Global Arts Corps is pleased to announce that Todd Lester has been appointed Executive Director. Global Arts Corps (www.globalartscorps.org) believes that the craft of theatre holds a unique key to conflict transformation. By inviting world-class artists from opposite sides of civil, religious, and racial conflict to create theatrical productions that play to local audiences and tour the world’s conflict zones, Global Arts Corps advances the cause of reconciliation.
Todd brings almost 20 years of experience in civil society, public administration, and programming in the culture field. He comes to Global Arts Corps from freeDimensional, an organization he founded, which provides safe haven to culture workers and activists in dire situations using the vacant apartments of artist residencies in over 80 countries around the world. Todd co-authored reports on the residency sectors in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, West Africa, North Africa, Middle East, Central America and South America for Freemuse, Res Artis and Fonds BKVB respectively. He serves on the boards of residencies, networks and literary concerns. In one such role, he developed a training fellowship for new artist residency administrators and founders with Res Artis and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Similarly, he helped to develop a Fellowship for Leaders in Arts and Culture for the Rockwood Leadership Institute.
With one foot in the arts world and the other in social justice, he is a regular contributor to the Arts & Democracy Project; nominates artists doing critical work to the Prince Claus Fund for Culture & Development; and consults foundations such as the Astraea Lesbian Justice Foundation on trends at the intersection of culture and human rights. Todd holds degrees in public administration, film and forced migration, and he is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute where he is the focal point on issues of art and policy.
About Global Arts Corps
Global Arts Corps works with artists who either once looked down the barrel of a gun at each other or, as children of conflict, still deal with memories not yet healed. In order to do this, we create theatre ensembles out of people who fundamentally disagree with each other; who are suspicious of each other; who see each other as the ‘us’ and ‘them’.
The Global Arts Corps story started in South Africa with the Truth in Translation project. It began as a collaboration between a company of South African actors and musicians, an American Director, contributing writers from both countries, and a legendary South African musician/composer. It evolved into a powerful catalyst for dialogue on the possibility of forgiveness and healing between survivors of conflict in 11 countries around the world. In every country, in response to the production and workshops that followed, audiences expressed the desire to tell their own national story, using their own humor and music. It is this reaction that inspired the creation of the Global Arts Corps.
We know from our work in South Africa that reconciling a past conflict does not require the elimination of disagreement. By striving for authenticity, actors create an atmosphere – a living example – for which there is no barrier of entry to the audience. Theatre crafted out of this understanding invites viewers into a broader dialogue that resonates on multiple levels, through talkbacks after a show, youth dialogue programs, and film and new media outreach.
As the numbers of productions grow, this expanding pool of professional actors will become an international critical mass, creating a multi-lingual, multi-cultural resource for training, education and reconciliation in conflict zones across the world. Over the next ten years, the Global Arts Corps will demonstrate this model in new locations – including Cambodia, N. Ireland, Kosovo, Turkey – and show that an international community of actors can catalyze dialogue, bridge conflict-provoking differences and lead the thorny process of conflict transformation.
Global Arts Corps
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New York, NY 10032
212-281-0896
www.globalartscorps.org
info [at] globalartscorps.org
