EMA PLAY: Dance Create Think Make the Future
The Electronic Music Alliance (EMA) is a 501c3 nonprofit and a global alliance of dance music fans and artists, uniting the electronic dance music community to be the "Sound of Change." We organize around issues important to the community, cultivating, collaborating, and celebrating social and environmental responsibility, volunteerism and our culture. Our idea for LA2050 would be an event we will refer to as PLAY. PLAY -would be a community sustainability, futurist, art, music, and cultural event will be held at LA Center Studios in downtown LA in the Fall of 2013. LA Center studios is an old oil company headquarters that was transformed into an eco-conscious movie studios. PLAY -is a free event to the Angeleno community and a chance to unite the diversity of our city through electronic dance music, art (digital visual, live art, and installations). Electronic dance music (edm) festivals already have one of the most diverse crowds for any musical genre. All musical artists and attendees of electronic music events are extremely creative and typically forward thinking. Electronic Music festivals are currently some of the biggest festivals in the world and the popularity of our music style is increasing exponentially amongst the youth here in the U.S. PLAY would be a showcase of Los Angeles's most talented and artistic individuals and thinkers. The idea would be to create art and discussion about the future in an interactive manner to inspire and spark further discussion and action through interactive "play". What we hope to create at PLAY is a chance to bridge the ages of our audience by creating an event that is inclusive of all age ranges within our musical genre which is comprised of numerous sub-genres. We want this to be an event that both parents and their kids would like to attend. We would hope to create something that could turn into a World's Fair or SXSW. LA deserves that. The first year would concentrate on people being at the studios and having the event concentrated in the Vortex Dome (where we do 3D visual mapping), the beaudry building, and the streets below. Overtime we see this event spilling into other areas of the the studio as well as downtown. PLAY will be an event for the future. A chance to talk openly about current events and future projections through panels but in a fun format. The most important thing we believe is we just need to make the education about the future accessible, not intimidating, and fun. We believe this can really only be achieved by integrating music and art into the event.
What are some of your organization’s most important achievements to date?
We are still a young organization. We worked hard last year to get over 100 founding industry and cultural veterans to come on board as our founding members.
We have also made many key collaborative partners such as E-stewards for our Ewaste program and The Center for Conscious Creativity in downtown LA.
We know we have changed the lives of individuals through personal testimonials and we truly believe we are doing good work. We have inspired both people and organizations to consider the environment and our other responsibilities back to society. A few of our industry partners, RaveReady.com & RollRandom now adds "green tips" into their newsletters, and the retail stores for Emazing Lights are working with us in the development of our Ewaste program.
Last September we were co-sponsor of "State of the Arts" at the Center for Conscious Creativity:
STATE OF THE ARTS - AMPLIFY! turns up the volume on emerging arts and media trends in this one-of-a-kind immersive symposium, exploring the critical impact of human creativity on digital innovation, with a deep focus on 21st century education and the accelerating convergence of traditional entertainment with groundbreaking content and formats. You'll experience the extraordinary power of fulldome immersive cinema during the conference, engulfed by phenomenal planetarium programming, vivid music visuals and stunning live dance productions. This is storytelling at its most innovative and transformative.
This year we are pleased to plant the seed of a new idea incubated by the c3 called f2: FUTUREFEST, in the form of an experiential showcase featuring cutting-edge immersive entertainment, technology exhibits, an arts and performance showcase; music, dance, 360 film, and new forms of educational experiences in LA's first ever fulldome immersive showcase.
All event details for State of the Arts 2012 can be viewed here: http://www.c3so.com/soa-2012.html
Please identify any partners or collaborators who will work with you on this project.
The Center for Conscious Creativity:
C3VisionLab: http://c3visionlab.org/site/
Los Angeles Center Studies
The UN's Millennieum Project
Vortex Dome
Want Tickets (LA Based)
RAW Artists
Angeleno Magazine
EDM Magazine
Jet Set Radio
Groove Radio
LA Exchange Night Club
Dim Mak Studios Hollywood
Our roster of electronic music DJ's
Red Light Management
Local Universities and Art & Fashion Institutes
The City of Los Angeles
Indie Printing (downtown)
Trash for Teaching
Music for Relief
We will also approach local radio stations, universities, and magazines for support in promotion of this event. We will also reach out to our Founding Member list for any support they can provide personally or through their companies and affiliations.
Please explain how you will evaluate your project. How will you measure success?
Success will be measured by attendance and the interaction we are able to spark from our attendees before, during, and after the event through a dedicated hashtags and other social media response. We will also measure success by how many people sign up for volunteer opportunities with us (and our collaborative alliance non-profit member organizations) during and after the event.
How will your project benefit Los Angeles?
Los Angeles will benefit by having a culturally diverse event that they can attend for free.
Los Angeles based chosen artists will benefit from being showcased.
Some downtown (mainly restaurant and club) businesses will benefit from increased business.
The City of Los Angeles will benefit from having a cultural event that will inspire attending Angelenos to participate in our future.
All showcased artists and vendors will be LA based.
What would success look like in the year 2050 regarding your indicator?
Success in 2050 would look like all 50 states having their own PLAY events that have spawned off of the annual PLAY event we seek to create here in our hometown of Los Angeles!
We see this being an annual event Angelenos will look forward to attending every year. Over the years we would like to see this event take over downtown like a SXSW, slowly building it out and showcasing the art and culture of our beloved Angelenos.