Check out RealTime Presents… content only on City of Asylum’s The Show Must Go On(line)!
RealTime Presents…
RealTime Presents is a new genre-defying series of virtual shows developed in direct response to feedback from our audiences about what they wanted and needed from the arts during a global pandemic:
Connection. Fun. Comfort. Innovation. And nothing over an hour.
Presented through City of Asylum’s virtual channel The Show Must Go On(line), RealTime Presents shows like ASSOCIATE (watch Episode 1 here) and INSPIRE (watch here) are hour-long forays into collective crowdsourced creativity and the aesthetic of human connection.
Presented via live video platform, ASSOCIATE is a real-time, crowd-shared creative experience: throughout the hour, audiences co-create a work of art with national and Pittsburgh-based multidisciplinary artists. We’re using the word ASSOCIATE in a couple different ways; first, as a noun, an ever-widening association of people connected in virtual space through creativity. And second, as a verb: the process of free- association, connecting with the subconscious to make meaningful art. Equal parts talk show, game show, happening and salon, ASSOCIATE explores both of these in a way only live art can.
So far, guests have included Pittsburgh’s TJ Young, playwright; jazz musician and Pitt professor Dr. Aaron Johnson; artist/ illustrator Marcel L. Walker; multimedia artist Christine Bethea; sculptor James Simon; saxophonist and musicologist Ben Barson; Minister of New York City’s Judson Memorial Church Micah Bucey; and interdisciplinary theater artist Zell Miller, III, live from Austin, TX.
How do you artfully feed your spirit in times of uncertainty? And how can the connection between art and spirit inspire a community to take a healing breath together?
“Spir” is the root word in SPIRit, inSPIRation, reSPIRation. The first episode of INSPIRE, presented just weeks after George Floyd’s murder, explored all of these in deep dialogue between Black spiritual leaders Michelle King (Buddhist) and Leeann Younger (Christian, Pastor of Cityview Church), facilitated by Kahmeela Adams of RuggedAngel Productions. They discussed works of art that inspire them in challenging times, exploring the link between the creative and the spiritual; and shared responses to struggle that are meaningful to them in our complex cultural moment. Together, Younger and King co-wrote a “secular blessing” for the audience, sharing it together the end of the hour.