Mark your calendars! TEDxCalArts is official

Mark your calendars! We are pleased to announce that on March 9, 2013 the CalArts Center for New Performance will host TEDxCalArts. With the generous support of the MetLife/TCG A-ha! Do It Grant, this all-day event will gather together a diverse array of the world’s brightest minds to talk about the big ideas and innovations that are shaping our world.



Through a series of talks and performances, our conference will explore how new understandings of performance and liveness are radically changing the world we live in.

TEDxCalArts will be held at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), CalArts’ downtown center for innovative visual, performing and media arts.

Visit our website, http://tedxcalarts.org, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates and announcements about our line-up of speakers.

Who We Are

The Center for New Performance (CNP) is the professional producing arm of CalArts, established to provide a unique artist- and project-driven framework for the development and realization of innovative theater, music, dance and interdisciplinary projects. Extending the forward-looking work carried out at CalArts into a direct dialogue with professional communities at the local, national and international levels, CNP offers an alternative model for the support of emerging voices and directions in the performing arts.

About TEDx

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED- like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. This independent TEDx event is operated under license from TED.

Fourth Round Recipients Announced

MetLife Foundation and Theatre Communications Group (TCG) recently announced the fourth round of recipients for the MetLife/TCG A-ha! Program: Think It, Do It, which supports the creative thinking and action of TCG member theatres with the goal of impacting the larger theatre community. Five theatres were awarded grants, totaling $225,000, to either research and develop new ideas or experiment and implement innovative concepts.

This year’s recipients include two previous Think It recipients who are now putting their ideas and research into action with Do It grants.

The 2011 MetLife/TCG A-ha! Program recipients are:

THINK IT

Perseverance Theatre, Douglas, Alaska
Perseverance Theatre will explore the feasibility of using their new multi-city operations as a catalyst to build statewide programming for Alaskan theatre artists who would work and train with the company.

DO IT

CalArts Center for New Performance, Valencia, California
The Center for New Performance at CalArts will convene a TEDx conference in Los Angeles, bringing together creative minds from disciplines across the contemporary performance landscape to expand understanding of the live arts.

Curious Theatre Company, Denver, Colorado
Curious Theatre Company, capitalizing on the momentum of their 2010 MetLife/TCG A-ha! Think It grant addressing the desire to re-center artists within organizations, will create an innovative post-specialist staffing structure by developing and integrating artists with staff in a new organizational paradigm.Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin, Texas
Salvage Vanguard Theater will continue to cultivate the Scenic Co-op (shared 'set' resources cooperative) based on discoveries made during their 2010 MetLife/TCG A-ha! Think It grant project.

The Wooster Group, New York, New York
The Wooster Group will create an ongoing online talk show series in which artists across disciplines have discussions with other artists and the public, to foster a more thorough discourse of vital topics that include current trends in the arts; as well as more expansive cultural and political issues.

You can read more about the program and previous recipients here.