Portfolio

Ryan Conarro is an organizational leader, creative producer, interdisciplinary artist, and a facilitator of community engagement and development through performance, storytelling, documentary work, and creative placemaking.

Artist Talk / Interview | “Daily Inspiration,”Voyage Denver

In conjunction with his site-specific performance work Saints of Failure at Denver’s Historic Grant Avenue Church, Voyage Denver featured Ryan in a May 2021 artist talk / interview. Check it out here.

Exploring Citizenship through Community Interviews & Artistic Production |

Yupiulleq Nutem: Statehood Tundra Style

YUPIULLEQ NUTEM was an exploration of citizenship and critique of Alaska’s statehood journey, resulting in an interview-based interdisciplinary performance event bringing together over 100 participating community members from across southwest Alaska, facilitated and directed by Ryan as lead teaching artist for Lower Kuskokwim School District. After a one-year process of community interviews and dialogues, young people from 11 different Alaska Native Yup’ik villages shared stories, songs, and traditional dance interpreting the memories and experiences of their elders from the time before and during Alaska’s statehood movement. For more about the production, visit here.

Storytelling on Multiple Platforms (performance; community story website; social media engagement) | ALAXSXA | ALASKA

A documentary about ALAXSXA | ALASKA, including performance excerpts, highlights from 2 statewide Alaska tours, and a look at the community engagement work of the production. (12 min)

Ryan was lead producer, co-creator, and performer of the Ping Chong + Company production ALAXSXA | ALASKA, which he co-directed with Ping Chong, and created with Gary Upay’aq Beaver (Yup’ik) and Justin Perkins. ALAXSXA | ALASKA is an interdisciplinary performance exploring cross-cultural encounter in the Last Frontier, including recorded voices and stories of community members from across the state. The piece premiered at University of Alaska Anchorage in August 2017 and toured Alaska communities in 2017 and 2018. Its Off-Broadway premiere took place at La MaMa in 2017.

Ryan led the creation and editing of the accompanying story website, Encounters Alaska, and he produced a community dialogue series in each presenting community, as well as a virtual storytelling event between the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage and La MaMa in New York. Finally, Ryan oversaw Ping Chong + Company communications staff as they facilitated an ongoing social media story-sharing series during performance runs of the show.Time Out New York called ALAXSXA | ALASKA a ”sumptuous anthropological collage,” and The Village Voice called it “spellbinding.”

Writing & Directing Community Theatrical Work | Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity

Ryan’s first project during his 6-year tenure with New York’s Ping Chong + Company was as a co-writer, with Ping and Sara Zatz, for Beyond Sacred. The production is part of PCC’s Undesirable Elements series, an ongoing series of community-specific interview-based theatrical works. After Beyond Sacred, Ryan proceeded to lead and direct two new works of the Undesirable Elements series - Aan Yátx’u Sáani: Noble People of the Land, and When the Salmon Spoke - and to co-facilitate the PCC Summer Institute for community-based artists.

Facilitation | DevisingHUB at Ping Chong + Company

Ryan is an experienced facilitator and teaching artist. His leadership experience includes conceiving and leading Ping Chong & Company’s DevisingHUB, a 5-week incubator for generative interdisciplinary artists in New York interested in creating original performance works. Ryan led 3 cohorts / sessions of DevisingHUB, from 2015 through 2019.

Solutions Journalism | WORTHY: Colorado Reentry Stories

Ryan was Executive Producer and writer for WORTHY: Colorado Reentry Stories, a four-part series in 2022-23 as part of his work as General Manager for Inside Wire: Colorado Prison Radio. He organized a team of storytellers with lived experience in the Colorado justice system, and they were granted a 2022 LEDE Fellowship from the Solutions Journalism Network. The fellowship supported the creation of WORTHY.

Hear the promotion for the series by clicking on the link above; to learn more and to listen to the full series, visit here.

Inside Wire: Colorado Prison Radio has been featured on CBS Mornings, NPR’s All Things Considered, Rocky Mountain PBS, and more.

Audio Walk of Community Stories | Juneau Voices

Juneau Voices, commissioned by the City & Borough of Juneau, Alaska and created by Ryan Conarro and Lillian Petershoare (Tlingit), features eleven place-based audio installations featuring community voices, accessible via QR codes on signs in downtown Juneau. The sequence creates an audio walk experience with Juneau citizens who share community histories through their first-person stories. As creative director, producer, and co-sound designer, Ryan collaborated with and supported sound designer Mike Sakarias; composers and musicians George Kuhar and X’unei Lance Twitchell (Tlingit); narrators David Katzeek (Tlingit) and Erin Tripp (Tlingit); and designer Sarah Campen, who created the accompanying story website, the Juneau Voices Story Box.

International Community Storytelling Production | When the Salmon Spoke

When the Salmon Spoke was recognized with the 2021 U.S. Water Prize for Outstanding Artists by the US Water Alliance. Ryan Conarro served as creative director and producer for this digital documentary production of community stories from Tlingit, Haida, and Tahltan people of Wrangell, Alaska and Tahltan Territory, British Columbia. Ryan collaborated closely with project leads Tis Peterman (Tlingit/Tahltan), Annita McPhee (Tahltan/Tlingit), Kirby Muldoe (Gitxsan/Tsimsian), and Heather Hardcastle. He advised sound designer and editor Mike Sakarias; composers George Kuhar and Xhunei Lance Twitchell (Tlingit); video editor Dan Mesec; and visual artists and illustrators Julian Bozeman, Sarah Conarro, and Alano Edzerza (Tahltan). He collaborated with designer Sarah Campen, who co-created the accompanying story website, the When the Salmon Spoke Story Box. View the full production here.

Audio Walk of Community Stories | Cornerstone Stories at Atlantic Terminal

Ryan collaborated with community activist and Atlantic Terminal Houses resident Celeste Staton to create Cornerstone Stories, as part of the 2020 University Settlement Artist in Residence Program in New York. A place-based audio walk with 10 stations around the Atlantic Terminal grounds, the audio production seeks to invite visitors to get to know the history of this NYC Housing Authority landmark, and to bridge gaps between Atlantic Terminal and the surrounding, gentrifying neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Ryan collaborated with and advised musician and Atlantic Terminal resident Johnny Famous on the musical accompaniment for Cornerstone Stories. Experience the 10 audio pieces here.

International Community Dialogues | Borders

Abu Dhabi: Community Ruminations on Borders | As a companion project to Theater Mitu’s internationally touring production Juarez: A Documentary Mythology, a play examining community lives along the US-Mexico border, Ryan served as Community Engagement Lead. He facilitated and produced a series of audio Ruminations on Borders, in which audience members were invited by teams of interviewers to share stories of border identity and border crossings. These recordings were gathered, and the piece was produced. in Abu Dhabi, UAE; Beirut, Lebanon; and NYC. 2012-14.