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1999 - 2003 | Ballet Beyond Borders

Track Two, in partnership with Moscow’s Russian Cultural Fund, sponsored the Ballet Beyond Borders project in 1999. Through this project leading Russian and American dancers of the San Francisco Ballet toured the former Soviet Union, performing in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Donetsk, Ufa, Kyiv, Lviv, Alma Ata, Tallinn and Vilnius. In 2003, Track Two sponsored the third tour of the project for performances in Santa Fe, New Mexico to sold-out audiences. Two of the pieces were performed and choreographed by principal dancer Yuri Possokhov, formerly of the Bolshoi ballet in Moscow and the San Francisco Ballet.

1996 | Russian Philosophy & Lindisfarne Press

Track Two initiated a project with Lindisfarne Press to publish English-language editions penned by major Russian philosophers. Among the thinkers were Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev, and Sergei Nikolayevich Bulgakov. In total, nine volumes in this series were eventually published with the help of a generous grant from Laurance Rockefeller.

1986 - 1990s | PEN International & Union of Soviet Writers

In 1986, Track Two signed the first agreement between a nongovernmental organization and the Union of Soviet Writers, setting the stage for future collaboration between Soviet and American novelists, playwrights and poets. Two years later, Track Two hosted a delegation of eminent Soviet writers including Vladimir Karpov, First Secretary of the USSR Union of Writers and historical novelist, satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky, playwright Viktor Rozov, and short-story author Tatiana Tolstoy. This delegation toured the United States and met with prominent American writers, including Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, and Kurt Vonnegut.

This meeting and the ensuing friendship facilitated the Union of Soviet Writers’ entry to the International PEN Association (known today as PEN International), an organization which monitors government censorship and freedom of expression around the world. Its entry served as a central event in Soviet glasnost. Track Two and its partner Esalen Institute consider this to be one of their most important contributions to the Soviet Union’s opening to free speech and democracy.

In 1988, Track Two, along with the Union of Soviet writers, celebrated the 50th anniversary of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck, who had first visited the USSR in 1947 and was among the first Americans to visit many parts of the USSR since the communist revolution, was a favorite writer among Soviet citizens. Anniversary festivities were held in the celebrated author’s home town of Salinas, California and in Moscow with leading Steinbeck scholars at Moscow State University, a festival of Steinbeck films, an exhibit of original memorabilia and imagery taken by celebrated LIFE magazine photographer Horace Bristol. In Moscow, lectures on Steinbeck’s life and works were held at the Union of Soviet Writers and attended by large audiences.

Several years later, five Soviet specialists in American literature visited the United States to participate in the 10th Anniversary of the Steinbeck Festival in Salinas.

1997 - 1999 | Historical Reflections Media Project

In 1997, Track Two embarked on the Historical Reflections Media Project through filmed interviews with Russians and Americans in Russia and the United States whose impactful contributions supported the transition from the end of the Cold War to the beginnings of democratic governance and a free market economy. In the following years, Track Two furthered this project through a salon held at the Kapitsa dacha in Moscow and collaboration with Abamedia, a media production company specializing in archival media. The resulting oral histories and archival research were ultimately contributed to the Hoover Institution’s collection at Stanford University.

2008 | Documentary Voices: Pulling Focus

Track Two sponsored the cutting edge documentary festival “Documentary Voices: Pulling Focus” held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. More than 40 filmmakers and industry professionals from the US, the UAE, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Iran gathered to explore the role of documentary filmmaking in cultural diplomacy. Anisa Mehdi, a distinguished journalist, producer, director, and Track Two advisor served as the festival’s artistic director. The event garnered media attention and support from the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, as well as from the Dubai International Film Festival.

2012 | Movie Prophets

The International Abrahamic Network (IAN), Track Two’s middle east program, undertook a social media project that culminated in a film festival held at Esalen Institute titled “Movie Prophets”. The Festival was helmed by journalist, director, producer, Esalen Board of Trustee member, and Track Two advisor, Anisa Mehdi, and founder of Digital Domain Inc., Scott Ross.

2013 | Esalen Pacifica Prize

In 2011, a core group of Track Two participants, advisors, and Board Members met in New York to initiate the Esalen Pacifica Prize Arts project, an effort to build new and enduring connections between the artistic and broader communities of Vladivostok, Russia’s largest Pacific Ocean port, and the California coastal communities of San Francisco and Big Sur.

The following year, the project came to fruition. Track Two and Esalen Institute, in cooperation with California College of the Arts, based in San Francisco and The Far Eastern Academy of the Arts in Vladivostok, selected four young, talented painters as the inaugural recipients. The artists spent four weeks in residency at Esalen using the power of art to connect and inspire new thinking about areas of common interest with subjects ranging from Russia’s evolving role in Asia’s economy to the impact of climate change on the Pacific Ocean.

The resulting works were exhibited in San Francisco (February 2013) and Vladivostok (June 2013). For the latter, the American team traveled to Vladivostok to join their Russian colleagues. The month-long exhibition was hosted by the Far Eastern Academy of the Arts and the ARKA gallery. The exhibition’s opening was covered by national media and included a letter of congratulations from the American Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.