Monday, February 13, 2012

Field Dance Fund 2012 Announced!

The Field awards $42,000 to three New York City choreographers to build their capacity for creating bold new artworks with adaptive practices!

The ladder to success is broken for most mid-career dance artists; and younger artists question why to even get on the ladder in the first place! The Field Dance Fund (FDF) aims to transform artists’ practices so that they can move from a “triage” paradigm (in which many artists work), to a more honed, outcome-driven paradigm. Overall, the FDF artists will learn to combat creative burn-out by implementing more dexterous practices to move their careers and art-making forward.

Unlike any other program in New York, and with generous support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Mertz Gilmore Foundation, FDF offers six months of individualized consulting services (valued at $4,000 per artist), critical peer support and a cash award ($10,000 each).

Who are the lucky recipients? In January 2012 (the auspicious year of the Water Dragon), The Field selected the following three FDF grantees (from more than 70 applicants) via a rigorous peer adjudication process:

luciana achugar makes work that “celebrates being in the experience of the body in its entire sensual splendor.” A Uruguayan choreographer based in Brooklyn, she received a Bessie award for her work, PURO DESEO, in 2010, and was on Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” list in January of 2011.

Rachel Cohen’s work “encompasses excavation, research, movement and sculpture.” She often works with inanimate materials such as clay, flour, taffy, gum, wood and paper. Her company Racoco/Rx received a NYFA BUILD Stability grant in 2010 and is currently a company-in-residence at CAVE in Brooklyn.

Michelle Dorrance seeks to “address the class wars in dance by helping audiences to view tap dance in a new and dynamically compelling context.” After performing with the Off-Broadway production STOMP for four years, she is now focusing on her own choreographic process. Michelle is a 2011 Bessie recipient for Outstanding Production.

The launch of the 2012 Field Dance Fund is only a single manifestation of The Field’s core values in action. We are thrilled about this new adventure and we can’t wait to work with the FDF artists to help them actualize their ambitions!

Monday, February 6, 2012

“Self-affirming Ignorance” & Other Tools of the Trade

To kick off our Winter-Spring season we held an ERPA open dialogue at Joyce SoHo with artists and presenters to talk about the challenges and best-practices of presenter-artist relationships. What are the do’s and don’ts and what are the needs to be filled? Here are some reflections:

Do your homework!
• Research the venue or presenter you are interested in. Know why you are interested. Know their space. See the work they produce.
• Know what your work/process needs. Know what you need as an artist. Know why that particular venue is right for you.

Stand up for your art!
• Participate in a little “self-affirming ignorance”, says artist James Scruggs. Ask for what you really need (not what you think you can get)—even if it is huge and crazy and you think it is out of the question—pretend you don’t know any better. You might just get what you ask for. And if nothing else, you won’t have devalued your work from the get-go.
• Make your case to presenters in a real, honest, and specific way. Why are they the right fit for you? What is it about that space or that curator that is so right for your piece? As Brian Rogers, theater artist and Artistic Director of the Chocolate Factory, suggested, “make a compelling case for your needs.”
• “Know who you’re making your work for,” says Kristin Marting of HERE. And interact with those people from the seed start of the work’s development and throughout the whole process.

Some useful best-practices:
• “Don’t send blanket emails”, says Cathy Eilers, Program Manager at Joyce SoHo. Make it personal; tailor and personalize your emails and be specific.
• Keep moving to stay visible. Participate in showcases and residencies where you show excerpts of your work. Presenters often attend these as a way to see several artists’ work at once. The more active you are, the more you are seen.
• Ask about ways that presenters can help support your work throughout its development. This makes a space for you to build a stronger relationship with that presenter and gives them a chance to feel invested in their curation.
• Stay in touch with people and don’t get discouraged if they don’t respond. We are all busy and emails often slip through the cracks; keep on keepin’ on!

Thank you to those who attended, to Joyce Soho for generously hosting the event, and to Maura Donohue for her astute facilitation. To learn more about ERPA and other upcoming events click here.