Photo: Star Mitchell, EmergeNYC 2023 final performance at Abrons.
Table of Contents
2027 Spring Flagship Program (in person at BAX Annex)
Where: BAX Annex (80 Hanson Place, Brooklyn)
Tech: Thursday, June 17, 2027
Culminating Works in Progress Showcase: Friday, June 18, 2027 at the BAX Theater (421 5th Avenue, Park Slope)
Led by: george emilio sánchez
Info Session via Zoom: Thursday, January 28, 2027 from 5:30-6:30pm EST.
The application for the EmergeNYC 2027 Flagship Cycle will open in early January 2027. Check back then for more details!
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.
* Some of the Sunday sessions will include guest workshops that will be announced closer to the date. On those mid-program Sundays, regular sessions with george emilio sánchez will run from 10-1pm. There will be a break from 1-2pm, then the guest workshops will be from 2-5pm. Again, guest artists and workshop dates will be announced closer to the dates.
This in-person program, which includes a final production at the BAX building (421 5th Avenue, Park Slope), has a tuition 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.
Application Schedule, Eligibility, Tuition Tiers & How to Apply
Spring 2027 Flagship Application Schedule
—Early January 2027: Application opens
— Thursday, January 28, 2027: Flagship Program Info Session (on Zoom) from 5:30-6:30pm EST
— Thursday, February 11th at 11:59pm EST: Application Deadline!
— Early February 2027: Application Review Period
— Early February 2027: Interview invitations sent
— Mid-February 2027: Interview Period
— Mid-February 2027: Acceptance notifications sent
— Flagship (in-person) program begins Sunday, March 14th, 2027
Who Is Eligible?
— The in-person flagship EMERGENYC program is open to emerging artists/activists who live in the NYC area.
— 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.
Tuition Tiers
You do NOT need to pay tuition in full upfront. We offer a payment installment plan, with 25% of tuition paid as a deposit at time of registration, and 3 following monthly payments (exact dates TBC).
Flagship (In-person):
AT COST (Actual Cost of Tuition): $1000
Consider paying this amount if doing so would be an investment, but not create hardship. You might choose this rate if you are able to regularly meet your basic needs and have some expendable income, can travel every couple of years without burden, and have some debt but are able to pay it regularly. This is the true cost of a session.
FINANCIAL AID (Discounted Rate): $200-800
Consider paying this amount if you have limited expendable income, have little or no access to financial support from family, have significant debt, and little or no access to savings. This is a discounted rate.
SUSTAINER (Subsidizing Tuition for Other Applicants): $1100-1500
Please consider paying this amount if you are comfortably able to meet your basic needs, have paid or pay for private education, travel recreationally, have access to financial savings and/or investments, have reliable work or do not have to work to meet your needs, have inherited wealth, and/or have increased earning privilege due to your race, gender, or education. This rate allows us to accept applicants who need a lower rate.
How to Apply
More information about the application process and deadlines will be available soon. Check back for more!
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)
— 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.
Virtual Program: Analog Bodies and Virtual Activations
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, healing, 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 Saturdays 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, December 13th (exact time TBC with the group, taking into consideration participants’ time zones.)
This virtual program has a tuition 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.
