Body and Soul New York Performances

Oscar Micheaux’s *Body and Soul* (1925) arrives at Town Hall with a live rock/pop score, performed by Vernon Reid alongside the film’s original creative legacy. Made within the race-film circuit and introducing Paul Robeson to the screen, it offers a stark look at faith, power, and community pressure, framed through Micheaux’s independent production model. In 2019 the Library of Congress placed it in the National Film Registry, an institutional marker of its lasting cultural weight. One can hear the new score as a contemporary argument with the film’s moral contradictions, rather than a gloss over them.