FORCE! an opera in three acts: Anna Martine Whitehead

Free. RSVP required. Book launch for Anna Martine Whitehead’s FORCE! an opera in three acts, a big work of strange sisterhoods on prison waiting rooms, silence, sound and rhythm, black femme interior lives, developed at Madlener House as 2020 Graham Fellow and toured in 2024. Book from Sming Sming Books with foreword by Re’al Christian, libretto and footnotes, contributions by Suchi Branfman, Jenn Freeman, Maria Gaspar and David Thomson, plus live recording of the opera. Launch shares highlights and footnotes with performances by Teiana Davis, Kai Black, Carmani Edwards, Daniella Hope, Nexus J, Zachary Nicol and Eva Supreme, plus Maria Gaspar presenting Disappearance Jail collective recording of erasure of carceral geographies. Copies available for purchase from the Graham Foundation Bookshop. Presented in conjunction with the Chicago Art Book Fair.