Field Guide: Pioneers Go East Collective presents Eco Art & Performance w/

This workshop is an intergenerational workshop that sparks conversation between community members of all ages, artists, and local activists around one urgent question: how do we defend our land and the right of every person who lives on it to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and thrive?

Facilitated by Maira Duarte of Dance to the People, in partnership with Pioneers Go East Collective and Socrates Sculpture Park, this workshop invites participants to harness the power of art as a tool for environmental justice. Together, we'll dive into the environmental issues shaping our community and get creative about how we respond to them.

Participants will craft wearable paper bag masks from repurposed materials, sparking hands-on dialogue about waste, sustainable practices, and the rights of both humans and animals. This workshop is about more than making art; it's about making connections. We'll explore our relationships to land, water, and public natural spaces, and discover how art and performance can deepen the bond between the individual, the community, and the earth itself.

Come ready to create, connect, and be moved. FREE and open to ages. 

About Maira Duarte
Maira Duarte is a Mexican artist, educator,  and organizer based in New York City. In 2014, she founded Dance to the People/Danza para la Gente (DTTP), a collective of artists making work at the intersection of social and environmental issues. The collective’s work emerges from participatory public experiences, workshops, community forums, and dance laboratories. DTTP has received support from the CUNY Dance Initiative, Queens Council on the Arts, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Maira has taught for over 16 years in innumerable public schools in NYC and New Jersey, through the organizations Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dancewave, The New Victory Theater and Dance Theater of Harlem. She is a 2022 EmergeNYC alumna, and has been the Artist in Residence at Grace Exhibition Space since 2023. She also co-manages The Woods, a low-cost rehearsal and performance space in Ridgewood, Queens. dancetothepeople.org 

About Pioneers Go East Collective 
Pioneers Go East Collective is a radical Queer laboratory collective dedicated to dance-theater and video art to empower the LGBTQ experience. An artist-driven collective, we create works of high artistic merit, speak out about social issues and build a platform to positively impact the LGBTQ community. Based in NYC, the collective is led by BIPOC and/or immigrant artists and cultural organizers Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Daniel Diaz, Philip Treviño, Joyce Isabelle, Joey Kipp, Remi Harris, and Anabella Lenzu. We portray same-gender-loving experiences, memory, and marginalization that resonate with contemporary lives. The collective combines stories of vulnerability and courage with popular culture to facilitate communal meaning and advocate for cultural integrity. Our work has been widely presented in NYC at Judson Church, La MaMa, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, St Ann's Warehouse, The LGBT Center, JACK, Exponential Festival, LMCC's Process Space at Governors Island, Chashama Gallery, Incubator Arts Project, New Dance Alliance, and Goethe Institut. For more information about their work please visit their website here and to reserve a spot for the workshops, please email [email protected]

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