Announcing New York 2023 ISPA Congress Pitch New Works Projects

Tuesday, November 8, 2022 (0 Comments)
Posted by: Kally Zhao

New York, NY, USA (November 10, 2022) – The International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) is delighted to announce the ten selected Pitch New Works projects that will be presented at the New York 2023 ISPA Congress, Urgency of Now.

These ten projects represent a broad spectrum of genres and disciplines and are an exciting reflection of the new works in development across the globe. ISPA will be welcoming back Anthony Sargent CBE, Interim Director, Koffler Center for the Arts to host the session. The projects include:

Bark of Millions: A Parade Trance Extravaganza for the Living Library of the Deviant Theme, Pomegranate Arts | United States
COMMON GROUND, Upswing, Ltd | United Kingdom
JUDGE ME, BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen Center of Electronic Art | Norway
LEMNISKATA, MOVES México | Mexico
Stream of Memory, Esplanade Theatres on the Bay | Indonesia
The Book of Life, Volcano, Canada, in association with the Woman Cultural Centre, Rwanda | Rwanda
The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist, Commissioned and produced by Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Art; Co-commissioned by Stanford Live | United States
The Waste Land, Amsterdam Sinfonietta and ISH Dance Collective | The Netherlands
WAVES (working title), Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan | Taiwan
Wired, Kinetic Light | United States

Project 1, Bark of Millions. Image Description: Sixteen black and white photo portraits of the Bark of Million creative team are stitched together in two rows of eight photos. The words “Bark of Millions” are superimposed on the photos of the faces in bold yellow print. The people are smiling in different ways and are of a wide range of ages, races, and ethnicities.
Project 2, COMMON GROUND. Image Description: Two circus artists, a Black man with short black hair and a woman of East-Asian descent with bleached medium-long hair, are pictured hanging by their legs from a vertical metal pole in a well-lit studio theater with a black lighting grid on the ceiling. The man’s is upside-down and the woman is underneath him, right-side up and holding his head with one arm.
Project 3, JUDGE ME. Image Description: A lawyer, a young woman of east-Asian-descent dressed in a business suit, and a judge, a young light-skinned woman with pulled-back hair dressed in black, appear in a court room with wood paneling and red carpet. The lawyer is mid-speech, as if addressing the jury, and the judge is looking seriously at the lawyer. The words JUDGE ME appear in bold red print at the bottom of the photo.
Project 4, LEMNISKATA. Image Description: Fourteen nude men walk in a semi-circular formation on a stage that is lit with bright blue light. The men are looking or reaching up toward a transparent platform with black lines and white circles of light imprinted across it that is suspended directly above them. Streaks of green light shine downward from above the platform.
Project 5, Stream of Memory. Image Description: A larger-than life-sized human puppet with beige skin, short beige hair, and sunken, aged features is wading forward, through a river with a rocky shore, flanked by green and brown hills and a blue, clouded sky. The puppet is dressed in off-white mesh and guided by puppeteers in black pants. Small houses on tall stilts stand in the river at the height of the puppet’s waist.
Project 6, The Book of Life. Image Description: Four young Black women with long rainbow-colored braids in ponytails ang light-blue dresses with intricate black patterns are pictured dancing and smiling in front of a brown backdrop. They have just flipped their ponytails into the air, so that they fly above their heads.
Project 7, The Ritual of Life is the Rite to Resist. Image Description: A young Black woman in an orange jumpsuit and a red cardigan lies on a table with a black video camera standing so that it points at her face. Close-up footage of her face is projected on the backdrop, which is a white wall with a closed door. Her mouth is open as if she is singing, and there is a fearful look in her eyes.
Project 8, The Waste Land. Image Description: A dancer appears mid-jump. The dancer is a young, light-skinned woman with tightly pulled back brown hair. She is facing the camera and is suspended in the air with her legs underneath her and her arms raised to shoulder-height. She is wearing a white tank top and voluminous white pants with white socks and a brown belt. Her brow is knitted in and she looks intensely into the camera. The background is dark and a musician, an older man dressed in black, is barely visible.
Project 9, WAVES. Image Description: A dancer appears mid-jump with one leg beneath and one kicked up behind, arms lifted, and face turned away. They are light-skinned in a loose t-shirt and pants with brightly, swirling colors and bright orange socks. Their medium-long hair is black and purple with green and blue flecks, and it flies up in the air. The background is bright white.
Project 10, Wired. Image Description: Three dancers face each other onstage. Jerron Herman, a Black man with blonde hair, stands facing the others, his body tense with energy. His tight pants and leather top shimmer. His fist flies overhead as silver barbed wire cascades from head to feet. Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson are stacked and lean in toward Jerron with concentrated expressions. Alice, a multiracial Black woman with coffee-colored skin and short curly hair, hovers in the air. Laurel, a white dancer with cropped hair, balances beneath her; she grips Alice’s wheels while tilting on one wheel. Photo Robbie Sweeny/Kinetic Light.

The Pitch New Works projects were selected from a pool of 92 applications by ISPA’s Pitch New Works Committee. The committee was chaired by Hanako Yamaguchi, Independent Arts Consultant and former Director of Music Programming at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Also serving on the committee were Igor Lozada Rivera Melo, Director at Universidad de Guadalajara, Cultura UDG; Jochem Valkenburg, Programming Director of Music and Dance at the Holland Festival; Meiyin Wang, Producing Director at the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center; and Fiona Winning, Head of Programming at the Sydney Opera House.

Delegates of the upcoming New York 2023 ISPA Congress can catch these 10 remarkable projects at the Pitch New Works session, Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. Immediately following the session, delegates will have an opportunity to meet the presenters at ISPA’s ProEx (Professional Exchange).

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About ISPA: The International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) is a global association of 500 arts leaders from 60 regions, who come together with the shared goal of strengthening and developing the arts internationally. ISPA achieves this by building leadership ability, by recognizing and discussing field-wide trends and new developments, and by deepening global exchange through the arts. ISPA members include presenters, performing arts organizations, artist managers, competitions, funders, consultants and other professionals working in the performing arts. Founded in 1948 by Patrick Hayes, 2024 will mark ISPA’s 75th anniversary.

About Pitch New Works: ISPA's Pitch New Works Program provides a forum for creators and arts professionals to share and discover new performing arts projects. Twice a year, ten submissions are selected to be presented to hundreds of performing arts professionals at ISPA's Congresses. View roster of past Pitch New Works projects. Read Pitch New Works success stories.

Photos: http://bit.ly/ispacongresses

Media Contact: Kally Zhao (kzhao@ispa.org; 1 212 206 8490 x205)

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Announcing New York 2023 ISPA Congress Pitch New Works Projects