Dr. Mark DeGarmo To Present At Transcultural Exchange Conference In Boston

MARK DeGARMO'S PANEL CONTRIBUTION focuses on his company's successful strategic pivot to a virtual format of its Salon Performance Series (SPS) for Social Change, founded in 2010 with live performances out of the company's Studio Theater 310 at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center in New York City's Lower East Side. MDD's SPS demystifies transcultural dance and movement arts for global dance and movement artists and their audiences. MDD seized on the challenges and opportunities that the global COVID pandemic wrought them as a New York City-based dance organization in its 35th year as a nonprofit organization in 2022. The SPS provides a curated opportunity to view and engage with original dance and movement works-in-progress of under-resourced and under-represented local, regional, national, and global dance and movement artists. The Series uses a positively-focused facilitated audience response approach to encourage the public to actively participate in the creation of new dance and movement work. Demystifying dance and movement arts and providing artistic and marketing support to under-resourced, under-recognized and noncommercial dance and movement artists are goals of the series. The 2020-21 Virtual SPS featured 263 artists/performers in 12 salons from 23 countries and 16 U.S. states, with both live and pre-recorded presentations. Relevant to this conference, the Series encourages connections among artists dispersed geographically yet working to overcome common and increasingly complex challenges and isolation.