Art Bridge: the Artspace Distance Collaboration Program

2017 / 2018 Art Bridge Program:

Beyond the Range or Limits Of

Artspace Projects is excited to be working with Alaska Native Heritage Center and the Pregones Theatre Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre on this year’s Art Bridge Program: Beyond the Range or Limits Of, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The purpose of the program is to facilitate a growing network of organizations using video conferencing and live streaming technology to further their artistic process, creativity, and collaboration.

The 2017 – 2018 Art Bridge Program is the fifth iteration of work utilizing video conferencing technology for distance collaboration as a platform for artistic collaboration and arts education. Analysis from the first four years informed: Beyond the Range or Limits Of the pilot series for the 2018 iteration of the Art Bridge Program. Artistically, participating organizations seek to create more focused and intensive exchanges in 2018 using the distance collaboration model.

The major activities of the project were:

To deepen the creative possibilities of distance collaboration through a highly focused artistic exchange between two diverse arts and cultural organizations;
To develop a more sustained, meaningful artistic exchange among participants;
To introduce new technology to expand the program;
To increase documentation of the exchange for education;
To create best-practices to share with the field;
To increase awareness and build new audiences.

Artistically, Pregones/PRTT and ANHC shared, studied, and remixed elements from each other’s cultural and performance practices. The two organizations collaborated on a shared expression of music, theater, and dance built on the connections and contrasts between Alaskan Native and Puerto Rican/Latino traditional and contemporary cultures. The artistic directors of each organization will lead an inter-generational group of artists from each community to develop specific artistic and cultural exchange concepts, parameters by which the artistic and cultural exchange is expressed, and the distance collaboration, including the public presentation(s).

The fifth season of Artspace’s Art Bridge program culminated with the experimental performance of, “A Tale of Two Tricksters". The 2018 live-streamed production was developed through an in-depth distance collaboration between two distinct artistic communities—the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) in Alaska and the Pregones /Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Pregones/PRTT) in New York— which has taken place over the past year.

Learn more about our program and download the PDF "Telepresence: An Art-Making and Distance Collaboration Platform"

Art Bridge Highlights Video & Art Bridge Program History

Video: Our Distance Collaboration Program 2015/16 (2 minutes)

Click HERE to view The Distance Collaboration Program 2015/16

Video: Our Distance Collaboration Program 2013/14 (5 minutes)

Video: National Cross-Cultural Collaboration Video: "A Call for Solidarity: A Real-Time Networked Performance" 2014/15 (1hr 20min)

Check out an innovative 80 minute online performance and exchange in real-time with cultural groups across the country who explore the intersection between traditional cultural dance and music from Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Alaska which has been remixed and explored through Hip Hop, Spoken word, and visual theatre: A Call for Solidarity: A Real-Time Networked Performance by Alaskan Native Heritage Center, La Mama, PA’I, and Pregones Theater Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.

Goals

To develop a new platform for artistic creation
To further the artistic process
To foster creativity
To promote artistic collaboration and arts education

History

In 2011/2012, Artspace launched a Distance Learning Pilot Program, partnering with The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts (an Artspace project) that included the following Ford Foundation Supporting Diverse Arts Spaces Initiative (Ford SDAS) participants: Ashé Cultural Arts Center; CultureHub SeoulArts/La MaMa; First Peoples Fund; National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC); PA'I; Pregones Theater; and Youth Speaks.

These organizations partnered with at least one other organization to work jointly using video conferencing technology to support and deepen their mission-driven work. This process strengthened existing relationships and resulted in exciting exchanges that would have been difficult to facilitate and sustain outside the context of the pilot program. These participants continue to use and explore videoconferencing technology as a platform for rich and complex interactions over distance.

Our 2013/2014 Distance Collaboration Program focussed on creative collaboration. The participants included the following Ford SDAS and Artspace participants: Alaska Native Heritage Center, The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts, Dance Place, La MaMa, The Longhouse Education, and Cultural Center, Miami Light Project, and Pregones Theater Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.

These organizations worked in collaborative exchanges to showcase the use of telepresence/video conferencing technology as an art-making and distance collaboration platform. This work resulted in unique exchanges between diverse groups of artists and audiences that would not otherwise have been possible. The participants’ work resulted in a video about our development of working with this technology.

The 2014/2015 Art Bridge Program advanced the program from learning the basics of video conferencing technology to capacity building, genuine artistic collaboration, exploration, and production. This was a continuation of using video conferencing technology for creative collaboration with an emphasis on supporting the capacity of participants to fully engage in a national cross-cultural artistic collaboration. The following four organizations were selected to participate: Alaska Native Heritage Center, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Inc., PA‘I and Pregones Theater Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. All of the participating organizations collaborated on a single artistic endeavor, which culminated into a telepresent, multi-location art event. The final production was an online live performance that included live audiences in four locations and was live streamed on Howlround.TV to a broad national and international audience.

The 2015-2016 Art Bridge Program's fourth iteration of our work on distance collaboration utilized video conferencing technology as a platform for artistic collaboration and arts education bringing together all past participants for the following activities:

An Art Bridge Video Conferencing Convening in New York City on April 14 and 15, 2016. This convening included two tracks: 1. Sharing, visioning, and info sessions and 2. Demonstration workshops on both standard and new equipment. Participating organizations will actively engage in sessions by presenting their evolving understanding of best practices, persistent barriers, and strategies for how this platform can be used in creative and social justice work. CultureHub will facilitate workshops in distance collaboration technology, including demonstrations of both standard and new equipment. In addition to valuable information sharing, we want to be sure to reinforce the support network between organizations.

As an evolution from previous years, the program continued asking organizations to join with one other entity of their choice to execute a distance exchange project. Participants contributed a recorded piece from their exchanges that was combined and edited into one 3-5 minute highlights video along of the project. This was documented for future use by the network to educate, promote, and fund programmatic work in this field.