Sharing 2023 reflections, highlights and accomplishments.
2022 Reflections
The Green Amendment; One year Anniversary
One year ago, New York became the third state in the nation to adopt a green amendment into its constitution, joining Pennsylvania and Montana. To celebrate this one year anniversary, Lynn Neuman sat down with Maya Van Rossum, an attorney who was instrumental in crafting the amendment and bringing it to voters, and Jenny Veloz, an environmental justice community organizer, to discuss the potential and impacts of the amendment for New Yorkers.
Reflections on Summer 2022
Climate Change is huge...Where do I start?
2021 Reflections and Expansions
This year brought new meaning to connecting and reconnecting. Once gathering restrictions were lifted in April, hit city parks, plazas, streets and lots, thrilled to be engaging in person with performances and educational activism. We’ve had an expansive year and there’s more new and innovative programming on the way. Please consider including Artichoke Dance Company in your year-end contributions. We’re grateful for all support of our timely and important work.
2020 Reflections and Transformations
The world looks and feels a lot different than one year ago. We started 2020 with a series of performances in NYC and then began working on a new dance that was to premiere on Earth Day. Then a whole lot changed. A priority since March has been to keep artists employed and engaged in creatively connecting and responding. During the pandemic, we’ve offered several series of virtual and in person events. Now we need your help to keep innovating. Please support our ground breaking and timely work.
What responses from arts organizations to Covid19 and Black Lives Matter can tell us about resiliency.
There has been an array of responses to the coronavirus pandemic and Movement for Black Lives from arts organizations across the country. These range from sitting tight, to closing the hatches, to diving into online programming, to pivoting in new directions. What organizations will or will not emerge from the pandemic, some perhaps even stronger, and why?
How an internet creation revealed inequity
It's been a long time coming...
The Corona Virus Pause: effects, changes, and the future
Artichoke meets Urban Planning…continuing an Environmental Justice Journey
I’ve recently had a heart to heart with myself over where I’m putting my time and why. I want to make a difference in the world, and at the core I hope we all do. Over the last several years, I’ve been doing a lot of creative envisioning of what a supportive, interconnected, sustainable world looks like through performance and participatory projects. With the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice, this visioning of the future, I hope, is becoming a reality through collective effort and action.
2019 - an amazing year at Artichoke Dance
2019 was an amazing year for Artichoke Dance. We reached over 5000 people with our performances, workshops and engagements, made our west coast debut, and saw significant pay off in or plastic bag efforts with the passing of legislation in New York State. Dance activism works! We couldn’t have done it with out you. Find out how our work is making a difference, take a sneak peak at 2020, and please support us with a year-end contribution.
An Aha Moment in Arts and Climate Change Activism
Real and lasting change is required to create the cultural shift necessary to overcome the climate crisis. I believe it takes reencountering engaging experiences from many perspectives, and this is where the arts play a key role. Here I talk about an encounter with Carry the Earth that reinforces this in my own life.
Who’s Responsible and Who’s Left Behind? Questions for Climate Week...
I live 4 blocks from the Gowanus Canal, New York City’s first designated superfund site and one of the most polluted waterways in the United States. It’s also slated for the largest rezoning in New York City in 20 years. Yet it remains a toxic area. Gowanus can serve as a microcosm of larger development issues and begs some important questions.
At what point are we drowning …
When brownstones were built, one’s wealth and status were determined by how many steps there were up to the living quarters. At that time, there was no trash removal, animals roamed the streets and the city sewer system was just beginning to be built. The streets were strewn with garbage, food scraps, chamber pot waste and animal excrement. The elevation lifted you out of that environment…if you could afford it.
Art(ichoke) and Policy Working Side by Side – a journey with plastic bags and how I got political
New Norms - Let's Get Moving
Reflecting on 2018 - Looking to 2019
2018 was a year of shocking climate events. Our work merging creative envisioning through artistic practices, action oriented movements, and reflective thinking is more timely than ever. This critical work helps us to not only make sense of the world, but to make a difference in our communities and in society. Here are some reflections and ways we are working in 2019 toward making the world a more sustainable place.
Imaging the future - the artists role
The arts and artists provide creative options to problems that often times have otherwise prescriptive solutions, which might not make the most sense in the future. I call this a failure of imagination, and while none of us can predict the future with absolute certainty, we can, and need to, think forward and holistically. Here I talk about this in relation to developments of Future Currents: The LA River, a project in development.