Ok, so I am a performance artist (amongst other things) and I made a bunch of works in Australia that have been lucky enough to have been funded.
I went along as an audience member to a showing on friday for a funded development of a performance work.
The funding body that had fronted up the money for the performance wasn’t there.
In my experience this happens quite often. I understand that there are dozens of showings happening throughout the year and there are only a few funding officers, so this is not a criticism of funders.
I think for me what it points out is that the expectation of the showing as a standard part of any performance development process in Australia needs rethinking.
Why do we have showings?
- We want feedback on the work
- We want to see how the material changes when an audience is present
- The work is participatory and we need the audience
- We want a funding body or presenter to see the work to possibly fund it in the future
I think all of these are valid reasons and I have presented showings (or “sharings” as they are sometimes called in the UK) for all of these reasons before.
However, there have also been times when I feel like it has been a real time-waster for the process. A number of times I have been in a development and ended up spending the best part of a week manufacturing an order of events during a four week process – arbitrarily stitching together material for no other reason than the expectation of the showing. Then finally when you get to the showing the feedback is consistent with what you already know are the shortcomings of the work. So nothing is gained.
I would suggest that working right up until the very last day of the development, spending every precious moment on content creation and formal investigation is perhaps just as beneficial if not more than having a showing.
If you want to heighten your chances of future funding for the work then perhaps spend the time making a really great video document of the material you have – because in the end that is the thing that the panel members are going to see, (because as in the case of the development I saw, there is a large possibility they won’t see it live)
Of course there are no hard and fast rules to any of this
- if someone is a young artist then perhaps it is good to work towards a clear goal and receive the feedback from peers/mentors;
- if someone is working on the final development before presentation then bringing funders and presenters to the showing makes absolute sense;
- if you are really confident in the material and you just want some friends to see what you have been up to etc etc etc.
I think the key to all of this is that the artist knows what they need and they know what they need to work on next.
The funding bodies, the presenters, the venue managers, the peers, the friends all know less than the artist does.
The showing is a strategy and should be treated as such.
