Create + Activate: Call for Submissions Is Now Open
There’s a question we’ve been sitting with lately: What does it mean to be in a practice of future-making when the field keeps telling us to shrink, to compromise, to cut back?
One answer lives inside Create + Activate. And we’re thrilled to announce that submissions for Cohort 2 are now open!
This is a program that refuses scarcity logic. It’s not about fixing. It’s about fueling. About resourcing BIPOC ensemble artists not just to survive—but to imagine, connect, exchange, and lead. It’s about lifting up the kind of cultural leadership that already exists inside our field and giving it space to stretch. It’s a yearlong gathering space where relationship IS the curriculum.
What is Create + Activate?
Create + Activate: A NET BIPOC Collaborative Community in Ensemble Practice is a yearlong, virtual artist-exchange circle for approximately 6 BIPOC ensemble-based artists, practitioners, or leaders. Participants receive a $2,000 honorarium, waived NET membership, and support for in-person gatherings. The cohort meets monthly, co-creating a curriculum rooted in relationship, ritual, artistic process, and deep listening.
We’ve designed this second cohort in relationship with the first. Cohort 1 alumni will return to guest-host, mentor, and offer bridge-building. We’ll meet together in virtual space and, for the first time, in person.
We’re holding space for the contradictions: grief and joy. Burnout and aliveness. Strategy and mystery. We’re not asking you to perform your value, we’re inviting you to bring your full self, and co-create what we all need next.
This is not a fellowship to complete. It’s a cohort to co-create.
The submission form is short and open to voice, video, or text. We’re not looking for resumes full of accolades. We’re looking for honesty, insight, and creative spirit. If you’re asking bold questions, working in right relationship, and ready to build something in community—you’re in the right place.
Submit to Create + Activate
Applications Due: August 22, 2025
Submit via form: Click Here to Apply
Want to send this to someone else? Great. The more the circle expands, the stronger the network becomes.
TL;DR / For Sharing: Create + Activate is a 14-month artist-exchange circle for BIPOC ensemble artists. Run by NET, participants receive $2,000, waived NET membership, and monthly gatherings with artists across the country. Applications are open until August 22. Submit in video, text, or audio format.
Need support? Have questions? Want to talk with a NET team member? Email info@ensembletheaters.net or join an upcoming application info session.
Is This You?
We’re looking for six BIPOC ensemble leaders and practitioners who are:
Committed to long-form, collaborative creation
Actively shaping or being shaped by collective practice
Ready to share what you do know and open to what you don’t
Craving a creative home base, even when your form resists boxes
Holding questions about lineage, disruption, and future-making
Whether you’ve just joined NET or have been part of this movement for years, this circle is for those ready to take a yearlong leap into co-creation, exploration, and shared authorship.
You just need to trust that you have something to offer, and are open to receiving.
Why NET? Why Now?
NET is not just a service organization. We are a creative home, a kin network, a space for the weird, the emergent, the fierce, the sacred, the collaborative. We’re building new systems, not replicating broken ones.
And we know that the next wave of ensemble leadership must be resourced, interconnected, and boldly BIPOC-led.
Create + Activate is not a solo moment, it’s part of a larger movement at NET: from our Meet-Up Tour and Calls for Connection to our Story & Legacy Project and the ongoing building of a Ensemble Directory & Map (add yourself here if you haven’t already!).
We’re designing the infrastructure that reflects what ensemble artists have always known:
That we’re stronger in relation.
That knowledge grows in community.
That collaboration is a way of life, not a tool to extract labor.
What Happens When You Say Yes?
You get a room full of people who see you, who hold you, who want to build something with you.
You get time to slow down. To reflect. To dream.
You get connection that might reshape your next decade.
You get to be part of what’s next, not just what’s now.
The application is short. The experience is long. The impact, we believe, will ripple.
Apply to Create + Activate: Cohort 2
Let’s practice the future together.
Ready to Say Yes?
Submit by August 22, 2025 (Midnight PT)
Got someone in mind? Forward this post.
Got questions? Email us at info@ensembletheaters.net.
It only takes one act of trust to change what’s possible.