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Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA)
If it's broke, fix it!
ERPA grows from the premise that the traditional non-profit model of fundraising does not support the majority of performing artists in New York City. This lack of financial solvency leads to early departures from New York, early departures from art-making, and ultimately, a diminishment of New York’s vibrancy and vitality. ERPA aims to combat these challenges by asking artists to conceive dynamic solutions for financial stability, and giving them the tools, resources, and cash to help develop their ideas. As its name implies, ERPA aims to thus revitalize performing artists’ and arts organizations’ economic lives for long-term impact.
In 2008 more than 350 community stakeholders joined us for community dialogues (aka Invention Sessions) across New York City. Moving into 2009, The Field invests in seven artists who brought forth innovative ideas to generate new revenue streams from their art for their art...
Congratulations to Kahlil Almustafa, Nick Brooke, Rachel Chavkin, Connie Hall, JoAnna Mendl Shaw, Jon Stancato, and Caroline Woolard.
These seven artists will be paid $5,000 to research and develop their projects under the auspices of the ERPA entrepreneurial lab. In the fall of 2009 their ideas-in-progress will be presented and publicly adjudicated to receive up to $25,000 in additional project implementation funds.
More than 100 ERPA applications were received and adjudicated by a panel of veteran arts and business leaders, including: June Choi, Shawn Cowls, Corey Dargel, Trajel Harrel, Jaki Levy, Kristin Marting, and Heather Rees. ERPA projects were selected based on their potential vision, impact, relevance, and viability.
Kahlil Almustafa will bring performance poetry to his hometown of Jamaica, Queens. Through poetry workshops at high schools, performances at theaters, and Living Room Readings, Almustafa will promote poetry as a tool for community engagement.
Nick Brooke composes collages of pop song fragments and sound effects, and then trains live performers to sound like these recordings, while creating intricate theatrical tableaus. Though he cannot release any of his music on CD due to copyright, he wants to use ERPA to create a ‘micro-commissioning’ program, in which small fragments, songs, or vignettes of a larger work are supported by smaller commissions.
Rachel Chavkin/The T.E.A.M. proposes re-envisioning the model for corporate sponsorship in the arts with the goal of solving one of the leading problems facing small companies and individual artists: the inability to afford health insurance. Through a partnership program, business and corporations will adopt theater companies and artists to form a mutually beneficial bond between the business and arts community.
Connie Hall/Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant not only generates an abundance of comic material and great food, but also offers an alternative producing model for artist-driven theater. Through the ERPA program, the actor-run theater company will develop a sustainable business model using income generated by the sale of food and beverages to support its artistic work.
JoAnna Mendl Shaw/The Equus Projects will develop their Regional Touring Program to include on-site coordinators in seven regional hubs throughout the country, enabling each to advocate on the company's behalf and cultivate performance and workshop participation. This program will build upon The Equus Projects' strong national support base, cultivating effective leadership with a handful of key supporters.
Jon Stancato/Stolen Chair proposes a way to adapt the business plan followed by most Community Supported Agricultures (CSA). Like the CSA model, Stolen Chair hopes to build a membership community which would provide ‘seed’ money for the company’s development process and then reap a year’s worth of theatrical harvests.
Caroline Woolard proposes an online peer-to-peer network where creative people can trade objects, services, and space with each other. Check out the prototype at www.OurGoods.org. There you will find a work dress designed by Caroline waiting to be traded for your skills or artwork!
These seven artists are just one piece of ERPA. In 2009 and beyond, The Field will be adding ERPA-related seminars, classes, and discussions to our core services. With that in mind, please continue to check out the ERPA blog. Embedded in the ERPA blog are a comprehensive resource guide, podcasts of the Invention Sessions, and a spotlight on innovative ideas. These resources are meant to foster dialogue, build knowledge, and incite action, above and beyond the selected ERPA projects.
“We hope you feel inspired to participate and pull from ERPA to help jumpstart your own economic revitalization. In these economically challenging times, it is incumbent upon us to work together for real answers to hard questions. There is just so much to be learned through this dialogue and research, both at The Field and in the field at large. As they say, it takes a village.” – Jennifer Wright Cook, Executive Director of The Field
Got something to say? Please visit the ERPA blog and leave a comment.
ERPA Calendar at a Glance:
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October 4, 2008, 12-1pm: Information Session I: The Foundation Center
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October 7, 2008, 6-7:30pm: Information Session II: BAAD! (Bronx)
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October 18, 2008, 1-2:30pm: Information Session III: Topaz Arts (Queens)
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November 6, 2008, 5pm (in office): ERPA Application Deadline
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December 9, 2008: ERPA Participants Announced
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Mid-December 2008: ERPA Artist-Mentor Matchup Meetings
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January-August 2009: Project Planning, Research & Development
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September 2009: Town Hall: Findings Presented
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September 2009-May 2010: Project Implementation
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June-September 2010: Town Hall: Findings Presented
It Really Does Take a Village
Collaboration, partnership, resource-sharing and mentorship are crucial to ERPA. The Field is also seeking additional funding from individuals, and private and public funders to realize the full impact of ERPA. If you are interested in working with us as an artist, funder, mentor, resource, or press relationship, please contact: erpa@thefield.org. Thank you!
Needs Addressed
Rumor has it that 40 artists arrive in New York every day – energetic and ambitious. They work hard, two or three jobs usually. They sleep little. Their income is sparse and their expenses (hopefully) as sparse. It is exhausting, precarious, tenuous, dirty, and overwhelming. But they love making art, so they do it all, day in and day out. They do it all because there is hope for something better: a show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one job that pays all their rent, a glowing review in The New York Times, a grant from an esteemed foundation, a union card that guarantees them a livable wage, a non-roommate studio on a tree-filled block, the ability to afford dinner and a movie. This “better life” dreamed of by artists, however, is getting harder and harder to attain in New York. The combination of soaring real estate prices, gentrification, overheated competition for press, funders, and gigs, outlandish food and clothing prices all combine to push artists further out - out to the edges of the boroughs, out of economic stability, out of career achievement, and out of hope. The “turnover time” that artists stay in New York or in the arts is decreasing rapidly. Ten years, fifteen years used to be common. Now we see people coming and going in two years, five years. It is just too hard to live here. Why not move to Philadelphia or San Francisco or Berlin or Madrid?
Goals & Objectives – Is there anything new out there?
We need solutions. We need new economic strategies that speak to the exigencies of a modern world that values speed, ease, and gratification. It is not as simple as ‘artists need more money’ or ‘artists need a space of their own’ or ‘non-profits should work like for-profits.’ Something radical needs to change and we say, put it in artists’ hands. They (you, we) are in the trenches, we know what we need, we know how it works. ERPA is not a top-down approach that imposes un-actionable ‘business’ projects on artists. And ERPA is not yet another grant program that diverts artists from their goals or their creative processes. ERPA aims to inspire artists, and business people and government agents and philanthropists, to think and work and live differently in the arts and for the arts. To do this we will beg, borrow and appropriate models, resources and ideas from other sectors that can positively impact the arts community. We will look closely at those around us who are already addressing these challenges and seek inspiration and collaboration from them. Perhaps it’s about micro-financing for the arts, perhaps it’s a NYC “sin tax” funneled to the arts, perhaps it’s an investment fund targeting experimental theater groups, perhaps it’s a DIY web portal that puts touring directly in artists’ hands and removes the middlemen? We don’t know exactly what the answers will be. But we will guide the search and steward the process.
Thank you for your interest. Thank you for your hard work.
ERPA is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2008 New York City Cultural Innovation Fund. This Fund celebrates innovation and trailblazing initiatives which will strengthen the City’s cultural fabric.
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Uptown/Downtown
How do you define uptown or downtown work? Through aesthetics? Culture? Geography?
For eight weeks this spring Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Harlem Arts Alliance, and The Field brought together a group of artists, five from “uptown,” five from “downtown,” to explore these questions while developing short works for performance. The workshop consists of eight consecutive weekly Fieldwork sessions in which artists show works in progress and share non-directorial feedback with a moderator present. The workshops culminate with performances in Harlem and Lower Manhattan. Both performances are followed by a discussion with the artists.
2008 Artists: Ashley Byler, Vienna Carroll, Laylage Courie, Naomi Goldberg Haas, William B. Johnson, Lulu Lolo, Jody Oberfelder, Connie Perry, Elke Rindfleisch, Natasa Trifan
2008 Performances:
Friday, May 30, 7:30pm
The Gatehouse at Harlem Stage
150 Convent Avenue, at 135th Street
Tickets $10 at the box office, night of performance
Saturday, May 31, 7:30pm
Dance New Amsterdam
280 Broadway, entrance on Chambers Street
Tickets $10 at the box office, night of performance
Uptown/Downtown is co-presented by The Field, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Harlem Arts Alliance.
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The Artists' Congress
The Artists' Congress was developed by Diane Vivona, former Director of The Field. The program was a forum where performing artists could speak freely about their concerns and initiate dialogue and action in the performing arts community. The project was sponsored by The Field, in association with New York Foundation for the Arts, but was driven by artists. Any interested performing artist could participate, and dialogue included various members of the performing arts community, including funders, presenters, administrators, critics, politicians, philanthropists, and audiences.
At the annual meeting, the Artist Representatives presented their collective findings. By bringing artists and members of the arts community together to discuss current issues, the Artists' Congress created a forum for ongoing communication that supports the various perspectives of the arts community, acknowledge needs, shift models, and facilitates further action.
Currently, the Artists' Congress is on hiatus. To learn more about past Artists' Congress process and findings, please download the 2003 Artists' Congress report regarding that year's focus on funding, or the 2004 Artists' Congress report about Arts Service Organizations. |
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Touring