Strange Trace founders Frances Kruske, Erin Matthews, Greg Nahabedian, Joshua Scheid, Elena Stabile, and Felix Aguilar Tomlinson knew that they wanted Strange Trace to bring opera into new, more accessible places. Based in Boston, Strange Trace “seeks to holistically redefine the experience of opera, to create new works in nontraditional venues, and to bring together a community of artists and audiences in a fun and supportive environment where all are welcome.”

Gavilán Rayna Russom has spent most of her life in the nightlife scene. Nightlife is how she has found community, refined her politics, earned a living as a musician and a DJ, and gained a deeper understanding of herself as an embodied being. Her work “fuses theory with expression, nightlife with academia and spirituality with everyday life.” She not only uses synthesizers but also uses synthesis as a structuring principle of her work, "weaving together highly differentiated strands of information and creative material into cogent expressive wholes."

Stock photography is not generally known for being an innovative field. When we think of stock photography we might think of women laughing alone with salads or awkward photos of white businessmen pointing at things.

Denise Shanté Brown didn’t always know that her life’s work would be at the intersection of well-being and design. Through her thesis work in Social Design for her Master’s degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art, she saw not only the ways that Black women are excluded from decisions about their own health and well-being, but that Black women were able to create their own structures of healing and community. The research process became a healing process for her, as well as a way to explore manifestations of both systemic inequality and resilience in its face.

Things are growing at Crenshaw Dairy Mart. When we spoke with two of its three founders, alexandre dorriz and noé olivas, they had been gardening and building some new work benches at the space and the sunflowers were blooming. There’s new growth happening all over and around the Mart, located in Inglewood in Los Angeles. It is a gallery, community space, and shared studio space for artists.

Donkeysaddle Projects is hard to pin down. It’s an art collective and a group of organizers working locally and globally. Donkeysaddle Projects creates plays and films; its members organize events and create environments for participatory co-creating. The Donkeysaddle Projects team has experience in journalism, poetry, theater, community organizing, social justice education, and human rights activism.

“The Glassblower’s Daughter: An Original Musical” from Lightning House Players was originally set to premier at a theatre in Boston in October. Of course, that’s not happening any more. But in true creative and theatrical spirit, Zareh Artinian, Jr. and Kelvyn Koning and their team of collaborators and actors are putting together an ambitious virtual performance for their audience. In October, they will be sharing Act I and II of the musical virtually, and are currently running a fundraiser through Fractured Atlas to support their work.

Unlike music for big symphony halls, chamber music is meant to be intimate. It is written for between two and eight musicians and designed to be enjoyed up close. Q Concerts is a chamber music series based in Charleston, SC that uses creative programming (even virtual programming) to create meaningful, intimate experiences. Their work seeks to demonstrate that chamber music is important and that it can be for everyone. Q Concerts is dedicated to bringing people and ideas together through the power and beauty of music.

Ballet dancers Rachael Gnatowski and Emily Orzada met while they were both dancing for the Fort Wayne Ballet in 2017. After dancing together for several years at several companies, they decided that by starting their own company, they could seek to remedy some of the issues that they saw in the dance world, while performing top-notch pieces. So, in winter 2020, New England Ballet Theatre was born.

Michael Lawrence-Riddell is an experienced educator. During his 20 year career, he has taught middle school math, social studies, and language arts. He has taught in elementary, middle, and high schools, and is the recipient of the Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and the Fellowship for Entrepreneurship in Education from Mount Holyoke College.