Announcements

EMERGENYC 2012

HEMISPHERIC NEW YORK Emerging Performers Program
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Deadline:
Monday, February 20, 2012 (5pm)

The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University is now accepting applications for its fourth year of EMERGENYC, the Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program focused on “artivist” (artist/activist) performance. EMERGENYC aims to support the development of “hemispheric” artists through a program of workshops and events between April 28 and July 14, 2012 (see “The Program” section below for details). We seek talented, committed and highly motivated young performers/activists/artists whose work functions as a vehicle for political expression and social change, and who examine the broad range of identities, practices and histories of the Americas (the western hemisphere, thus “hemispheric”) through genres such as spoken word, street performance, political cabaret, performance art, video performance, movement, and others.

Why Hemispheric New York?

New York City is a space of transformation in which expressive practices from throughout the Americas come into contact and combine into new artistic forms. The constant encounters and collisions of African-, Native-, Asian-, Latino- and European- American cultures that define the City, combined with the multiple political and counter-cultural movements that have flourished on its streets, are a key source of the artistic and activist innovation that has long characterized New York City. Experimental performance, hip-hop and salsa are powerful examples of the hemispheric fusions that the City’s neighborhoods have incubated. Subversive media interventions, such as those created by the Yes Men, artistic interventions such as the Guerilla Girls and Fulana’s If You Fear Something, You’ll See Something poster campaign are examples of the innovative conjunction of art and political protest. Drawing on this vitality, the program will enable young activists/performers to work with leading practitioners in the field, to take interdisciplinary leaps, and to develop their own strategies to use performance for social change.

The Program

Between April and June, the selected participants will take part in weekly workshops led by George Emilio Sánchez as well as by invited artists such as Susana Cook, Fulana, Pamela Sneed, Peggy Shaw (Split Britches), Andy Bichelbaum of The Yes Men, Dan Fishback, Daniel Alexander Jones, Patricia Hoffbauer, and others. This year will also include a teach-in on Performance (“PerforWHAT?”) led by Hemispheric Institute Founding Director and NYU University Professor Diana Taylor. (We are in conversations with other artists and activists for workshops/artist talks—check emergenyc.org for updates). We ask applicants to define social issues that are important to them and to find a bridge to communities around those issues. Past participants have explored themes of racism, racial stereotypes, and racial violence; LGBTQ rights; war and human rights; gender and sexuality; religion; and gentrification, among others. They have created performance pieces around these issues, interviewed members of various communities, and led workshops in community programs (such as GLOBE/Make the Road New York), etc.

The program will be divided into three phases. Phase 1: every Saturday 10am-2pm from April 28th to May 26th, participants work closely with George Emilio Sánchez in developing performance and activist strategies, such as Boalian techniques, performance art and site-specific interventions. Phase 2: intensive daily sessions (10am-5pm) from May 27th- June 3rd, participants work closely with leading activists, artists and scholars, and explore specific tactics for work in the field (street performance, interviewing, videotaping, seeing other people’s work, etc.). Phase 3: Saturdays June 9th July 14thparticipants refine their work for a final presentation, building on the strategies explored through the workshops. Performance presentations (evening of June 26th): participants will share their strategies, performances, and experiences in a public forum.

Please refer to a past Schedule of Events to get an idea of the daily breakdown.

This program has a fee of $1000. Some financial aid will be available on a need basis, so don’t let money concerns stop you from applying. If your enrollment depends on financial aid, please let us know in your application.

Who Is Eligible

EMERGENYC is now open to emerging activists/artists/performers who live in (or can easily commute to) New York City. Applicants must have prior experience in activism and/or various performance genres. The program welcomes applications from individuals enrolled in the City’s colleges and universities AND from those who are not currently pursuing formal higher education.

How to Apply

Please send the following materials to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it no later than Monday, February 20th 2012 at 5PM:

• EMERGENYC 2012 Application

• A biographical statement (maximum 500 words) that tells us about who you are, where you are from, your performance background and your current projects.
• A statement of purpose (maximum 750 words) describing the reasons you want to participate in EMERGENYC. Please also describe the specific issues you would want to address through the program and any preliminary ideas about the communities where you would ground this work.
• Your resume or CV.

• 2 letters of recommendation, which your recommenders must send directly to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Optional, highly recommended: Samples of your work.
Optional: A paragraph explaining your request for financial aid.

Selected participants will be notified the week of March 5th; registration payment will be due March 22nd; and program activities will begin on Saturday, April 28th.

EMERGENYC 2012 is supported by funds from the Rockefeller Foundation's Cultural Innovation Fund.

Low Lives: Occupy!
INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR ARTISTS AND PRESENTERS

Event Date: 3 March 2012

Deadline for proposals: 6 February 2012

www.lowlives.net

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Low Lives launches new program in partnership with Occupy With Art and The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

On March 3rd, 2012, Low Lives: Occupy! an international platform designed to enable artists, audiences, and presenters in alliance with the Occupy movement to support the occupation, will transmit live performances, actions, and happenings online as they occur in real time around the world. Participating artists, artist collectives, Occupy groups, and presenters worldwide will expand the reach and visibility of the Occupy protests by broadcasting to an international community and audiences. The Occupy protests, and the myriad of perspectives and experiences related to this unique moment, will be amplified, explored, and experimented with, through Low Lives’ internet-based creative platform. Low Lives: Occupy! recognizes the powerful opportunity that is the presentation of performances from around the world, and invites artists to open eyes and minds by presenting a radical re-imagining of possible ways of existing and relating.

Over the past 4 years Low Lives has developed a platform that invites and enables artists, audiences, and presenting venues to "plug in and participate" from anywhere an internet connection exists. This technological platform brings a history of supporting artists’ full creative freedom to imagine new worlds and is now offered to artists interested to present work in solidarity with #OWS. Online documentation of the live event will allow Low Lives: Occupy! to inspire online audiences far into the future.

Eligibility:
Low Lives: Occupy! seeks projects including, but not limited to, performance art, public actions and interventions, happenings, acts of protest and civil disobedience, taking place in both real and virtual spaces.

Only proposals for live actions will be considered (streaming pre-recorded videos will not be considered). Preferred duration of proposed works is 5 minutes or less, however if the work proposed is impossible to present in 5 minutes, up to 12 minute performances will be considered.

All artists, artist collectives, individuals, and groups in solidarity with the Occupy protests are invited to submit proposals. Artists who have participated in previous Low Lives projects are eligible to participate.

Submission Requirements:
• Submit a written proposal for work to be considered, including: a description of the work; duration; how the works supports the Occupy movement; location where the work will be presented; and if the work proposed has been presented before
• If possible, include links to artist website/s or other relevant sites
• Include up to 3 jpeg images, no larger than 300 dpi, that support your proposal and/or up to 2 links to video work samples (videos should be 2-3min each, or note desire start time for 2-3 min of review of longer documentation)  - Include an Artist / Individual / Group Bio
• Optional: CV or Resume
• No entry fee

Email complete materials to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with Low Lives: Occupy! in the subject line. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Selected artists/individuals/groups will be given instructions and guidance on how to transmit their performance through a live online broadcasting network. Performances will be projected in real time across the Low Lives network of Presenting Partners and venues.

Selections Committee:
Jorge Rojas- Low Lives Founding Director, Producer, Curator, Artist
Christina deRoos- Low Lives Co-Producer, Artist, Activist, Nonprofit Administrator
Juan Obando- Low Lives Co-Producer, Artist, Professor of Art and Art History at Elon University

Presenting Partner and official NYC venue:
Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics
New York University
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor, New York, NY

hemisphericinstitute.org

Presenting Partner and Online location:
Occupy With Art - Occupywithart.com

Important Dates:
February 6: Submission deadline
February 10: Submitting artists/Individuals/Groups notified
March 3: Low Lives: Occupy! 6:00pm – 10:00pm EST

Process:
•    Artists/Individuals/Groups broadcast performances from their location of choice (e.g., art venues, studios, public spaces) using live video streaming networks such as Ustream.tv
•    Performances are presented consecutively, each immediately following the previous
•    All performances are fed through one channel and projected at presenting venues, and available for online viewing in real time and after the event
•    Online chat allows artists and online audiences to interact and comment on the work as it occurs

Co-Presenters:
•    Low Lives: Occupy! invites any person, group of people, and presenters to “plug in and project” the broadcast in their homes, venues, building facades, and other public spaces for their local communities
•    Technical support is provided in advance of the event date to facilitate Co-Presenters preparation and to coordinate overall production
•    No fee to participate

Technical requirements:
•    Computer to transmit and project the show
•    Broadband internet connection
•    Digital projector
•    Projection screen/wall
•    Sound system

Anyone interested in co-presenting Low Lives: Occupy! please email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with Low Lives: Occupy! Presenter in the subject line.

About Low Lives
Founded in 2009, Low Lives is an international platform for live performance-based works transmitted via the internet and projected in real time. Low Lives examines works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. These networks provide a new alternative and efficient medium for presenting, viewing, and archiving performances. Low Lives offers local and global audiences a contextual frame from which to consider live performance in both the physical and virtual space.

The platform celebrates the transmission of ideas beyond geographical and cultural borders, and opens multicultural and intergenerational dialogue through visual language, new technologies, and contemporary expressions. Low Lives is about both the presentation and transmission of performative gestures from a particular place and time. Low Lives produces an annual Networked Performance Festival. For more information, visit www.LowLives.net

About Occupy With Art
Occupy With Art (Formerly Occupennial) is an affinity group of the Arts & Culture working group. We are artists, writers, curators, and art professionals lending our skills to produce art, cultural events and projects, with a particular focus on OWS itself as a social art process. We work with organizations and artists that require a focused team to facilitate their projects. We produce art projects, large-scale events, and exhibitions. Our website, www.occupywithart.com, serves as an information hub for current and past art-related activities in the OWS movement. We are committed to building relationships within OWS and with outside arts organizations.

About Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics
The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics is a collaborative, multilingual and interdisciplinary network of institutions, artists, scholars, and activists throughout the Americas. Working at the intersection of scholarship, artistic expression and politics, the organization explores embodied practice—performance—as a vehicle for the creation of new meaning and the transmission of cultural values, memory and identity. Anchored in its geographical focus on the Americas (thus “hemispheric”) and in three working languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese), the Institute's goal is to promote vibrant interactions and collaborations at the level of scholarship, art practice and pedagogy among practitioners interested in the relationship between performance and politics in the hemisphere. www.hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/

Note- the annual Low Lives 4 Networked Performance Festival is scheduled for April 27 - 28, 2012. A separate call for proposals will be issued in late January 2012.

Share, Post, and Distribute this call with cyber abandon.

*Low Lives: Occupy! logo designed for Low Lives by Juan Obando: www.juanobando.com

Creative Activism Thursdays

The Revolution Will Be Debated

Unless otherwise indicated, all Creative Activism Thursday events will be held at:

Read about the Spring 2012 Presenters

Come meet the revolutionaries who have changed or are changing the world, and those who study them. We’ll be meeting many Thursdays for a series of lectures, workshops, and other events focusing on the potential for societal change, and what we can do to bring it about through creative tactics and strategies.

Revolutionaries Live! (aka Creative Activism Thursdays) is co-sponsored by NYU Dean for Social Science, the Hemispheric Institute, the Yes Lab, the Humanities Initiative at NYU Working Research Group on Artistic Activism, CAA, and Not an Alternative. Speakers also attend following Yes Lab Friday.

Yes Lab at NYU

Starting Friday, Sept. 23, the Yes Lab at the Hemispheric Institute will involve students, faculty, local activists, and the occasional government official in strategizing and accomplishing funny media-getting actions. The first session will be Friday, Sept. 23, 10am, at the Hemispheric Institute, 20 Cooper Square, 5th floor, New York. Anyone is welcome to show up for this first session, though we're asking that you email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and tell us about yourself, your interests, and your skills. Subsequent sessions (every Friday thereafter) will be open to those who commit to actively help carry out particular projects.

This fall’s Yes Lab projects will focus on the problem of income disparity and the rich-poor divide, locally and globally. Participants will join “action groups” to come up with funny media actions around manifestations of income disparity; specific focuses will include immigration, corporate tax cheats, military spending, and environmental injustice in Long Island City.

If you would like to propose an "action group" focus (that has something to do with income disparity), you'll need to (a) commit to put in a lot of work yourself, every Friday; (b) have an activist organization in mind to help guide the group; and (c) pre-establish contact with that organization before the first Friday, and if possible confirmation that they are interested in collaboration. Please write to us about it, and show up on the first Friday ready to present your focus.

Visit yeslab.org/nyu for all projects and current information.