Economies of Effort: 3. Photo credit: Beau Saunders

Making Dance and Giving It Away

By Cid Pearlman

I’ve been making and producing dances for about twenty-five years – first in San Francisco, then Los Angeles, and now in the Bay Area, Santa Cruz and Estonia. Over the last few years I’ve been thinking a lot about agency, equity and audience experience, and about who goes to see dance, and why.

We recently completed a triptych of evening length works on the theme of “economy.” All three projects are centered around the idea that we derive power and agency from making things.  Part of my interest in creating this series was to place dance within the larger sphere of art-making, and to open the door to audiences that may not normally attend a dance concert. 

2016=Year of Free

After participating in a focus group on fundraising in 2015, I made a decision that all our dance company events in 2016 would be free to audiences. There were a variety of reasons for doing this, but I was keenly interested in seeing what would happen if we removed some of the financial and social obstacles that keep people from attending dance performances.

Audiences for dance and other live performance are declining. Many folks can’t afford to participate in dance/art experiences or don’t feel able to take the financial risk of buying a ticket. When we “‘invite” audiences to dance concerts, we traditionally lock the doors, turn out the lights, and tell them to be quiet and to sit still – policing their behavior. If they don’t like the work, it’s hard for them to leave without making a “statement.” It’s not like a music gig, or even a museum show, where folks can come and go as they please, talk to each other, take a break, and return.  

Economies of Effort: 3

With the Year of Free, and particularly Economies of Effort: 3, we ran a bunch of simultaneous social experiments, with the goal of finding ways to destabilize the traditional capitalist framework for producing and viewing performance.

Economies of Effort: 3 was a free, site specific and immersive event that took place in March and April of 2015 in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Attendance was limited to 50 people per show, and audience members could come and go as they pleased – choosing their own path, creating their own narrative. The doors to the outside world were always open, and we invited folks to use their phones/cameras if they wanted to, and to share their media to our Point-of-View Facebook page – so we could see the show from their perspective. We gave them free wine to drink as they wandered, and during the show the performers cooked soup, when they weren’t dancing, which they ate with the audience between shows.

Over 750 people attended Economies of Effort: 3 in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. There were fifteen performers in the show, aged 20-66, and this wide range was reflected in who attended. The audience was excited and engaged, and their response in social media, and simply telling their friends to come, was great. Because EoE: 3 was situated in a gallery, and in collaboration with visual designer Robbie Schoen, the visual art community really showed up. Many folks came to the performances more than once, with a lot of younger people coming back to watch the dance, but also to hang out with friends and drink wine. The performance space became a community space.

Economies of Effort: 3. Photo credit: Beau Saunders

The Finances

Even though the art was free, it still cost money to make it. So one of things we had to consider was how to keep the expenses down. First, I approached Robbie Schoen, director of Felix Kulpa Gallery and visual designer for Economies of Effort: 1, and asked him if we could be resident artists in his space for three months, and he said “yes.” That eliminated rehearsal rental costs, and also made it possible for us to do a two-week, 16 performance run in Santa Cruz. Joe Goode Annex, in San Francisco, also sponsored our work, giving us discounted rates for rehearsal and performance. We raised $6400 via crowdfunding, and kept our expenses low across the boards. The initial response from granting agencies was less enthusiastic than I expected – which I thought was interesting – but grew as they saw the momentum around the Year of Free building.

What Did I Learn?

When I began this project, I had wondered that if tickets were free, then maybe people wouldn’t think the event had “value,” and wouldn’t come. Because we monetize experiences as well as things, and if it costs more it must be better. But we created an “economy of effort” outside of the cash economy, and it was truly inspiring. I am not normally someone who is completely positive about how things went – there’s always something that could be improved – but this project was awesome. We got great audience response and made strong connections with our communities. We can’t always give our work away for free, but when we can, we should, because it’s worth the effort.

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Our last free performances are this month, and we have an encore performance of Economies of Effort: 1 in San Francisco on October 19^th:

Economies of Effort: 1 (2015)
Wednesday, October 19, 8:00pm, FREE
An evening length dance exploring the virtues of self-reliance and the creative impulse
Joe Goode Annex
401 Alabama Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

Here is KQED’s review of Economies of Effort: 3 if you want to know more:

http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/03/23/cid-pearlmans-economies-of-effort-3-serves-up-thoughtful-art-and-delicious-soup/

With 25 free performances, we only need to raise $1,200 to finish 2016 in the black.  All funds go towards dancers’ stipends. If you would like to make a contribution to support Cid Pearlman Performance’s Year of Free go here:

https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/ODQ3Mw==

ABOUT CID PEARLMAN

For two decades Cid Pearlman’s choreography has worked to subtly disrupt traditional notions of desire, gender and friendship. Her work has been presented by numerous venues including ODC Theater, Joyce SoHo, Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Estonia), the Getty Center, Theatre Artaud and the Museum of Contemporary Art/San Diego. Among other honors she has received a Fulbright Award from the US Department of State, and she has been twice awarded a Djerassi Resident Artist Fellowship. Pearlman is committed to working with contemporary composers, and past performances have featured collaborations with Joan Jeanrenaud, Albert Mathias, Jonathan Segel, Erling Wold, Haroon Tahir, Kaarel Kõivupuu and Johannes Ahun. In addition to creating dances for her company, Pearlman has choreographed for film, opera and theater. Currently she teaches in the Theater Arts Department at UC Santa Cruz and the Dance Department at Cabrillo College. For more information, visit cidpearlman.org.

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