mind map to new york

It started with a mind map and ended with a tour to New York. Three years ago we sat down together and worked out what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.

The key points were, we wanted to tour overseas with our own work and we wanted to do it by self-funding. The mind map had a tour of 4-5 cities, in the end we went to one. The idea to self-fund worked on an agreement to split our earnings from joint projects into thirds, one third each and a third into the pot.

The ‘pot’ allowed us to fund ourselves to do many small projects over the year by paying for a flight here or there, or paying for expenses whilst working. Over 2005/2006 we had a good run of work and managed to save close $7000.

Realising the overseas part took a lot of energy and persistence; David was the keystone for this. It took close to 6 months to make contact and convince the Movement Research Festival that we were legitimate and keen as mustard to get there. Uploading our work onto YouTube and being able to send MR the link was an important as it allowed the festival curator to see our work and make an informed decision. While we could have sent a DVD or VHS of our work, using YouTube meant that the material was accessible immediately. It also reduced costs for us as we were contacting a number of producers/promoters – all it requied was them having broadband access (which most do).

We couldn’t book our tickets until we had confirmation and we were heading into peak season. Accommodation had to be sourced and we were lucky enough be able to stay with friends whilst there. Thank you Rachel, Justin and Joseph.

Before leaving Australia we discussed applying for more funding and made some initial enquiries to the Australia Council (our advice here is to call and talk to them rather than email – after numerous emails back and forth there was confusion and annoyance on both sides) but in the end decided to do this own our own merits and without the extra obligation of acquittal. Also, it was unlikely we would be successful in gaining the funding on short notice and the whole point of saving was to avoid doing things like writing grants.

For studio hire in New York we used the Panetta Movement Centre which is a lovely light filled studio.
214 W. 29th Street
Suite 1001, 10th fl.
New York, NY 10001
It is cheap (US$12 an hour) and seems to have a broad community using it.

If you are going to tour to NY and need a studio try http://www.nycdanceplaces.org/

Performance in New York is divided, by those who know, into uptown and downtown work. We were told we are definitely downtown performance.

Performance venues to check out
PS 122 – www.ps122.org
St Marks – www.danspaceproject.org
The Kitchen – www.thekitchen.org
Joyce Soho – www.joyce.org
Movement Research (using the Judson Church and other venues) – www.movementresearch.org

If you’re keen to get over there we’d really encourage you to go for it. If you want some more thoughts or suggestions get in touch and we’ll tell you some more!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 6:11 pm and is filed under A little dig, Excavate, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.