Tuesday, September 28, 2010

We Are OFFICIALLY No Longer Strangers...



Take a quick Sneak Peek into The Field's swanky ERPA Book Launch event at OpenPlan's Penthouse from earlier this week. Whet your appetite? Check back for the complete footage of Arlene Goldbard's compelling keynote and the ERPA artists' insightful Panel Discussion next week!

kahlil almustafa: Using the Tupperware Party Model to Sell Art

In 2009, I started using the Tupperware Party Model to hold Living Room Readings. Don’t laugh! Tupperware parties have sold billions of dollars of merchandise over the decades. To hold a Living Room Reading, I ask a person in my network to host their friends and family in their home or community space for an intimate gathering. During the event, we have discussions, play games, have a poetry reading, and sell books. This model can be easily replicated by writers, musicians, visual artists, dancers, and artists of all disciplines.

When inventor Earl Tupper developed those small plastic bowls in 1946, later known as Tupperware, those who witnessed it considered it a miracle. This new product was much lighter and less likely to break than traditional food containers made of glass. The problem was, Tupperware was not selling in retail stores. No one knew how they worked. It was out of this need to find a non-traditional method of reaching customers that the first Tupperware Home Party was born.

Artists are faced with a similar problem today. Our potential customers do not understand how “art works.” The same way Tupperware was not able to sell in retail stores, the traditional method of selling art through large institutions isn’t working. Both individual artists and arts organizations can learn from the Tupperware Party Economic Model to engage communities with their art while creating an additional revenue stream.

Here are two principles from the Tupperware Party Economic Model which artists can learn from:

People Need Demonstrations to Understand How the Product Works – Even though artistic expression is as ancient as human breath, for many people it is as revolutionary technology as those small plastic containers were in the 1950’s. In my career as a performance poet I have found that people need to see a demonstration of the product. Often times, after attending one of my workshops or performances, people will email me to tell me they used a poem in the book to start a conversation or they wrote a poem of their own. People realized they considered poetry irrelevant to their everyday lives. My demonstration reminded them of the usefulness of poetry in the world.

My guess is that this need for people to see “art work,” exists across artistic disciplines. How can a dancer remind someone to connect to their body? How many shower-singers are waiting to be reminded of the power of sharing their voice? When you transform someone’s relationship to the way art can be expressed in their lives, they are likely to become loyal supporters.

People are Empowered Through Participation – Everyone knows, if you go to a Tupperware Party, be ready to play games. Participation, from the host to the guests, are a key principle in the Tupperware Party Model. Games are an opportunity to engage the guests with the product. During these games, guests compete for play money which can be used to buy giveaways. This takes advantage of a universal human phenomenon: reciprocity. When people receive something free, they are inclined to give back. For you, this can mean ticket sales, donor support, or product purchases.

Let other People Promote - The Tupperware Party Economic Model takes advantage of one universal human characteristic: “people buy things from people they trust.” By using social networking, partnering with one host can lead to twenty to thirty new supporters, which in turn can lead to two or three more events. For artists, this is an excellent way to get around large cultural institutions, with their bloated budgets, and bring their art directly to people. This is an excellent way to develop your audience as an artist.

For my Living Room Readings, I arm hosts with promotional materials: a description of the event, a description of my book, a short bio, a photo, and a YouTube clip. Everyone wants to throw a good party, so the hosts are sure to promote. As they promote the event, they also promote me.

Using the Tupperware Party Economic Model gives artists access to performance space and the highly-coveted new audience. It also forces artists to get close up and personal with people, sharing their artistic process and breaking that fourth wall between performer and audience. Over the course of nine months, I held ten Living Room Readings, leading up to the publication of my book. At the release party, more than fifty percent of the audience had participated in a Living Room Reading. They came because they knew that poetry worked.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

We Are No Longer Strangers Book Launch at OpenPlans Penthouse LIVE STREAM coming soon 09/27 6-10pm




Be inspired! Couldn’t make it to OpenPlans tonight? You’ve come to the right place. WELCOME to the live broadcast of The Field’s We Are No Longer Strangers Book Launch event. Doors open at 6pm…that gives you one hour to decompress from your art- and business-filled day, to grab something to eat, and to settle in for an evening of lively and inspiring entrepreneurial insights, right in your own home.

7pm Welcome from Jennifer Wright Cook, Executive Director of The Field
Keynote Address by Arlene Goldbard, National Cultural Activist
“Why America Needs Artists (It’s Not What You Think),” Q&A to follow.

-short break-

8pm Panel discussion facilitated by Maura Nguyen Donohue with the four ERPA awardees: Connie Hall/Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant, JoAnna Mendl Shaw/The Equus Projects, Jon Stancato/Stolen Chair Theatre Company, and Caroline Woolard/OurGoods, Q&A to follow.


Click here to view a PDF of the book!


Thank you for joining us. We hope you’ll get involved in the conversation and leave your comments on the blog, we thrive on them!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

kahlil almustafa: The Generative Artist Model: Placing Art & Artists in the Center of Community

As an artist living and working in New York City, I often suffer from the all-to-well-known phenomenon known as “artist burnout.” My art takes place in performance spaces, in community spaces, and in schools. I often run around from space to space chasing whoever has the best contract at the time. I call this the Artist Mercenary Model.

Like many artists, living contract-to-contract has a tendency to distort my art practice. For example, my work as a Teaching Artist includes hour-long commutes to schools in New York City’s outer boroughs where I am often given as little as 45 minutes to teach as many as 35 young people how to write poetry. As a Performance Poet, I am often asked to perform for fifteen to as little as three minutes. While these are opportunities to engage people with poetry, they do not go to the depths I believe needs to be explored.

For years, I have experienced my art and me as an artist relegated to the margins of conversations. It is always the mission and the mandate of the organizations, institutions or schools that take precedence over my artistic vision. At the end of many weeks, I often find myself asking what am I doing this for.

During the last three years, I have taken a stand for my artistic vision. To develop this vision, I enrolled in the MFA Program in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College. This provided a rigorous academic structure and community to develop my ideas. My participation in The Field's ERPA (Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists) grant program boosted my capacity to mobilize my vision. During the last three years, I have transitioned from the “Artist Mercenary Model” to what my artistic collaborator, Director Megan Sandberg-Zakian, calls the “Generative Artist Model.” As a Generative Artist, I am the initiator of the project, the holder of the vision, the expert in the room. As a Generative Artist, I am in the heart of community, the hub to keep the wheels turning.

In June, I held an event that is an excellent example of my growth as a visionary artist, “Growing Up Queens.” The event was part of Queens Council on the Arts’ Queens Arts Express four-day festival celebrating art along the 7 train line in Queens. Growing Up Queens combined my work as a performer and as an educator. Young people from five different schools I worked with during the year came together to share the stage with each other and with me. I also performed excerpts from my multimedia show, “Growing Up Hip-Hop: Plugged-In.” The event was an opportunity to celebrate expression.

"Growing Up Queens" was an example of being a Generative Artist. To produce this event, I engaged classroom teachers and schools, a performing arts center, and an arts organization with my vision. My years of experience producing student culminating performances within schools made me the expert at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center. I had a more in-depth experience with select students. The aesthetic and flow of the event followed my vision as opposed to the mandate of the schools.

Another example of my transitioning to the Generative Artist Model is my Poetry & Dialogue series “The People’s Inauguration.” On January 20, 2010, the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama’s Inauguration, I held a panel discussion at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC to celebrate the release of my collection of poems and discuss the first year since this historic moment. The panel format, “Poetry & Dialogue,” began with poetry readings from each chapter of my book, followed by responses by each of the four panelists. The event concluded with a personal letter I wrote to President Obama.

In contrast to the dozens of panel discussions that I participated in previously, I designed this one with poetry in the center of the conversation. As anyone who has ever attended a panel discussion knows, panelists tend to spew pre-formulated sound bites. During "The People’s Inauguration Event" the poetry engaged the panelists and the audience in dynamic ways, infusing sentiment and insight into the dialogue.

During the event, we created several opportunities for audience members to participate through the “Dear Barack” campaign. Before the event, they wrote letters to the President. After people wrote their letters, they had the opportunity to read them on camera. Audience member in attendance as well as those watching online could also participate by Twittering their comments and questions with the HashTag #dearbarack which was aggregated on a live feed on our website (www.dearbarack.mvmt.com). This was also in contrast to traditional panel discussions which only give audience members the limited Q&A session to contribute their voices to the conversation.

The People’s Inauguration event is a second example of the Generative Artist model. During the first year of Obama’s presidency, as U.S. citizens engaged in coarse debates at Town Hall Meetings, I offered an artist's approach to dialogue. By engaging the panelists and audience members through poetry and letters, I offered a method of expression where people felt comfortable expressing anger, disappointment, hope and joy and asking long-standing questions. Poetry and personal letters gave people permission to speak from the heart, to leave questions unanswered, and to embrace the contradictions.

These two events were examples of my transition from the Artist Mercenary Model to the Generative Artist Model. Producing these events did not earn me a lot of money. I probably made $800 from both events while putting in more than 80 hours for each event. That’s not even minimum wage. Still, I took a stand for myself as an artist, and made sure my mission and my vision was at the center of the conversation.

Monday, September 13, 2010

kahlil almustafa: The Other Side of the Table: Sitting on a Grant Panel

As many artists know, those weeks between submitting your grant application and receiving that letter in the mail with the funder's return address, are full of anticipation. I know the phases of the waiting game well: estimating the approximate time of arrival, letting yourself forget all about it, lingering longer than usual just in case you run into the mail carrier. I have those low-budget-sitcom-college-acceptance superstitions: thin envelope will have a one-page rejection, while a thicker envelope will include some additional forms to fill out along with your award letter.

In the past two years, I have received five grants - that’s an extra$10,000. Whoa! Recently, I received one of those rejections, though not in one of those “thin envelopes.” After being turned down I was left with the question artists inevitably end up asking: What’s wrong with me? I realize I should have been asking is: What was wrong with my grant application?

Recently, I had the opportunity to be one of seven judges sitting on a grant panel. I was sitting on the other side of the table. The grant panel was a $2,500 grant for performing artists given out by a local arts council. Here are some insights I discovered while participating in the adjudication process.

1) Control the Lens

It is imperative that you control the lens through which the grant panel will view you. On this grant panel, there was an applicant who introduced himself as a dancer. In his artist statement, he wrote passionately about a performance combining poetry with traditional dances from his two heritages. Shortly after viewing his work sample, the two dancers on the grant panel began to comment: “Oh, his dancing is not as strong as the other applicants.” “Yes, I must agree, put him in the ‘NO’ pile.”

As a performance poet who has attended countless one-person shows, I did not see mediocre dancing, I saw a performer incorporating elements of dance into his performance. I tried to advocate on his behalf, “Wait, I think we should take a closer look.” After re-reading his project vision, I attempted to translate to the group. “As a performance poet, I see a brave artist who is attempting to use the traditional dances of his two ancestral lines in one performance. It is his attempt to bring two communities together and therefore have his whole self exist in one space.” My passionate plea only received a dismissive response “Fusion dance is nothing new, and this is a poor attempt at it.”

This artist had practically doomed himself, simply by checking the wrong box. He may identify as a dancer in his heart. He may wake up every morning and feel as if his body was put on earth for the sole purpose of dancing, but for this particular application, he would have had a much greater chance if he had allowed the grant panel to view him through the lens of a performance artist. When he checked the “dance” box, he gave permission to people from the dance world to speak as experts. So, no matter how much I advocated, I was the performance poet, speaking as an outsider.

The point here is that the grant application is not necessarily your opportunity to define yourself as an artist. It is your chance to convince of group of people to give you money to fulfill your dreams. Consider how this specific grant panel (or foundation) will view your work and check the right box. Control the lens.

2) Show Momentum

The more money you get, the more money people want to give you. This often seems counterintuitive, wrong even, but as Billy Holiday sings, “God bless the child who got his (or her or non-gendered their) own.” People want to get on while the ship is already moving. I understand Money attracts Money. I know the “Laws Of Attraction.” I saw The Secret.

This realization came to me a month after receiving an ERPA Grant from The Field. It was at an open dialogue given in partnership with a granting organization and a local arts council. Upon meeting the Assistant Director, I told her about my project recently receiving funding. She was vaguely familiar with the ERPA Program. Her immediate response was, “Why aren’t you getting money from us?” We set up a meeting which has led to continuous support from this organization.

There is nothing a granting organization loves more than to feel as if they are funding a project just as it is gaining momentum. At the grant panel, the whole room gets excited, as each person takes turns pointing out evidence toward a qualified applicant: “Well, she already has funding from another grant and has raised $500 in donations from family and friends.” “And look, last year she did a sold-out run in this 150-seat theater.” “Wow, her work sample looks good.” “Her promotion strategy looks good.” “Budget’s all good.” - - “Put her in the YES pile.”
The first time this happened I was amazed. We had not even looked at the Artist Statement or the Project Vision. If we got to the point later when we were deciding between her and another grantee we might, but for now, she was not only in the “Yes” pile, but in the “Definite Yes” pile, all because of evidence of support for her project. You want to get things moving. Show people how you are already a movement and they will be ready to get on board.


Depending on the specific criteria of the funder, the grant application is not the time to demonstrate your ability to ‘think big,’ it is your opportunity to reaffirm your project vision by showing who you are and how you intend to engage with potential audiences. If you need help, send your application to several people beforehand and have them send you back any questions which may come up. Or, my favorite, invite some people over whom you respect and have them by your mock grant panel. (Make sure to set aside some time in the schedule for dessert served with a praise session to boost your ego back up.)

Friday, September 3, 2010

Pass the Bucket? I don't think so (from Theater THE)

Promoting an arts organization in New York is daunting enough.

But what if you have a theater organization that also has a built-in music performance group?

Or what if you just have a music group but perform theatrically, or are actually just a band?

There are many ways now to promote and actually make money for your music group without having to just rely on passing the bucket at some grungy club. In fact, the number of cool websites that help you grow your music far exceed the the number of sites to help you promote theater.

Actually when I think about it there are very few sites for theater strategic promotion.

Of course music can reach a way larger amount of people; and as opposed to theater you can gain fans and followers without them actually being in front of you or seeing you live.

My company Theater THE and our band The Renaldo The Ensemble actually have most of our fan base because folks have seen our live shows. We can keep in touch with them and let them know what is going on with us through various sites. Many of our fans are in Europe so it is essential that they stay in the loop as they are not always reading Time Out/New York. We use Facebook and it has proven to be a very useful tool along with the My Band app that is made by Reverbnation. Reverbnation is a great site that helps you reach out to fans, start marketing street teams and share all your media. The My Band app can be shared right on your profile and all of the widgets can be embedded onto your website etc.


What do you use to promote your music or theater or dance work? Share your successes with us please! And your pitfalls!
From, Jenny Lee Mitchell, Theater THE