[…] here at the start, it seems appropriate to offer some context around why this website and project came to be. Consider this a somewhat condensed chronicle of the past three years, the focus of which is why this website exists and how it came to be. With that said, the timeline goes as follows… [This page is intended to serve as an archive for The Invisible City Project website. While this information is not up to date, it is my hope that its contents continue to provide a point of entry.]
AUGUST 2010
On August 25, 2010, Charter Oak Cultural Center called a meeting to discuss the terms of their dance presenting series with a core group of artists–formerly known as the Charter Oak Dance Coalition–who had previously benefited from the organization’s incredibly generous service to local dance makers. Not all the players were able to attend on that date, but of those who were present, there seemed to be a palpable discomfort emanating from some of us at the mere mention of working together on a community-wide effort. I admit to being among those skeptical attendees at the start. Charter Oak was offering to build a bridge, but we all seemed rather shell-shocked from previously ineffective attempts at cooperation. With a little coaxing from Rabbi Donna Berman, Charter Oak’s Executive Director, we eventually agreed to a schedule of monthly meetings. Beginning with this small group at the start, we would discuss the needs of the dance community and identify ways to affect some change for the greater good. Meanwhile, thanks to a grant from the City of Hartford’s Arts and Heritage Jobs Grant, Charter Oak began the process of hiring a dance coordinator to help facilitate this effort and organize their dance presenting series.
AUGUST 2010–AUGUST 2011
Over the course of the subsequent twelve months, members of the group met consistently to address an apparent disconnect. For us there was an obvious abundance of dance in the area. At the same time, there was a contrasting public perception that there was no dance to speak of. Out of those early meetings came the idea of Homegrown Dance, a collective of dance-making organizations who regularly premiered work at Charter Oak Cultural Center, including: Dance Connect, DancEnlight, Full Force Dance Theatre, Judy Dworin Performance Project, Scapegoat Garden, and Spectrum in Motion. Throughout that year, we refined our goals and committed to work together with partner organizations to increase the visibility of dance in Greater Hartford while building a community of support. It was also during this time that we embarked on a year long partnership with Billings Forge Community Works as part of their Artists in Residence program.
I was a fervent believer in that mission of partnership, increased visibility for dance, and building community. So when it became clear that Charter Oak’s dance coordinator position had to be filled by someone residing in Hartford-proper, and I acknowledged how much I was already investing in the cause, I threw my hat into the ring. Because what I needed was another job. Right?
So, in April 2011, I began my 16 month tenure as Dance Coordinator at Charter Oak Cultural Center. And I determined that my first task would be to meet with several members of the dance community–a cross section of area dance makers, performers and arts administrators–to gather their insights about what needs we shared in common and how we could cultivate a vibrant environment for dance in our city. I also set about researching organizations around the country who were providing the services we seemed to need, and were working cooperatively to meet those needs. Getting to the bottom of what was missing, systemically, seemed to be a driving impulse. And one answer that seemed to consistently echo back was curation. So I also set out to discover what that might mean. By the end of the summer, I was ready to organize those initial research findings into a document that would clarify our objectives, and offer a menu of projects we might engage with as we pursued our mission.
AUGUST 2011–AUGUST 2012
In August and September of 2011, the research document and proposed projects were distributed throughout the group and offered as a foundation for strategic planning. We chose three key projects on which to focus our attention. We set out (1.) to support Charter Oak’s efforts to infuse their performance presenting with renewed vitality and increased sustainability, (2.) to examine the ways creative use of video media could help expand the visibility of the art form in Hartford, and (3.) we agreed to develop a website which would,
… be linked to the [Charter Oak] site and to other relevant sites for local dance. It [would] also include a calendar of area wide dance events, a resource directory, links to Homegrown Dance companies, and a blogsite. The blogsite [would] include local dance makers’ artists statements and essays; essays and interviews by guest contributors (area dance students and scholars); works-in-progress video clips, trailers, and excerpts of completed work; and comments from audience members.”
Together we established these important goals, believing they would serve dance and the community at large. Over the next year, as I worked to set our objectives in motion, and we continued to meet to flesh out the messy details of collectivity. Month after month we engaged in this courageous effort to speak openly about topics that had previously been off limits in the hopes that we were creating space for new ideas to take root. Needless to say, it was a struggle. Aspects of my personal background had prepared me to sit in large of groups of people and dig deeply into uncomfortable topics, all the while looking inward to assess what I might need to change and outward to see how systemic dysfunction might need be addressed. I believed we were engaged in a noble struggle. The fact, however, was that each member of the group represented a dance company that had its own unique history, interests, objectives, stakeholders, and existing support structures. How could we tease out our commonalities and shared need, identify ways to meet those needs, and avoid undermining the characteristics that defined any one group, or the resources they had already come to rely on? How do you rebuild a foundation when a whole city is already resting on it? Those were big questions, and I’m not sure we were prepared to address those on our own.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t all struggle. During this time, we rolled out a full season of dance at Charter Oak, participated graciously in shared evenings of dance performance, and developed beautifully rendered site specific happenings around the city. And in my quest to understand the role of curation in meeting the needs we had identified as a group, I happened upon the inaugural class of Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP). The fact that, a program was being developed specifically to address my nagging question at that very moment, was synchronous, to say the least. So, in July 2012, I began my 9 month journey as a student in ICPP.
AUGUST 2012–AUGUST 2013
The most recent meeting of the Homegrown Dance initiative was held in August 2012. At that time the group gathered to re-assess its goals and its timetable in light what appeared to be a philosophical impasse. Our time together was an important opportunity for shared ideas and it provided a platform for some segment of the dance ecosystem to sit face to face. In that context, we were forced to acknowledge our similarities and differences as essential to the overall health of that system. That, for me offered a wonderful sense of possibility. At the same time, the questions we needed to answer were big, and it didn’t seem clear, in the context of Homegrown Dance and with so few resources at our disposal, how we could protect individual self-interests and navigate this larger journey as a group.
Many in attendance at that last meeting took note of the community-based programming that had been developing at The Garden Center for Contemporary Dance during the previous year. With this in mind, the group determined that several of the objectives of Homegrown Dance were already manifesting at The Garden Center and might be more effectively administered in that space. With that, the group decided to suspend further meetings to allow for an expansion beyond the confines of our small group, and we agreed the vehicle for this expansion would be the programming at The Garden Center. Since that time, The Garden Center has continued to cultivate a nurturing environment for our community of dance artists, while continuing to seek answers to questions that lie at the heart of our quest for sustainability. This nurturing has taken the form of monthly Works in Progress sessions, opportunities for gathering and networking, intimate performance salons, art form specific discussions, and rehearsal space rental. We have worked to expand our own networks locally and regionally in order to advocate for dance in Hartford, and for the people who bring that dance to life. All the while, the reality that a website could be an important way to unite us loomed large, and the question of how to make it happen has too.
As I continued the journey through ICPP, I became more and more convinced that cooperation, critical discourse, and strengthening/expanding our networks would be essential for making dance in Hartford both sustainable and relevant. Among the many mind-expanding things I learned or confirmed along the way was the origin of the word curator. Apparently, at one time the term meant: the guardian of someone who could not care for themselves–i.e. a minor or a mentally ill person. At the onset, that struck me as offensive and condescending, as if artists needed someone to care for them because they were in some way incompetent to manage their most basic needs. And, truth is, there are those gate keepers of the arts who believe that to be true, and see their role as synonymous with keeping order because we can’t. On the other hand we know that dance artists work incredibly hard, and we are incredibly adept at doing so many things well. I often laugh, or cringe, when I consider how many hats I wear–manager, bookkeeper, graphic designer, costume designer, facilities manager, diplomat, problem solver, administrator, grant writer … oh and choreographer, performer, dance educator … and so on. We know the insanity of this list is not unusual in dance circles … and this doesn’t account for all the things we are in our personal spheres as well.
So for exactly those reasons, despite my initial distaste for the early definition of curator, it soon occurred to me that I needed a guardian to hold space for me from time to time. Creative process is not just about organizing people, stuff and ideas. It is also about accessing a place deep within and drawing something out. The problem is with how exceedingly difficult it is to be in that place and this place at the same time. There are certainly dangers in making that place your permanent home, and legends abound about artists who have done just that to their detriment. But in order to grow/deepen in one’s art making practice, perhaps one has to be have dual citizenship … or at least be a frequent visitor. But can we be fully there if we’re pulled unceasingly by logistics out here? When in the throes of art making, perhaps we need safe space and safe relationships that provide an assuring anchor as we delve deeply into that creative process. Some of us have something akin to that assurance in the form of mentors, creative partners, company staff, a substantial board of directors, agents, or other such support systems. They help provide a framework to support the excursion into creative realms, however messy it needs to be for you to do the work you set out for yourself. But what about those among us who have yet to reach that level of organizational development, those for whom such organizational development is incompatible with the trajectory of the work with which they are engaged, or those who don’t have access to the resources from which such structures/relationships emerge. I believe this can be an important place for curatorial practice to be of service: to hold space so artists can delve into creative process, and to be an intermediary between artist, art work, community and the big picture. In the absence of an official entity to act in that capacity for local dance makers, might we provide that service for each other-alternately making space for each other so we can each test our own artistic boundaries and emerge safely.
AUGUST 2013–ONWARD
Over the last few years, the month of August, seems to have been an auspicious month for a renewed spirit of cooperation to take hold. In keeping with that rhythm of things, it seems appropriate now to offer the envisioned website as a document of our art forms continued transformative power, in and among us … because I am not one to back down from a challenge and because its is high time we truly blow open the walls that confine us. Dance only remains invisible in our city because, in our isolation and ongoing struggle to access the resources we need, we are so often invisible to each other. So this website is a long awaited fulfillment of promise which aspires to transparency, generosity, reciprocity, critical discourse, innovative models of operations, sustainability, respect for the legacy of our place here in Hartford … and an environment that helps us each make and experience our collective best work.
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