For the People is a community-based event and concert organized by Darius Jones on the eve of the November midterm election. The evening is centered around a collection of compositions by Jones—in collaboration with The Wet Ink Large Ensemble—that uphold the belief that artists have the duty and power to inform, inspire, and empower their community. The evening includes the world premiere of Being Caged In ICE, followed by the second performance ever of America The Joke, and concludes with the return of LawNOrder (pronounced “law no order”), a game piece examining social justice and American History in which each player represents a separate character and is handed a law to follow at the beginning of the piece. Onnesha Roychoudhuri, Brooklyn-based activist, editor, educator, and author of The Marginalized Majority: Claiming Our Power in a Post-Truth America to speak.
Inspired by the idea of America as an experiment, Jones searched for a compositional strategy that would be flexible, and due to the experimentalism, improvisation, ensemble interaction, and theatricality inherent within game pieces, it was a natural choice. Within each piece, Jones creates a scenario where participants must follow the rules of the piece while simultaneously giving their unique perspective: an important aspect that reflects American culture as a culmination of multiple opposing perspectives. There is never only one viewpoint. There is no dictator. We all have a voice.