John Brown Farm State Historic Site
The John Brown Farm State Historic Site includes the home and final resting place of abolitionist John Brown. It is located on John Brown Road in the town of North Elba, near Lake Placid, New York, where John Brown moved in 1849 to teach farming to freed slaves.
In August 2020, Tiffany Rea-Fisher and the company created Geography of Grace, a dance film set at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site. Our goal with this film is to shed light on the life and legacy of John Brown, a militant American abolitionist, and martyr to the antislavery cause. Furthermore, we depict an alternate reality of an African-American agricultural community in upstate New York, where John Brown taught farming to freed slaves in 1849.
John Brown Lives!
John Brown Lives! was founded in 1999 by Martha Swan, whose passion and vision continues to drive the organization today. Since its inception, JBL! has tapped into and cultivated an appetite for humanities-oriented lectures, exhibits, commemorative milestones, author events and performances, community conversations and teacher-student programs that help people understand the intersection between history and human rights.
One of JBL!’s signature programs is “Dreaming of Timbuctoo,” an exhibit on permanent display in the Upper Barn at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, chronicles the evolution of this unlikely dream. Smith enlisted Frederick Douglass to help attract families to the plots, and John Brown moved his family to the region in 1849 to support the effort.
Tiffany Rea-Fisher connected with Martha during the filming of Geography of Grace and has since presented an on-site movement meditation at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site. The tribute entitled Closing Ceremony: Say Their Names was created in response to the Memorial Field for Black Lives installation by artist, Karen Davidson Seward. The video footage captured at this event will plan to tour alongside the installation throughout schools and other institutions in upstate New York.
In June, 2021 EMERGE125 celebrated Juneteenth in both Harlem and Lake Placid, NY! A new tradition for the company as we plan to celebrate this holiday for many more years to come. In Lake Placid, E125 company members performed an excerpt from Emerged Nation to the community for their Juneteenth celebration, hosted by John Brown Lives! and located on the John Brown Farm State Historic Site.
