August 2025 News
September 2, 2025 • 8 minute read
We’re eagerly counting down the days to NPN’s conference – October 6-9 in New Orleans – which is our first in-person conference since before the pandemic as well as the kickoff to NPN’s 40th Anniversary year. While forces seek to disrupt and divide us, our conference affirms the power of turning toward each other as we build a more just future together.
Our conference also takes place alongside 20th anniversary commemorations of Hurricane Katrina. The Katrina 20 Local Organizing Committee have issued a powerful statement of solidarity, asking residents and visitors to commit to “entering with respect for and prioritizing local frontline leadership; researching and respecting the history of resistance in the South; and trusting the existing Southern movement infrastructure that has been built over the last 20 years.” This committee is anchored by Taproot Earth, the Foundation for Louisiana, and NPN National Partner organizations Ashé Cultural Arts Center and Junebug Productions. They write: “The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina became a blueprint for the exploitation of climate disasters that exacerbate and support the rise of authoritarianism in this current moment. If social movements remember our own histories and learn the rich lessons from Hurricane Katrina and the past two decades, we can build our own maps and blueprints for liberation, governance, and people-centered infrastructure over the next 20 years.”
NPN’s conference theme this year is Stormshaping: Adaptation, Resistance, Reimagination, and it is a call to action in tumultuous times, to not simply weather the storms but to reshape our world through collective strength, imagination, and solidarity. An extraordinary roster of artists, cultural leaders, organizers, and strategists will be leading us through rituals, movement assemblies, celebrations, performances, reflections, and conversations that reaffirm the power of art and culture in social movements, meaning-making, civic engagement, and liberation. We hope you’ll join us!
Announcing the 2025 Creation Fund Awards
The National Performance Network (NPN) is awarding an initial $398,000 and leveraging an additional $1,550,000 to support the creation of 21 new artistic works through the 2025 Creation Fund Awards. This year’s wildly inventive Creation Fund awardees are combining theater, dance, music, animation, puppetry, figure skating, and even a live marching band as they develop, present, and tour new works that explore topics like personal and collective identity formation, intergenerational trauma and resilience, systemic inequalities, and the environment.
The Creation Fund comprises the first phase of a comprehensive three-part program that champions new artistic endeavors, promotes racial and cultural justice, and facilitates vibrant live interactions between artists and communities. Each project will also receive additional support through the National Performance Networks’ Development Fund.
Holding Chance Together: Collective Risk in Arts Leadership
“Discomfort is the seed of growth and change.”
– Nina Yarbrough, Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas
Risk is a leap. It is an action of values-centered decision-making to boldly advance a vision. Risk-taking asks us to be vulnerable as we firmly connect to our power, despite the barriers and uncertainties that lay ahead. Card 11 of the Mixed Metaphor Learning Deck invites you to accept your own discomfort with risk as you examine how systems of oppression inhibit risk-taking and how vulnerability and embracing emergence can support leaping toward change together.
Explore this card and others directly on your phone or desktop with our interactive Mixed Metaphor Liberatory Learning Deck
CANOA: Bridging Cultures and Building Community in New Orleans
An artist-led resource center and performance venue named Caribbean and New Orleanian Arts (CANOA) is reshaping the cultural landscape of New Orleans’ Upper 9th Ward, writes Southern Artist for Social Change (SA4SC) awardee Carey Fountain in his latest profile for our Voices from the Network blog. Fountain explores how CANOA’s founders, fellow SA4SC awardees Tomás Montoya and Jebney Lewis, first came up with the idea to create a safe space for celebration and sharing within the Garifuna community – an Afro-Indigenous group with roots in St. Vincent Island and a significant presence in Honduras, Belize, and Guatemala – and how they’ve successfully kept it running for so many years.
“We want to see more people speaking, writing, and reading Garifuna,” Lewis explains. “Our goal is to elevate the profile of the Garifuna community and integrate their unique cultural contributions into the broader cultural fabric of New Orleans.”
Read “CANOA: Bridging Cultures and Building Community in New Orleans” on our Voices from the Network blog
Artists Against Authoritarianism
Several grassroots organizing campaigns are bringing together artists and cultural workers confronting threats to democracy, civil rights, and cultural freedom in the United States. These include The People vs. Project 2025 and a partnership between Beautiful Trouble and the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC).
Beautiful Trouble and USDAC presented their new workshop, “Artists and Cultural Workers Against Authoritarianism,” on August 12, rooted in the understanding that “Artists and cultural workers play a pivotal role in successful people-powered movements, shaping what’s possible through story, symbol, and song and moving/inspiring people to courageous action.” USDAC is also providing resources to artists and cultural workers through their series, “Vital Conversations,” which offers reflections and resources for and by artists for living under political repression; their most recent installment features “WTF Can Artists Do During a Fascist Takeover?!”, a comic by artist Jordan Seaberry.
The People vs. Project 2025 is a national organizing campaign designed to connect, amplify, and mobilize artists and cultural workers. “Authoritarianism is a cultural threat as much as a political one,” write the organizers. “Project 2025 doesn’t just target agencies or laws. It seeks to reshape society by narrowing who belongs, what stories are told, and what futures are possible.” Beginning with artist-led activities during the Autumnal Equinox (September 20-21), The People vs. Project 2025 seeks to develop coordinated strategies that blend artistic practice and grassroots activism to build solidarity with political organizers, justice movements, and advocacy groups across the country. “Artists have always challenged this kind of control. We reveal truths, bridge divides, and help people imagine alternatives. As fear and division grow, art paired with activism can move hearts, shift narratives, and build the emotional and cultural power needed to defend democracy.”
Reawakening Kin: Blurring Boundaries through Techno-Animism
“Do all artists interested in exploring ecology through their work have an inherent disdain and distrust for the technological world? Have digital artists forgotten the feeling of being haunted by a land? Will there always be a separation from the natural world and the techno realm, or can the technological be spiritual?” Juleana Enright challenges distinctions between the natural and technological in their essay “Reawakening Kin,” published in Sixty Inches from Center. Woven together with the work of three Indigenous artists, the essay is a powerful exploration into shapeshifting and a rejection of a nature-versus-machine binary.
Juleana Enright is an Indigenous queer writer, curator, DJ, and theatre artist living in Minneapolis. They are an enrolled member of the Lower Brulé tribe of the Lakota nation. Juleana is the Gallery and Programs Manager at All My Relations Arts, an NPN National Partner organization.
Read “Reawakening Kin: Blurring Boundaries through Techno-Animism” by Juleana Enright at Sixty Inches from Center
Opportunities
Protect Your Org with These Free Emergency Preparedness Webinars
From now through December, the Performing Arts Readiness (PAR) project is offering free emergency preparedness webinars designed specifically for performing arts organizations, with sessions on archival methods, reputation management, and how to prepare for both human caused and natural crises.
Learn more at Performing Arts Readiness, or click a webinar title below for registration details.
Fire Safety and Preparedness for Performing Arts Organizations
Tuesday, September 9, and Wednesday, October 1, 2025, 3:00ET, 90 min.
Learn best practices for a comprehensive protection plan, and how to to protect your patrons, staff, and facility with the Life Safety Code and the Code for Protection of Cultural Resource Properties.
Introduction to Emergency Preparedness for Performing Arts Organizations
Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 2:00ET, 90 min.
Learn why emergency preparedness is critical to protect your organization from both human caused and natural crises, how to develop a plan, and where to find resources to help with planning.
Introduction to Archival Programs for Performing Arts Institutions
Thursday, September 25, 2025, 2:00ET, 90 min.
Gain practical knowledge of how archival programs can help your organization, the steps you can take now with minimal resources, and program components to consider in the future.
Crisis Communication and Reputation Management for Performing Arts Organizations
Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 2:00ET, 90 min.
Review elements of strategic communication that are essential before, during and after crisis events, so that your team can respond effectively and quickly restore organizational reputation.
Upcoming Artist Activities
ANITO, Carlo Maghirang
August 23 – September 7
Los Angeles State Historic Park (Los Angeles, CA)
Carlo Maghirang’s public art installation ANITO, presented by Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), is “a ritual of ancestral veneration through queer self-portraiture” via a sculptural landscape of taotao figurines inspired by those of the indigenous Tagalog people of the Philippines.
Learn more about ANITO
Stories from Home, Safos Dance Theatre
September 27, 7:30 pm
Kathryn Mohrman Theatre Armstrong | Colorado College (Colorado Springs, CO)
Stories from Home is a series of contemporary dances embodying oral traditions of Nuevomexicano, Chicano, and Mexican American communities in the American Southwest. Choreographer and NPN supported artist Yvonne Montoya and the Safos Dance Theatre company draw upon personal histories and ancestral knowledge, including stories from Montoya’s family members. Montoya, a 23rd-generation Nuevomexicana, began to develop Stories from Home after her father’s passing in 2015; compelled to continue his storytelling tradition for her own child, she turned to dance.
Affiliated Dance Workshops
September 22 – 25, 5:00-6:30 pm
El Centro del Quinto Sol Recreation Center – Multipurpose Room (Pueblo, CO)
Join Safos Dance Theatre to create your own “story from home” performance inspired by the Pueblo community. These free workshops will include a master dance class with elements of music and theatre. Workshop participants are invited to share the stage with the company during the public performance of Stories from Home on September 27th in Colorado Springs.
What We’re Reading
Each month, NPN’s staff and board engage with a reading that helps shape our analysis of our sociopolitical landscape and deepen our understanding of how to embed liberatory practices throughout our work. The Collective Learning Series is organized by NPN’s Department of Racial Justice and Movement Building (DRJAM).
One of our readings is the Aesthetic Justice Manifesto by the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI). The manifesto declares: “Fighting for the right to experience life across all of our senses is a fight for a life worth living.” As we gear up for NPN’s conference in October, we are thrilled to partner with DS4SI — who will be facilitating our keynote workshop “The Future of Artist Mobility” — and to hold these aesthetic justice rights as central to our gathering.
Past Issues
Newsletter Sign Up
Get the latest on events, stories, opportunities, and projects from across the network.
Your personal data will be managed respectfully and responsibly, in accordance with our privacy policy.