Sunday, February 22, 2015

Dance/NYC 2015 Symposium

This event has already occurred. Please enjoy photos and event information below.

When: Sunday, February 22, 2015, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Where: Gibney Dance, 280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), New York, NY
Accessibility: Gibney Dance Center is an accessible venue. Wheelchair ramps and elevators are available via the 280 Broadway entrance. If you require reasonable accommodation please contact Rachel Berman at least two weeks prior to this event.

Complete schedule of sessions

Dance/NYC’s 2015 Symposium will invite participants to consider opportunities for "rising together" and dive deep into questions of cultural equity, resilience, technology, and private sector practices. How can we, by working together and across sectors, advance the art form and more than 1,200+ dance makers and companies in the metropolitan area? And how can dance and New York City work as one?

2015 Speaker Biographies
2015 Symposium welcome remarks by Lane Harwell

Meet NYC Arts Advocates: Dancing Toward Cultural Equity

(10:15-11:30 am)

This session explores the state of arts advocacy in New York City one year into a new Mayoral Administration and City Council and opportunities to advance cultural equity. Colleague advocates share select efforts, issue statements, and lessons learned for dance. How can we—all of us—advance collaboration and common messaging to move the creative sector and all New Yorkers forward? How can we rise together?

Featured Speakers:
Kerry McCarthy, Program Officer, New York Community Trust (Moderator)
Sharon Jensen, Executive Director, Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts
Andrea Louie, Executive Director, Asian American Arts Alliance; NYC Arts Coalition
Eric G. Pryor, Executive Director, The Center for Arts Education
Laurie A. Cumbo, New York City Council
Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, President/ Founder, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute

Dance Education for Every NYC Child

(11:45am-1:00pm)

What will it take to make dance education possible for every child in New York? And, what would universal dance education mean for all New Yorkers? This panel, moderated by dance educator and advocate Jody Gottfried Arnhold, brings together the voices of educators, advocates, funders, and artists to imagine this New York. Panelists will also discuss plans and opportunities to leverage $23 million in new funding included in New York City’s adopted FY 2015 budget to expand arts instruction in the public schools. The investment follows an April 2014 report by the Office of the new Comptroller, Scott Stringer, State of the Arts: A Plan to Boost Arts Education in the New York City Schools, and is a step toward realizing Mayor de Blasio’s four-year goal of ensuring that every child in every school receives arts education.

Featured Speakers:
Jody Gottfried Arnhold, (Moderator) Dance Educator and Advocate; Founder, Dance Education Laboratory 92Y
Lannette D. Alvarez, Heather Watts Scholar, Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program, Hunter College
Ana Nery Fragoso, Director of Dance, NYC Department of Education
Russell Granet, Executive Director, Lincoln Center Education
Kathleen Isaac, Director, Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program, Hunter College
Kitty Lunn, Artistic Director, Infinity Dance Theater
Ella Rosewood, Lincoln Center Scholar; Dance/NYC Junior Committee
Pedro Ruiz, Artistic Director/ Choreographer, The Windows Project; Arnhold Visiting Artist-Resident

Recordings from "Dance Education for Every NYC Child"

NYC Dance Facilities and Geographic Equity

(11:45 am-1:00 pm)

In 2010, Exploring the Metropolis published a rehearsal space report for The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, We Make Do: More Time is Better But Budget is King, which has made the case for investment in rehearsal space subsidies and creative interventions to leverage underutilized space in service to the art form, including the new CUNY Dance Initiative launched in 2014. Also in 2014, Exploring the Metropolis published Queens Performing Artists and Workspaces, which offers general recommendations for the borough and recommendations for pilot activity in Jamaica, including cultural leadership development, community engagement and arts funding, and artist housing and live/work space. This session puts the new findings in conversation with others focused on space solutions and considers need and opportunity in non-Manhattan geographies.

Featured Speakers:
David Johnston, Executive Director, Exploring the Metropolis (moderator)
Michael Hickey, Man About Town
Prentice Onayemi, ArtPlace America, Director of Partnerships and Communications
Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Executive Director, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!)
Paz Tanjuaquio, Co-Founding Director, Topaz Arts, Inc.
Melissa West, Independent Dance Artist

Diversity and NYC Cultural Leadership

(1:15-2:15 pm)

Join NYC Cultural Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl for a conversation about diversity among staff and leadership teams of our city’s arts and culture organizations. He’ll discuss strategies for addressing this issue that is critical to sustaining the vibrancy of the cultural sector and its vital role in New York City.

Recordings from the "Diversity and NYC Cultural Leadership" session

Power, Privilege, & Perception: Voices on Race and Dance

Dance/NYC works in alliance with Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance, and shares its core values of equity and inclusion. These sessions, curated by Dance/USA Executive Director Amy Fitterer and former Dance/NYC Director Michelle Ramos-Burkhart, bring together leading national voices focused on issues of race and dance. What is already and what can be done to realize a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable sector? What can dance in the metropolitan New York City area learn from and contribute to national dialogue? These sessions are meant to build upon one another, though it is not mandatory to attend all.

My Lens, My Dance
(2:30-3:30 pm)

This interactive workshop, facilitated by Michelle Ramos-Burkhart (former director of Dance/NYC), will provide a safe space in which participants can discuss and better understand personal biases, perceptions and lenses through which they view the world and dance.

Recordings from the My Lens, My Dance session

National Voices
(3:30-4:30 pm)

A panel of national voices will build on and responding to issues raised in My Lens, My Dance. Moderated by Tammy Bormann, Chair of the board of Urban Bush Women.

Featured Speakers:
Amy Fitterer, Executive Director, Dance/USA
Michelle Ramos-Burkhart, Verdict Works, LLC
Denise Saunders Thompson, Chairperson/ Executive Director, International Association of Blacks in Dance
Carlton Turner, Executive Director, Alternate ROOTS

Recordings from the "National Voices" session

Making Change: Artist Voices
(4:30-5:30 pm)

What is already being done to realize a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable sector? Hear from a panel of Dance/USA members and Dance/NYC committee leaders and partners already doing work in the field. How can you institute change within your organization and how can we work together to advance a more equitable art form. Moderated by Carlton Turner, Executive Director, Alternate ROOTS.

Featured Speakers:
Virginia Johnson, Artistic Director, Dance Theatre of Harlem
Sydnie Mosley, Artistic Director, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances; Vice Chair, Dance/NYC Junior Committee
Alice Sheppard, Independent Dancer and Choreographer
Richard Toda, Artistic Coordinator of Educational Outreach, American Ballet Theatre
Eduardo Vilaro, Artistic Director, Ballet Hispanico

Recordings from the "Making Change: Artist Voices" session

Private Sector Practices

Release of State of NYC Dance and Corporate Giving Research
(1:30-2:30 pm)

Larry Bomback of the Cultural Data Project (CDP) will present Dance/NYC’s recent report,

which uses data from the CDP to highlight findings on corporate giving in the dance community operating within the five New York City boroughs. How do we move beyond these findings, how can we facilitate and promote a more collaborative environment?

Dynamic Duos: Conversations with Dance Companies and their Corporate Partners
(2:45-3:45 pm)

Hear how corporations and dance companies build relationships and work together to share efforts. Moderated by Stephanie Dockery, Manger of Marketing Partnerships at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Featured Speakers:
Gina Gibney, CEO and Artistic Director, Gibney Dance
Reisa Brafman, Social Consciousness Leader of Community Partnerships & Women's Initiatives, EILEEN FISHER
Diane Jacobowitz, Founder, Dancewave
Brigitte LaBonte, Vice President External Affairs, Forest City Ratner Companies

Corporate Sponsorship Today: What Works? What Doesn’t?
Alice Sachs Zimet, President, Arts + Business Partners, LLC
(4:00- 5:15pm)

Are you frustrated that you can’t get in the door? Is your written material so long that it overwhelms the sponsor (and you)? Do you want to move from philanthropy to sponsorship dollars? Today, visibility no longer delivers a sponsor. Smart companies and savvy non-profits use sponsorship to deliver measurable results. Alice Zimet, a pioneer in the field who spent 20 years at The Chase Manhattan Bank, will show you how to build meaningful bridges between a non-profit and a sponsor—how to write for a business audience, benefits most sponsors want, how the arts can meet a sponsor’s needs and other “insider tips” on corporate sponsorship.

Emergency Preparedness and Response

These sessions take as their starting point Dance/NYC’s study, Emergency Preparedness and Response: The Case of Superstorm Sandy and NYC Dance, and acts on its recommendations to connect the field to resources to catalyze resilience to future shocks. Dance/NYC’s study leverages lessons learned through the NYC Dance Response Fund, a program of Dance/NYC established by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, which delivered $200,000 to 51 dance groups hard hit by the superstorm and was featured by The New York Times, “Modern Dance Groups to Receive Hurricane Sandy Relief.” #sandydance

Introduction to CultureAID
(10:00-10:30 am)

Steering Committee co-chairs Maria Villafranca, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Lauren Kushnick, New York Council For the Humanities, will discuss CultureAID (Culture Active in Disasters), a collaborative network of stakeholders and service providers committed to strengthening New York City’s cultural community – including artists and organizations – before, during, and after disasters through an organized communications system, as well as coordinated activities and services to the field.

The Case of Superstorm Sandy and NYC Dance
(10:45-11:45 am)

Researcher Anne Coates presents findings from Dance/NYC’s Emergency Preparedness and Response: The Case of Superstorm Sandy and NYC Dance and invites open discussion among grantees and participants about how, by rising together, we can increase resilience in our sector and our sector’s capacity to contribute to the resilience of all New Yorkers.

Funders Respond
(12:00-1:15 pm)

This session situates lessons learned from the NYC Dance Response Fund in conversation with funders who responded to Superstorm Sandy with investments in New York’s wider arts and cultural communities. Funders respond to recommendations in Emergency Preparedness and Response: The Case of Superstorm Sandy and NYC Dance and discuss their part in ongoing preparedness, recovery, and resilience efforts. What do they recommend for New York’s dance communities? How can funders and those working on the ground in dance and culture work together in addressing future emergencies?

Featured speakers:
Anne Coates, Arts and Culture Consultant; Dance/NYC Researcher, Co-facilitator
Ted Berger, Board of Directors and Treasurer, Joan Mitchell Foundation; Co-facilitator
Leah Krauss, Senior Program Officer, NYC Dance, Mertz Gilmore Foundation
Rïse Wilson, Director of Philanthropy, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Prepare for the Worst – Get ArtsReady!
(2:00-2:30 pm)

Whether your next crisis is another Superstorm, a suspicious package in your event space just hours before the show, or the sudden loss of a key individual – do you know what to do? Learn key readiness principles and how the ArtsReady online tool can help your organization build a customized plan so you can keep your doors open, no matter what!

Mollie Quinlan-Hayes, Deputy Director and Accessibility Coordinator, South Arts/ArtsReady

Get Prepared- Seniors and Special Needs
(2:45-3:45 pm)

The Office of Emergency Management holds a session about emergencies and the additional challenges for seniors and people with special needs.

Marianne Jackson, OEM, Special Needs Liaison, NYC Emergency Management
Ira Tannenbaum, OEM, Assistant Commissioner for Public/Private Initiatives

NY State Citizen Preparedness Corps Training Program- FREE FOR THE PUBLIC

(4:15- 5:15 pm)

The NYS Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services will offer a training course for attendees to have the tools and resources to prepare for any type of disaster, respond accordingly and recover as quickly as possible to pre-disaster conditions.

Technology

Moving through Google Glass
(10:45-11:45 am)

Former Mark Morris Dance Group dancer David Leventhal, who now directs the company's Dance for PD® program, will discuss MMDG's Moving through Glass project, which is building an interactive Google Glass-based dance App for people with Parkinson's. MMDG’s Glassware amplifies the company’s 13-year, global initiative-a collaboration with Brooklyn Parkinson Group-to improve the lives of people with Parkinson's disease by creating a portable platform that helps users benefit from dance- and music-based exercises and tools wherever they are. Leventhal, and the design team from SS+K, a creative agency specializing in social engagement, will explore the opportunities this new technology offers, providing a stimulating, in-progress case study relevant to anyone interested in the frontiers of dance, technology and community engagement.

Speakers:
Kevin Skobac, SVP, Digital Strategy + Innovation, SS+K
John Swartz, SVP, Director of Production and Innovation, SS+K
Craig Von Wiederhold, Executive Producer, SS+K

Technology with Sydney Skybetter –in the hot seat!
(12:00 – 6:00 pm)

Join choreographer Sydney Skybetter as he talks tech, one-on-one, with some of the smartest, crankiest, most brilliant and most cantankerous minds in the NYC dance industry. Skybetter will be joined by choreographers, artists and filmmakers to discuss everything from TV shows to YouTube, apps and commercials, and how the internet is reshaping our industry, bit by bit.

Featured Speakers:
Kevin Clark, New Music USA
Alberto Denis, Third Rail Projects; Actor, Dancer, Choreographer,Teaching Artist
Chad Herzog, Juniata College, Director of Performing Arts
Jamie Jewett, Lost Wax Multimedia Dance; Associate Arts Professor, Dance and New Media Program, NYU/Tisch
Selena Juneau-Vogel, Program Director, Artful.ly, Fractured Atlas
Marc Kirschner, Founder, TenduTV/Cultureband
Noemie LaFrance, Choreographer and Director
Zach Morris, Co-Artistic Director, Third Rail Projects
Richard Move, Artistic Director MoveOpolis!
Susan Gluck Pappajohn, CEO and Founder, Arthenia; Dance/NYC Board
David Parker, Director, The Bang Group
Celia Rowlson-Hall, Filmmaker/ Choreographer
Alexandria Wailes, Actor; Dancer; Teaching Artist
Adam Weinert, Choreographer and Media Artist
David R. White, Artistic and Executive Director, The Yard

View videos from this session at the following links:

Save Your Videotapes! A Hands-on Workshop on Managing Digitization Projects
(2:45- 3:45 pm)

Bring your tablets or laptops to this working session and learn best practices and practical steps to save your videotapes. A team from Dance Heritage Coalition (DHC) will share inventory tools and discuss key issues, including: how to curate your videos; the advantages of preparing thoroughly in advance of a digitization project; how to select a vendor or preservation partner; coming up with a feasible long-range storage plan for digital video; how to identify videos at risk of deterioration; and where to go for reliable advice on developing a digitization project. Presenters include a technical expert able to answer questions about video formats and the nitty-gritty of digital preservation; and DHC staff who can address project management, funding options, intellectual property/copyright concerns, and the benefits of creating greater access to your works.

Speakers:
Alex Champion, Washington, DC Digitization Hub Manager, Dance Heritage Coalition
Libby Smigel, Executive Director, Dance Heritage Coalition
Imogen Smith, Project Manager, Dance Heritage Coalition

Community

Dance/NYC Junior Committee Session- Emerging Artists
(9:30-10: 30 am)

What does it mean to be an "emerging artist?" How is this demographic defined by presenters and funders, and what resources exist to support emerging artists transition to the next stage of their careers? Dance/NYC's Junior Committee hosts a discussion with dance artists and administrators highlighting programs at Gibney and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council that examine the state of the emerging artist in the contemporary concert dance landscape.

Moderators:
Amanda Hameline, Amanda + James, Choreographer and Co-Founder; Martha Graham Dance Company Development Associate; Dance/NYC Junior Committee
Ali Rosa-Salas, Dancer | Independent Creative Producer and Curator; Dance/NYC Junior Committee

Speakers:
Marjani Forté-Saunders, Dancer/Choreographer, co-founder of Love|Forté A Collective
William Penrose, Program Manager, Artist Residencies at LMCC
Danielle Russo, Dancer/Choreographer, Founder of Danielle Russo Performance Project
Margaret Tudor, Artist Services Associate, Gibney Dance

The Bessies- what is "community" and do we need it?
(10:30-11:30 am)

Throughout the years, The NY Dance and Performance Awards- The Bessies- has served, not only as a way to recognize outstanding dance, but as an occasion to gather the community-or more accurately the communities of dance artists in the city. Noting that these communities are increasingly spread throughout the five boroughs, Bessies director Lucy Sexton and members of the selection committee will lead an open discussion about the value of gathering, of meeting, and if more could -or should- be done to engender connection between the city's wide range of dance workers.

Committee Members:
Blondell Cummings, Artistic Director, Cycle Arts Foundation
Simon Dove, Independent Curator/Crossing the Line festival
Laurel George, NYU College of Arts and Sciences
Irene Hultman, Artist
Nicky Paraiso, Programming Director, La MaMa
David H. Thomson, Artist
Tony Waag, Artistic Director, American Tap Foundation
Edisa Weeks, Choreographer, Educator, Artistic Director/Choreographer DELIRIOUS Dances
Elizabeth Zimmer, Dance Writer

Gibney's Community Action Center Open
(1:00-2:00 pm)

The Community Action Hub will be open for attendees to receive an overview of their arts and social action programming.

The Dancers' Resource
(2:00-3:00 pm)

The Dancers’ Resource, founded by actress and dancer Bebe Neuwirth, was created in response to the unique situation dancers face due to the physically demanding nature of their work, coupled with the significant financial challenges of earning a living in dance. The program was started to create a support system that addresses the needs of dancers. Amy Wilder, LCSW, will give an overview.

Consultations and Workshops

The Legal and Financial Clinic
(10:00 am- 1:00 pm-sign up is available in-person on the day of the event)

The clinic, organized by Esq.'s Elissa D. Hecker and Kathy Kim, features 30-minute individual consultations with arts and entertainment attorneys who are volunteering through the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law and Intellectual Property Sections of the New York State Bar Association. Attorneys are prepared to discuss legal issues concerning entertainment, intellectual property (i.e. copyright and trademarks), licensing, corporation/incorporation, and collaboration agreements.

Jina Paik, Associate Director of the Nonprofit Finance Fund’s Advisory Services, advises nonprofits and their funders in areas of financial planning and management. Ms. Paik will answer questions in 30-minute individual consultations about a range of topics, including better budgeting techniques, crafting your financial story, communicating with and through financial reports, balancing money with mission, and effective capitalization.

Cultural Data Project Training
(10:30-11:30 am)

How many times in the past month have you told a story to update a board member about your work, appeal to prospective patrons, or apply for a grant? In this hands-on workshop Joanna Reiner Wilkinson from the Cultural Data Project will share how to select the right data to support talking points and effectively communicate your organization's story to stakeholders. Participants will employ a step by step process to develop a pitch targeted to a specific audiences and work in small groups to select data points from sample data from CDP’s free analytics tools.

Revitalization of Not-For-Profit Corporations: 5 areas where compliance helps grow your career
(11:45 am-12:45 pm)

Madeleine M. Nichols, attorney and Curator Emerita of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, leads a workshop that offers a “pause" for dancers and choreographers to learn to re-see their careers as businesses; to identify current success habits; to select future key habits; and to find a career's rhythm of due dates, benchmarks and "compliance" habits.

SmART Bars
(2:00 pm- 5:00 pm-sign up is available in-person on the day of the event)

SmART bars are 30-minute individual strategic consultations that follow the National Performing Arts Convention model. Teaming with arts consultants from the Arts and Cultural Consultants Network (ACCN), SmART bar tenders will respond to any range of questions—from board and fundraising issues to fresh business ideas—providing tailored recommendations and direction to further resources. SmART Bar tenders’ specialties include: Board Development, Fundraising, Human Resources, Marketing, Strategic Planning, Technology, and Disaster Planning: Preparedness and Recovery, Licensing and music resourcing among others.

Consultant Bios

Employees, Independent Contractors, Interns and Volunteers
(1:30-2:30 pm)

Employment lawyers Kristine Sova and Nicholas Reiter will discuss the distinctions between employees, independent contractors, interns and volunteers, and the importance of classifying and compensating them appropriately to avoid Department of Labor scrutiny and costly lawsuits. This workshop will clarify these laws for both administrators and artists alike.

Cultivating Leadership in Dance- Intern Program
(4:00-5:00 pm)

Pentacle’s Director of Cultivating Leadership in Dance, Clarissa Soto, will lead a workshop outlining the program, which offers artists and organizations the opportunity to work with smart and experienced interns. Through a structured program, CLD matches interns with artists, and works with them to create a program experience that is rewarding and useful for both. This workshop will focus on the important role of interns in the workplace and the relationship between artist and intern. We will also provide tools on how to work most efficiently with interns, and how to help interns gain skills that will further their career. Joining Soto will be former CLD intern Ann Marie Connolly and Donna Salgado, Artistic Director of Continuum Contemporary Ballet.

Please note that sessions, speakers, and schedule are subject to change.

Leadership support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Howard Gilman Foundation. The Symposium is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mellon Foundation logo