Next Series Presents: Listening Guide to Incarceration

Co-sponsored by the Prisons and Justice Initiative

Created by Benjamin J. Harbert · Joel Castón · Michael Woody

With new music by Carlos Simon performed by Hakeem Henderson (tenor), Ben Capps (cello), Amanda Halstead (piano)

Animation: Neon Zoo(Joumana Ismail; Elyse Kelly)

Listening Guide to Incarceration is a staged documentary performance about how sound shapes life behind bars. Moving from 1930s Pr*son work songs to contemporary recordings from the DC J*il, the piece traces a shift from music as expression to sound as environment. Through live music, reenactment, animation, field recordings, and guided listening, the performers introduce the idea of carceral acoustemology—how people learn to understand and navigate confinement through sound.

The evening culminates in the premiere of Carlos Simon’s "First Bluebird," a musical reflection on confinement and imagined flight.

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Host or Publisher Georgetown University Dept. of Performing Arts