The Field provides strategic and creative services to thousands of performing and media artists and companies in New York City and beyond. Founded by artists for artists, we also respond proactively to sector-wide challenges through special programs such as Field Leadership Fund: a fellowship that offers real opportunities, remuneration and access to ambitious artists, arts organizations and arts managers.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
kahlil almustafa: Funders Need Romance Too
First Step, initial contact with the Program Officer. Each grant has a contact person. This communication has two objectives: 1) obtain the application forms and guidelines to follow should you decided to submit a proposal, and 2) it is the first step in building a relationship. You want to find out a couple things from the Program Officer: the names of past grant winners, and the names of past grant panelists. This is not the time to overwhelm the Program Officer with excessive questioning or your life story. That is no way to get a first date.
Step Two, contact a past grant winner. Most people are hesitant to take this step, especially us New Yorkers who compete with each other for everything from seats on the train to corporate and government funding. Truth is though, most artists feel a shared camaraderie and would be glad to help you storm the funders gates for the hidden treasure. This is not a time to receive feedback on your proposal. Your main objective here is to get information that would be helpful towards developing your grant application. Some questions to ask: “Who was most helpful on the staff in developing your proposal?” “How close was your initial budget to what you were awarded?” “What would you say was the most important to pay attention to in the grant guidelines?”
(The pros might suggest you contact past panelists next. I’m not up to that stage yet.)
Step Three, back to the Program Officer. Early in your communication with the Program Officer, you should find out their preferred method of communication: email or phone. Thank the Program Officer for their prior assistance, let them know briefly who you are and let them know you have some additional questions. Some important questions to ask during this follow-up phone call are: “Would you review a pre-proposal and give feedback?” “Who reviews the final proposal?” “What is your process for reviewing applications?” “What are some of the most common mistakes people in the applications you receive?”
Contrary to this blog entry’s title, these pre-application communications are less about romancing the funder as much as it is about acknowledging the steps it takes to build an intimate relationship. And receiving money from a funder is definitely a partnership. At best, it is a long-lasting, googly-eyed love affair. At worst, it is you turned down yet again because you have not taken the necessary steps true love demands.
kahlil almustafa: The Art of Business
First, I asked myself a question: “What do I need to do to conduct successful business?” The answer: communication, communication, communication. I began using my approach to poetry to my emails. My poems are often meant to honor people and share my visions, so I started to include a sentence acknowledging people’s hard work, insights, or commitment, and a sentence articulating my vision in emails with partners and collaborators. I also started a tradition, “Thank You Fridays,” to put in random calls thanking one or two people a week, just because. This poetic approach transformed my relationship with key partners. They instantly had more leniency for my sometimes inconsistent communication, and more importantly, were increasingly staked in my artistic vision. Score 1 for Poetry!!
Second, I thought about applying similar rituals to my business as I do to my art. For years, I’ve used a special Black & White composition notebook to scribble down words that eventually evolved into poems. Now, I have a dedicated notebook to write down my business ideas, and a green pen to write with. Two of my favorite poets, Langston Hughes and Pablo Neruda wrote with green pens, so it is an homage to them as well. My other ritual was to light a candle when I started handling business in my office. The lighting of the candle helped transition me to my work day. The blowing out of the candle helped me close out my work day.
These are two simple ways I’ve incorporated my approach to poetry to business. More important than these two examples is the overall transformation to my relationship to conducting business. No longer am I a novice in an unfamiliar world. I am an experienced poet exploring my artistic practice in real time with people.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Equus Projects: Real Time
Thursday, November 4, 2010
As fellow ERPA recipients, Connie Hall, Artistic Director of Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant and I chose to collaborate to create a visceral, hands-on experience that would convey the core values that lie at the foundation of the work that we make and how we make it. This task proved to be an enlightening challenge.
Last week Connie posted a blog that tracked the similarities between our work and how we folded that into our presentation plan. This blog offers a meta-view of our creative process in making that plan. In retrospect I realized that our planning followed a trajectory that exactly mirrors my choreographic process.
Start with a large idea. Make the First Draft Plan. Revise. Look deeper. Revise. Edit. Revise. End up with a small story.
To give a context for all of this, I quote Connie’s terrific synopsis of our respective companies: My company, The Equus Projects, makes site specific performance works for dancers and horses. Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant, makes five course meals for our audiences. We both engage with a specific community that has a secondary interest other than theater or dance (food and horses). In comparing our work and our creative process Connie and I realized that we both need a certain level of participation or “buy in” from the audience or community in order for the performance to exist. (I use local horses in each venue so I need equestrians to lend me their horses. Connie needs her audience to eat her food).
In our first meeting Connie and I scanned the full range of our ideas and efficiently drafted a plan for our presentation.
Revisiting that plan weeks later we realized that we were biting off far to large a chunk of information, that we were casting ourselves as talking heads, that the experiential part of our presentation had become framed as information and actually we were missing the essence of what we do.
The next phase of our process felt lots messier. We shredded the original presentation and asked ourselves hard questions: What motivates the desire to feed an audience food, or spend intense time with peoples’ horses. This was the Are-We-Ever-Going-To-Have-An Actual Finished Piece-Phase of the creative process. We realized we both loved taking our work OUT of a conventional theatre setting. We spent time talking about our creative process and what impact we wanted the performance to have on our audiences. We realized that we wanted the audience to linger with us inside the process.
Eventually we distilled our core objective down to bringing an audience a real time experience. With horses there is always the element of unpredictability. Equus Projects dancers must be able to perform in real time as opposed to memory time. I want the audience to witnesses the dancers inside this process of in-the-moment decision-making. Connie feeds her audience a full meal that is in itself a completely visceral experience. Along with the food she serves, Connie crafts a theatrical experience that is suspenseful. She leads her audiences to feel that anything can happen.
Once the messy, “Ask yourself all the nitty-gritty questions phase” of the process was done, the extra, unnecessary events we in the original plan fell away. We were left with the most essential elements. The remaining task was to create transitions that took the audience on a cohesive journey.
Looking back, I clearly recognize how similar this experience was to creating a new work. Tell the small story. Keep it really visceral. Take the audience on a journey.
Connie, thanks for the creative brainstorming and for writing such a great Blog!
JoAnna
Monday, November 1, 2010
Fundraising does not come in a box!
Your fundraising strategy should make sense for you and only you. What works for someone else may not be your best approach. Also, have you asked yourself, "do I even WANT to fundraise?" There is no need to spend time developing a strategy if you're not interested in executing it. Asking people and places for money cuts to the core of the issues. Before you begin designing your personalized fundraising plan, make sure it's the right way to go, and that you're interested in pursuing it.
If you do decide to fundraise, feel free to contact me for help!! sarajuli1@hotmail.com