FIRE!!: A Celebration of Radical Black Expression
Fri, Nov 06
|Longy School of Music of Bard College
Inspired by the revolutionary spirit of the 1926 magazine Fire!!, this interdisciplinary performance & artist salon brings musicians, writers, thinkers, & audiences together to celebrate Black artists who challenge convention, embrace creative risk, and imagine new possibilities for expression.
Time & Location
Nov 06, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Longy School of Music of Bard College, 27 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
About the event
Inspired by the revolutionary spirit of the 1926 literary magazine Fire!!, this event is part performance, part conversation, and part artist salon, bringing musicians, writers, thinkers, and audiences into dialogue. Drawing from a lineage of Black artists who have challenged convention and expanded the boundaries of form, FIRE!! creates space for experimentation, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas, celebrating artists who embrace creative risk and imagine new possibilities for Black expression.
More than a performance, FIRE!! invites audiences to step inside the conversation, where creativity becomes a catalyst for connection, curiosity, and new ways of imagining Black expression.
Make an evening out of it: Doors open at 5:30 PM for drinks, light bites, and a chance to connect before the performance.
Music Program
Jessie Cox: Quantify for string quartet
Brian Raphael Nabors: Wonder for violin & cello
Errollyn Wallen: The Negro Speaks of Rivers for string quartet
Alvin Singleton: B Natural for violin & viola
Julius Eastman: Joy Boy for string quartet
Curtis Stewart: Work Songs for violin & cello
Readings from Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Countee Cullen, & Gwendolyn Bennett
Featuring
Gabriela Diaz, violin
DeShaun Gordon-King, reader
Lenelle Möise, reader
Sergio Muñoz Leiva, viola
Francesca McNeeley, cello
Emma Powell, violin
Co-Curated by Lyndsay Allyn Cox & Francesca McNeeley
Getting There
Accessibility:
Pickman Hall is wheelchair-accessible. The wheelchair entrance is located in the back of the building, along with limited parking.
Public Transit:
Longy's Pickman Hall is located just north of Harvard Square, past the Cambridge Common and across the street from the Sheraton Commander Hotel.
Walk (10 minutes) from Harvard Square T stop (Church Street exit)
Walk (20 minutes) from Porter Square T stop and commuter rail (Fitchburg line)
Take the #75 bus, which stops right out front
Parking:
Due to space restrictions within city limits, Longy can only offer on-site parking for staff and faculty members.
There are two hour metered parking spots available on Massachusetts Avenue, alongside the Cambridge Common park and in Harvard square.
The following parking garages are located close to the Longy campus:
University Place Garage (45 University Rd.) $24/day
Charles Hotel Parking (1 Bennett St.) $25/day
Harvard Square Parking Garage (20 Eliot St.) $23/day
Church Street Lot (41 Church St.) $34/day
Alewife T Station (11 Cambridgepark West) $7/day
Reasonable Accommodations Requests:
Castle of our Skins does not discriminate on the basis of disability, and is committed to providing accessible programs and events to facilitate participation. A guest or outside organization must notify Castle of our Skins of any request for an accommodation in advance of the event (ideally 2-3 weeks beforehand). Late accommodation requests, or requests made the day of the event, may not be possible to provide.
Please send requests to info@castleskins.org.
Explore Fire!!
A collection of resources, readings, and stories, that inspired this event.
A Visual History of the Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance changed the world. We’ve gathered dozens of images, many that we’ve never published, showing the people and the art that they created.
The New York Times | October 2024
Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists was a bold and influential, though short-lived, literary journal published in 1926 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. The journal was created by a cohort of young, radical figures, including Wallace Thurman, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, and John P. Davis.
Our Ancestors Were Messy, dives into the gossip, scandals, and pop culture that made headlines and then history in pre-Civil Rights Era America.
Season 1 | Episode 4 - Zora Neale Hurston & Langston Hughes: Best Friends Forever
Season 2 | Epsiode 5 - Zora Neale Hurston & Langston Hughes: The Pleasures and Perils of Working with Friends
A FIRE!! inspired reading list curated by our friends at Just Bookish.
Castle of our Skins worked with Porsha Olayiwola of Just Bookish independent bookstore in Dorchester, to put together a list of FIRE!! inspired reads!
FIRE!! Digital Zine
Castle of our Skins collaborated with Bithiah Holton and jr mahung to create our first zine!