Tag Archives: Performing Arts

The 2013 Doris Duke Artists on Facing Creative Challenges

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Miya Masaoka performing
Miya Masaoka, one of the 2013 Doris Duke Artists

What challenges do U.S. performing artists face?

In order to better get to know the extraordinary class of 2013 Doris Duke Artists, we asked them, among other things, about the biggest creative challenges they face as artists. Their answers were remarkably open, thoughtful and inspiring.

For example, Stacy Klein, Founder & Artistic Director of Double Edge Theatre, describes ongoing challenges that she proudly overcame during the creation of her most recent work, The Grand Parade (of the 20th Century): “Struggling determinedly to develop this work over the past two years according to my own criteria, and not the maddening voices of presenters, critics and fashion arbiters, I found the route to my own narrative and identity—visual, emotional, personal, female and American.”

Jazz pianist and composer Myra Melford cited a similar battle to achieve her personal vision: “My life’s work is about going as deeply as I can into the creation of my own music and the cultivation of my own voice… I strive to make all of my musical and life experience coherent internally.” Continue reading →

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Artist to Artist: Lisa Bielawa and Arturo Vidich Talk Performance in the Unlikely Spaces of Abandoned Airfields

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Lisa Bielawa, Tempelhof Field
Lisa Bielawa will stage a musical performance at Berlin’s Tempelhof Field May 10-12.

Artists Lisa Bielawa (2006 Performing Arts) and Arturo Vidich (2013 Performing Arts) have more in common than meets the eye. Though they work in different media­—Bielawa is a musician and composer, Vidich is a choreographer—both Creative Capital grantees are taking on community-building and place-making in an unusual space: the repurposed military airfield.

Bielawa’s Airfield Broadcasts project has two iterations, one at the Tempelhof Field in Berlin (premiering this weekend, May 10-12) and the other at Crissy Field in her native San Francisco (October 26-27). Each performance involves between 100 and 1,000 musicians, from student groups to professional orchestras, performing Bielawa’s hour-long composition in these massive public spaces for audiences both intentional and accidental. Bielawa incorporates musical composition and choreography to fully explore the sonic and spatial relations of each former airfield.  Continue reading →

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Kalup Linzy Premieres “Romantic Loner” at MoMA PS1 and Through Online Release

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Kalup Linzy (2008 Visual Arts) has released the feature film component of his Creative Capital project, Romantic Loner, online through YouTube. Romantic Loner tells the story of Linzy’s alter ego, Kaye, who, after a series of failed relationships, attends an artist residency and has an intensive period of soul-searching. The majority of the film was shot at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA, in 2012, when Linzy was supported by an Alumni Awards Residency. Along with the film, the Romantic Loner project also encompasses two shorts, prints, a live performance event, and an original soundtrack album, which is available through iTunes and other digital outlets.

In conjunction with the release, Tribeca Film Institute and MoMA are co-presenting a live performance version of Romantic Loner at MoMA PS1 on Sunday, April 14 at 4:00pm. Accompanied by a six piece band and video projections, Linzy will perform original songs from the film, including Man Pussy, Chest Full of Tears and Kaye’s Theme (OK), along with cover tunes.

I connected with Kalup to learn more about how the Romantic Loner film, the music and what’s next for this prolific artist.

Jenny Gill: You started working on Romantic Loner during a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in California, and the idea of “soul searching” is a key theme in the work. How did your experience at Headlands shape the project?

Kalup Linzy: I wrote a treatment for the film and applied to the Headland’s alumni residency. After receiving word that I had been selected, I shot scenes here in Brooklyn, planned what I could make happen at Headlands, and what else needed to been done when I returned. Because I had been at Headlands in 2010, I knew where I was going and what to expect. The artist residents receive a stipend, free meals, cars to check out and drive. I was there for four weeks and was able to shoot plenty. Continue reading →

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The MAP Fund’s 2013 Grantees: 41 Groundbreaking Performance Projects

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MAP Fund 2013 grantees
Top, left to right: New York City Players, Nora Chipaumire, Thaddeus Phillips, Cloud Eye Control. Bottom, left to right: Yosvany Terry, Laura Arrington and Jesse Hewitt, luciana achugar, The Civilians.

The MAP Fund, administered by Creative Capital, supports artists, ensembles, producers and presenters whose contemporary performance work embodies a spirit of exploration and deep inquiry. With today’s announcement of 41 breathtaking projects that make up the 2013 round, we are pinching ourselves at the privilege of this work!

Thanks to the generous support of our funders, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, MAP will provide $1.4 million in project-specific and (ever more rare) general operating cash grants. In a clear testament to the vibrancy of the field of contemporary experimental performance, the works were selected from among more than 800 proposals and reviewed by a small army of artists and arts professionals from all over the U.S. The result is a dream-team of composers, choreographers, playwrights, directors and performers who will, no doubt, teach us to believe the unbelievable and fathom the unfathomable.  Continue reading →

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Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis Explore Entrapment and Immigration in “Stuck Elevator”

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Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis (2009 Performing Arts) will have the world premiere of their Creative Capital project, Stuck Elevator, at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, April 4-28. Stuck Elevator is an eclectic music-theater work based on the true story of a Chinese deliveryman in the Bronx who was trapped in an elevator for 81 hours. Sounding the alarm would open the doors to freedom, but calling for help also means calling for attention—with dire consequences for this undocumented immigrant. Suspended between the upward mobility of the American dream and a downward plunge into an empty abyss, he delves into memories of his past and into nightmares of his present predicament, all within the confines of a 4’ by 6’ by 8’ metal box.

I connected with Byron and Aaron while they were in rehearsals at A.C.T. to learn more about the development of this unique project.

Jenny Gill: I love the concept behind Stuck Elevator—using the true story of a deliveryman stuck in an elevator to tell a larger story about the difficulties of an immigrant’s experience. How did you hear about this story and how did you begin to envision a theater work around it?

Byron Au Yong: In 2005, I was a student in New York City and saw news articles about a missing deliveryman. Because several Chinese food deliverymen had been killed for the cash they carried, people assumed the worst. When they found the man, alive after 81 hours trapped in a Bronx elevator, the news reported he’d paid $60,000 to be smuggled here, had a wife and son back in Fujian Province, and rode a bicycle to work. This resonated with me because I was also in New York City with a $60,000 debt (grad school!), my grandparents left Fujian Province, and I was the same age as this deliveryman. Continue reading →

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Meet Our 2013 Grantees in Emerging Fields, Literature and Performing Arts!

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Top, left to right: Complex Movements, Nick Hallett & Shana Moulton, Jen Bervin, luciana achugar. Bottom, left to right: Laurie Jo Reynolds, Emily Johnson, Mondo Bizarro.

Today, Creative Capital announced our 2013 project grants in the categories of Emerging Fields, Literature and the Performing Arts, representing a total of 46 funded projects by 66 artists hailing from 17 states and Puerto Rico. The 2013 grantees were selected through an open-call, three-phase application process from a pool of more than 2,700 applicants. Creative Capital’s investment in each project includes up to $50,000 in direct financial support (disbursed at key points over the life of each project), plus more than $40,000 in advisory services, making our total 2013 investment more than $4,140,000.

Emerging Fields
Traditionally, Creative Capital’s Emerging Fields projects have centered on pushing the boundaries of technology. This year technology is embedded in most of the 17 funded projects, but is not the subject of the work. Instead, many are issue-focused, dealing with the environment, food, immigration, incarceration and urbanism, among others. Specifics include: a media artist who will build projectors from discarded e-waste; a public performance event planned and executed with a community in San Juan, Puerto Rico; a series of immersive dining experiences set in future worlds; and a multimedia exploration of state-sponsored human rights atrocities. Continue reading →

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PearlDamour: A Case Study of How Creative Capital Supports Artists

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PearlDamour, How to Build a Forest performance installation at The Kitchen in New York, 2011

PearlDamour, the Obie-award winning collaborative team of Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour, creates performance projects both inside and outside traditional theater spaces. This week, they are presenting their performative installation, How To Build A Forest, at Duke University’s Paige Auditorium (October 19-21). This truly unique project, created in collaboration with visual artist and costume designer Shawn Hall, is a durational interdisciplinary work—part visual art installation and part theater performance—in which an elaborate forest is built and dismantled over an eight-hour period. The work was inspired by the loss of 100 trees at D’Amour’s family home in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, and subsequently informed by the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

PearlDamour received their Creative Capital grant in Performing Arts for How to Build A Forest in 2009, and the life of their project provides a wonderful case study in how Creative Capital supports artists pursuing ambitious projects with a combination of financial and advisory support.

APPLICATION PROCESS

As with all our grantees, PearlDamour was selected through our open-call, three-phrase application process. Nearly 100 arts professionals from across the country serve as readers, evaluators and panelists who review the applications and help to determine the projects that are awarded Creative Capital grants.

Remarkably, Creative Capital’s grantmaking process created an  opportunity for PearlDamour to develop their project before they even received a grant. Continue reading →

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In Focus: Robert Karimi’s “28 Days of Good Energía”

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Mero Cocinero serves guests at ¡Viva las Roots!, Intermedia Arts, 2011

Robert Farid Karimi premieres his Creative Capital-supported project with 28 Days of Good Energía, a series of events and performances in the Twin Cities celebrating culture, well-being and the revolutionary act of eating together (October 19 – November 15, 2012). Drawing on the rich tradition of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), 28 Days of Good Energía features ¡Viva la Soul Power!, a live performance and culinary experience, and Feed & Be Fed, an interactive art exhibit, both at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis. Additional happenings in Twin Cities neighborhoods include community potlucks, workshops and public performances.

28 Days of Good Energía is the newest episode of The Cooking Show con Karimi y Comrades, which uses the framework of a live cooking show to raise awareness about Type 2 Diabetes in communities of color in an engaging, culturally relevant way. Performing as the dynamic revolutionary Mero Cocinero, Karimi encourages audience participants to use the power of their cultural stories, rituals and recipes to curb the rising tide of this disease. Check out Karimi’s videos from The Cooking Show project below! Continue reading →

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Artists to Watch: Highlights From The Creative Capital Retreat

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The Elephant Room: Dennis Diamond, Louie Magic and Daryl Hannah. Photo by Scott Suchman.

Paddy Johnson’s final installment on the 2012 Artist Retreat, originally published on Art Fag City

You wouldn’t think that spending a weekend watching 71 seven-minute presentations by Creative Capital grantees would be any fun at all. That’s a lot of art to look at in a short period of time, and a few bad presentations can make for a really long night.

There was almost nothing I didn’t enjoy, though, so I had a great time. The presentation format also gives critics like me an opportunity to see a large number of artworks I might not see on the gallery scene, so by the end of the conference I felt like I had learned a lot.

Trends, insofar as anyone can identify them in the art world, mostly mirrored the state of contemporary art making. Artists are increasingly interdisciplinary, and that’s reflected not only at the Creative Capital retreat but also in art schools, institutional programming, and other granting organizations across the country. Only four of the 23 visual art grantees identified themselves as practitioners within a traditional medium: Lisa Sigal and Joan Walthemath as painters, and LaToya Ruby Frazier and Connie Samaras as photographers.

By and large, the grantees’ proposals were ambitious and expensive. I’m not entirely sure that a rise in costly projects reflects a broader trend amongst New York-based artists—junk assemblage and Cheeto art still has a larger life than it should—but we’re almost certainly seeing more collaboration across the board. Continue reading →

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Documenting Your Performance: DOs and DON’Ts From Our Newest PDP Workshop

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A still from the MoveOpolis! production, Toward the Delights of the Exquisite Corpse. Dancers: Catherine Cabeen, Kevin Scarpin, Kristen Joseph Irby, Blakeley White McGuire. Photo by Christopher Duggan.

High quality documentation is essential to everyone in the performing or time-based arts for use in fundraising, public relations, presentations, websites, archiving your work and more. As a choreographer, director and performer, I am intimately aware of both the importance of having good performance documentation and the challenges of creating it.

While I continue to create new theatrical performances, I’ve also become fully immersed in the creation of performance and dance filmmaking. I completed my MFA in Media Arts Production to properly learn the techniques and applications of new digital technologies.

I know this sort of intensive training is not for everyone, so I’ve been working with Creative Capital to develop the newly launched Performance Documentation Workshop. As part of Creative Capital’s Professional Development Program (PDP), this workshop is designed to share the practical and conceptual tools necessary for creating truly good performance documentation. Continue reading →

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