The Crop-Over Read-IN! 2012 will take both performer and patron on an exploration into the birthright of all human beings to exercise freedom of mind, thought and self. On one hand we as individuals and as a people fight for a physical freedom, from the iron chains placed on our ancestors during slavery that today have morphed into phantom shackles which we still feel and struggle against. On the other hand we fight for a much more abstract and elusive freedom, the freedom of the mind from any constraints forced on it by society, the freedom to which we are all entitled by dint of being born human. We have fought for the right to an education, to work, to vote, and as July 26th is the Day of National Significance, remembering the unrest of 1937 and the battle for workers’ rights, it is fitting that our talented artistes give us their views on Freedom and Birthright. They will mirror in their performances, the demand for liberty by those who have gone before, and their journey towards personal and social freedoms, especially in the way they continue to break traditions, fusing contemporary ideals with unequivocal talent.