ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

 

Re-Connect Online Performance Festival is a collective performance art project that uses digital media technologies to reconnect artists and audiences during the social distancing era and beyond that. The festival closes that distance by providing an inclusive digital platform for artists to engage global audiences with new, challenging performance art.

 

Launched in March of 2020 in response to the global pandemic, our festival events bring artists from around the world together as an act of solidarity. The first edition of the festival took place between March 25-April 17, 2020. Featuring 45 live performances and 20 lecture or panel discussions selected from 122 applications, we introduced audiences to artists across 5 continents. Viewers enjoyed multilingual events broadcast live from Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Nigeria, Japan, India, Germany, Romania, the USA, and other countries.

 

The second iteration of the festival took place from March 25th-April 12th, 2021 in partnership with the University of Maryland. We had various online events with the help of more than 200 artists from different countries and different backgrounds and 15 talks and panel discussions featuring the award-winning cast and crew of the VR film, Finding Pandora X, as well as Culture Hub’s LiveLab, Mozilla Hubs, and Playtronica Studios. 

 

The festival has established an artist exchange network that supports initiatives like our virtual artist residency and arts management student internship programs. Partnered with the University of Maryland, as well as arts organizations in Iran, Argentina, Switzerland, and France, Re-Connect localizes the global through its meaningful digital collaborations.

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WHO WE RE-CONNECT

 

The festival helps underserved, socially distant, and geopolitically isolated communities to engage with contemporary performance art. Free and open to most on accessible platforms, the festival features a diverse representation of artists and audiences. We showcase artwork and intellectual discussions that focus on how VR and other digital technologies can help us creatively reimagine accessible artistic spaces and communities.

 

Our project connects global artists and audiences in multilingual digital spaces. To help bridge information and artistic gaps in a global art world, we introduce diverse online audiences to art from countries that may be geographically restricted and isolated from the international art community. By highlighting and serving artist communities where live public performances are restricted, we aim to spark conversations and deconstruct stereotypes. Our festival helps break down geographic, censorship, and communication barriers. 

 

 We invite you to interact with us on social media so that we can continue to (re-)connect global artists and audiences.

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OUR PARTNERSHIPS

 

Re-Connect Online Performance Festival started as a joint project co-founded by the Ctrl+Z Theater Group and NH Theatre Agency. The international curating board included Nima Dehghani, Sepehr Sharifzadeh, Meera Krishna & Lakshmi Venkataraman from Prakriti Foundation (India), Liu Xiaoyi of Emergency Stairs (Singapore), and Erica McCalman of Art Oracle (Australia).

 

For the second iteration of the festival, we established a multinational artist exchange network that supports artist residency programs and mini-grants. To facilitate these initiatives, we have partnered with Work it Out in Switzerland, Espace Croisé and La Ligne Ouverte in France, and Platforma LODO in Argentina. 

 

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Currently, we are designing the future projects for 2023-24 season including workshops, residencies, and the festival in a new format. We are always interested in partnership and collaboration with like-minded individuals and organizations. 

We hope that all together, we can join forces to support the interests of the arts and technology through human connections.

 

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Related Links:
1. Salzburg Global Seminar

2. Kulturama Digital

3. Artsmanagement

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Re-Connect is unaffiliated with any political party or institution. We are an independent, artist-run organization that’s completely managed and funded by artists. All of our staff are volunteers, interns, and students.