Torn Space Theater (612 Fillmore Ave., Buffalo, NY 14214)

SCHEDULE

5:00 PM | Bar Opens at The Adam Mickiewicz Dramatic Circle (at Torn Space Theater).

Cash only.

6:00 PM | An evening with AfroRithms from the Future

Join us for an evening with Ahmed Best and Lonny J Avi Brooks as we gather to play and imagine an equitable future, advanced through technology. We’ve invited featured guest players from the community, but all are welcome to join in the game!

What is AfroRithms from the Future? AfroRithms from the Future is a collaborative, storytelling game that centers Black and BIPOC perspectives. You are travelers of the multiverse exploring possible futures and creating exciting new artifacts to send back out to all other parallel worlds. The game is simple. Have a conversation about the future and activate your radical imagination! Together, we will Democratize the Future through play.

Featured Guest Players

  • Taylor Coleman, PhD Candidate, Africana and American Studies, UB
  • Chanon Judson, Visiting Associate Professor, Theatre & Dance, UB
  • Donte McFadden, Director, Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program, UB
  • Samina Raja, Professor, Urban and Regional Planning and Director, Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab (“The Food Lab”), UB

Special Guest Listeneer

Stacey Robinson, Associate Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will be “beaming in” (remote participation) to be our listeneer, live-drawing during the game to produce our game artifact.

Meet Your Game Hosts

Ahmed Best, Co-Founder, AfroRithm Futures Group and Adjunct Professor, USC School of Dramatic Arts
Photo of Ahmed Best

In addition to the roles listed above, Ahmed Best is also Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, Senior Fellow at USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. Producer and host of Star Wars Jedi Temple Challenge (Telly Award Winner). Executive producer, writer and director of The Nebula (web series). Executive producer, writer and director of This Can’t Be My Life (web series). Writer of Sherlock and Holmes (Universal Studios Animation). Writer of Captain E.O. (Disney Animation). Writer Executive Producer of the DL Chronicles (GLAAD Media Award winner.) Creator and Director of Dinner at Lola (web series). Star of the Star Wars prequels as Jar Jar Binks, the first CGI lead character in a motion picture. Star of the Broadway musical Stomp. A graduate of the American Film Institute, Ovation, LACC, Stage Raw and an ANNIE award winner.

Lonny J Avi Brooks, Co-Founder, AfroRithm Futures Group and Professor, Cal State East Bay
Photo of Lonny Avi Brooks

Lonny Avi Brooks, Professor in Communication, Cal State University, East Bay, is co-executive producer of The Afrofuturist Podcast; co-author, Afrofuturism 2.0: the Rise of Astro-Blackness, lead editor, “When is Wakanda?” (Journal of Futures Studies); co-organizer, Black Speculative Arts Movement; Co-Founder of the AfroRithm Futures Group, imagining democratized futures as co-designer of the game Afro-Rithms from The Future. He co-directs the Community Futures School, Museum of Children’s Arts; is a Research Affiliate at the Institute for The Future and a Long Now Foundation Research Fellow. He is a Visiting Professor at Hasso Plattner Institute for Design, Stanford University , and author of “From Algorithms to AfroRithms in Afrofuturism” in the anthology Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection.

SEE SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE >>>