To tackle the debilitating financial instability that performing artists face everyday, The Field's Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA - pronounced ur · pah) program asked, "How can artists make new money for their work?"  ERPA challenged artists to propose inventive, sustainable, and replicable models to do this. 
 
In September 2009, seven projects were adjudicated by a panel of veteran arts and business leaders to receive up to $20,000 in funds from The Field.  Four of the seven projects received Implementation Awards - individual grants of $10,000 to $20,000 to continue developing and implementing each project under the auspices of The Field.  Three projects were selected for Replicability Awards - stipends of $1,500 with additional professional development support from The Field, intended to help document and communicate each project's findings to the greater artistic community.
 
ERPA Implementation Awardees:
 
Connie Hall/Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant not only generates an abundance of comic material and great food, but also offers an alternative producing model for artist-driven theater.  Through the ERPA program, the actor-run theater company is developing a sustainable business model using income generated by the sale of food and beverages to support its artistic work.  www.avantgarderestaurant.com
 
JoAnna Mendl Shaw/The Equus Projects is developing their Regional Touring Program to include on-site coordinators in four regional hubs throughout the country, enabling each to advocate on the company's behalf and cultivate performance and workshop participation.  This program builds upon The Equus Projects' strong national support base, cultivating effective leadership with a handful of key supporters.  www.dancingwithhorses.org
 
Jon Stancato/Stolen Chair Theatre Company is adapting the business plan followed by most Community Supported Agricultures (CSA).  Like the CSA model, Stolen Chair will build a membership community that provides 'seed' money for the company's development process and then reaps a year's worth of theatrical harvests.  www.stolenchair.org
 
Caroline Woolard/Our Goods proposed an online peer-to-peer barter network where creative people can trade objects, services, and space with each other. Check out the prototype at www.ourgoods.org.  There you will find a work dress designed by Caroline waiting to be traded for your skills or artwork!
  
ERPA Replicability Awardees:
 
Kahlil Almustafa is bringing performance poetry to his hometown of Jamaica, Queens.  Through poetry workshops at high schools, performances at theaters, and Living Room Readings, Almustafa is promoting poetry as a tool for community engagement.  www.kahlilalmustafa.com

Nick Brooke composes collages of pop song fragments and sound effects, and then trains live performers to sound like these recordings, while creating intricate theatrical tableaus.  He has used ERPA to create a 'micro-commissioning' program, in which small fragments, songs, or vignettes of a larger work are supported by smaller commissions.  These micro-commissions are being collaged on the web in an interactive installation, which lets participants converse with the artist, and see their works constantly change.  www.nbrooke.com
 
Rachel Chavkin/The TEAM is launching American Geographic, an initiative that increases national visibility, annual work-weeks for its company members, and forges a country-wide network of audiences and supporters through direct engagement with communities around the nation. The TEAM is re-envisioning itself as a year-round employer and therefore seeking to provide an essential year-round benefit - health insurance - to its part-time employees through corporate sponsorship.  The TEAM is developing a model of engagement between small arts companies and large corporations that will build a mutually beneficial bond between the business and arts community and enable future arts companies to pursue essential benefits for part-time employees.  www.theteamplays.org 
  
What is ERPA really?

 

In 2008 (before the economy tanked), The Field received a generous award from The Rockefeller Foundation's inaugural NYC Cultural Innovation Fund to tackle the debilitating financial instability that many performing artists face every day.  True to The Field's grass roots, we took this project directly to our artists and asked them "what would you do?"  This query resulted in two streams of attack: dynamic public dialogues (AKA Invention Sessions), and an ambitious entrepreneurial lab.  Since then, our Invention Sessions have engaged more than 500 artists and cultural stakeholders in topics ranging from alternative fundraising tactics, to the romanticization of the starving artist paradigm, to a smack down exposé on the 'new' economy.
 
The Invention Sessions also helped set the stage for a competitive proposal process in November 2008, from which the seven ERPA projects (noted above) were selected (out of 116 applicants!) to receive Planning Grants from The Field.  Each artist received a $5,000 stipend and a variety of professional development resources to support their ideas-in-progress.  After more than a year of entrepreneurial investigations, their unique approaches to financial stability were presented in a Public Display of Invention at WNYC's The Greene Space in September 2009.  Full audio coverage of this event, including all past Invention Sessions, is available on the ERPA blog at www.economicrevitalization.blogspot.com.  
 
What's next for ERPA? 

 

As the economy continues its rocky road, The Field is committed to short- and long-term solutions and micro- and macro-efforts.  We will continue to host Invention Sessions and skill-building programs that help artists revitalize their own economy.  Implementation Awardees will engage the community through two public breakout sessions, slated for June and September 2010.  In the spring of 2010 we are also launching ERPA services in East Harlem and the Bronx with support from New York State Senator José Serrano.
 
The Field was founded in 1986 by a small group of performing artists who met weekly with the goal of improving their artwork and building their careers.  From this modest and intimate origin, The Field organically grew into the nationally recognized arts service organization that we are today.  In tandem with this significant growth, we remain true to our grassroots origin and artist-centered mission: to strategically and comprehensively serve the myriad artistic and administrative needs of independent performing artists and companies.  www.thefield.org
 
The Field's Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists program is made possible by the NYC Cultural Innovation Fund of the Rockefeller Foundation.