By Grace Weber, @gracewebermusic This item is cross-posted from the blog of the National YoungArts Foundation. On Thursday, June 26, Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen will moderate the latest installment in the YoungArts Salon Series, which is funded by Knight. The conversation will feature dancer-choreographer Justin Peck and singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens discussing “The Art of Collaboration.” The event is sold out, but a video of the discussion will be posted later to The YoungArts Blog.

There is something that happens when artists at the highest level collaborate. To call it magic would hint at the other worldliness of this meeting of artistic minds, but it wouldn’t come close to capturing just how awe inspiring an artistic collaboration at the highest level can be. Take Lennon and McCartney, two people brought together to create music so beautiful and powerful that it would seem their partnership was created by the universe itself. Or Rogers and Hammerstein, a pairing that singlehandedly (or I guess double-handedly) created the most legendary songs in musical theater. Of course, it’s common for us to see collaborations and partnerships happening inside of individual art forms, musicians to write a song together or dancers to choreograph the piece as a team. But when artists from different disciplines come together for a common cause, the results can take your breath away. 

This past May, singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens and New York City Ballet dancer and choreographer Justin Peck debuted their original collaboration titled “Everywhere We Go.” As a way to give more audiences a glimpse at the beauty of this work, director Jody Lee Lipes directed a short film depicting part of the piece. I watched this video on a train ride today from Washington DC to New York and it made me feel as if I was floating through the air while my noisey train pummeled along the East Coast. The short film captures this exact “magic” I described above and shows the intense and simple beauty that can come from a film maker, a choreographer, and a musician coming together to create something greater than themselves. Watch it now below:

…aand welcome back. I understand if you need a second to process the beauty you just witnessed. As an artist myself, I try to communicate through art what can’t be said through words alone. To me, what Sufjan Stevens, Jody Lee Lipes, and Justin Peck created is the perfect example of art capturing an emotion and a moment that can only be experienced within the art itself. They expressed an emotion that could only be released through the dance and music and they captured it flawlessly within 2 minutes and 42 seconds of collaborative work. They set aside themselves and worked as one cohesive unit in order to serve a higher purpose. 

To me, that’s what collaboration in art allows you to do. In working with other artists you respect on the deepest level, your ego has no choice but to fall to the waist side and when you let go of your ego, you are able to create art in its purest form. You are able to create art that is universal because you have taken yourself out of the equation. I have been lucky enough to be a part of several powerful collaborations with other YoungArts Alumni, including one as a part of a show directed by Bill T Jones, and the joy I find in creating art with my peers is unmatched. To figure out how to combine dance with music and acting and singing in an unconventional way, in a way where everyone is shown equally but no part is bigger than the whole and in a way where everyone ideas and voices are heard, is a beautiful experience and one that gave me an entirely new perspective when I went back to working on my art alone. 

For more information on Sufjan Stevens and Justin Peck’s work “Everywhere We Go,” check out this New York Times article and if you’ve already scored a ticket to the YoungArts Salon Series in Miami with Sufjan and Justin, congratulations! Tickets are now sold out. But we hope you’ll stay tuned for the full video of the Salon, right here on Tumblr.