EmergeNYC is a Latinx-led incubator and affinity network for socially engaged artists to develop their creative voice, explore the intersections of art and activism, and connect to a thriving community of BIPOC, migrant, and LGBTQIA+ practitioners who challenge dominant narratives through cultural resistance. EmergeNYC fosters a brave space for experimentation, risk-taking, and mutual accountability. Through in-person and virtual annual programs, Emerge has activated a strong network of artivists—in NYC and beyond—who have built solidarity across differences and engaged in artistic world-making since 2008.
EmergeNYC 2024: Flagship Program (in person at BAX)
When: Every Sunday (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM Eastern Time) from Sunday, March 17 to Sunday, June 16th
Where: Brooklyn Arts Exchange (421 5th Ave, Brooklyn)
Tech: Friday, June 21, 2024
Culminating Works in Progress Showcase: Saturday, June 22, 2024
Led by: george emilio sánchez
Info Session via Zoom: November 28, 2023 (Register here)
Application Deadline: January 27, 2024.
This is the flagship program that has been the heart and soul of Emerge since 2008. Designed and led by george emilio sánchez, this program is open to artists in the New York City area, and is comprised of weekly workshops facilitated by george, as well as workshops by guest artists who are leaders in the field of performance and politics. With a decolonial lens, we explore the intersection of art and activism through creative writing, autobiographical narratives, group work, and other multi-disciplinary adventures—all while creating and re-creating a space in which all participants build community with one another, actively listen with their bodies, and build intentional trust to lay a foundation where compassion and risk-taking guide our work together. We ask applicants to define issues that are important to them and explore how creative practices can harness their political voice. Through the years, participants have explored themes of racism and racial violence; police brutality and mass incarceration; radical joy as resistance; disability rights; undocumented immigrant activism; war and human rights; environmental justice; and myriad topics that affect their lives. These engagements have resulted in the creation of performance art pieces, multimedia installations, theatrical explorations, street performances, video art, and more.
This in-person program, which includes a final production at BAX, has a fee of USD $1,000.
Financial aid will be available to cover part of the tuition on a need basis. If your enrollment depends on financial aid, please let us know in your application. We will work it out. NOBODY WILL BE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS. Please note, if you are able to pay full tuition or more, you will make it possible for those who cannot afford full tuition to attend, which will strengthen your cohort.
EmergeNYC 2024: Virtual Program, Analog Bodies and Virtual Activations
When: Every Sunday from March 10 to June 9 (11:00 AM–3:00 PM Eastern Time) *
Where: Online via Zoom
Culminating Virtual Works in Progress: Saturday, June 15th, 2024
Led by: Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful & Marlène Ramírez-Cancio
Info Session via Zoom: November 28, 2023 (Register here)
Application Deadline: January 27, 2024.
Through a series of weekly sessions at the very core of performance art, activisms, and care and love for one another, participants in Emerge’s Analog Bodies and Virtual Activations are encouraged to investigate genders, sexualities, class, race, politics, and spiritualities from the interstitial space between the analog and the digital. How do we as artists, instigators, dissenters, mediators, or meditators, wrestle with the back and forth between our flesh-and-bone bodies and the virtual spaces that allow us to bilocate, multiply, clone, and project our presences around the globe at any time and at all times at once? This program will pay equal attention to how these two seemingly opposing forms of engagement can mix and mingle, remain aloof or dissolve into each other. Some of the formats we will use include performance, writing, dance/movement, deep listening, visualization, somatic practices, and conversations, plus visits by and presentations of the work of mainly BIPOC and gender non-conforming practitioners from the Americas and the Caribbean. With all of this in mind/heart, participants are invited to reflect upon themselves, their audiences, and the shifts that their analog movements in virtual realms have the power to ignite—way out there in the cosmos, and right here in our changing, aging, living, dying, breathing, pulsing bodies.
* Some of the workshops will include guest leaders that will be announced closer to the date; on those mid-program Sundays workshops will end at 5pm (with breaks!). To find how Eastern Time maps to your time zone, please use this Time Zone Converter. Final works-in-progress will be presented online at the end of the program on Saturday, June 15th (exact time TBC with the group, taking into consideration participants’ time zones.)
This virtual program has a fee of USD $600.
Financial aid will be available to cover part of the tuition on a need basis. If your enrollment depends on financial aid, please apply and let us know your needs in your application. We will work it out. NOBODY WILL BE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS. Please note, if you are able to pay full tuition or more, you will make it possible for those who cannot afford full tuition to attend, which will strengthen your cohort.
Who Is Eligible?
—The in-person flagship EMERGENYC program is open to emerging artists/activists who live in the NYC area.
— The virtual program is open to emerging artists/activists outside the NYC area and who cannot attend in person.
—All applicants must have prior experience in various performance genres and/or activist practices. Age is not a determining factor (past participants have ranged from 18 to about 45, all bringing their best selves to the experience); what we define as ’emerging’ is fluid, and has more to do with how you self-define than anything else. We very much encourage BIPOC, migrant, LGBTQIA+, and disabled artists to apply.
How to Apply
Submit your application via Submittable by January 27, 2024.
You will be asked to submit:
—A biographical statement This is your chance to let us know who you are, where you’re from, your performance background, and your current obsessions/projects. Please do not submit this in the third person or submit a formal bio—we want to hear your story in your voice, in the first person. Talk to us.
—A statement of purpose This statement describes the reasons you want to participate in EmergeNYC. Please outline the specific issues you would want to address through the program and any preliminary ideas about the communities or practices that would ground this work. “Why this? Why now?”
—Your resume or CV
—Two (2) work samples (See Application Form for details)
—Contact information for the two (2) people writing you letters of recommendation. Please select two recommenders as soon as possible, giving them ample time to write and submit your letters by the deadline. If this is an issue for you, contact us by using the form below.
—OPTIONAL: A paragraph explaining your request for financial aid to cover the tuition. Be as detailed as possible to help us understand the circumstances of your needs. Please note, if you are able to pay full tuition or more, you will make it possible for those who cannot afford full tuition to attend, which will strengthen your cohort.
Finalists will be interviewed via Zoom in mid-February selected by the end of February; the first registration payment will be due the first week of March. For any questions about the application form or how to apply, please send us an inquiry by emailing artistprograms@bax.org.
