Watch THE NEXT STAGE Episode 2: Extending Our Reach: Performance in a Digital Age
Webinar/Q&A
THE NEXT STAGE Episode 2: Extending Our Reach — Performance in a Digital Age
Aired May 26, 2021
When the pandemic hit, the performing arts scrambled to move events online. One year later, what have we learned? How can artists, companies, and venues leverage technology to reach new audiences, offer new experiences, and nurture collaboration? How do we create work that that is engaging and transformative in the digital realm (and not just a facsimile of live performance)? Extending Our Reach convenes an expert panel ready to dig into these heady questions. Zoom in to learn what works, what doesn’t, and what comes next.
Speakers
Janet Cowperthwaite | Executive Director, Kronos Performing Arts Association, Manager, Kronos Quartet
Hired by the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet part-time in the fall of 1981, Janet Cowperthwaite recalls the group, founded in 1973 and based in San Francisco, as being stuffed into “one room with one phone and one hold button.” Now starting her 40th year as managing director of what has evolved into the Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association, Cowperthwaite has played a major role in the group’s growth and success. Overseeing a staff of 10, she supervises pretty much everything: booking, artistic planning, recording, production, fund raising—the entire operation. With Cowperthwaite facilitating the process, Kronos has widened the scope and impact of the string quartet and chamber music immeasurably, offering a model for other organizations.
Ty Defoe (Giizhig) | Writer, Actor, Interdisciplinary Artist, Artist Website
Ty Defoe (Giizhig), Oneida and Ojibwe Nations, is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and Grammy Award winner. Ty aspires to an interweaving approach to artistic projects with social justice, indigeneity, indiqueering, and environmentalism. Ty’s global cultural arts highlights: the Millennium celebration in Cairo, Egypt; Ankara, Turkey, International Music Festival; and Festival of World Cultures in Dubai. Awards: First American in the Arts, Global Indigenous Heritage Festival Award, a Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, Jonathan Larson Award. Works created and authored: River of Stone, Red Pine, The Way They Lived, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, Hear Me Say My Name, among others. Ty is co-founder of Indigenous Direction (with Larissa FastHorse), member of All My Relations Collective-- Devised Theater Working Group at the Public Theater building GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky at Under the Radar's Incoming!). Publications: Casting a Movement, Pitkin Review, Thorny Locust Magazine, HowlRound, and Routledge Press. Degrees from CalArts, Goddard College, + NYU Tisch. Movement Direction: Mother Road, Dir. Bill Rauch (OSF), Manahatta, Dir. Laurie Woolery (OSF + Yale Rep), and Choreographer for Tracy Lett’s The Minutes (Broadway). Appeared on the Netflix show; Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Broadway debut in Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, Dir. Anna Shapiro. Lives in NYC + loves the color clear. He|We, www.allmyrelations.earth, tydefoe.com
LIN Ting-Chun | Director, Programming & International Development Department, National Theatre & Concert Hall
LIN Ting-Chun is the Director of Programming and International Development at the National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH) in Taipei. She also spearheads NTCH’s 5G Smart Theater project as part of the venue’s digital transformation from hardware implementation to digital content production. LIN has curated and produced numerous large-scale programs and festivals, and worked with artists and organizations such as Sadlers Wells, Munich Kammerspiele, Christopher Rüping, Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, Deborah Colker, Milo Rau, Paavo Järvi, and among others. LIN holds an MFA in Theory and Composition from Brandeis University and an MA in Arts Administration from Columbia University. She enjoys working at the cross-section of the arts and culture, commerce and technology, and advocating for the integral role culture plays in society.
Seth Parker Woods | Cellist, Artist Website
Hailed by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace”, Seth Parker Woods has established himself as an in-demand soloist and chamber musician both stateside in the USA and throughout Europe and Asia. A fierce advocate for contemporary music and interdisciplinary arts, his collaborators have included: the Atlanta Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Basel Ballet, Berlin Staatsballet, Ictus Ensemble, Lucerne Festival, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Tate Modern, Vanessa Beecroft, and Adam Pendleton. Outgoing Artist in Residence with Seattle Symphony, Woods is a new AiR with the Kaufman Music Center and on the faculty at the University of Chicago.
Moderator
Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Musician & Composer, Artist Website
Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) musician dedicated to the arts of our time. A "leading composer-performer" (The New York Times), Lanzilotti is the recipient of a 2020 Native Launchpad Artist Award. Her “conceptually potent” compositions often deal with unique instrument-objects, such as The Noguchi Museum commissions involving sound sculptures. “Lanzilotti’s score brings us together across the world in remembrance, through the commitment of shared sonic gestures.” (Cities & Health) Lanzilotti’s current commissions include a new work for the [Switch~ Ensemble], the development and performance of which is supported by a project grant from the MAP Fund, and a new work for the GRAMMY-winning ensemble Roomful of Teeth supported in part by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Lanzilotti was recently appointed Director of Community Engagement for Hawaiʻi Contemporary.
About the Series
THE NEXT STAGE: Essential Issues in Performing Arts Creation, Presentation, and Engagement is a webinar series produced by Western Arts Alliance in partnership with the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles and the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. THE NEXT STAGE will gather innovative artists and arts leaders in the United States, Taiwan, and beyond to explore the most significant challenges and opportunities of this global crisis. The series will spotlight diverse voices, new ideas, and groundbreaking innovations to help the performing arts navigate the pandemic and thrive.
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