Pilobolus Launches 'Get Out the Vote' Campaign

Related: Pilobolus, Get Out the Vote, robert Whitman

The internationally acclaimed dance company Pilobolus has launched a grassroots get-out-the-vote campaign. The campaign started with a Robert Whitman photograph of the company's dancers' bodies spelling out the word "VOTE" at their home base in Connecticut. This idea came out of Pilobolus's longstanding institutional commitment to exploring new ways to communicate ideas through the medium of the human body.

The troupe then reached out to local members of their community to make their own photographic representation of the word "VOTE," which Whitman photographed a series of (available for viewing at www.pilobolus.org and www.facebook.com/pilobolus). Then Pilobolus decided to take the campaign from coast to coast and launched the Instagram hashtag #pilobolusvoteproject, encouraging Instagram users everywhere to make their own creative "VOTE" photos and post them. (Non-Instagram users, you can participate in the project by emailing your photo to info@pilobolus.org.)

"The Pilobolus Vote Project is our way to create something together that doesn't just say, "Vote,' but also encourages people to join physically to express themselves as a group, as a community. Our hope is that the Pilobolus Vote Project will empower people to have a voice, regardless of political leanings, and to share that voice with their peers," said Pilobolus Executive Director Itamar Kubovy

Shortly after the launch of the Instagram campaign the New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment caught wind of the project and partnered with Pilobolus to create a new series of VOTE photos in front of iconic New York City landmarks. On Sunday (10/21/12), Whitman photographed the dancers' single-word message at local landmarks, including The Apollo Theater, Brooklyn Bridge, the Bronx Zoo, Grand Central Station, the Staten Island Ferry terminal, Times Square, Unisphere and the Financial District's "Charging Bull." These photos will be the centerpiece of www.whosontheballot.org non-partisan digital and print voter outreach campaign. The WhosOntheBallot.org website provides New York City citizens with easy access to election information. Plans are also in the works for using these photographs in a larger outdoor print campaign geared toward encouraging people to get educated about the candidates and vote.

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