Community Arts
ACHF Arts Access
AfterWind will offer the kind of extra-ordinary, interdisciplinary alternative arts experience our audience expects and has expressed a need for. The performance will still contain the heart and emotional access points to bring newcomers to this kind of work, which Off-Leash Area has long been known for achieving. The scope of the production design, the focus on installation art, the location of an art gallery, and the transformation of the directors’ recent personal experience to a universal expression together open a new chapter for the company. We hope to reach our target age group of 18-25. We hope to reach our goal of $5000 in admissions. We will evaluate the results of the project through encounters with the audience, discussions with cast members, with the Off-Leash Area Board of Directors, and with peers. We will also access information from surveys included in programs, as well as on comment boards on our website and social media sites. We will also invite people to stay after every show for snacks and beverages, and give personalized tours through the set led by the designers and directors, soliciting questions about the sources and ideas that led to that evening’s performance. Additionally, we will take into account the press coverage, community responses from outreach partners, and box office statistics captured by The Soap Factory. We will evaluate these responses and data to improve future outreach, and adjust our artistic process for future shows.
We did achieve our artistic goals. Even though we had a change of venue, which caused some challenges for us. We were able to re imagine elements of the 360-degree scenic design to still offer an immersive experience for the audience. We were able to explore a very topical, politically charged subject matter, terrorism and its aftermath, and keep the experience grounded in the human aspect of facing one's mortality, without ignoring the political aspects. We were able to hire a cast that was very high quality and up to the task. The audience was clearly moved after each performance. Nearly all audience members stayed after the performance to explore the set/installation, speak with the performers, and simply reside in the space with the resonance of what they had experienced. Additionally, the set for AfterWind was among 3 designs that co-director Paul Herwig was honored for as a nominee for a Sage Award for Outstanding Design in Dance by the local dance community. We did reach our intended audience, but we would have liked to have had more of them. The change in venue also caused our marketing to be delayed until we had a new venue that could accommodate our project design, which was the Savage Umbrella space. Savage Umbrella is connected to a young audience, like our original venue The Soap Factory, but we lost out on the size audience the Soap would have connected us to. The audience was more diverse, which was related to the very diverse cast we assembled, and the universality of the themes explored in the production. Approximately 250 attended the performance. Of these 25% were anecdotally of other than Caucasian descent. The production received amazingly positive reviews from the press. The reviewers additionally took time in their articles to speak to the history of Off-Leash Area, and the power of the artistic directors' long time collaboration. They were extremely supportive.
Other, local or private