The Arts & Business Council of New York offers fully customizable arts events and activities in and out of the workplace. To ensure that each opportunity is right for your group and objectives, we provide consultations designed to identify the best possible service for your goals. Contact our staff to schedule a consultation and take one step closer to supporting creativity amongst your employees and arts in the community.
Arts-based engagements start at $2,000.
Bonding Diverse Teams Through Movement
Parijat Desai is an India-born, U.S.-raised choreographer who creates hybrids of contemporary and Indian classical dance, theater, and other movement forms yielding a “seamless blending of the new and old” (NYT). Parijat also interfaces with architecture and public space to explore human/social issues through the performing body. As a 2016–17 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, she is developing JustLikeThat, a dance theatre work using movement, banter, live music, and whole lot of newspaper to poke fun of language in Indian news articles.
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Arts Discipline:
Dance
Service Description:
Dance In The Round is a rare and transforming experience of collective movement and rhythm. In this workshop, Parijat teaches the basics of Raas and Garba, circle dances hailing from the Gujarat region of India. Parijat begins with Raas: each person is given a pair of sticks and “plays” (dances a simple sequence) with a partner, then in a quartet, then in a line, and finally in the full circle. Through the process, participants engage with multiple partners, and each person’s attention is critical for the maintenance and success of the final circle. We then move to Garba, learning repeating locomotor movements which take us around a large circle, and we build slowly to a mini-sequence of movements. We also learn how to “play” in concentric circles: the group forms a large outer circle and an inner one. Participants choose where they want to be in the configuration as well as when they want to enter, change position, or leave.
Purpose or Business Needs Addressed:
Raas
Cooperation
Non-hierarchical engagement
Team building
Garba
Individual expression within a group
Sensitivity and awareness when entering an activity in progress
Sensitivity and awareness to the actions of neighbors
Both
Body awareness and coordination
Awareness of rhythm
Spatial awareness
Group bonding
Size of Group Served:
15 – 35+ participants
Length of Service:
Flexible
The Concert of Ideas
Creative Leaps International (1992) is a US-based non-profit specializing in the development of highly creative learning and conferencing experiences for professional centers, organizations, think tanks, universities, major corporations, government agencies and social enterprises worldwide including collaborative projects with the White House, the United Nations, the Aspen Institute, the Earth Summit and dozens of corporations and universities on five continents, including Pfizer, IBM, GE, Starbucks, McDonnell Douglas, the SC Johnson Company, Chase Bank, Citibank, Macquarie Banking, Nations Bank, the Bank of Montreal, the World Bank, Fannie Mae Corporation, MIT Sloan, Columbia University, the University at Albany SUNY, McGill University, the Wharton School, Queensland University of Technology, among many others.
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Arts Discipline:
Music-Multidisciplinary
Service Description:
Our keynote events are called Concerts of Ideas. Our full battery of programs, inclusive of a Concert of Ideas, debriefing conversations, Deep Dive Extension Workshops, and a culminating Harvest of Learnings, is known as The Main Sequence. To learn more, please visit our web site: www.creativeleaps.org.
The Concert of Ideas
This state of the art keynote event embodies a set of artful triggers to set minds and hearts in curious exploratory motion. Participants are invited to think deeply, to entertain new perspectives and, ultimately, to enter thoughtful dialogue with one another. Thoroughly original in concept and execution, the Concert of Ideas is a spark to new thinking, wholehearted engagement and a powerful catalyst for change.
Featuring grand, exciting and brilliant music performed by our award-winning artists, the Concert of Ideas Is a world-class concert performance. Music by composers such as Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin and Rachmaninoff, and Broadway showstoppers are essential ingredients of the Concert of Ideas. Woven through the music and creatively juxtaposed to leverage our imaginations, audiences discover equally brilliant contributions from thinkers such as Einstein, Picasso, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Margaret Mead, James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. Mind, intellect, heart and soul are activated and propelled along personal journeys of exploration.
Purpose or Business Needs Addressed:
The goal? To help every participant access multiple creative connections, deeper personal insights and rich new solutions to the challenges at hand.
Each Concert of Ideas is customized to illuminate a theme such as leadership, creativity and innovation, resilience and renewal, strategic planning, adapting to change, strengthening community, ethics and core values and more.
A Concert of Ideas will never tell you what to think, but it will make the act of thinking irresistible, productive and fun. And right after the concert your employees will come together filled with an irrepressible desire to share their thoughts, inspirations and experiences with one another.
Our Deep Dive Extension Workshops provide the opportunity to explore further any of a dozen topics of contemporary value including: Leadership Thinking; Perceiving and Decision-Making; Diversity, Adversity and Community; Top Form: Risk-Focus-Flow; Inner Balance: Stress Management and Peak Performance; The Hero’s Journey in Business and in Life, and more.
Size of Group Served:
Concerts of Ideas are keynote plenary experiences and are suitable for groups of 35 to 135 or up to a 1000 or more as specially adapted. Typically, they are 80-90 minutes in length and are highly engaging and interactive. Our Deep Dive Extension Workshops are small group sessions appropriate for groups of 15-40 persons. Up to four different Extension Workshops can be scheduled concurrently and may run in a repeat schedule as needed.
Notes:
John Cimino and his team from Creative Leaps International created and put on some of the very best programs I was privileged to see during my seven years with GE. His work has always been exceptional. ~ Steve Kerr, Chief Learning Officer – Goldman Sachs and formerly, GE
If I ever had doubts about the power of the arts on business executives, my work with John Cimino and Creative Leaps International at McDonnell Douglas and SC Johnson put those doubts to rest. Creative Leaps International set our learning dialogue on a new, more candid, more inspirational path -and cracked a few protective shells. And...it was fun!! ~ Frank Bordonaro, Chief Learning Officer – McDonnell Douglas, S.C. Johnson Company
Right after the music - boom! People went together. John Cimino and Creative Leaps are truly global leaders in the art of bringing the performing arts to bear on business issues. ~Robert Nalewajek; Chair, Human Issues in Management Conferences and formerly Pfizer
Length of Service:
Services range from half-day events to 5-day custom-designed conferences. We also offer multiple-installment courses and learning journeys for both Emerging Leaders and Leaders in Transition.
Corporate Professional Development
Founded in 2000 by actors and educators, Opening Act seeks to level the playing field by specifically partnering with NYC schools that have lower than average graduation rates (as few as 33% of students graduating in four years) and an evident lack of theater programming.
Opening Act gives high school students opportunities to develop leadership, community, and commitment through its innovative, high quality, free, After-School Theater Program.
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Arts Discipline:
Arts Education, Arts Services, Cultural, Theater
Service Description:
Opening Act’s Corporate Improv workshops are lead by a member (or members) of Opening Act’s Leadership Team, including Executive Director Suzy Myers Jackson, Development Director Paul Gutkowski, Associate Program Director Marcus Johnson, and Program Director Cathleen Carr, whose work in the field includes leading managerial improv intensives at the Duke Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School, as well as multiple Fortune 500 companies.
The sessions provide deal professional development opportunities for sales teams, human resources, account managers, and leadership.
Purpose or Business Needs Addressed:
- Improve teamwork, collaboration, and communication
- Develop public speaking skills
- Enhance leadership skills
- Foster creativity and innovative thinking
- Improve group and individual decision making skills
Size of Group Served:
25 participants per session
We are able to accommodate multiple sessions at a time or throughout a day.
Length of Service:
Weekdays
Mornings, Afternoons, Evenings
Flexible Schedule
The Moth’s Corporate Workshop and Events Program
Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of stories told live and without notes.
Moth shows are renowned for the great range of human experience they showcase. Each show starts with a theme, and the storytellers explore it, often in unexpected ways. Since each story is true and every voice authentic, the shows dance between documentary and theater, creating a unique, intimate, and often enlightening experience for the audience.
Through ongoing programs in more than 25 cities, The Moth has presented over 18,000 stories to standing-room-only crowds worldwide and it currently produces more than 500 live shows each year. Additionally, The Moth runs storytelling workshops for high school students and adults in underserved communities through their Education and Community Programs.
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Arts Discipline:
Storytelling
Service Description:
The Moth’s Corporate Program offers customized workshops and private events. Using the Seven Principles of Moth Storytelling, developed through work with over twenty thousand storytellers, our workshops introduce a vocabulary for storytelling and develop practical storytelling solutions for business. The Moth works with their partners to design customized programs that harness the power of storytelling as a communication tool. Our custom storytelling events are a unique way to highlight the voices and mission of an organization. The Moth works with each partner to choose a theme and every storyteller –whether a Moth Mainstage alumnus or someone from the organization’s own fold – works one-on-one with a Moth director to create an evening of well-crafted, true stories.
Purpose or Business Needs Addressed:
Workshops have been steered towards team building, fostering connection with audiences, setting up the why, leadership skills and keeping an internal culture alive.
Size of Group Served:
Workshops are best for groups of up to 100.
Length of Service:
Standard workshops are structured for 2.5 hour, 4-hour and 6-hour sessions, but can be customized to fit an organization’s needs and time constraints.
Culture Strengthening & Space Transformation
limeSHIFT is a creative agency that brings artists into communities (both public and private) to co-create art to elevate culture. Through our process of co-creation, we transform spaces and activate communities to be their most creative, productive and connected. Our team brings over 35 years of research and industry experience in art processes for business, social practice art, community capacity building, and entrepreneurship.
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Arts Discipline:
Arts Services, Cultural, Media, Multidisciplinary, Visual Arts / acting
Service Description:
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Cultural Discovery and Space Assessment
- What: Quantitative and qualitative research on values and space use with surveys, interviews, and workshops to evaluate energy and movement of employees
- Why: Provide an outlet for employees to speak freely about the organization’s mission and values to provide clear, unfiltered feedback to leadership; assess and identify areas of energy imbalances in the office and reinvigorate dead spaces
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Co-Created Art
- What: Co-created art aligned with the company’s values and strategic vision
- Why: Provide creative workshops focused on the employee skills needed for the company to achieve its strategic goals; Create artworks by and for the employees to inspire them every day and align on company values
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Commissioned Art
- What: Commission local art nonprofits in collaboration with Corporate Social Responsibility
- Why: Connect the company to the local creative community by supporting art groups and highlight the company’s social impact objectives to inspire employees
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Employee Gallery Wall
- What: Curate and construct an employee-created art gallery wall that will change periodically to encourage conversation among the community
- Why: To highlight internal talent and allow employees to share their creative work encouraging openness, curiosity, and confidence
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Space Design and Wayfinding
- What: Ergonomic solutions and signage to encourage cross-team interaction, efficient space usage and easy navigation in the new space
- Why: To tackle workspace innovation, effectiveness, and efficiency with mindful and aesthetically-aligned signage
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Curated Art for Remainder of Office
- What: Select and purchase artwork that cohesively fits with the rest of the space and integrates findings from the Cultural Discovery
- Why: To complete the office design with thematically curated artwork
Purpose or Business Needs Addressed:
- Office Art
- Strategic and cultural alignment through visually stimulating and clear artwork
- Team building
- Creativity skills building workshops
Size of Group Served:
Flexible
Length of Service:
Flexible
Improv-based professional development & entertainment
The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre deploys improv to the corporate world with workshops that upgrade professional skills including communication, agility, and creative collaboration. Our world-class performers make corporate events unforgettable. We are seriously funny!
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Arts Discipline:
Improvisational comedy / acting
Service Description:
- We use interactive training to develop the improv fundamentals that double as professional development skills.
- We provide unforgettable entertainment featuring the top comedians from NYC and LA. Our performers are hilarious improvisers, expert event MCs, and dynamic story-tellers.
Purpose or Business Needs Addressed:
- Our training events have a wide range of focuses. We frequently work with teams to upgrade communication, creative collaboration, agility, team-building, public speaking, etc.
- We customize each event to match the needs of our client.
Size of Group Served:
We serve groups ranging in size from 4 to 4,000
Notes:
Our interactive training offerings are scalable, and we customize our approach for each engagement.
Length of Service:
As short as 20 minutes, and as long as one full day.
Days of Week: Weekdays, Weekends
Times of Day: Mornings, Afternoons, Evenings
Schedule: Flexible
High-Stakes Role-Play Simulations
To empower through fearless and ferocious interactive play.
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Arts Discipline:
Theatre—Immersive/Interactive
Service Description:
Don’t wait for mistakes in high-stress, high-stakes interpersonal encounters to impact your bottom line. NASA, police, firefighters, and the military all use live simulations to improve their effectiveness. So should business. Live simulations are custom designed to reflect real situations that your people might encounter, and are played out in real-world locations. Professional actors play realistic characters with strong emotions to create safe, yet compelling “rehearsals” for high-consequence encounters such as handling angry customers, high-stakes sales, disciplining and firing, workplace harassment, and more.
Purpose or Business Needs Addressed:
Skill building, Education, Creativity, Interpersonal skills
Size of Group Served:
1-200
Notes:
Customized for any group size.
Length of Service:
Customized: 2-hour, half-day, full-day, multi-day
Days of Week: Weekdays, Weekends
Times of Day: Mornings, Afternoons, Evenings
Schedule: Flexible
