I curate a works-in-progress series at the Chocolate Factory Theater called THROW. While there are other series in NYC which focus on works-in-progress, (Draftwork and Danspace Project, Movement Research’s Open Performane and Judson Church series, The Field’s Fieldwork program, and supposedly everything at Dixon Place), nearly all of them have been transformed (by those who program them, those who participate, or both) into pre-performance programs, rather than true places for experimentation and exploration.
I used to be on a bit of a high horse about this issue: “Why doesn’t anyone get it? Why are all of these alleged w-i-p series just performance opportunities for the young artists who can’t yet get a gig anywhere else, or funder-showcases for the more established artists?” As I’ve developed the THROW series, however, I’ve begun to see how it happens. Artists are so starved for an opportunity that might lead to their big break, that they’ll seize anything as a “showcase.” Call it whatever you want, someone is going to swear that his/her project is a work-in-progress, just to put another line on their resume and hope some big curator is in the audience.
Over time, even those artists who are interested in testing something risky start to realize that no one else on the w-i-p bill looks as vulnerable as they do, and they stop sticking their necks out. It’s a bummer. While we absolutely need multiple arenas for performance (including platforms for young artists and funder showcases), we also need places where we as artists can simply throw some ideas against the wall, and see what sticks. Mind you, I’m not talking about wasting an audience’s time. There is a large part of the artistic process that can (and perhaps should) be tackled without an audience, but there comes a point where one needs to bounce the work off other folks – a practice audience, and not one comprised of your best friends.
Waiting until the very end of a project’s development to think about the audience is like putting yeast in your bread after you bake it. I’m not saying that one should focus one’s work to cater to an audience, but an artist should absolutley consider the audience and make some decisions about what s/he wants the audience to experience. That’s what THROW is about. It’s about encouraging artists to think about their goals for the piece in terms of audience, and use this practice-audience, this focus group to help them assess whether or not they are meeting those goals. It’s also about encouraging an audience to experience a piece that is in development and comment on it without directing the piece, or feeling like their tongues are tied by some intense set of rules about how to phrase everything they say.
This is difficult to achieve, but the structure of the discussion portion is set up to move towards that goal. By having the artist pose the questions to the audience, each participant (artist and audience) gets to do the thing each does best: artist puts forth ideas, audience responds. This way, the artist is in control of his/her ideas and work, and the audience doesn’t feel pressured to come up with some brilliant question (and isn’t encouraged to direct the work.)
So far, it’s been extremely interesting, and I’m sure the series will continue to develop and take shape from those who participate, but I hope, with careful attention, those of us interested in sticking our necks out can keep it from becoming just another low-tech performance series.
