Artist Initiative

I achieved major growth in my practice as a playwright through this project; my understanding of best practices for collaboration and new ways text can function in performance were vastly expanded. Evidence of this learning can be found in the successful public premiere of my work at the Southern Theater this past July. Comments in audience surveys were some of the most compelling indicators that my personal artistic growth rippled out to create a meaningful experience for viewers; many responses specifically mentioned the text and its unique interplay with the movement, using words like powerful, mesmerizing, thought-provoking, and transformative. In reviews and in conversations afterwards, many viewers said that the piece was unlike anything they had ever seen; and in debriefing with my collaborators, we agree the work is very distinct from anything any of us had ever made. These observations affirm to me that I succeeded in pushing my writing into new territory. 2: In my application, I noted that I would have achieved this outcome if even one person attended the public performances who hadn’t seen dance-theater before. In the audience surveys I collected (which were completed and returned by approximately 30% of attendees), five people reported that they had never seen dance-theater prior to this performance. Over half of the respondents (53%) said that they have only occasionally attended contemporary dance-theater. Many of these respondents also included comments about how they found the performance moving, intellectually engaging, and unlike anything they had ever seen. The respondents were 88% Minnesota residents. 81% of these Minnesota respondents are based in Hennepin county, while nearly 20% traveled from five other counties to see the work.