So now that Mad King Thomas is done (not really) with the telephone dances, (and by ‘not really’ I mean, the exhibit has been taken down, but we still have about a half a zillion phone calls to return), you may be asking yourself (and by ‘you’ I mean all of the internet, and by ‘yourself’ I mean the series of tubes that make up the Internet), “HOLY CRAP GUYS, WHAT IS NEXT????”
Well, right now we are in the midst of working on our BUSINESS PLAN. No, not the kind you wear business socks to, but the kind that gives you actual factual steps and plans, a roadmap to your dreams, the unstoppable forward motion towards MONEY, FAME & SUCCESS!
Or you know, just figuring out what the fuck to do with your next five years.
Guys, it’s weird being a business. This perhaps the first thing for us to learn- how to consider this art-making endeavor- which has been mostly unpaid (though oft-supported), hap-hazard, and an act of love and foolishness on our part- to be a business- which usually has to make money or support you or have at least one foot firmly planted in practicality.
The ridiculous thing is, we’ve got all the skills. It’s not like we don’t know how to be highly effective, efficient, get-things-done people. Every time we produce a show, write a grant, make a piece, tour, or teach a workshop, we prove that we are goddamn professionals! Or, if that is a meaningless word (and I think it might be) WE KNOW HOW TO GET SHIT DONE.
It is a testament to the strange culture around the arts (and dance in particular) that despite our mad skillz, we have yet to make a living through performance. This is not unusual, and it’s not only deeply steeped in the culture all around us, but also totally rooted in our own heads. This is the first order of business: tear up the pre-conceptions, dig out the old models, and plant some new ways of doing!
Perhaps this will mean that our art-making itself will have to radically change, or maybe the shift will happen in our way of packaging it, or maybe our belief systems around it, or maybe (likely) all of the above. Maybe our sense of business will change, and we will live like hermits in the woods, eschewing capitalism and subsisting on berries. And that will be our performance art! It’s both exciting and daunting to ask ourselves what we really want, what we value most about what we do, and how to make those things march forward hand in hand, inexorably towards the ever-prized money, fame, and burlap-covered berry-munching hermitude!