

Seed Starting + Planting

Sunday 2:30 – 3:30

Trash Crafts

Sunday 3:30 – 4:30

Letter Writing to Prisoners

Sunday 4:30 – 5:30

Collage

Sunday 12:30 –

“Anarchism, Money and Radical Possibilities.” with Jakob Feinig, Marina Sitrin (Moderator), Benjamin Wilson, and Diren Valayden.

Is money creation and anarchism oppositional practices? Or can they both be considered as part of the self-organizing capacities of people? Starting with concrete examples, such as the Job Guarantee Program, this panel considers how such a program can be implemented in democratic ways by involving people in money creation. Drawing on anarchist practices and recent political experiences, such as the Rebel Cities Network and barter clubs in Argentina, this panel proposes to reconsider radical democracy through money creation. More broadly, we ask, how are places and relationships transformed when such monetary practices activate the self-organizing capacities of people?

Jakob Feinig teaches at Binghamton University and is the author of Moral Economies of Money: Politics and the Monetary Constitution of Society. 

Diren Valayden has been active in antiracist and global justice movements and teaches at Binghamton University

Benjamin Wilson is an economist and department chair of the Economics department at SUNY Cortland. His research interests include environmental health, food systems, and modern monetary theory. He is the editor of Care, Climate, and Debt: Transdisciplinary Problems and Possibilities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

Sunday 1:45 –

“American Dance Asylum: Collective Experimentation in Dance” with collective co-founder Lois Welk in conversation with Mark Schmidt

In 1974, the ADA incorporated as a non-profit, co-directed by Bill Jones, Lois Welk and Arnie Zane based in Binghamton, NY.  Living a collective lifestyle and challenging regional audiences, the American Dance Asylum quickly earned a reputation for its innovative and often controversial productions.  From 1974 – to 1979, the American Dance Asylum produced all the early works of Arnie Zane, Bill T. Jones and Lois Welk.  Clive Barnes (NY Times) wrote in 1977, “The Dance Asylum shows the value of collective experimentation.”

Moderated by Mark Schmidt, this conversation with Co-Founder and Artistic Director Lois Welk will look at American Dance Asylum’s deep roots in the city of Binghamton and its place in the larger context of a cultural revolution in dance in the 1970s. We will explore the influential role of contact improvisation in the organization’s ethos and choreography, the process of taking over public spaces to share work with the public, the inclusion of a diverse range of performers for projects, and the practice of alternative work/living models.  

Originally from Monterey, NY (a small village north of Corning) Mark Schmidt is a choreographer, dance educator and performance curator who first found solace on the dance floors of New York City’s queer night clubs and underground house scene in the 1990s. His recent work explores these unique social dance spaces as cultural security zones that simultaneously function as sites of resistance and community building. Along with collaborator Remi Harris, he is a co-founder of Joy Flux, performance production collective that engages communities through line dance and social dance. Mark holds a BA with a concentration in Cultural Studies from the New School for Social Research and MFA in Performance and Choreography from SUNY Brockport. As a choreographer, he has presented work at Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, Sia Gallery, Chen Dance Center, Center for Performance Research, Nasser Civic Center, Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Bol Theater, and ArtLabJ. As a guest artist he has taught master classes and lectured at Hofstra University, the online teaching platform Freeskewl, Springfield College, Nazareth College, and SUNY Brockport’s Summer Dance Intensive. Mark is a cabaret law reform activist and formerly served as the Curatorial Committee Vice Chair at Dance Parade Inc. from 2014-2018.  In 2019 he was a recipient of the artist residency Bring It Home, sponsored by American Dance Asylum and hosted by 171 Cedar Arts Center in Corning, NY. As a current member of the Southern Finger Lakes Pride Council, he acts as performance curator for their annual festival in June.

Daniel Nagrin’s performances of The Peloponnesian War inspired Lois Welk to pursue a career in dance.  A native of Buffalo NY, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance at State University College at Brockport, NY where Richard Bull became her mentor. In 1972, with other Brockport alum she founded the American Dance Asylum Inc. (ADA), a collaborative model for producing dance.  Inspired by Steven Paxton, she immersed herself in Contact Improvisation, an emerging form. By invitation from Richard Bull, she taught a workshop in the basics of Contact Improvisation and through that experience joined forces with two attendees, Bill T Jones and Arnie Zane. -From 1973-1979, she co-directed the ADA (then based in Binghamton, NY) with Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane.  For more than 30 years the ADA produced Welk’s choreography including many site-specific community-based projects, among them– The Parking Ramp Dances, The Train Station Dance, The Carousel Dance, and The Hiawatha Island Dance. She has taught Modern Dance and Creative Movement to thousands of individuals of all ages at American Dance Asylum in Binghamton, NY  and at 171 Cedar Arts Center in Corning, NY.   In 1988, she was appointed Executive Director of 171 Cedar Arts Center. Her work in that capacity (1988-2002) earned her a New York State Governor’s Arts Award in 1998. From 2003-2006, Welk served as Artistic Director of the Yard Inc., an artists’ retreat on Martha’s Vineyard that supports choreographers through its residency programs. In March 2007, Welk became Director of Dance/USA Philadelphia, a branch office of Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance.  During her eight years at the helm of that organization she developed a dynamic menu of programs that advanced the field of dance in Philadelphia, among them, a theatre rental subsidy program that was replicated in Chicago IL and San Francisco CA. Welk served as Company Representative for BalletX (2016-2018), Philadelphia’s premier contemporary ballet company. Currently, she is Program Manager for the NYS Choreographers’ Initiative and an Advisory member of the NYS DanceForce. As Artistic Director of the American Dance Asylum, Welk continues the legacy of producing and supporting performing artists.

Sunday 3:00 –

Book Talk: No Harmless Power with author Charlie Allison

Lively, incendiary, and inspiring, No Harmless Power follows the life of Nestor Makhno, who organized a seven-million-strong anarchist polity during the Russian Civil War and developed Platformist anarchism during his exile in Paris as well as advising other anarchists like Durruti on tactics and propaganda. Both timely and timeless, this biography reveals Makhno’s rapidly changing world and his place in it. He moved swiftly from peasant youth to prisoner to revolutionary anarchist leader, narrowly escaping Bolshevik Ukraine for Paris. This book also chronicles the friends and enemies he made along the way: Lenin, Trotsky, Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Ida Mett, and others.

No Harmless Power is the first text to fully delve into Makhno’s sympathy for the downtrodden, the trap of personal heroism, his improbable victories, unlikely friendships, and his alarming lack of gun safety in meetings. Makhno and the movement he began are seldom mentioned in most mainstream histories—Western or Russian—mostly on the grounds that acknowledging anarchist politics calls into question the inevitability and desirability of the nation-state and unjust hierarchies.

Charlie Allison is an anarchist writer, storyteller, and activist who lives in Philadelphia. He graduated from Juniata College in 2010 with a degree in Communications and a minor in History. He didn’t learn his lesson and so eight years later graduated with distinction from Arcadia University’s Creative Writing MFA program (while wearing a wizard beard borrowed specifically for the occasion). Later, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2019 to teach English as Second Language in Mongolia. However, Covid-19 spelled a swift end to that particular course of action before he so much as set foot on a plane. For a person who despises hats, Charlie has donned a lot of figurative ones. Most of his days are spent in freelance editing, agitating, writing, consulting and giving tours of Philadelphia. He has written blogs for PM PRESS, alternate history speculation at Sea Lion Press, short fantasy fiction at Pickman’s Press, Podcastle,  The Stone Coast Review, Ellipsis Zine and many other fine literary establishments.

Sunday 4:30 –

“Radical Spaces + Social Clubs” Panel featuring the Riot Act Book Collective and more!

We’re closing out the 1st Annual Upstate Anarchist Book Fair with a lively discussion about what radical spaces and social clubs can potentially achieve and how they can (and can’t) contribute to the work and wellness of individuals, crews, orgs and movements. We’ll be talking about what makes a space “radical”, community connections, inclusion/exclusion, structure vs structurelessness, accountability, collective practice/culture and more. Bring questions and ideas to the discussion and let’s try using the book fair as a jumping off point for building collective capacity going forward!