The Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue (IACD) was founded in 1997 by actress, playwright, and professor Anna Deavere Smith. Its mission was to support the development of art that illuminates social conditions; to deepen the capacity of artists to communicate with their audiences; and to build an international community in which artists, students, activists, and scholars could work together to develop the artist as a voice in society.
From 1998 to 2000, Smith and The Ford Foundation, the Institute's principal funder, selected Harvard University as the IACD home base for six-week-long summer intensives. Hosted by the University's American Repertory Theater and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, the Institute brought together artists, scholars, activists, and audiences to develop and discuss works of art about the vital social issues of our time. This unique "think-and-do-tank" presented workshop versions of productions, exposing the process of creation and fostering civic discourse on the themes expressed by the work.
Activities included development of new works of art, group discussions, guest speakers, seminars and workshops for participants and selected guests, collaborative research, master classes, public forums and media projects. The Institute's artistic focus included theater, dance, jazz music, song, opera, fine arts, installation and performance art, film and video. While the Institute still exists today, its activities have changed since relocating to New York City. It is restructuring. [1]
A Performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
The ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe is a cultural institution, which was founded in 1989 and since 1997 is located in a listed industrial building in Karlsruhe, Germany, a former munitions factory. The ZKM organizes special exhibitions and thematic events, conducts research and produces works on the effects of media, digitization, and globalization, and offers public as well as individualized communications and educational programs.
The Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS) is a research institute based in Shimla, India. It was set up by the Ministry of Education, Government of India in 1964 and it started functioning from 20 October 1965.
Community art, also sometimes known as "dialogical art", "community-engaged art", or "community-based art", refers to the practice of art based in and generated in a community setting. Works in this form can be of any media and are characterized by interaction or dialogue with the community. Professional artists may collaborate with communities which may not normally engage in the arts. The term was defined in the late 1960s as the practice grew in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. In Scandinavia, the term "community art" more often refers to contemporary art projects.
The Rhodopi International Theater Collective (RITC) was the original name of the Leon Katz Rhodopi International Theatre Laboratory (RITL), an annual summer, month-long event for international theatre collaboration and development, which allowed professional participants to work with and train students and each other in distinct approaches from around the world. The name was changed in preparation for the 2009 session. The program operated under the previous name during the summers of 2005 to 2008.
Rachel Rosenthal was an interdisciplinary and performance artist, teacher, actress, and animal rights activist based in Los Angeles.
The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, California, United States, is a community-based, non-profit organization established in 1965 as the operations center of the Chinese Culture Foundation.
The Substation is Singapore's first independent contemporary arts centre. It was founded in 1990 by Kuo Pao Kun. The Substation is centrally located in the city's civic district and was the first building under the National Arts Council's "Arts Housing Scheme". It officially opened on 16 September 1990. The Substation is a non-profit organisation and registered Institution of Public Character in Singapore, which relies on financial and in-kind support from the general public, commercial organisations and government ministries to cover the costs of operating and developing arts & educational programmes.
Southern Exposure (SoEx) is a not-for-profit arts organization and alternative art space founded in 1974 in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.
The Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) is a nonprofit organization that works to connect independent producers and underrepresented communities to emerging media technologies. It was founded in 1976 in San Francisco.
Lina Stergiou is an Architect, Cultural Researcher Writer and Curator, Associate Professor, exploring in multiple formats spatial politics and the avant-garde, actively practiced and presented in conferences and symposia, and as essays and chapters to books, receiving the Princeton University Stanley J. Seeger Research Fellowship, 13 research grants and 2 research prizes, 7 teaching prizes and 11 design prizes.
Matadero Madrid is a former slaughterhouse in the Arganzuela district of Madrid, which has been converted to an arts centre. Matadero Madrid is a lively, constantly changing space at the service of creative processes, participatory artistic training and dialogue between the arts. It was set up to help reflect on the contemporary sociocultural environment and support processes to build the culture of today and tomorrow. A lab for experimentation and promoting new cross-disciplinary formulae. This complex also served as the inspiration for the 1999 film, Chicken Run.
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is a nonprofit research organization and public forum for art, culture, and politics.
New WORLD Theater was a nationally recognized company in-residence in the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Founded in 1979 by Roberta Uno, New WORLD Theater was dedicated to producing, presenting, and supporting works by artists of color. In addition to this artistic focus, New WORLD Theater's programming involved community engagement, scholarship, and education outreach. The program ended in 2009.
Seagull Books is a publishing venture begun in Kolkata in 1982 by Naveen Kishore, a theater practitioner. It began primarily as a response to the growing need for an Indian publishing house for theater and the other arts and since then it has expanded its operations to include translations of world literature as well as twentieth- and twenty-first-century critical theory and non-fiction. At present, the company has registered divisions in London and New York City alongside its initial establishment in Kolkata.
Nancy Buchanan is a Los Angeles-based artist best known for her work in installation, performance, and video art. She played a central role in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Her work has been exhibited widely and is collected by major museums including the Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou.
Marty Pottenger is an award-winning American playwright, performance artist and theatre director. Pottenger is a pioneer in the community arts and arts-based civic dialogue movement. Joan Shigekawa, former Acting Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts, named Pottenger as one of her favorite artists "...for her deep engagement with the lives of working people."
The Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) is a Los Angeles-based performance group closely tied to the city's Skid Row neighborhood. Founded in 1985 by director and activist John Malpede, LAPD members are mostly homeless or formerly homeless people who collaborate with advocates, social service professionals and community members to create performances and multimedia art that highlight connections between their lived experiences and external forces that impact their lives.
Risë Wilson is a community organizer, activist, strategic planner, curriculum developer, non-profit consultant, and the current director of philanthropy at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, who lives and works in New York City. Founder of the Laundromat Project, she has been named one of the "worlds best emerging social entrepreneurs" in 2004. In 2015, she moderated the Creative Time Summit round table, entitled "My Brooklyn."
Krétakör is a centre for contemporary arts and a production company, which creates creative community games by using experiences of social sciences. The organisation primarily produces works of performing and media arts and runs education programs. Its artistic director is Árpád Schilling; its general manager is Linda Potyondi.