Jonathan Secor and Jess Conzo took nine MCLA students to New York City for one week to attend the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) Conference. 

This trip was intensive! The students attended:

-- 4 shows at the Under the Radar Festival;
-- 5 contemporary dance pieces at the Japan Society;
-- 4 works-in-progress at the HERE Arts Center;
-- 1 Samuel Beckett play;

-- a visit to the MoMA;
-- the After-party with Brandon Cutrell;
-- 12 performances at GlobalFest;
-- TalkBacks with Tony Micocci, Erica Laird, and Sandy Garcia; and
-- Talks by Rocco Landesman, Majora Carter and Wynton Marsalis. 

Here is a little photo tour of their experience…

 

Posted by JessC on 02/01 at 12:27 PM

A day as big as this one required an early start – 7am, to be exact. At this time, we met at the Church Street Center to begin our adventure in the Big Apple. In just about 3 hours, we had arrived at the Newton Hotel, on W95th and Broadway in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

After dropping our bags off, we ventured forth to The Public Theatre, home of the Under the Radar Festival. UTR was a theatre festival that hosted various performances, from dance-theatre, to one-man monologues, to full-blown productions. A few examples of what we had seen were a piece by the Martha Graham Company called “American Document,” where the dance had asked the question, “What is an American?” Another, a one-man performance called “Space Panorama,” in which a man tells the story of the first moon landing in 1969 using only his hands to narrate. Most memorable, however, had to have been “Chautauqua!” a performance that told the story of the New York Chautauquans hundreds of years ago through various random, and choppy, skits. Everyone seemed to have left confused and shocked at the inconsistent, messy, and comedic nature of this performance.

By the end of the day, I was beginning to familiarize myself with the city. Racing taxis, thrill-seeking cross walkers, fast-talking foreigners, and mouthwatering aromas permeating the air from street vendors are just a few of the elements that contribute to NYC’s charm. And, like any true tourist, I compared the Subway to a rollercoaster at Six Flags.

For dinner, we were able to experience authentic Southern cuisine at a restaurant called “Acme.” There, I ordered the “chicken supper,” which consisted of a large, flame-broiled grilled chicken, Cajun corn on the cob that put any bottle of hot sauce to shame, and french fries. I was excited to see what the next few days would bring.

While most people were at home enjoying their first cup of coffee, I was admiring the actual painting of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” at the Museum of Modern Art. This, of course, was in addition to pieces by Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Picasso, and the Tim Burton Exhibit. I had never been to the MoMA, so I was truly thankful to have been able to go.

Afterwards, we had lunch at a local place called the “West 53rd St. Deli.” Though a little pricey, the food was fresh and healthy, and in NYC, that’s worth the few extra dollars. Following that, we made our way to the Hilton Hotel to officially register for the APAP conference and attend the opening gathering with speaker Rocco Landesman, chairman of the NEA. The room we were in was very large, and had probably around a thousand people in it – all representing different forms of the performing arts. Four enormous, beautiful chandeliers hung above us as we all sat and looked forward to the stage Landesman stood from with the curtain behind him that projected, “APAP Conference NYC.”

Later on, we experienced some cultural immersion, by having dinner at Turkuaz, a Turkish restaurant, and then travelling to the Japan Society to watch Asian dance performances. Turkuaz primarily consisted of kababs, lamb dishes, hummus arrangements, calamari, eggplant, and a really dim-lighted atmosphere. At the Japan Society, we met with Yoko-Shioya, the society’s Artistic Director. She told us of what she does for her job, how she got that position, and a few other personal facts about herself. Lastly, we topped the night off by going to The After Party with Brandon Cutrell, which was a late night cabaret event on 42nd street.

We began each day by meeting in the lobby of the Hotel Newton, where we were staying, every morning to discuss the day’s plans. Today we were supposed to choose our own “Professional Development Seminars,” at the Hilton as part of the APAP trip, but a speedy change in plans brought us to a dance performance that portrayed African-American traditions and rituals. This piece may have been the most emotionally charged of all of them – since at one point the dancers all came out wearing aprons with blood stains that suggested that they were part of a tribe that had just murdered people.

This trip was followed by lunch, where I had purchased an authentic “dirty water” hot dog from a street vendor.  We spent the remainder of the afternoon at the Hilton Hotel, where we had heard a speech given by Majora Carter, who founded the organization called “Sustainable South Bronx,” aimed to create a cleaner and more efficient living environment in inner cities. One way she proposed to do that was to establish “green rooftops.” The rooftops would be cleaned up and there people could plant gardens, flowers, vegetables – anything! This would allow for cleaner air within the city as well as enable people to become more self-sufficient.

Following that was the APAP Annual Members Board Meeting, which, as unexciting as it sounds (and was) it was still interesting to be able to sit-in and observe. When that had finished, we got our first introduction to the “Expo Hall,” where there were 3 floors of thousands of agencies and presenters, handing out information and making business deals.

The night came to an end like any good cultural experience should – with dinner at Awash, an Ethiopian restaurant! In Ethiopia, people eat communally, using a chilled, spongy, vinegary bread to scoop the main dishes (there were no utensils.) The dishes are served in seemingly small portions, but having to eat it with bread for every bite made you fill up quick. After dinner, we chose our own showcases to go to, and off we went! I decided to see a jazz-inspired acoustic guitarist and a little bit of a latin performance. Maybe most exciting, however, was having the opportunity to “hail” my first taxi.

Today was conference day, in a manner of speaking. We all traveled a little earlier this morning to attend a meeting about careers in the field of arts management, how to make the most of it, and what managers are looking for when they hire. As an arts management major, I really appreciated everything that had to be shared – like the information I was receiving would put me slightly ahead of the game. One speaker said, “The best way to be creative is to consume,” and that the best way to network is to join in and DO things, not just watch. That conference was followed by a leadership conference. This taught me some ways to strengthen my leadership skills, though I feel this conference may have been targeted toward already-established arts managers.

For lunch, we went to the “HERE’S Hybrid Brunch Performance,” which consisted of four very modern, perhaps futuristic, dance-theatre performances that used several different types of media, props, lighting, and sound. I can’t say that I loved, or even understood, what was being portrayed to me, but I could appreciate it nonetheless, and found it to be a sort of breath of fresh air to the traditional dance-theatre norms. Afterwards, we travelled back to the Hilton to work on our project in the Expo Halls.

GLOBALFEST! Tonight was the major world music event that featured dozens of artists from dozens of countries, hosted at the Webster Hall. Such countries include Japan, France, West Africa, Ireland, Columbia, and many others. The band Caravan Palace, a jazzy, funky, techno French band, was what many in the group were excited to see. I was looking forward to hearing Namgar, a Siberian Shaman rock group. This event was an incredibly eye-opening experience into the realm of world music.

The majority of today was spent in the Expo Halls, speaking with agents and presenters and trying to get prices and availability of certain artists that peaked our interests for the project. In the afternoon, we were fortunate enough to be able to sit and meet with a few professionals in the field of arts presenting. Tony Miccoci, author of “Booking Performance Tours,” and founder of Miccoci Productions, shared with us his trajectory into the field and some advice for those looking to pursue dance performance. Following him was Erica Laird, who is the Managing Director of The Builders Association, which is an agency for dance-theatre performances. She, also, shared her trajectory and some advice to us.

After meeting with a few people, we went back to the Expo Halls for a little while, then went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. Tonight was Mexican food night at Gabriela’s with some MCLA alumni! Dinner was really nice and social, where we exchanged career plans, questions, and ideas with the alum. The chicken enchiladas were really good as well.

Dinner was followed by another showcase of my choosing – the “Northern Realms Showcase!” This event held musical performances at The Scandinavian House with artists from Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, and Norway. Since my mother was born in Bergen, Norway, I was personally vested in attending this event, but regardless, this had been the best showcase that I had seen thus far.

This morning, we went to a beautiful closing breakfast ceremony with keynote speaker Wynton Marsalis, a composer and trumpeter known and loved by all who adore jazz. The amazing breakfast was followed by an enormous lunch at Carmines, a family-style Italian restaurant with huge portions of delectable Italian cuisine. Perhaps the most memorable part of the meal was the dessert – a $24 dish called the “Titanic,” which featured ice cream, brownie, fudge, and whipped cream all in a humongous shape of the Titanic! We all left with full bellies and ready to nap. After lunch was done, we went back to the Hotel Newton to grab our luggage, pack up the van, and head back to North Adams, MA. The ride back consisted of some quiet chatter and songs from Caravan Palace, but mostly proved to be a relaxed drive home.

Posted by JessC on 01/27 at 01:00 PM

We started off the first day by meeting in the parking lot of the Church Street Center. It was an extremely cold morning and everyone was in such a lovely mood. We loaded up the van and began our journey to New York City. The drive for me wasn’t too bad. We stopped once which was a nice break from the driving but the excitement for the city made the drive go by quick. The drive took about 3 hours in total. We arrived at the Hotel Newton where we were staying and met up with Jed, Melissa and Tara.

After dropping off our luggage, Jonathan and I went and dropped off the van in a parking lot in Harlem. Once the van was dropped off, Jonathan and I grabbed lunch at this amazing Cuban restaurant called Floridita. I got the beef stew with white rice. The food was delicious, and filling. After lunch we hailed a cab back to the hotel, met with everyone and got on the train and went downtown to the Under The Radar Festival at the Public Theater.

We first saw a dance piece called the American Document which was very interesting because it is a dance that has very little documentation so the company that presented it made up its own parts to try and fit it in with the documented parts of the original dance. After seeing American Document we had an hour break and we were free to walk around the city and a few of us walked over to St. Marks place and went to a comic book store. I don’t think I’ve seen that small a store with so much stuff in it. It was great for us nerds.

When we arrived back at the Public Theater we saw a one man play called Space Panorama. Space Panorama was a guy who taped himself talking about the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. While the vocal track was playing the performer, Andrew Dawson, mimed what the track was saying with his hands. I felt it was going to be hard to focus because it sounded a little boring, but once the performance was happening it was great! Andrew Dawson did some crazy things with his hands miming out his piece, if that makes sense.

The next show we saw was Invisible Atom. It was a one-man show with a guy talking about his life and how he was abandoned as a child and how he was trying to figure out his life and find his father. At the end of the play everyone thinks he’s going to change his life and be a good dad to his child and he kills himself. WHAT THE HELL? As you can see the end of the play made me kind of mad. Once Invisible Atom was over, it was dinnertime! We ate at this great place called Acme bar and grill. It was a southern food place. The good was great, people got jambalaya, chicken fried steak, fried chicken and po boys. It was a great meal and hit the spot. We finished dinner and had one more show to attend.

The last show we saw was CHAUTAUQUA! Not knowing what to expect, after reading the description of it, I became curious. The show started and it was interesting. It started with a guy talking about Chautauquinns and how they started and then the history of how New York started. It was boring but interesting. Once the performing started it was weird, I didn’t know how it fit into the show but I went with it. All of a sudden it turned weird and felt like a bad acid trip. Now I’ve never tried acid, but if I were to, I would imagine it would be like seeing the show CHAUTAQUA!

After being madder than I ever have at seeing that play, our day was finished and we got to go back to the hotel and sleep. I roomed with Jed Krivisky and Conor Moroney. We walked into our nice big room and crashed. Then after having what felt like a power nap, it was time for day 2.


Today we started off with a group meeting. Jonathan would go over our days schedule and make sure everyone knew what was going on. After the meeting we headed downtown on the train and went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The MoMA was amazing. It was enormous with some of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I walked up the stairs to a huge whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling. After examining the whale for a minute I walked into another room that was filled from floor to ceiling of this picture of circles and other objects on all four walls. All of the pictures in this room were the same colors; blue, orange, red, and yellow. After walking around this room for a while I headed upstairs to the third floor. When I arrived to the third floor this weird doorway that looked like an animal greeted me. Come to find out it was the Tim Burton exhibit, showcasing all his art from costumes, props, drawings and notes. It was very overwhelming walking into the exhibit because there was just so much going on. All of his artwork was all over the walls; there were a section of the robot kids from Willy Wonka, sculptures of characters from Corpse Bride. Another section of the exhibit was three Batman masks, Cat woman’s costume, the headless horseman’s cape, the fake heads of Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker from Mars attacks and a sculpture of Jack Skelington and all the facial expressions. The exhibit was great, if you want to go to an interesting museum with a ton of stuff, the Museum of Modern Art is where you want to go.

Once we left the MoMA we had lunch and then it was time to register for the APAP conference. After registering for the conference we went to the opening speech that was delivered by Rocco Landesman, the head of the NEA. When the opening speech was over we traveled to Shelter Studios to see the one man play, Molloy. It was a very interesting show about a man in Ireland who doesn’t really know who he is. At least that is what I took from it. We left Molloy and traveled back to the hotel for a short break and then headed to dinner. We had dinner at Turkuaz, a Turkish restaurant. For dinner I had lamb, which I didn’t like much but I tried it.

After we ate we traveled down to the Japan Society and met with the artistic director Yoko Shioya. We had a great meeting with Ms. Shioya where she told us about herself and then we got to pick her brain about her profession. Ms. Shioya was an amazing lady, very nice, kind and very informative. After we met with Ms. Shioya we went to a dance they were presenting at the Japan Society. There were five dances in the performance. The first one was very exciting and got the crowd involved. The second dance wasn’t very good. I didn’t like it, I had no clue what was going on and didn’t know what the performers were trying to portray. The third dance was a weird dance with a table and chairs. It started off with three people stacking the table and chairs on one dancer a few times. Then started the dance with very precise movements and timing. The third dance was just out there. I had no clue what was going on and was just annoying. The fourth dance was a very nice duet and was executed perfectly. The fifth dance was a weird techno dance. I had no clue what was going on and nothing made sense to me. I feel like it should have been cut out. After the dance at the Japan Society was over there was a reception that we attended.

Once we were done mingling we headed to Times Square. We stepped outside and were going to walk to Times Square, but it was freezing so four of us split a cab while the rest walked. We arrived at the West Bank Café and attended the “After Party” with Brandon Cutrell. Brandon had performed for MCLA at Taylor’s restaurant. The show was very toned down for the audience. The show in New York was way more intense. Not intense because of the content but because Brandon didn’t have a filter. He was hilarious and a great singer. The “After Party” was great and every in New York on a Friday night should check it out. After we saw Brandon Cutrell we headed uptown to the hotel for the end of the night.


We started of the day like we did yesterday with a group meeting to go over the day’s events. Today was the earliest day we had to get up and be ready. We had to be ready to go at 7am. After our meeting we traveled to the Hilton hotel and attended a seminar titled: Making the Most of Your Arts Admin Training. It was a very informative seminar and gave a lot of good pointers for people entering the field. After the training seminar we were free to attend any professional development seminars.

After the seminars were over we traveled downtown to the HERE Theater’s brunch. The brunch was nice, but space was very tight. Once the brunch was over we filed into the performance space and watched clips of four shows. The first show involved dance, video, spoken word, acting and sound affects. I really liked the performance but was way more intrigued by the sound affects guy. After that piece was a woman who did some spoken word and sang. The third piece was an extremely weird dance piece with loud electro music that was just out of this world. The last piece was a woman with a weird television stand and started singing and speaking. It was out there.

Once the performances were over we travelled back to the Hilton and went to the expo hall and talked to more agents and got prices for performers. After a few hours of talking to agents and figuring out our budgets we went back to the hotel and had a little break. At 5pm we travelled around the block to a place called Ayurveda. It was an Indian vegetarian place. The restaurant had a fixed menu, so what they wanted to cook was what you got. I wasn’t excited about this place, but it turned out to be great. I really enjoyed the food. I was nervous that it was going to be too spicy, but it wasn’t as spicy as I expected.

After dinner we went to Webster hall. Webster hall was hosting Global fest. Global fest was a big festival with bands from around the world. 3 floors of music, it was great. The best thing about going to global fest was that we got VIP access to the main performing hall. The first act a lot of us saw was Caravan Palace. They are a French cabaret that, I think, had the best performance of the night. They were great. The guitarist was amazing as well as the rest of the band. After Caravan Palace I made my way downstairs to see a band with traditional Indian drumming and a traditional Japanese slide guitar, as well as an amazing guitarist. It was some weird trippy music but the talent of the performers was incredible. Once they were done I went back upstairs to see Non Gar. Nom Gar is a Siberian woman who puts heavy down tuned guitars and a band behind her and sings traditional Siberian songs. It was a very weird mix but if you enjoy heavy music then you will enjoy Nom Gar. After Nom Gar I was burnt out so I went back to our hotel and went to bed.


Woke up this morning and had our group meeting then headed to the Hilton and hit the expo hall and met with some more agents and the went back to figuring out my budget. After a few hours of the expo hall and figuring out my budget we met with Tony Micocci. Tony is a colleague of Jonathan’s and Tony wrote the book that Jonathan uses in his Performing Arts Management class. The meeting with Tony was great, it got me really excited and interested in being a booking agent.

After the meeting with Tony we had a meeting with Erica Laird who is the managing director for The Builders Association. She talked to us about having a love for what you do because if not, you’re not going to make it anywhere. After meeting with Tony and Erica, we had lunch then a meeting with Sandy Garcia. Sandy Garcia is a booking agent with Rena Shagan Associates. Sandy just spoke to us about what a booking agent does and the steps an artist goes through using a booking agent.

After meeting with Sandy we had more time to go back to the expo hall or see showcases. I sat in the hotel lounge area and went back to figuring out my budget. After we had time for the expo hall and showcases we went back to out hotel and had a little bit of a break then it was time to head out to dinner.

We had dinner with MCLA alumni at Gabriella’s. It was a Mexican restaurant with a fixed menu. The dinner was great. We got to talk to alumni and see what they were doing after college and what MCLA did for them.

After dinner Conor and myself headed to the Nokia theatre to see a Led Zeppelin cover band called Get The Led Out. These guys were great. It was an amazing show but short for us. We could only stay for a few songs because we had to get to the Hilton for a showcase entitled From Bach to Rock. From Bach to Rock was great. It was a husband and wife duo that played on one piano and killed it. They went from classical music to Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis. What they could do on a piano was great. After that was over Connor and I headed down to the Gramercy Theatre and saw some cool folk bands. Not many people were there but it was a great show. We caught the end of the Asylum Street Spankers, which were great. After them we saw WIOS. They were good but I got bored watching them on stage. After them was the Two Man Gentleman Band. They were great and funny. Although they didn’t move around that much they put on a fun show to watch. Once the Two Man Gentleman band was over we headed back to the hotel and got some sleep.


Our last day. We woke up, checked out of the hotel and traveled to the Hilton and went to the closing breakfast. After the closing breakfast we traveled to an Italian restaurant called Carmine’s. This place was great. They served all the entrée’s in family style, so you got a big portion that could feed four people with one order.  After lunch Jonathan and I went and picked up the van and picked up everyone and headed back to MCLA. In all APAP was great experience and I was happy I went because it really got me excited about the world of arts and how much is going on in the field.

Posted by JessC on 01/27 at 12:22 PM