NEXT! Mentorship 2024/26 & Next Pioneers! Education

NEXT! Mentorship - artists 2024/26 by Pioneers Go East Collective

Nine radical queer emerging artists in dance and movement-based practices, performance art, storytelling, and video art were selected for the NEXT! Mentorship program 2024/26.

Each artist receives $1,500-2,500 in compensation for presenting their artistic work in our twice-annual CROSSROADS series or the yearly Out-FRONT! Festival. 

The NEXT! Mentorship offers artists one-on-one support and opportunities, including guidance in production, creative design, grant writing, and project budgeting. The program nurtures the development of artists through exchange, monthly meetings, discussions, workshops, and presentations for a period of 18+ months.

Dominique Castelano
Dominica Greene
Ian Askew
Suzzanne Ponomarenko
Cinthia Chen
Star Mitchell
Johnnie Mercer
Miranda Brown & Noa Rui-Piin Weiss

Pioneers Go East Collective’s NEXT! Mentorship is made possible in part thanks to funding from the Jerome Foundation.

NEXT PIONEERS!

Pioneers Go East Collective provides Educational and Engagement programs to promote understanding through the arts! NEXT PIONEERS! includes:

1.

NEXT! Mentorship is a Mentorship Development program in creative and critical thinking and producing opportunities to empower artists by supporting them during the crucial development process! 

NEXT! Mentorship is a mentorship development program in creative thinking and producing support serving emerging artists - and open to performance artists, movement-based artists, storytellers and video-artists. Each year NEXT PIONEERS program offers artists professional opportunities based on artist’s needs - in production support, grant writing, and know-how in financial & project budgeting, plus presenting opportunities at a pivotal time in their lives to enable and energize their creative voices and social practices. During the program artists are invited to Monthly career development with one-on-one mentoring; inclusion in the educational workshops offered 10 times a year; and inclusion in the collective’s curated series CROSSROADS SERIES, and OUT-FRONT! Fest. 

2.

NEXT! Workshop and NEXT! Youth

NEXT! Storytelling & Movement-based Workshop Program is a creative and engagement program that draws from the participants’ life experience to empower them. Designed for multigenerational people - the creative workshop focuses on performance and storytelling techniques including creative writing and interview-based acting. The goal is to create a nurturing learning environment and build stronger bonds within the participants’ community. The two-days workshop (three-hours/each session) intends to give participants essential tools to begin to connect with their story, to create original short pieces shared with others, and to reflect and cherish on the value of personal journeys. To inquire about our programs email: pioneersgoeast@gmail.com with the subject: 'NEXT! Workshops - Inquiry' and we'll be happy to invite you to participate. NEXT! Workshop series is a storytelling & movement-based FREE creative and engagement program presented at Judson Church in West Village, 14/Y and Lower East Side Girls Club in East Village, and online.

FREE, open to the general public to participants of ALL ages - these programs are intended to create intergenerational dialogues on social issues, and to nurture the next generation of underserved artists and their communities. 

DANCE IN THE ROUND created and developed by Parijat Desai

Dance In The Round (DITR) is dancing together in a circle. This is an age-old, nearly universal human activity—to express solidarity, to worship, or just to have fun. DITR is a program based on circle dances from Gujarat, India, called Garba and Raas. Our aim is to make these wonderful traditions more widely available, and more importantly to harness the power of the circle-dance experience to support health, well-being, inclusion, and community building among people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.

Teaching Artists

India-born teaching artist and choreographer Parijat Desai teaches contemporary dance and contemporary bharata natyam, and leads Dance In The Round, workshops for all ages based on Garba and Raas, circle dances from Gujarat, India. She has taught at various colleges and school and at studios including Mark Morris Dance Center and Peridance. She has also taught actors through Theater Mitu New York Artist Intensive and Cornerstone Theater (LA). in September 2018, Parijat will teach an intensive through Stanford University in New York.

Queer writer, art-maker, and teaching artist Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte developed the collective's creative and educational practice with students at Public School 78 in Queens, and The Children Institute (NJ). The educational workshop focus on discovering the students heritage using oral storytelling and new technology. Additional educational programs taught at Pace University; and workshops presented at Stanford University in collaboration with artist, choreographer and educator Parijat Desai.

Argentinean-born and raised artist Anabella Lenzu's commitment to teaching dance and choreography is strong, as is evidenced by 25+ years of experience working in diverse communities in New York City. Lenzu's background affords her a unique perspective in teaching in a multicultural and multiracial environment. Her areas of artistic specialization are Dance Theater, Modern Dance, Argentinean Tango, Choreography/Composition. Teaching is a passion for Anabella. She is a dedicated educator and truly enjoy guiding her students to make discoveries and find their own voices through movement.
 Regular classes, workshops and residencies in more than 50 institutions since 1994, including universities, professional dance studios in USA, Argentina, and Chile. Anabella has been teaching in higher education since 2005, including NYU Gallatin, Lehman College (CUNY) and Sarah Lawrence College. She is guest teaching artists at Peridance, Wooster Group/ Summer Institute, and taught workshops in creative aging at Senior Centers in Brooklyn (Fort Greene, Bushwick).