Program Overview

Programmers
Yale-China Association, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Yale School of Drama

Funders
Council on East Asian Studies at Yale, Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office (NY)

Fellows
1 Hong Kong artist and 2 Hong Kong arts managers

Residency
6 months based in New Haven, Connecticut

Duration
January 2022 through June 2022

Purpose

The purpose of the Yale-China Arts Fellowship is to foster the professional careers of emerging artists and arts leaders through a specially crafted six-month experience based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The vision of this program is to build strong, collaborative relationships that bridge cultures through the arts. The Fellowship is currently in its fifth program cycle with two tracks: one for artists and one for arts managers.

2021-2022 Timeline

Subject to change due to COVID-19 impact and restrictions

Summer 2021
Apply, interview, select

November 2021
Visas, pre-departure orientations, initial programmatic planning, mentorship surveys

December 2021
Purchase flights and determine pandemic adjustment as necessary

Please note that travel may be restricted due to COVID-19 regulations, which vary state by state (see more about travel here and about COVID-19 arrival procedure here).

Requirements for Being on Campus After Travel

Fully Vaccinated Travelers

Domestic Travel. Fully vaccinated faculty, staff, and students who travel outside of Connecticut should obtain a COVID-19 test upon their return. Individuals experiencing symptoms must obtain a COVID-19 test and isolate until the test result is received. If the test is positive, the individual should begin or continue to isolate for 10 days. Individuals experiencing symptoms should speak to their health care provider.

International Travel. Fully vaccinated faculty, staff, students, and approved visitors coming from outside the United States, must test 3-5 days after travel and isolate for 10 days if that test is positive. Fully vaccinated faculty, staff, students, and approved visitors coming from any country that is listed as CDC level 4 or level 3 advisories, or does not report data (CDC level unknown), or is listed “Do Not Travel” by the U.S. Department of State must test upon return and 3-5 days later and isolate for 10 days if the result is positive. Individuals experiencing symptoms must isolate while awaiting test results and should contact their health care provider.

January 2022
Arrival in New Haven
Please note that Yale’s policy for Spring semester has not been determined. Visit undergraduate and Faculty of Arts and Sciences calendars here. Yale School of Drama’s calendar is available here.

Register for courses
Troubleshoot with Yale School of Drama registrar Ariel Yan

February 2022
Lunarfest

Spring 2022
Classes, mentorships, special events
Community work, school visits

June 2022
27th International Festival of Arts & Ideas (IFAI)

Fellowship Experience

The Yale-China Arts Fellows will spend six months in the United States based in New Haven, Connecticut. The Fellows receive modest project funding, housing and utilities, a basic living stipend, a faculty mentor, and round-trip airfare from Hong Kong to New York, with domestic transfer to and from New Haven. Fellows are expected to be self-reliant and actively pursue relationships with other artists, peers, and advocates.

Mentorships

A Yale faculty mentor will meet regularly with Fellows to identify leading institutions and thought leaders in the arts industry and help navigate Fellows’ experiences at Yale University. Yale faculty mentors will advise Fellows on opportunities to develop professional experiences, such as attending forums, lectures, art openings, and other special events. Yale faculty mentors will also help make introductions to people in the field who may invite the Fellows to visit their organizations.

Various advisers are identified and suggested by Yale-China for Fellows to meet. A mentor is confirmed once both Fellow and the professor agree to enter a mentorship for the Fellowship period.

A senior mentor from Hong Kong will work alongside the Yale faculty mentor and Yale-China staff and advisers to help contextualize these new experiences and guide the Fellow’s pursuits. Upon return to Hong Kong, Fellows will have a strong network of U.S. industry professionals to leverage for new or continuing collaborations. Fellows will have the confidence of their Hong Kong mentors to apply their new experiences and skills within their organizations. Typically, Yale-China will invite these senior Hong Kong mentors to visit New Haven for up to 7 days to learn about new arts industry trends, meet their Yale faculty colleagues and other professionals, and possibly present to a Yale or New York public audience.

The Hong Kong mentor should be a senior leader within the Fellow’s organization (such as an executive director, CEO, program director, or member of a governing board), or a similar role in a comparable organization. Yale-China assists each Fellow with the presentation of the program and proposal for mentorship, as needed. Yale-China will coordinate the visit of the Hong Kong mentor to New Haven in June 2021.

COVID-19 Impact on Mentorships

In a typical program, mentorships should be finalized by the end of January. We understand that due to the global pandemic, there may be changes to the mentorship structure, especially due to travel restrictions and social distancing. Yale-China will work with Fellows throughout their program to determine the best format for mentorship guidance. For the 2022 program, in consultation with our funders, we have determined that travel is not viable this year. We still encourage you to find ways to engage your Hong Kong mentor with the live conversations and programs you are developing during your Fellowship.

Community Learning: Engagement and Growth through Reflection

Community learning opportunities provide Fellows with experience in engaging with residents in the New Haven area, providing specialized services to those who would otherwise not have access, and reflecting on these interactions as a means for personal growth. Fellows meet with staff to discuss these experiences and to receive program guidance during their time in the United States. The first community learning opportunity is through Lunarfest, Yale-China’s Lunar New Year arts and cultural program, scheduled for February. This is a great time to try out engaging with a broad New Haven audience and discover some of the site-specific characteristics of this diverse and multicultural community.

Project Research - A Means to Creative Transpacific Collaboration

The Fellows will research and develop their projects over the course of his/her residency in New Haven. This project should reflect an interest of the artist and have entry points for cross-cultural understanding. The research for this project may be presented at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Arts & Ideas producers will advise Fellows throughout the six months leading up to the Festival.

Project research will vary depending on each artist’s area of interest, but in the past, the more successful experiences (based on visitor feedback, attendance, and media recognition) have included:

• Engaging New Haven people as a focus

• Collaborating with others to achieve goals

• Utilizing site specific resources, social issues, or characteristics of New Haven

Festival Production Guidance

We will schedule regular meetings with the Festival producers to discuss what is possible for June 2022. Please take a look at how they shifted to online offerings in 2020 here and 2021 here. We suggest considering how elements of your project might have digital accessibility in case some or all of your project needs to move online.

Broad Objectives of the Artist Fellowship

The Yale-China Artist Fellowship aims to strengthen each Arts Fellow’s artistic and cultural skills through a combination of hands-on experience and mentorship. The Fellowship aims to give each Arts Fellow the space to:

• Explore and experiment artistically, with a focus on cross-cultural understanding

• Develop relationships and creative transpacific collaborations with Yale faculty, graduate peers, local artists and non-artists

• Engage the community through teaching master classes, leading workshops, giving performances or lectures, and providing specialized services to those who would otherwise not have access

• Focus on new areas of growth as an artist and as an individual with global perspective through mentoring and guidance with Yale-China staff and faculty advisers

• Present culminating artwork or research at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas

Broad Objectives of the Arts Activators Fellowship

The Arts Activators Fellowship equips two creative leaders from Hong Kong with a network of producers, presenters, directors, and curators through specially designed programs in New Haven, with the goal of further stimulating Hong Kong’s artistic talent through global partnerships. The Fellowship’s objectives are to:

• Develop the professional skills and experiences of emerging leaders, such as artistic directors, presenters, project managers, marketers, executive directors, producers, curators, etc. – the visionaries who are core to a thoughtful and cohesive artistic agenda required of world-class facilities in Hong Kong, such as the West Kowloon Cultural District.

• Develop a network of global collaborators in the arts and cultural sector that will activate and empower Hong Kong’s own local talent and arts institutions.

Our Ask of You

Reports by Fellows

Fellows submit the following reports and are encouraged to actively write about their experience. Arts prompts will focus on Fellows’ artistic vision, project research progress, and challenges related to technique and skills. Field prompts will focus on Fellows’ cultural experience in the United States, especially through the experience in New Haven and at Yale.

These reports are designed to be short reflection pieces (2-3 paragraphs) and will be circulated only for viewing by Yale-China staff, trustees, and advisers. Some quotes may be used for the Yale-China magazine (“Bridges”), website, or the e-newsletter (“Passages”).

Biweekly Meetings

Fellows will be scheduled for biweekly meetings with Yale-China staff with two goals in mind:

1. To reflect on recent experiences and to try to contextualize them

2. To discuss any issues Fellows would like to raise, such as course work, artistic pursuits, or life in New Haven

Course Selection

Yale School of Drama (YSD) is a conservatory and many of the courses have restricted enrollment.  Some courses are open to non-YSD students with permission from the instructor and/or department chair, while others are only open to other YSD students. Unfortunately, all courses in YSD’s Acting, Directing, and Playwriting departments are NOT open to non-YSD students.

Please refer to the Yale School of Drama Bulletin (http://bulletin.yale.edu/) to review course descriptions. Please look for “open to non-School of students with prior permission of the instructor.” Kindly contact the instructor(s) and/or department chair(s) directly for enrollment permission, etc. For those YSD courses that are open to non-YSD students, they are also listed at https://courses.yale.edu where details such as date, time, classroom, etc are listed.  There is an average of about 20 Drama courses open to non-YSD students and they are all listed at https://courses.yale.edu/

The Yale-China Arts Fellows should email Ariel Yan (ariel.yan@yale.edu), Yale School of Drama Registrar, their YSD course selections and their course selections at other Schools.  The YSD Registrar would register the Fellows as “auditors” to receive an auditor or AUD grade for the non-credit course.

A sample email to an instructor might look as follows:

Dear Professor Channick,

My name is Phoebe Hui, and I am a 2022 Yale-China Arts Fellow conducting research on art and technology. I am an independent artist working in mixed media and across disciplines, focusing on the intersection of music, technology, and time concepts. I am a Fellow visiting from Hong Kong from January through June 2022, and will be presenting at the 27th International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

I came across your listing on “Law and the Arts” and would like to ask if I can audit this course. Part of my research at Yale includes understanding arts administration practices and U.S. law protections for intellectual property and freedom of expression. You can learn more about my latest project, which explores this very topic at earthlinginger.com.

I look forward to your reply. Please let me know if you would like any additional information.

With warm regards,

Phoebe

Our Partners

Council on East Asian Studies at Yale (CEAS)

The Yale-China Artist Fellowship is sponsored by the Yale-China Association and the Council on East Asian Studies (CEAS). CEAS is Yale’s interdisciplinary hub for the study of all aspects of East Asia and its constituent peoples, cultures, and societies. For more than fifty years, its mission has been to support scholarship of the highest level across the humanities and social sciences, and to facilitate deeper understanding of the region at Yale and beyond. Home to the University’s undergraduate major and Master’s program in East Asian Studies, CEAS hosts a wide range of speakers, events and visiting scholars throughout the year; offers a competitive Postdoctoral Associates Program; and provides a generous array of grants and fellowships. 

Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York

Representing the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, the Office (香港駐紐約經濟貿易辦事處) aims to promote and strengthen the business and cultural links between Hong Kong and the 31 eastern states of the USA. Visit our website (http://www.hketony.gov.hk/), follow us on Facebook (Hong Kong Meets America) and Instagram (@HongKongMeetsAmerica).

Yale School of Drama

Yale School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theatre train and advance leaders to raise the standard of global professional practice in every theatrical discipline, pursuing excellence in art to promote wonder, empathy, and understanding in the world.

International Festival of Arts & Ideas

As one of Yale-China's primary partners for the Arts Fellowship, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas is a 15-day festival of performing arts, lectures, and conversations that celebrates the greatest artists and thinkers from around the world. Each June, the Festival takes over the theaters, open spaces, and courtyards of New Haven, Connecticut, attracting an attendance of more than 100,000 to its events, of which more than 80% of are completely free to the public.

The mission of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas is to create an internationally renowned festival in New Haven of the highest quality with world-class artists, thinkers and leaders, attracting and engaging a broad and diverse audience celebrating and building community and advancing economic development.

The Festival provides guidance and serves as a platform for fellows to showcase or workshop their projects, which reach a stage of maturity by the time of the Festival in June a year after the fellows' residency.

Program

The Festival's ambitious music, dance, and theater programs fill New Haven with renowned international stars, newly-discovered artists, and a number of U.S. and world premieres each season. The eclectic ideas program offers a mix of serious, controversial, and whimsical topics, all designed to inspire new ways of thinking. The Festival also features plenty of family-friendly events. It continues to make more than 80% of Festival events free to the public, including some of the most prestigious opera, jazz, classical, rock, folk and fusion music in the world.

Location

New Haven is home to several major cultural institutions, including three Tony award-winning regional theaters (Long Wharf Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Shubert Theater); the Yale Center for British Art, which houses the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom; and the Yale University Art Gallery, the country's oldest university museum. The city is also home to the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the fourth-oldest symphony orchestra in the United States.

Despite its small size, New Haven boasts strong arts and educational traditions, a profusion of fabulous restaurants and shops, and the New Haven Green, a picturesque gathering place in the heart of the city.

Venues

The entire city of New Haven plays host to The Festival. The New Haven Green, named one of the country's 10 most beautiful public spaces, is the jewel at the center. On the Green, the Festival presents a series of unforgettable concerts, art activities, and opportunities for creative play.

Many Festival events take place at Long Wharf Theatre, the legendary Shubert Theater, and in the historic courtyards, auditoriums, and theaters of Yale University. Tours by foot and bike take visitors throughout New Haven and beyond to discover its wealth of historic, ethnic and natural treasures.

Audience

The Festival attracts a strong local and regional audience, attendees from all 50 states, and a growing number of international visitors from dozens of countries. The Festival's marketing is aggressive and inclusive, reaching out to develop an audience base that is diverse in age, ethnicity, and interests.

Community and Education

The Festival plays a vital role in enriching lives in New Haven and throughout Connecticut by embracing diversity and leading people to understand how their futures are entwined.

Arts residencies are created in schools and community centers throughout New Haven to introduce a diverse audience to the performing arts. Every summer, international artists devote time to teach young students of music, dance, theater and the arts. See our "Opportunities" section for more information about artist residencies and how to perform at the Festival.

General Yale-China Arts Fellowship Policies

1. Fellows should contact Yale-China Association if there are any issues with the apartment or plan to have any overnight guests. Guests may not stay for more than seven days.

2. Fellows are expected to be courteous to other housemates, to maintain general cleanliness of their rooms and the common areas, to keep noises to reasonable levels, especially at night time. Generally, observe a noise curfew of 10:00PM until 7:00AM.

3. Any travel that Fellows plan to make between January 1 and June 30, 2020 must be approved by Yale-China in advance. No travel is allowed that might impact class attendance or other academic obligations. Any fellow who disregards this policy shall assume full responsibility for their actions.

4. Fellows are expected to complete all course work for audited classes, even though it is not taken for credit, you are expected to do all the work just as a full-time student, unless otherwise indicated by your professor.

5. Fellows should schedule meetings regularly (monthly or as needed) with their mentors and with Yale-China staff to facilitate communication on the progress of their project research, making connections with practitioners or leaders in the field, and any additional professional guidance.

6. Fellows who need to extend their time at Yale for any reason need to get approval from Yale-China and the Office of International Scholars and Students. Yale-China does not guarantee such requests will be accommodated and does not provide additional funding for such extensions.

7. Fellows are expected to attend their biweekly, mentorship, and advisory meetings, as well as submit reports to Yale-China Association during the time of their fellowship. In extraordinary circumstances, Fellows may ask for extensions for any given report.

8. Fellows are expected to adhere to the terms and conditions set forth by Yale University regarding observance of laws and regulations for J-1 visa holders in the United States.

Safety Tips

There are many steps that each of us can take to ensure our safety. On the left, you can find safety tips for specific settings and situations (Apartment Safety, Holiday Safety, etc.). Below are general personal safety rules to follow, regardless of the setting. 

• Use common sense. Try not to walk alone or appear distracted by wearing headphones or talking on your cell phone.

• At night, always walk with a friend and use lighted pathways to navigate throughout the University.

• Use the campus transportation services and security escorts.

• If you see something, say something.

• Report any questionable activity or crime right away.

• Do not carry or display large amounts of money or jewelry.

• If approached by someone demanding money, do not resist. Turn over the money, then call the police immediately.

• Obey the law: Avoid illegal drugs and alcohol.

• Identify visitors through a window or peephole before opening the door.

• Request service people to show proper credentials before you let them into your apartment.

• Never hesitate to contact the police if you have been a victim of a crime.

• When well-lit areas are not available, use the campus transportation services and security escorts by calling 203-432-6330 or 203-432-WALK.

COVID-19 Guiding Protocols for Fellows in New Haven

For the 2021-2022 year, Yale-China staff will strive to provide transparent and clear policies based on the guidance of local, state, and federal authorities around the global pandemic. Please note the following protocols we will use, last updated December 15, 2021.

Arrival Cancellation Trigger Conditions

Yale-China is monitoring the following trigger conditions:

1. Connecticut COVID level alert is raised to Red.

2. Yale COVID alert level is raised to Red.

3. International travel to/from Hong Kong is shut down.

Yale-China will not purchase the Fellows’ air tickets until December 15 to allow time to assess the situation regarding the transmission of COVID-19 at Yale/New Haven.

If any of the above trigger conditions occur between December 15 and December 31, Yale-China will delay the arrival of the Fellows in New Haven until conditions improve. Fellows may travel to New Haven if/when the CT COVID Level Alert is lowered to Orange, the Yale COVID alert level is lowered to Orange, and flights to/from Hong Kong are available.

Under current conditions, Fellows will be required to follow these State of Connecticut requirements (Hong Kong is set at Level 3): Yale COVID-19 Guidelines. Note that Fellows need to plan on taking tests on the day they arrive or self-quarantine.

Emergency Travel Insurance

Yale-China will purchase emergency travel insurance similar to the IMG Patriot Platinum Travel Insurance plan. Please note that this plan is for short-term emergency travel insurance in the United States, which is not designed for long-term health coverage. View IMG’s COVID-19 FAQs at the bottom of this page.