Troublemaker: Public Works


It’s Simple: Good troublemakers instigate equity, imagination, and community benefit through the arts by building systems to expand access, opportunity, and shared well-being through program design and/or artistic interventions in shared spaces.

Arts Infrastructure is Civil Infrastructure

Vastness

A socially distanced film for a global pandemic.

ROLE: Hiland Artistic Director, National Dance Institute New Mexico

Partners:

  • New Mexico PBS
  • Nickoloff Family Foundation

LOCATION: New Mexico

PROGRAM TYPE: Film Production, Multi-Site Project

The Friction

Dance training and performance depend on shared physical space. During the global pandemic, that space disappeared. Studios closed, rehearsals stopped, and programs built on in-person participation could not continue as designed. Without an alternative, students risked losing continuity in both training and creative practice, and programs risked losing the communities they had built.

The Method

When traditional dance education and performance were no longer possible, the organization changed both how it taught and how it made work. Students were no longer taught choreography. Instead, they generated their own movement in response to their experiences, hopes, and ambitions, and were treated as collaborators in building the work.

At the same time, the organization developed new capabilities in filming, editing, and on-location production. Students rehearsed and performed across three outdoor sites in New Mexico, allowing the project to move forward without relying on shared indoor space.

  • “I’ve never seen my daughter so passionate about dance as she was with this project.”

    Parent

Infrastructure

  • Production equipment
    Camera and video production equipment that allows the organization to produce digital content independently.
  • Staff competency
    New capabilities in filming, editing, and on-location production that are now applied across departments and projects.
  • Student-centered pedagogy
    A shift toward students as collaborators in the creative process, deepening engagement with the communities the organization serves.

Legacy

The film reached the largest audience of any single production in the organization’s history through statewide press and broadcast on New Mexico PBS. 

The organization expanded its digital programming, at one point reaching over 7,500 students through more than 200 Zoom classes per week.

The student-centered approach to choreography evolved into a social-emotional learning model that informed future dance and theater productions.