“Gale’s Farm Down Home Jamboree” with Pendulum Hearts, $5 Cover (Cash Only)

$5 Cover (Cash Only)

A Brand-New Day: The Wiz and the Making of a Black Utopia
In the 1978 film The Wiz, an ordinary man carried far from home uses imagination, invention, and performance to create the extraordinary Emerald City. For generations, the film’s music, movement, fashion, humor, and unforgettable performances have transformed the familiar story of Oz into a celebration of Black creativity. Songs such as “Ease on Down the Road,” “Home,” and “A Brand New Day” evoke memories of family and community while reminding us of the possibilities The Wiz opened. Placing the Emerald City within a larger tradition of Black worldbuilding, from early Black speculative fiction to Octavia Butler’s complex communities and the Afrofuturist nation of Wakanda, this presentation explores how Black artists have imagined worlds beyond the limitations of the present. It invites audiences to consider how joy, memory, creativity, and community can help us build places where everyone is free to belong, dream, and thrive.