E|MERGE: Interdisciplinary Artist Residency

E|MERGE encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration toward forging new creative relationships, that bridge known and unknown territories.

Residency Dates: February 10-24, 2013

Application Deadline: The 2013 AIR are now curated. Check back in June 2013 for the 2014 open call

About E|MERGE

This residency is ideal for those interested in collaborating and cross-pollinating ideas with artists from other disciplines and backgrounds. E|MERGE is a unique residency that has grown organically into a national and international network of highly skilled artists who continue to support and develop one another's work, beyond the residency itself.

In 2013, we will focus specific attention on the art of collaboration. Initial workshops and round table discussions will engage various strategies, structures, and techniques of collaboration.

Artists-in-Residence participate in one of three types of collaborative roles to collectively create work over the course of this two-week residency at Earthdance.

The Collaborative Pool: a non-specified hierarchy to explore group decision-making a creation. Artists are put in touch with each other prior to the residency to begin dreaming and scheming about common threads and possible directions.

Project Leader: Propose a project to direct a collaborative work of your design with the input and experience of the Generous Talent.

Generous Talent: Dive into collaborative process within the parameters of a concept designed and facilitated by a Project Director.

Past residency projects have included: a Museum of Narrow Spaces taking place in multiple locations throughout the Earthdance grounds & physical landscape; a performance installation performed for one audience member at a time, centered around a remote cabin; a photo shoot and participatory installation in our lodge kitchen; a video installation in a library loft; an experiment in creating an improvisational group animal without the use of language; a multi-media piece on self & isolation; and so much more.

What Earthdance can offer you

Working/ Performance spaces including:
- 2 beautiful, large dance studios with sprung maple floors and radiant heating.
- Several cabins and other spaces ideal for installations, video/sound editing locations, and unconventional performance spaces.
- The great outdoors: more than 125 acres of (snow-covered) meadow and forest for art-making and respite.
- A church for site-specific work (through collaboration with a local congregation).

Highly skilled peer group for inspiration and collaboration.
Structured lab time for feedback and experimentation.
Workshops and labs led by you and your collaborators.
3 vegetarian meals a day
A wood-stove sauna nestled in the woods

What Earthdance expects of E|MERGE artists-in-residence

Workshops/Labs

Some residency artists will be invited to lead workshops or labs within the residency as well as locally with the public. Our hope is that artists will take advantage of this time for creative research, engaging one another and the public directly with your current exploration and curiosity.
Participation fee

$300 for the 14-day residency, to assist with food & housing expenses. We encourage artists to solicit private sponsors, and will happily offer a letter or other supplemental materials to support your fundraising efforts. NOTE: Some work/trade exchange options available
Public presentation

We will organize an opportunity for you to share your work at some stage of development with local community.
Community Engagement

All participants assist in some cleaning and cooking chores during the residency.
Fundraising Support

Earthdance will be developing an online campaign to help subsidize this residency. Participating artists are asked to encourage your followers to contribute.

Past residency projects have included:

A Museum of Narrow Spaces took place in multiple locations throughout the Earthdance grounds & physical landscape; On Solitude, a performance installation performed for one audience member at a time, centered around a remote cabin; Any Resemblance, a scripted, site-specific performance in a kitchen exploring social media, domestic lesbian partnership, and race; Tornado, two performance pieces originating from the same visual arts source materials; Neighbours, an interview-based community project involving a local church as site and source. We have had vocal collaborations, experiments in non-verbal collaboration, video installations, photo and film shoots, and so much more.

Here's what some E|MERGE resident artists have to say

Thank you [E|MERGE] for reminding me what it means to create from a place of joy and laughter rather than stress and frustration.

— Gillian Chadsey, actor/performer (New York)

The two weeks were very inspiring. Fascinating encounters happened within the projects and workshops, but also around them in various informal exchanges - and I do not mean only with each individual, but also in relation to the kind of collective that arised from our gathering at earthdance.

— Akseli Aittomäki, dancer (Finland)

This residency is a wonderful dream, just keep it going...

—Pamela Casper, sculptor (New York)

E|MERGE is one of the most innovative arts residencies imaginable. It is incredible to have at one's disposal, a group of exquisitely talented interdisciplinary artists who not only have skills, but also have concentrated space and time to work together. The collaborations that result are unique and surprisingly unpredictable... As an artist the Emerge residency gave me both the resources and the time to create what would not have been possible to create elsewhere. The place became as much a part of the content of what was created as the content of the piece itself.

—Kristen Greco, choreographer (San Francisco)

Artists are meant to learn from each other, and to defy the hierarchical relationships that have perpetuated mentor/student dysfunction, internalized oppression, isolation, etc. E|MERGE presented a model for interrogating those relationships, breaking them apart, and re-forming them in new ways.

—Emmy Bean, actor/singer/puppeteer (Chicago)