EVENT OVERVIEW
For Freedoms is thrilled to present AMERICA(!) THE BEAUTIFUL(?), an immersive evening of music, poetry, and civic imagination. Happening on Saturday, October 3 at 8 PM at The Ford Theater in Los Angeles, this gathering brings together a constellation of artists working at the intersection of artistic expression and collective action. We invite you to gather with us in a shared exploration of freedom and belonging through live music, rhythm, poetry, and photography.
The experience begins with a live DJ set by artist-storyteller Kai the Universe, setting the tone for the evening with fresh beats. Next up is Xochimilca recording artist and activist Xiuhtezcatl who treats ancestral knowledge as a catalyst for solidarity, resistance, and hope. His music pulses with urgency and possibility, grounding in rhythm and purpose while calling listeners into deeper connection. Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s sermon-like performance will take time to reflect on the force of gathering and togetherness in America today. The night culminates with surrealist blues poet aja monet, joined by a live band blending jazz and soul with poems that move between tenderness and power, fragility and insurgency. Alongside projected photography by Kwame Brathwaite and Kali Spitzer illuminating the stage, these artists will transform the stage into a space of reckoning, asking: for whom America the beautiful?
This gathering is the debut of a six-city roadshow series unfolding under AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL, a nationwide movement organized by For Freedoms and Future Currents. Each event is anchored in one of six American questions, developed with Marc Bamuthi Joseph, creating regionally rooted in activations that contribute to a larger national dialogue about democracy and belonging. The series will travel across the country, weaving together local voices and creative practices into a shared story of who we are and who we are becoming.
BACKGROUND
At a moment when democracy demands renewed participation, cultural leadership, and civic confidence, For Freedoms and Future Currents are joining forces to launch AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL — a national framework designed to catalyze patriotic inquiry and civic imagination. Rooted in the arts and grounded in movement strategy, AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL invites Americans to dream, play, question, and create together.
Launched in 2026, AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL Roadshow is a six-city series of high-impact, regionally rooted performances over the span of two years, connecting artistic expression as new civic strategies and translating cultural experiences into generative democratic power.
At the heart of AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL are six core questions conceived by Marc Bamuthi Joseph as artistic prompts for artists’ personal reflection and creative response:
- What is the American dream?
- What is the American promise?
- When in your American life have you felt most free?
- Who are this country’s founding mothers? What would this country be if it were founded by women?
- If money were light, how much would America have to spend?
- For whom America the beautiful?
