We received a beautiful tour of the brand-new Imagine Art facility and heard the story of how it developed, from an idea to a fully realized space many years later. We were welcomed into Sage Studio’s space and spent time with some of the incredible work their artists are creating. We met with Fusebox co-artistic director Ron Berry, and we attended the Fusebox Artist Salon featuring Deborah Hay, where she introduced her new concept of Performance Club.
Maka also taught one of our Elements classes, bringing her own flavor of curiosity, rigor, and play into the room. After class, we invited her to join us for dinner, and in the spirit of offering something “truly American,” dessert turned into her very first root beer float. Watching someone encounter ice cream and fizzy soda (that tastes like toothpaste drink to this Finn) in the same glass for the first time might be one of my new favorite art experiences, there was a lot of laughing, careful sipping, and “wait, this is a thing?”
We had coffee with Lynn Hoare, who shared about her previous work in Poland and her current project in Smithville, Potluck, where Maka later joined a workshop. Lynn connected us with Jenny Arffmann at Creative Action, and we were able to observe the final workshop performance of The Courage to Stand, an anti-bullying piece that is part of their Brave Schools program for 4th and 5th graders. Later in the month, we visited Creative Action and had a rich conversation with Noah Martin, Jenny, and Joe McIalwain about Creative Action’s current work and future plans. There was a lot of nodding, and note-taking.
Maka was also a guest on our KOOP Radio Hour with Celia Hughes, which was a fun and thoughtful way to share her voice with a wider Austin audience. And in one of my favorite full-circle access moments of the month, she experienced audio description at the Bass Concert Hall when Celia described The Outsider. It turned into one of the most meaningful moments for her, when accessibility became not just a concept, but a real, lived experience.
In November 2022, we had the honor of welcoming a dear friend and colleague, Monika Požek, to Austin, where we hosted the very first MeetShareDance Festival ever held in the United States.
Monika had been a CEC ArtsLink Fellow, spending time in California with AXIS Dance Company, and then decided to extend her stay in the USA to visit Art Spark Texas. Of course, we couldn’t not do anything, so we had to host one of her famous MeetShareDance festivals, which have been happening across Europe since 2012. The festival is unique in that it is hosted in a different country almost every year and always in close collaboration with local partners. (Monika doesn’t really do “small.”)
Monika also introduced Art Spark Texas to CEC ArtsLink. CEC ArtsLink is a New York–based international arts organization that, since 1962, has supported transnational cultural mobility and collaboration, empowering artists and arts leaders to engage communities in dialogue and creative projects for a more equitable, compassionate, and sustainable world.
In March, CEC ArtsLink reached out to us about the possibility of hosting an ArtsLink International Fellow in 2025, and we were thrilled. In June, Maka Chkhaidze and I met online to dream together, create a wish list, and outline an action plan for a residency that would take place in October. Throughout the fall we waited, somewhat anxiously, while embassies were closed and visa appointments were cancelled. There was a lot of “maybe… hopefully… fingers crossed.” Then, in September, we got the good news: Maka had received her visa, and suddenly all of our plans were about to become real.
Maka arrived in Austin at the beginning of October and hit the ground running. Within the first week she had participated in a DanceAbility class at Austin Community College (ACC) and traveled to Huntsville for the Texas Dance Improvisation Festival—dancing, seeing performances, and meeting folks from all over Texas. That first week really set the tone and context for the rest of her stay: full, curious, brave, and very, very moving.
All through October, we made site visits to other organizations working at the intersection of arts and disability, learning about the histories, challenges, and hopes that shape their work. I kept finding myself saying how wonderful it was that her residency was giving me a reason to keep meeting and visiting people in my own city, exactly the kind of gentle nudge from the outside that reminds you there’s a community here to return to.
We also participated in the Austin Together Community Workshop on Sustained Collaboration learning about not-for-profit mergers. This workshop gave Maka lots of ideas on how to move the work forward at her hometown Tbilisi. On another day, we met with Dance Waterloo and its founder, Morgan Teel, and learned more about the community-centered work they’re doing in parks and public spaces. As part of our Austin wanderings, we also witnessed a performance by ACC choreography and dance improvisation students “investigating overlaps between art and dance,” and Maka had the chance to sit down with ACC dance faculty member Melissa Sanderson for a rich conversation.
Maka also sought out people she wanted to connect with, including Kate Taylor, Artistic Director of Salvage Vanguard Theater, who hosted an evening for her artist talk. It was such a generous, energizing night: Maka shared a short documentary of one of her works and spoke about her organization, InForm – Platform for Inclusive Minds. Founded in 2022 in Tbilisi, InForm is a non-profit that brings disability narratives into the contemporary art scene in Georgia, building bridges between disability communities and the wider arts world. Through inclusive performance projects, educational programs, and a mixed-ability contemporary dance theatre group, InForm advocates for a more accessible and just cultural landscape. Thank you, Kate and Salvage Vanguard Theater, for showing what Austin’s art scene is all about: support, curiosity, and care (and a healthy dose of “let’s try it and see what happens”).
I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone who opened their doors and their calendars for us. Every tour, every conversation, every “sure, come by and I’ll show you around” made this residency what it was. It is such a joy to bring visitors into a city where the welcome is so incredibly warm. I really believe this is one of our community’s superpowers: the way people not only say yes, but sit down, make time, explain, listen, and answer all the questions, ours and their own.
I love to think of all these connections as a web. From the moment Monika came in 2022 to Maka’s residency in 2025, the time between has been quietly filled with these fine filaments, relationships, conversations, workshops, rehearsals, shared meals, that connect us across cities, disciplines, and communities. Nothing flashy, just thread by thread, person by person.
Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to remind you that you even have a community. A visiting artist arrives and suddenly you’re putting on real shoes, leaving your email inbox behind, and actually going out to meet people. Maka’s residency did exactly that for me. I’m grateful not only for meeting her and learning from her practice, but also for the way her presence pushed me back out into Austin, into studios, theaters, classrooms, and cafés, re-meeting people and organizations that are, in fact, part of my everyday artistic ecosystem.
Her visit reminded me that community isn’t something we only build during festivals or special projects; it’s something that exists all the time, whether or not we’re paying attention. This residency helped us trace those filaments again, to feel the web that’s already there and to remember that we’re all held in it together, even on the days when we forget.
*These amazing photos from the event were taken by Kriston Woodreaux.
Thank you, Kriston, for your generosity and talent!