Pangea World Theater's- Seeding Change Institute (SCI) research and development cohort.

The Seeding Change Research and Creation Cohort has met together several times since launching. Each gathering lasts for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. The ten person cohort is Diane Wilson, Sharon Day, Sandra Augstin, Sarah Greer, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Arleta Little, Soyini Guyton, Neeraj Mehta, Va-Megn Tho, Diana Siegel-Garcia plus Artistic Directors of Pangea- Meena Natarajan and Dipankar Mukherjee and Program curator Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe. The Seeding Change Institute is a new initiative by Pangea World Theater to create a generative, supportive institute for artists to strengthen their skills and critical approach to making socially engaged projects and work. SCI is developed for artists by artists and those working in the arts. SCI seeks to connect artists to a larger community, to a deeper understanding of community development and to each other. The Seeding Change Institute will be offered starting in the fall of 2024 for a 10-15 person cohort. A shorter summer intensive for youth will also be developed. SCI will offer workshops, conversations, hands-on learning with guest artists and readings with discussions. During the 9 month Institute each cohort member will develop their own project alone or in collaboration with other cohort members. There will be opportunities for the cohort to share their work with a larger audience and to have their work well documented. Outside of MFA programs there are very few opportunities for emerging or established artists, writers, dancers, singers, visual artists, performers to spend time in a collective setting developing new skills and the rigor to ask big questions about their work and role as an artist. Isolation is a central tenet of this society and this is true for Artists as well. SCI seeks to create a space where artistic community is fostered and participants are supported and challenged to grow in their artistic practice. The cohort has delved deep into conversations around what is the CHANGE we are SEEDING, what is the role of Art in that change and how do we share that with others in what we are calling a Curriculum of Inquiry. The cohort are beginning to visualize their workshops and writing that will help build this curriculum. ; Pangea World Theater's Seeding Change Institute succeeded in creating a research and development cohort that met for nine months. Pangea curated a 10 person cohort of established artists and arts organizers. The cohort members were all Indigenous and or People of Color. The Seeding Change Research and Creation Cohort 2023Diane Wilson, Sharon Day, Sandra Agustin, Sarah Greer, Michael Kleber-DiggsArleta Little, Soyini Guyton, Neeraj Mehta, Va-Megn Thoj, Diana Siegel-Garcia. The curators and facilitators for the cohort are Meena Natarajan, Dipankar Mukherjee and Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe. The core of our work were monthly 4 to 41/2 hour gatherings at Pangea World Theater. We shared meals and had conversations on a variety of subjects related to Defining and expanding what is the CHANGE we seek to SEED, the role of the artist in movements for social change and what are the inquires that still need to be opened as artists engaged in this work of healing, transforming and supporting the larger communities we arise from. Each gathering included artistic and skill sharing as well as somatic exercises led by cohort members and Pangea. We also had a guest workshop with Ricardo Levins Morales explore collage making and mapping personal histories with the wider history of struggle as artists.

We held a sold out (free bout tickets required) final event with six tables where the event participants sat with cohort members and shared a meal and answered some of the inquires we worked with throughout the institute. All cohort members offered a piece of writing, song or movement inspired by our time together and Sharon Day closed the event with a workshop to make Leaves of Peace for her ongoing Peace Tree Project.

We measured our outcomes using qualitative data including written and oral feedback from both the cohort and the participants at the Seeding Change Gathering Final Event. From this feedback we see that the cohort felt deeply engaged in the process and supported to help guide what the Institute was focusing on.