Up Until Now Collective

UP UNTIL NOW is a New York City-based Artist Collective Co-Founded in 2020.   Committed to inclusive, accessible, and equitable working environments, UP UNTIL NOW develops and produces new interdisciplinary work that explores language, empathy, intimacy, and community, and seeks to challenge the status quo by building new structures for artistic creation.  Since its inception, UUN has collaborated with over 300 artists..

Projects include the pioneering SOUL(SIGNS): AN ASL PLAYLIST, a series of American Sign Language music videos featuring songs by iconic Black female artists including Nina Simone, Tina Turner and Gladys Knight (commissioned by Broad.stream Media).  SOUL(SIGNS) was profiled by The New York Times and ABC World News. The first video in the series, “Georgia,” was chosen by the Times Square Alliance as the July, 2021 “Midnight Moment,” appearing on 90 screens in Times Square every night at midnight throughout the month. UUN has curated free, ASL-accessible music performances in Times Square as part of the Midnight Moment, in Union Square and Astor Place as part of Make Music New York, at Southeby’s Auction House as part of the Burning Man: Boundless Space exhibit and in collaboration with Lincoln Center for “An Evening of Access Magic.”

Other film work includes the series SOUL(SIGNS): OPERA, commissioned by Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Columbus and Portland Opera, streaming for free for OperaBox.tv. SOUL(SIGNS): OPERA makes its film festival debut in September, 2022, at Opera Philadelphia’s Opera on Film Festival.   UUN’s experimental short music film Up Until Now (commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects) debuted at OutFEST in LA in 2022 and makes its NYC Festival Premiere at NEW FEST in October, 2022.  UUN has also created music videos for Morgan James, Shafyer James, Coyle Girelli, and Lachi, as well as the Prototype Festival (composer Jimmy Lopez and singer Sasha Cooke’s “Where Once We Sang”).

UUN developed and co-produced Karim Sulayman’s opera theatre piece UNHOLY WARS, which premiered at Spoleto Festival USA in May, 2022. UNHOLY WARS was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.  Commercial work includes activist video campaigns celebrating Pride for Global Citizen, featuring opera superstar Jamie Barton and many others.   UUN recently premiered their multi-sensory installation and exhibit UP UNTIL NOW: midair for some time at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn, as part of UUN’s Brooklyn Arts Council Grant. 

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