By Alexandra Beller

“I wish!”

“If only…”

“Do you ever do these as online courses?”

“Come to Kansas and teach this please…!”

These are the comments I often get when I post on Facebook about an upcoming workshop. Even for New York-based artists, the ability to commit to a live workshop, weekly, at a set time, is often prohibitive. And yet, being an artist can be lonely. We often expect ourselves to have all, or most, or the best, ideas. We are, even in the most ensemble of arrangements, responsible for the trajectory and production of the work. We are sometimes sick of our own strategies, nostalgic for grad school or college, when we were given tasks, and had to problem-solve and create, rather than inventing the structure in which to create. There is an emotional isolation and creative vacuum that can sometimes suck the life energy from our process.

I have spent the past decade attempting to become a softer landing place for artists post grad and mid career alike. I’ve never promoted myself as having more answers about art than anyone else, but I have tried to create community and provide the kinds of questions that get artists out of their own way, reframing, zooming out or in,  changing the filter of their lens. I teach two, sometimes three, workshops per semester in NYC, things like Laban, Pedagogy, Choreolab, Dramaturgy. These small forums and temporary communities are meant to allow artists to be in the room with each other, even if only for a weekend, or a few months, to remind themselves that they are part of something larger than themselves, that they are not alone.

Praxispace was born in my head after one too many of these wishful comments on Facebook. I realized that there was a longing, a pretty profound one, for connection, for artists to be witnessed, to process together, to have a mirror held up for them by a friend. I also saw that geography was sometimes a component in this isolation, that many of my friends were happily ensconced in an academic environment which they loved, but which did not provide them access to a larger community of like-minded peers asking similar questions. I also had friends in NYC who, due to work life, finances, or parenting, could not fit a live workshop into their life, yet craved community and collaboration. I wondered if I might be able to offer this remotely, so my friends in Kansas, Ireland, North Carolina, and even in NYC, might be able to gain that sense of shared space.

As I started dreaming about it, I thought about the things that we miss most when we are alone in our artistic process. Input, feedback, being seen, but also challenges, tasks, and dares. I wondered if I could create something that was both a loving space and an artistic gauntlet. I started manifesting Praxispace, an online community, a cross between okcupid, facebook, and my favorite parts of grad school… I devised a four pillared home, each pillar a verb that seemed important to the artist: Provoke, Engage, Research, Receive.

Alexandra Beller. Photo by Scott Shaw

Provoke: Each month I send an essay about a topic of creating: Time, Space, Meaning, Material, etc and then a score based on that topic. “Use Time to create a conflict.” “Use geometry in a way that Space becomes a story.” These are the types of tasks in a score, both specific and abstract, always subjective, but ideally catalytic. They are meant to disrupt our habits and usual strategies, inviting us to invent new solutions. It’s my Project Runway for Dance and Theatre…

Engage: Each member creates a profile, answers questions about their process, posts videos, including, if they choose, their response to the monthly score. They can look through each other’s profiles, and give and receive feedback based on a defined format they agree to (including honoring the ways artists contextualize themselves, and leeching privilege and assumption from our language). If they find themselves in geographic proximity, they can even work on scores together, jam, chat, support each other’s work. This is an opportunity to see and be seen, to connect, get inspired, maybe even meet up!

Research: There is a database of articles and videos that is in an ongoing state of addition. The hope is that members may find inspiration, disturbance, or possibilities in these materials. This is a resource center for study, self-challenge, and deepening of our personal research.

Receive: In the higher tier of membership, there is mentorship, a one on one relationship with a mentor to ask questions, make confessions, share ideas, and get tangible, actionable support. They also receive a personalized score based on their point of artistic inquiry. This is a chance to lean on someone for a moment, to share the questions, find some validation, have someone else take responsibility for framing the space, and the questions, so that they may relax into feeling, rather than thinking…

I love artists. They are often my favorite people. And I am an artist. I know well the feeling of being alone in the studio, or the hours before or after rehearsal, when I am trying to figure what the hell just happened or what should come next. Some of my most passionate breakthroughs have come from conversations with a friend, dramaturg, or mentor. And I have seen how eager artists are to help one another, how much looking at someone else’s art can help us define or destroy our own. My hope is that Praxispace becomes a playground for artists to find each other, to find themselves, to know that where they are in that room alone, they are not alone.

To sign up now, click here.

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Related posts:

My Dance Week: Alexandra Beller

Artist Profile: Alexandra Beller

Essays: The Choreographic Moment

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