This season we at Pivot Arts are asking the question, how can a pandemic be a portal to another world, a better world? Author, Arundathi Roy, writes: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Re-imagining Utopia will take place as a “performance tour” created and presented by Pivot Arts in May + June 2021 as the 9th annual Pivot Arts Festival. Artists may apply to be a part of this site-specific performance that will happen in both live and virtual spaces. We are assuming that in late spring the pandemic will still be with us but that it will be safe for small groups to witness live performances outside, with masks on in site-specific spaces, at a distance etc. Audiences will move from space to space as they would on a tour and will also view video and listen to audio on an app.
We are asking artists to respond to the theme “Re-Imagining Utopia.” How has your idea of utopia changed due to the course of events of 2020? What do you envision could be on the other side? What kind of future do you want for yourself? For our society? We will commission and collaborate with artists to create short works that we will present as part of this performance tour. Artists can choose to do a live event but should keep in mind that a vaccine will likely not be widely distributed by May– what kind of work could you present safely? You could also submit an idea for an audio or video work that could be experienced on the tour.
Interested? Apply! Professional artists over the age of 21+ only please…
Click here for application link.
Above the Rude Mechs (Austin, TX) performing in the 2018 Pivot Arts Festival. Photo by William Frederking.