EMPATHY, INTIMACY, CONNECTION. SUPPORT UUN
UP UNTIL NOW is a New York City-based collective of artists and thought-leaders co-founded by Kevin Newbury, Brandon Kazen-Maddox, and Jecca Barry, in the Summer of 2020 at the height of the global pandemic. UP UNTIL NOW is committed to developing and producing interdisciplinary work that helps build new structures for artistic creation across all art and media platforms. We create inclusive, expansive collaborative spaces that center stories of empathy, intimacy, and connection. Since its inception, UUN has collaborated with over 400 artists. Upcoming projects include SOUL(SIGNS): Making Music Visible on PBS (airing April 15, 2025), the 10th Anniversary National Tour of of Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s opera Fellow Travelers (2026/2027), and the ASL Dance Theatre Re-Imagining of The Wild Party.
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). 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’s “Georgia” was recently featured in the book MIDNIGHT MOMENT: A Decade of Artists in Time Square, published by Phaidon in 2024. UUN has curated free, ASL-accessible music performances in Times Square, 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.”
UUN’s fully-accessible, multi-sensory haptics installation UP UNTIL NOW: midair for some time was presented by the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn (2022), at REEL ABILITIES : NYC Film Festival (2023) and at JACK in Brooklyn (2024). Other film work includes the series SOUL(SIGNS): OPERA, commissioned by Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Columbus and Portland Opera, featuring ASL reimaginings of Blanchard’s Champion, Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. SOUL(SIGNS): OPERA was screened at Opera Philadelphia’s Opera on Film Festival in 2022 and REEL ABILITIES : NYC Film Festival in 2023. Brandon Kazen-Maddox received the 2023 Wavy Award for “Actor of the Year” for their performance in “What Makes a Man a Man.” In 2022, UUN’s experimental short music film UpUntilNow (commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects) debuted at OutFEST/FUSION in LA and made its NYC Festival Premiere at NEW FEST. UUN has also created music videos for Morgan James, Shafyer James, Coyle Girelli, and Lachi, as well as for 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 2022 and appeared at Opera Philadelphia’s O Festival in 2023. UNHOLY WARS was reviewed by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. UUN created the video campaign celebrating Pride in 2022 for Global Citizen, featuring opera star Jamie Barton and many others. In collaboration with Diversionary Theatre, UUN created a short music film for the song “Numbers in Jar” from the musical EIGHTY-SIXED, by Sam Salmond & Jeremy J. King.