When COVID-19 threatened to disrupt Brandeis University’s Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts, I helped them pivot to digital.
The Create@Brandeis Living Room Fest featured over 50 online arts programs and activities presented by Brandeis students, alumni, faculty and staff, with special guests. The Fest took place May 1st through 3rd, 2020 and included live-streamed musical and theatrical performances, online exhibitions, artist talks, and lots more. (You can see the full schedule here.) I supported a range of creatives as they engaged in the challenging process of translating physical art experiences to digital platforms including Facebook Live, Zoom, and other web tools.
As a Brandeis alum who cut my teeth on my undergraduate experiences participating on the Leonard Bernstein Festival’s planning committee, it was such an honor to have been invited back (by my brilliant former-instructor and current Director of Arts at Brandeis, Ingrid Schorr!) to work with Brandeis’ students and broader community. I was so energized by their creativity, resilience and enthusiasm! Over the course of our time working together, we developed, collated and discovered many best-practices for live-streaming and digital event production. I never expected to become an expert in digital events and live-streaming, but necessity is the mother of invention. 🙂
