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Ignite Arts Dallas MPrint

Ignite/Arts Dallas is All Fired Up

The Mitotiliztli Yaoyollohtli Aztec Dancers joined six other community dance and music groups to perform in the 2017 inaugural Public Works Dallas production of The Tempest, a collaboration of Dallas Theater Center, SMU Meadows, ATTPAC and Ignite/Arts Dallas.

With Ignite/Arts Dallas, the word “non-traditional” comes up a lot. Launched in 2015, this innovative program at SMU Meadows covers a wide amount of territory.   

by Lauren Smart

The official mission of Ignite/Arts Dallas: A Center for People, Purpose + Place is to challenge the imagination of students and citizens to foster more just and vibrant communities through art and cultural experiences. If it sounds open-ended, that’s intentional.

“We’re an interdisciplinary initiative,” says Clyde Valentín, the program’s director. “We work with students and faculty in all the various units of Meadows – visual arts, performing arts and communication arts – emphasizing collaborations and focusing on community engagement. Every one of our projects involves partnerships with outside groups, some local, some national. We want to develop meaningful cultural programs that benefit Dallas and connect to other creative communities.”

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Ignite Arts Dallas Meadows Prize Photos We Love

15 Can’t Miss Photos from Public Works Dallas’ The Tempest

tempest shakespeare smu
Photographer Kim Leeson captured the groundbreaking, participatory theater project

Dallas Theater Center and SMU Meadows / Ignite Arts Dallas, in association with the AT&T Performing Arts Center, presented a musical theatre production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, a community participation project conceived by Lear deBessonet and directed by Kevin Moriarty, with book, music and lyrics by Todd Almond.

Photographer Kim Leeson was on set to capture the moving moments. These are our favorite shots.

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Ignite Arts Dallas

Watch: The Mission of Public Works Dallas

Dallas Theater Center (DTC) and Ignite/Arts Dallas at Southern Methodist University Meadows School of the Arts, in collaboration with AT&T Performing Arts Center and in affiliation with New York City-based The Public Theater’s Public Works, announced complete details for the inaugural production of Public Works Dallas’ The Tempest, a groundbreaking community engagement and participatory theater project designed to deliberately blur the line between professional artists and Dallas community members.

Directed by DTC Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty, The Tempest will run for four performances from Friday, March 3 to Sunday, March 5 at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets to The Tempest are FREE to the public and are available by phone at (214) 880-0202. Tickets will also be distributed at several community locations noted below, and will be available online Feb. 24.

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Ignite Arts Dallas

DJ Spooky to Remix the 1915 Film Birth of a Nation, Presented by SMU Meadows’ Ignite Arts

Flickr User Richard Pyrker
Flickr User Richard Pyrker

“Trip-hop” musician DJ Spooky used his 21st-century DJ techniques to remix the classic 1915 film Birth of a Nation, upending every aspect of the controversial and racist film. The result is a new cinematic statement that propels the audience into a modern sociopolitical landscape that has evolved beyond all expectations. SMU Meadows’ SYZYGY new music ensemble performs the live original score, playing a blend of blues, jazz and gospel.

Wednesday, October 19, 7 p.m.

Dallas VideoFest

Texas Theatre

231 W. Jefferson Blvd.

Dallas, TX 75208

Presented by Video Association of Dallas, Ignite Arts Dallas SMU Meadows School of the Arts and Make Art with Purpose (MAP).

BUY TICKETS

[youtube width=”853″ height=”480″]https://youtu.be/3ljIq0lz0qY[/youtube]

 

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Art Ignite Arts Dallas

Introducing Meadows Prize Winner New Cities, Future Ruins’ New Site and Convening

Meadows Prize Winner New Cities, Future Ruins, a curatorial initiative inviting artists, designers and thinkers to reimagine the extreme urbanism of America’s Western Sun Belt, has just launched an expanded website. It features the first details of November’s events in Dallas, including a list of early confirmed participants and links to register.

The convening will run November 11-14, 2016. This hybrid conference and festival will be open to the public, feature artists’ projects, bus tours, and events throughout the city, as well as talks, roundtable discussions, screenings, and workshops. Confirmed participants include Noura Al-Sayeh, Roberto Bedoya, Mary Ellen Carroll, Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, Naima J. Keith, OtherOthers, Postcommodity, Andrew Ross, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer and Imre Szeman, with a larger list and full schedule to be announced later this summer.

You can find out more about each participant, a formative schedule for the convening, and a curatorial statement on the expanded site.

Register for the Convening | Meet the Partners | 

More About New Cities, Future Ruins

New Cities, Future Ruins will engage the cities of the Western Sun Belt as arenas for pioneering art and design. The region, stretching from Houston to Denver and from Phoenix to San Diego, is home to some of the fastest-growing cities in the country, symbols of opportunity and entrepreneurialism, historic cradles of free market capitalism. Their path, however, may be unsustainable: located in delicate ecosystems, the unprecedented growth of these cities is marked by sprawl and resource overuse, dramatic demographic shifts and struggles over immigration. Some of the most pressing questions of our moment – questions of whether current ways of life can or should persist environmentally, economically and socially – are in few places as clear or as compelling as in these Western Sun Belt cities. Suburban in texture, these new cities are twenty-first century spaces that resist creative traditions inherited from the industrial city. Bringing critical and innovative art and design practice from around the world to bear on this urban landscape, the initiative seeks to foster visionary thought and artistic experimentation at these urgent sites, places that both embody and illuminate global crises of rapid urbanization.

Follow NCFR and help spread the word: Instagram: @newcitiesfutureruins, Twitter: @newcitiesfuture, Facebook: New Cities Future Ruins