Land Acknowledgment:

Today I wish to acknowledge that I am currently situated and producing content in Boston, MA, which is stolen from its original holders, the Massachuset and Wampanoag people. Today, Boston is home to thousands of Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to live and work here. I wish to extend my respect to citizens of these Nations who live here today, and their ancestors who have lived here for over five hundred generations, and to all Indigenous people. I also want to affirm that this acknowledgment is insufficient. It does not undo the harm that has been done and continues to be perpetrated now against Indigenous people, their land and water. 

How the Rest of the World Supports Emerging Artists During COVID, and What We Can Learn

I cannot help but to be bold and to simply put it out there: officially 8 months into the pandemic, 8 months past the day I was thrown out of my last college production’s rehearsal room, onto the streets, and was told to fly into the unknown, I am still on the edge of my seat putting my name down for every open call, workshop and fellowship opportunity that I see. And when we get to the bottom of the Google Sheets list document and realize we’ve gone through all opportunities, you start to wonder: how are Artistic Directors in this country, or grant-making institutions thinking of us while they weather the storm tucked away with pockets full of money? Is there absolutely no money-making theater to be created at this moment?

Do we have to be on our own? 

No. I have witnessed incredibly imaginative ways to spend grant money and build online communities, ranging from free workshops to thousand euros of collaboration grant; from purely artistic creation to intense computer programming work, all for the same goal: how are we building new theater from our homes? How can I provide support with the tools that I have? Here are a couple of examples from other countries of the world.

UK: The Yard Theater – Live Lab

The Yard’s Live Lab is supporting six artists from a wide range of performance practices to develop as directors, strengthen their artistic style, and work on a new idea for a show over four months, with financial support.

Here’s the big part–the program kicks off with 3 weeks of teaching from world renowned director Katie Mitchell, followed by weekly masterclasses from some of the UK’s most brilliant theatre practitioners, leaders and artists including Bijan Sheibani, Natalie Ibu, Nickie Miles-Wildin, Omar Elerian and The Yard’s Artistic Director, Jay Miller, etc. Each artist will receive a stipend of £1200 to support them taking part in the program. They will also receive a £500 fee for a week of research and development in April, alongside free rehearsal space, a budget of £1000 for collaborators, and the opportunity to share their ideas on The Yard’s stage. 

Unfortunately, they are not accepting applications from outside of the UK and Ireland for this opportunity. The hope is to make it available to international artists in future years.

Still UK: British Council – International Digital Collaboration Fund

This new fund by British Council, aims to support arts organisations in the UK and selected countries overseas to collaborate digitally on international projects. With rising concerns about the sustainability of face-to-face collaborations, the British Council is now looking for new, virtual ways to foster these international connections aiming for final products in late 2021, in turn creating a climate-friendly approach to international collaboration and artistic exchange.

Two types of grants are available: Research and development grants of £10-20k supporting research and development proposals for new virtual collaboration projects, and larger grants of £40-50k for new collaboration projects with a focus on virtual and other new ways of working. Example projects include virtual art residencies, virtual exhibitions or showcases, online art and cultural archives or digital games (!), but not limited to these. 

I know it’s tempting, but unfortunately the US is not an eligible partnership country. They are interested in collaborations with transition countries where culture and voices are somewhere less presented in world theater (or if I may say, less white).

China: Sound & Fury International Playwrights Translation Program

Sound & Fury is a theater festival based in Beijing with a strong focus on new work of international playwrights. In 2019, they began the effort to invite UK emerging playwrights China to work with Chinese audiences and to produce staged readings along with discussions and workshops. In the time where international travel is no longer possible, they pivoted to form a translation program, training more translators and dramaturgs in the effort of bringing ideas over instead of physical traveling. Some of the plays they are working with this year include Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. By Alice Birch, Kin by E.V Crowe, and If You Don’t Let Us Dream We Won’t Let You Sleep by Anders Lustgarten. 

Malaysia: Cloud Theater

During this pandemic, theatres’ operation in Malaysia has been severely affected as well. Instead of waiting for the next step by the government, theatermakers/software engineers William Yap and Dennis Lee took the initiative to think outside the box by creating Cloud Theatre as an alternative platform to keep the performing arts industry alive and relevant. Cloud Theatre is a theater Livestream platform that fully recreates the theater experience–William and Dennis built a simple ticketing system from the ground up tailors for the needs of pay-what-you-want theater Livestream performances, and a virtual theater with photo booths, guestbooks, donation boxes, digital program access, etc. Most importantly, their software is bilingual; Malaysia’s demographics include speakers of both Mandarin and English, and both groups can engage on this platform with ease. 

As we mourn over the fact that many of these opportunities are not open to those of us in the US, what is there to learn? How can we take this innovative thinking and cross-discipline and see if we have been overlooking some of the possibilities around us? Building a “new normal”, as cliche as it sounds now, is in the effort of rethinking and reconstructing every thought we are so used to; some of the institutions, no matter if they’re indie or government-funded, have been leading us in the right direction and we must hear the call. 

 

LINKS:

Cloud Theater: Ticketed online streaming platform  https://www.cloudtheatres.com/

Sound and Fury Play Reading Festival https://www.soundandfury.cn/

British Council – International Digital Collaboration Fund

https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/digital-collaboration-fund

The Yard Theater – Live Lab https://theyardtheatre.co.uk/live-lab/

 

 

Alison Yueming Qu

DSF Digital Internship Participant

Emerson College Class of 2020

BFA Theatre