Jason Moran – The Harlem Hellfighters; James Reese Europe and the Absence of Ruin brings together composer-musician Jason Moran and visual artist John Akomfrah to explore, document and celebrate the musical and cultural legacy of an African-American pioneer on both Europe and the United States. It’s part of the final season of 14-18 NOW, which over the last five years has invited more than 300 national and international artists to discover and understand what the First World War means to us today.
14-18 NOW’s nationwide programme has animated the Great War for the 21st century, reaching more than 30 million people around the UK. We’ve commissioned and presented projects such as Jeremy Deller’s We’re here because we’re here, for which hundreds of silent soldiers appeared unannounced across the UK; Gillian Wearing’s statue of campaigner Millicent Fawcett, unveiled this year in Parliament Square to mark the centenary of Votes for Women; and other extraordinary new works by the likes of choreographer Akram Khan, composer-musician Anna Meredithand artist Rachel Whiteread.
14-18 NOW continues until the end of 2018 with such works as the world premiere of They Shall Not Grow Old, a new film for which director Peter Jackson has transformed rare First World War footage (BFI London Film Festival in October, BBC TV in November); and Pages of the Sea, a nationwide Armistice project created by Danny Boyle (11 November).
Jason Moran - The Harlem Hellfighters 