Power!Trip Takes Art Lovers on the Ultimate Vacation

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Belle Contemporary Dance Co. at the 2012 Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival. Photo: Taylor Crichton, courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow Dance.

For travelers who seek out unique arts experiences, the University of California, San Diego’s renowned multi-arts presenter, ArtPower!, has put together the ultimate vacation package. Artistic Director Martin Wollesen will guide travelers through premiere arts destinations in the U.S. and overseas for in-depth experiences with performances, artists and arts leaders. The excursions, called Power!Trips, are open to the public with the objective of building support for ArtPower! The first takes place this summer, July 16-22, in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts with visits to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Tanglewood and MASS MoCA.

Throughout the year, ArtPower! at UC San Diego brings internationally renowned innovators in music, dance and film to the campus and community with a focus on creating opportunities for audiences to engage directly with the artists. Through conversations between artists and audience members, workshops, K-12 outreach programs and more, the program aims to make experiencing art accessible and dynamic. Now, with the establishment of Power!Trips, the program is taking audiences to cultural centers outside of San Diego to engage with the arts.

“At ArtPower!, we believe the arts are an exchange,” said Wollesen. “We care that we share the artistic and cultural context of the work being presented to our audiences. To that end, if we are going to engage nationally and internationally we need to provide opportunities for audiences to explore the world outside of San Diego.”

The inaugural Power!Trip, a Berkshires art retreat, combines dance, music and visual arts with insider opportunities such as meet-and-greets with artists and festival leaders, behind-the-scenes access and more. Highlights include: 

• Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival

Jacobs Pillow Dance is lauded worldwide as a hub and mecca of dancing. Situated in a 163-acre National Historic Landmark, the event is America’s longest running international dance festival, celebrating its 81st anniversary this year. Thousands of people from across the globe visit the festival each summer for its array of dance-making, dance training and explorations of extensive dance archive. Power!Trip travelers will attend the festival to see Tere O’Connor Dance and Ballet BC, tour the venue and more.

• Tanglewood

On August 13, 1936, the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert in the Berkshires. That same year, Mrs. Gorham Brooks and Miss Mary Aspinwall Tappan offered Tanglewood, the Tappan family estate, with its buildings and 210 acres of lawns and meadows, as a gift to the orchestra. This year marks the 75th anniversary of this world-renowned music festival and famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  Power!Trip events at Tanglewood include Borodin String Quartet and Boston Symphony Orchestra performances and rehearsal.

• MASS MoCA

Since opening in 1999, MASS MoCA has become one of the world’s premiere centers for making and showing today’s best art. In the visual arts, MASS MoCA exhibits work by some of the most important artists of today—both well-known and emerging—focusing on large-scale and complex installations that are impossible to realize in conventional museums. In addition, MASS MoCA stages more than 75 performances each year. The Power!Trip visit to MASS MoCA will include a VIP behind-the-scenes tour.

Billed as “excursions to new worlds in the arts,” Power!Trips were created as a special opportunity for ArtPower!’s loyal supporters: those who give $250 or more annually to support a robust season of programming year after year. With less than half of its budget supported by ticket sales and university funds, ArtPower!  depends on the support of the community to sustain its year-round offerings.

The Berkshires Art Retreat has already sold out; however, planning for future Power!Trips is currently underway.

“This is just the beginning,” said Wollesen. “In the coming years we are taking off to international destinations. Stay tuned!”

To learn more about Power!Trips, or to become an ArtPower! supporter, call (858) 534-7657 or email klwalker@ucsd.edu. For more information about ArtPower! at UC San Diego, visit www.artpower.ucsd.edu.