LAB The Making Of An Experimental Performing Arts Residency Program

A Publication of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe

LAB [ LIVE ARTS BREWERY ]

The Making Of An Experimental Performing Arts Residency Program

LAB [

LIVE ARTS BREWERY

]

The Making Of An Experimental Performing Arts Residency Program

Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe Philadelphia, PA livearts-fringe.org

1

From the LAB Director The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe is an organization built around presenting the latest in cuttingedge performance. With more than 16 years of presenting international, national, and Philadelphia-based work, it is clear that an investment in experimentation is necessary if contemporary performance is to thrive in our region and our nation. Without the resources to develop new directions in art-making, how will artists take radical steps forward in their work? Artists need support to explore the experimental process and develop new ways of making work.

The Live Arts Brewery (LAB) is our investment. The LAB is a creative incubator for the creation of new works and new practices in contemporary performing arts. Our outlook is not short-term. We want to facilitate artistic growth over a substantial period of time by helping artists develop experimental practices that they continue to incorporate into their art-making long after they have left the LAB.

As we complete our third year of LAB artist residencies, we take stock of our accomplishments, what we have learned so far, and what the future could be. While our experience has already made us wiser, we still return to these basic questions: How can artists grow? How do we build an environment where artists intersect, engage, and exchange ideas that may get put into practice? How can artists experiment with how they make work, and the work they make, while also coping with the day-to-day realities of life?

Our job is to continually ask such questions, and to continually refine our responses to the unpredictable nature of the creative process.

Supporting us on our mission are The Kresge Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Independence Foundation, and the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.

Craig Peterson, Director of LAB

2

“ It is so necessary for artists to have a contemplative place in which to push their ideas forward and make the best work they can.”

Tere O’Connor, Artistic Director, Tere O’Connor Dance

LAB Programs The Live Arts Brewery is a laboratory for research and development. We support artistic research, experimentation, and exploration of contemporary theater, dance, and cross-genre live performance work. Our hope is that the LAB can be a place where the line between process and product is effectively blurred and the work of artists deepens, expands, and thrives.

LAB FELLOWSHIP

LAB PRODUCTION RESIDENCY

Our signature program is dedicated to research, process, and the development of artistic ideas and practices. There is no expectation of a final performance or production outside of informal showings. Up to five artists are selected for ten-month residency fellowships. Each fellow is given generous use of the LAB studio and a stipend. In addition, the artists follow a curriculum designed to further the active exploration of creative processes.

Production residencies are awarded to selected artists who are moving their work from the studio to full-scale production. Here the artists have a technical playground and continue the trajectory of showing work as part of the creative process.

SCRATCH NIGHT This monthly series showcases the in-progress work of our fellows and other invited artists as they create live art from scratch. Post-showing discussions encourage audiences to be a part of the artistic process; audiences provide feedback to artists and learn how and why creative decisions are made. With the addition of free beer, Scratch Night turns the artistic process into an event and creates a social environment for informal discussions between audiences and artists.

LAB TEST Our production residents formally present their new work with lights, sound, video, projection, and other critical technical elements. Are audiences reacting as anticipated?

Do the show’s technical and presentational elements further the artistic vision? Audiences are invited to these final stages of a show’s development and asked to respond in real time to the creative process.

3

“ W hen we began the LAB program in 2009, we had no idea how many lessons were in store for us. In general, artists have guided how the building blocks of our programming were constructed.�

Craig Peterson, Director of LAB

4

A PLACE FOR ART-MAKING The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe moved its office to 919 Fifth Street in the spring of 2009, and for the first time we had our own performance and rehearsal space. Finally, we had a space to help develop new shows and give artists the opportunity to experiment.

We knew Philadelphia had a robust community of serious artists and audiences who wanted to be deeply engaged with the performing arts. What we found lacking was a creative incubator, one that could help artists grow in their individual explorations and encourage the exchange of ideas and creative know-how between artists. Surveying the national creative landscape, we also knew that such an incubator would make us one of the country’s few organizations that invested in the development of contemporary performance.

As our building was once a brewery, we decided to name our new program Live Arts Brewery (LAB). The core of the LAB would be artist residencies. Every artist needs a place and time to investigate ideas, develop new methods of art-making, or to work towards a production with the resources to explore many paths. We envisioned creative

work in constant ferment; within our walls artists would be pushing boundaries, experimenting, researching, discovering, and engaging in an artistic dialogue with each other and with audiences.

The LAB does not model itself after a retreat. Most of our resident artists live nearby. For us, artistic growth needs to be developed alongside the artists’ daily lives—and the very real obligations and pressures that exist outside of the studio. Once we figured this out, we were compelled to create a more structured, hands-on program. We have found that this approach has helped artistic experimentation flourish over the course of our program.

“ We wanted our homegrown talent to get access to proper resources and development.”

Nick Stuccio, Producing Director, Live Arts Festival

5

PROGRAMMING CREATIVITY With our first group of resident fellows, we wanted to grow the program in response to the artists’ needs. We decided to provide artists with space, time, and a stipend and see what happened. What would they do with total freedom?

Despite making essential resources available, total freedom did not lead to great productivity. We learned that some planning and programming helped produce the most work and the most exploration.

We had also assumed that given the resources, the aesthetic of our curated festival, and that the LAB is a laboratory, that our artists would naturally practice the kind of research we expected them too. What we didn’t take into account was that the artists, as talented as they are, might not truly understand how to enjoin research practices into their art and that they needed to be introduced to more rigorous methods of experimentation. Now, by applying our curatorial knowledge and perspective more directly to the program, we can help the artists place their experimentation into a larger performing arts framework.

6

LAB fellows now need to map out their year in advance by creating a research plan with guidance from the program director. The fellows use these plans to track their progress, measure success, and overcome challenges. At monthly meetings we examine the challenges that come with creative opportunities. Experienced visiting artists are invited to share techniques for overcoming issues that accompany artistic processes. We address creative issues as real-world problems that artists must learn to manage. This more structured environment has spurred the artists’ productivity.

On the administrative side, the program director works closely with artists so that the program can respond to their evolving requirements—as individuals and as a group. To manage the dynamic nature of a group of artists, clear and direct communication about the program’s expectations must be made at the outset: in our case, creating a framework for activity that sets expectations for creation without emphasizing product over process.

“ Overall the LAB was a legitimating structure for me to let things run their course.”

Gregory Holt, 2010–11 LAB Fellow

“ We recognize that total freedom can be overwhelmed by practical limitations. So the LAB requires more structure from artists rather than less: more thought, planning, research, and reflection.�

C raig Peterson, Director of LAB

7

“ The selection of LAB artists has been very diverse and has put different artists in different disciplines at different stages in their work at the same level to create and share together.”

Thaddeus Phillips, 2010–11 Production Resident

8

THE LAB ARTISTS Five artists are selected annually to engage in a ten-month residency fellowship. The artists research and develop new ideas, interact and collaborate with fellow artists, and engage in critical dialogue about contemporary live performance. The group is purposely a mix of dance, theater, and cross-genre artists. Each LAB fellow has use of the studio space for a minimum of six weeks. The LAB creates the platforms for discussion, work-in-progress showings, experimentation, and practical advice sessions.

We also help connect our resident artists to outside artists and critical thinkers.

The selection of artists is made more by the questions the artists ask than the productions they plan to make.

The fellowship program does not mandate the direction of an individual artist but rather creates conditions that spur each artist further down the road of his or her “peculiar curiosities,” as one fellow put it. We emphasize

the exploration of multiple perspectives and creative processes so that artists may discover new ways of expressing themselves. It is challenging for an artist to step into unfamiliar terrain: by having ten months in residency, artists develop a facility for experimentation that can last long after the residency is finished.

The LAB production residencies are for artists working on the later stages of a production. We created this program after our first LAB year when we realized the need for some artists to more fully develop their ideas. These residencies allow for continued experimentation, audience and peer feedback, and the ability to work extensively with the technical aspects of a show for an extended period of time.

While these fully realized presentations are opportunities for artists to refine shows for the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, they also represent a continuation of the LAB’s experimentation process into the final phase of production.

“ A s I am beginning to explore my work as an individual, away from company and producer, the LAB has served as a home base, a place and a community on which I could rely, and a space for true experimentation and research.”

Alex Torra, 2010–11 LAB Fellow

9

RESEARCH

&

DEVELOPMENT

For the performing arts to be innovative, fresh, and culturally relevant, we must endow artists with resources so that they can practice creative exploration. Research and development have driven the innovations that have made America the world’s largest economy. Yet few resources are allocated to experimental research and development in the performing arts. Why do we lack resources in the very field for which innovation is synonymous with the lifeblood of the form?

The LAB is dedicated to providing these vital resources. We found that research and development for a performing artist takes many forms: movement and vocal experimentation, technical experimentation, development of technique, learning new crafts, working with other artists, opening up one’s process, and researching other art forms, artists, and styles.

No single approach works with all artists, and so our program must be flexible to address the needs of individual perspectives and processes. At the same time, we provide benchmarks to ensure that the research takes place and is productive.

10

It is from our history as a presenting organization that we believe research and development aids in all phases of a work from inception to the complex details of its refinement. Research and development allows artists to find new ways to work, new artistic vocabularies to play with, and new ideas to explore for years on end. LAB artists gain knowledge from putting experimentation into practice. As one fellow put it, “I’m in a totally different space in relation to my art-making than I was at the beginning of the year.”

“ Essentially, I wanted to have time and space to explore ideas to their illogical ends, far beyond the performance they would finally be part of.”

Adrienne Mackey, 2010–11 LAB Fellow

“ The fellowship experience opened up creative possibilities and gave legitimacy to ideas that I may otherwise never have explored. It has enabled a renaissance in my life as an artist.”

Mary McCool, 2010–11 LAB Fellow

11

“ The monthly discussions are mandatory for the LAB fellows and have become a vital mechanism to nurture a community of inquiry as well as foster peer-to-peer support.�

Simon Dove, Director, ASU School of Dance, Herberger Institute

12

ARTIST TO ARTIST: PEER INTERACTION It is important to choose our artists with an eye to group dynamics—an artist whose curiosity does not extend past his or her own work might have little to contribute to the rest of the group. The artists need to be resources to one another. Having peers at-hand to lend insight to each other’s processes, and to exchange ideas and methods, creates a community of artists participating in the evolution of each other’s work. While discussions range from informal to structured, serendipitous to scheduled, they become essential to the program’s efforts to further creative exploration and the evolution of ideas.

Artists visit each other’s rehearsals, gaining insight into their fellow artists’ processes and discovering new techniques to apply to their own work. In a performance world growing with hybridization, the intermingling of dance and theater artists has helped open up lines of creativity for both. As one dance artist pointed out, “the LAB unites the dance and theater communities. I now have friends to turn to if I need help with theatrical collaborations and explorations.”

The interaction between LAB artists has been one of the most successful components of our program. “The monthly meetings became a real opportunity for artistic conversation, with artists at different moments in their artistic journeys and with varying perspectives and points of view,” one fellow noted, “it is a kind of gathering that doesn’t happen as often as it should.”

Over the course of a residency, LAB artists cultivate a dialogue around how they work. The conversations between artists enhance their ability to speak to their art and their creative methods and to communicate complex ideas. The more discussion, the better these ideas are elucidated, and the more dynamic this conversation becomes. Ultimately this conversation can emerge into a greater context, the public context, and by extension, the cultural context.

“ I really appreciated all of the times that the fellows got together.

It was like artist church.” Jumatatu Poe, 2010–11 LAB Fellow

13

INTERSECTIONS WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD We want to help artists view their art-making from new perspectives. Inside the studio, artists build ideas upon ideas, but until the work is seen by an audience, an artist cannot know how the ideas manifest themselves. By getting live performance in front of an audience at an early stage, artists gain the opportunity to see what’s working and what’s not—but not necessarily as it relates to a production.

We are more interested in finding out whether the basic experimentation that has been going on in the studio translates to an audience.

For the artists, showings are a time to put experimentation into practice. As former LAB fellow Adrienne Mackey recalled, “The most successful part of the work came right before showings because this caused us to take the work we’d ruminated on over many months and find a way to articulate it to an outsider…to make sure what we’d done in rehearsals also resonated with outsiders who hadn’t spent the same time with the material.”

14

In a room full of other observers (the audience), artists can witness how the work changes, how performers respond differently, and how ideas resonate under the audience’s watchful eyes. The purpose of the public showings is not for artists to prepare a product; the showings themselves are a form of research, another opportunity to open up the creative process. By inviting the audience into the process, the conversation extends to the possibilities inherent in the experimental methods on display.

“ T he urge for product in this business is undeniable, even in this experiment-oriented process. I found a good middle ground in trying out ideas that I would never otherwise get to explore publicly.”

Mary McCool, 2010–11 LAB Fellow

15

“ You could call the work at Scratch Night a high-level risk—yes, the ideas in play are not fully realized, but they often involve established artists whose track records give them credibility; people want in on their experiments.”

Howie Shapiro, The Philadelphia Inquirer

16

THE AUDIENCE PLAYS A PART “ I t’s the artist’s job to allow all perspectives. It is the audience member’s responsibility to open him or herself to a potential experience.”

Craig Peterson, LAB Director

Audience participation during the art-making process is essential. As John Cage was known to say, “The audience completes the work.”

If experimental dance, theater, and cross-disciplinary performance are to have audiences, we must break down the mysteries that often shroud our work. If audiences can’t follow the work and artists won’t create entry points to it, audiences won’t show up. Showing work as it is being made, inviting audiences in on the ground floor of the artist’s process, creates fertile ground for audience education and art-making to align.

At Scratch Night we ask audiences to engage with work that is unfinished and potentially challenging, and we make this clear from the start. In this context, by vocalizing their responses to an in-progress showing, audiences make an emotional investment in the artistic process. Even if an audience member expresses frustration, it is given with the desire to understand how a work is being made and why—a conversation is begun.

We also provide free beer to turn this process into an event, and after the feedback session we leave time for informal conversations between audiences and artists.

Opening a window onto the process is not just about building audiences, however. When audiences gain insight into how a work is created, they begin to notice the evolution of themes within the work and learn to interpret the work from new perspectives. In turn, artists can develop ideas more deeply with an audience who understands the language of the piece. By putting the creative process front and center, ideas around experimental art-making become part of a broader cultural dialogue. The process itself—the complexity behind creating new work, the concern for what should be investigated artistically—takes on a life of its own.

17

FUTURE LAB In 2013, the Live Arts organization will move into a new, permanent home, a stunning 15,000-square-foot historic building that will include a state-of-the-art theater and studio, offices, an outdoor plaza, and a gastropub. Our new home will allow us to become a national incubator to support world-renowned artists from Philadelphia and beyond.

We expect experimental artists based near and far to view our building and our city as a creative haven to work on productions—and to consider Philadelphia audiences as a resource for their creative development. Additionally, we hope to partner with like-minded organizations throughout the country so that artists may utilize a network of researchand-development programs over a longer period of time.

18

Our new home will serve as a place to see the best art and for audiences to interact with art as it is being developed. With in-progress showings, access to rehearsals, and other events that explore the practice of artistic experimentation, we will expand the give-and-take between audiences and artists— and the exchange of ideas and knowledge between artists.

The U.S. has a long history of performance innovation, but for many years that innovation has been vastly underresourced. The LAB and similar programs are vital to our profession. Presenters, artists, arts administrators, arts patrons, and audiences belong to the same community and inform and support each other. It is our collective necessity to invest in the creative growth of contemporary performing arts.

Experimental art is by definition on the frontline of creativity, opening doors to what is possible in performance.

Without the resources for exploration, creative expression narrows. A serious investment in creative exploration brings benefits beyond individual artistic expression—it advances the very nature of conceptual thought and the ability to ask big questions.

“ We consider ourselves part of the national artistic community, so we plan to play into the greater landscape. Making our new home into a national center where artists can develop amazing, innovative work is vital to our success.�

Nick Stuccio, Producing Director, Live Arts Festival

19

LAB [

LIVE ARTS BREWERY

]

Words by Josh McIlvain and Craig Peterson.

Design by Masters Group Design.

All photos by Kevin Monko except: page 10 photo

by Robin Barnes, page 12 photo by Josh McIlvain, back inside cover photo by Bill Hebert.

Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe 919 North 5th Street Philadelphia, PA 19123 livearts-fringe.org LAB: The Making Of An Experimental Performing Arts Residency Program Copyright Š 2012 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe.

All Rights Reserved.

LAB [ LIVE ARTS BREWERY ]

In 2009 the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe began the Live Arts Brewery (LAB) to provide artists with resources and time to research and develop new forms of contemporary performing arts. The LAB is a creative incubator where artistsin-residence can explore artistic practice in ways that will have a lasting influence on their careers.

While we began our program with an earnest desire to invest more deeply in the creative processes of artists, many questions remained about how this could best be achieved. This publication shares the findings from our journey thus far and illustrates our approaches to facilitating artistic exploration and growth.

dolfinger-mcmahon foundation