Overview:
Albany-based artist Taina Asili walks from Albany to Manhattan for climate justice, stopping in Kingston September 17 to perform her multimedia show "Fever Pitch."
Albany-based singer, songwriter, and activist Taina Asili has been carrying liberation songs across stages for three decades—Lincoln Center, San Francisco Pride, the Women’s March on Washington—but this fall she’s taking her music to the road in the most literal sense. Beginning in Albany, Asili and her ensemble will walk 150 miles down the Hudson River to New York City, averaging 15 miles a day, carrying instruments, an electric van, and a multimedia climate justice show called “Fever Pitch.” Along the way, they’ll stop in towns to offer songs, gather with local activists, and culminate the journey with performances during New York Climate Week. (Asili is fundraising for her walk on Gofundme.)
The pilgrimage arrives in Kingston on September 16, when the group will walk through Sojourner Truth State Park and land at Kingston Point Beach. The next evening, September 17 at Unicorn Kingston, Asili and her collaborators will perform “Fever Pitch” in full: A multimedia experience weaving live music, dance, and visual projections.
Roots in Punk, Routes to Climate Justice
Asili traces her activist-musician lineage back to her punk rock beginnings in Binghamton in the 1990s. “We would perform and speak about things that were important to us—everything from the environment to human rights,” she recalls. “Not only would we perform these topics, but we’d also have a table with information and patches and t-shirts and buttons.” The songs have changed form—her current music draws on Afro-Latin traditions, jazz, and soul—but the impulse remains the same: to fuse art and activism at a grassroots level.
The idea of walking a performance came from two inspirations. One was her own recent premiere of “Fever Pitch” at Brown University, which left her wanting to connect the work more directly with communities outside academia. The other came from her time on “peace walks” with Buddhist nun Jun San of the Grafton Peace Pagoda, and from reading Planet Walker, John Francis’s memoir of his 22-year, cross-country trek in silence carrying only a banjo. “All of those experiences lit something in me,” Asili says. “It inspired me to bring my music down the Hudson River from Albany to New York City.”
A Pilgrimage with Purpose
The route itself is as symbolic as it is physical. Stops include Sojourner Truth State Park, named for the abolitionist who walked to freedom from Ulster County; a sail aboard the historic Clearwater sloop from Newburgh to Haverstraw (“by what they call a Clearwater miracle,” she laughs, “the boat was scheduled to sail exactly when I needed to”); and gatherings with grassroots groups in Beacon, the Bronx, and Harlem.
In Kingston, Unicorn Bar—a queer lounge and performance space—serves as anchor. “Kingston is special,” Asili says. “Most days we’ll just do a one- or two-song offering. But here we’re going to land and root ourselves for a day and do a full “Fever Pitch” performance.” She’s collaborating locally with activists like Minerva Solla and author Jessica Pabon, who is releasing a new anthology featuring Asili’s writing.
Partnership is at the heart of the project. Asili points to organizations she’ll be amplifying along the way: Soul Fire Farm in Albany, where she chairs the board; Fairground in Beacon, a food justice group; and BombaYo in the Bronx, a folkloric Puerto Rican arts collective. “Our ancestors passed on this art form from century to century,” she explains. “It’s rooted in the earth, in rhythms that bring people together. Connecting it to climate justice feels natural.”
From Head to Heart
What distinguishes “Fever Pitch” is its blend of artistic forms: music, dance, and video projections, rooted in Asili’s family lineage. “My father was a conga player, a Latin jazz conductor, an incredible singer. My mother was a dancer. They were both keepers of the Bomba tradition,” she says. From them, she inherited not just artistry but a conviction that art is resistance.
In an age of endless doomscrolling and climate despair, Asili believes art can cut through numbness. “We live in a time where we’re constantly having information come at us. It can feel overwhelming. For me, music, art, creativity—this is what moves us from the head into the heart and into the spirit,” she says. “What’s more dangerous than despair is apathy. We need to feel what’s happening in order to act. This work helps us compost those feelings and move them from despair into hope, into action.”
Collective Liberation, Step by Step
The walk itself is designed for slowness. No planes or trains, just footsteps along the Hudson Valley, with opportunities for conversations at each stop. “When we slow down, we invite others to share what they think this moment calls for,” she explains. Post-show conversations are built into the Kingston performance and the finale in Brooklyn.
Asili frames the Fever Pitch Pilgrimage as both art and organizing strategy. “Once people feel excited and invigorated, the grassroots organizations will be there to guide folks on what the next steps look like,” she says. “This isn’t just about my music—it’s about building momentum for climate justice together.”
For Kingston, that means one night of immersive music, dance, and projections, rooted in centuries-old traditions yet pulsing with urgency for the present. “A prayer, a protest, an invitation,” Asili calls it. Or, put another way: a fever pitched to the times.
“Fever Pitch” will be performed at Unicorn Bar in Kingston on September 17 at 7pm. Sliding-scale admission.
