\n<\/p>\n
Siyanko agreed, though her next project is focused on New York City. The Down to Earth Festival, debuting in September, will bring performances to the stages of the City University of New York and to city parks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe need for the festival is really obvious,\u201d she said in an interview. \u201cIn the New York performing arts scene, there is a glut of expensive new real estate, from the Shed to the Perelman Arts Center, with overpaid executives and tickets so expensive that the majority of New Yorkers can\u2019t afford to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
To counter these trends, the Down to Earth performances will be free. And by presenting on CUNY stages and in parks \u201cwithout the extravagant resources of destination ZIP codes,\u201d she said, the festival seeks to meet new audiences in their own spaces. This is an idea that Siyanko first tried at PS21, bringing events to Crellin Park in Chatham. When Amoukanama Circus gave a free performance there in 2023, 800 attended. \u201cThe people who came to Crellin Park simply were not the same who used to come to PS21,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Siyanko and Down to Earth\u2019s co-director, Frank Hentschker, the longtime executive director of the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center, are relying mainly on private donors \u2014 a safer bet, Siyanko said, at a time when federal arts funding may not be reliable. (During Siyanko\u2019s tenure at PS21, she greatly expanded the donor base and grew the organization\u2019s board from a few of the founder\u2019s friends to a formidable collection of philanthropists and artists.)<\/p>\n
Along with an edition of Prelude, the Segal Center\u2019s annual experimental theater festival, the inaugural season of Down to Earth will include the tightrope walker Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga, whose performances rope in the public; acrobats from Senegal\u2019s only circus troupe; a British installation opera sung by New York\u2019s Master Voices in Green-Wood Cemetery; local flex dancers; and an Italian work that makes music from jump roping.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York feels more atomized than ever,\u201d Siyanko said. \u201cWe hope that this kind of creation in public spaces will help bring people together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n