Message to ADT Board – Aug 17, 2021

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

Aloha ADT Board! It has been an exciting time for us these past three weeks – Kelly approached ADT with an opportunity to revive the Dance Crawl idea we had pitched to Small Town Big Art back in January, and we took it! Under the project management of Ali McKeon Pineo, a child of Wailuku, it is a perfect match and one she has sunk her creative teeth into beautifully.

Quick rundown of the project:

Ali designed the Dance Crawl – a series of outdoor performances that takes on the spirit of a treasure hunt or pub crawl – to travel throughout 5 locations within Wailuku Town to encourage (re)engagement with these known (or for some, unknown) spaces and create the opportunity to make new memories and shared experiences there for our community audience members.

It engages 4 choreographers in professional work – which is one of my personal favorite aspects of the ADT Mission & Vision – and gives ADT an opportunity to connect with cultural and business leaders of Maui, including the County, and engage with the community in an incredibly accessible way because it is free to be an audience member! It is a perfect match and example of the types of work ADT would like to continue attracting – where we have full creative control but without the Herculean effort of self-producing, self-marketing, and self-financing (to the same degrees as Bring it Home, for example).

This is a $7,500 grant that covers all expenses of the program, and provides at least $500 for the ADT organization fee (representative of my time spent on the project in its execution, plus mine and Hallie’s when we initially applied for the grant in January). I say at least because we are not required to return any unspent funds; and it looks like there may be some left over after all expenses are accounted for.

As it happens, the same day I signed the contract to proceed was the same day we were made aware that because COVID cases are rising, and because this is a County program, we have the choice of either stepping up our COVID protocols (setting the example of how to responsibly run a public program in these times), or postponing the Dance Crawl entirely. Everyone directly involved prefers the former, and here is what it would look like:

Audience members will be limited only to people who are vaccinated or have negative test results within a week of performance day (the same expectation as County employees); everyone will be wearing masks; the performance is outdoors; the tours max out at 15 people per group (3 groups total); the choreography is mostly solos and some duets with the dancers maintaining 6 ft of distance between them.

With a few extra steps on our end, we can safely and surely make this happen.

So this is where you come in – we need volunteers! We have identified 5 key positions to make the Saturday performance safe and we need at least TWO of them to be filled from this body, the ADT Board: 2 people checking vax cards and/or test results before distributing wristbands to the RSVP’ed guests (there is an Eventbrite where people RSVP and will identify which they will be bringing with them). 3 escorts with each tour group: 1 to ensure social distancing within the group and between the group and the dancers; 1 to hold the music; 1 to hold a sign alerting bystanders that there is a performance happening.

Saturday, Aug 28 from 4-6p. 3 tours total with 20 min in between each. Volunteers would need to check in by 3pm (? to be confirmed to those who commit) in Wailuku Town, and provide their vaccination cards and/or negative test result to Ali before the day itself so that it can be approved by the County (not sure of that deadline yet, but I would gather it be by the Wednesday prior – August 25.)

Please please please, if you feel comfortable in your personal health situation to do so, help us make this happen for ADT and for Maui. You can reply to the email that accompanied this message to reach Ali directly at akmckeon@gmail.com