 I'm going to hand it over to Park pretty quickly, but I just wanted to give a little second of context, which is if you are a program book peruser, this may have already sort of revealed itself to you, but if not, the way that we sort of structured the event aside from all of the fun workshops and performances and everything else that we're doing in terms of the main session content that is net-driven, today we're focusing mostly on things that are happening now with net, things that either net is doing or members are doing, or members and then are doing, that you can also get involved with if you're not already. And then tomorrow we're going to be talking a little more about things that are going to start happening, that are not in place yet, but are about to be, and that we want to figure out together. So today is now, tomorrow is new. So before we start, we got some amazing funding from the NEA to support this gathering, so I want to thank them. Absolutely, our work. And so this session, Park Coatfield is our field research manager at net, is responsible for overseeing net 10, which is an amazing granting program that is available only for net members, that we've had going for a few years now and he'll tell you all about, and some of these folks who have gotten support from it, he'll tell you all about, but I also just wanted to thank both the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation, who are the lead funders behind that program, and also Cheryl and Katie who are here with us, and we really appreciate it. So Park, take it away. Hello everyone, welcome. So I was asked to put together a session about net 10, and it's a real treat for me because I get to talk to many of you on the phone and through email, but being able to see each of you face to face is really lovely. And we wanted to take the opportunity to give you sort of a nuts and bolts overview of what this program looks like in terms of the numbers from the past three years of the grant cycle, to give you just a little bit of background knowledge about each of the programs so that if you're interested in applying yourself, you can come to me and we can have other conversations over the weekend or you can set up a time with me to speak by phone. And then also to share a lot of the learning that has come out of these projects. And then finally, we will fill the room with reflections and quotes and words that were gathered as part of the final reports for these programs. And so each of you hopefully maybe has a plane, there's a bag, moving around so maybe we can pass that around. But if you would please take a plane at the end of the session, we're going to end by reading some of these words from the program out into the world. So it would be great if we each would grab a plane. Cool, so we will begin. I'm going to sit here and just take you through some of the facts and figures of the program. They really communicate the reach and what we're doing here. And again, a huge thanks to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for them. So this is a program that is about supporting relationships and knowledge sharing. There are two different programs. There's a travel grant component and an exchange grant component that are about seeding relationships and taking that knowledge beyond out into the field. We're three years in. We've done six cycle or six rounds of travel grants and three rounds of exchange grants. In those travel grants occur in the fall and the spring, and they're about initiating and developing relationships. So it's about the people that you meet at conferences and you have a really great cup of coffee with or a really good conversation over a beer and then you're not sure what the next steps are. You don't know each other well enough to jump into a full production, but a travel grant can get you together in the room to continue to discuss, to explore, to share methodology, to observe each other's work, to get you in the same room together to begin planning what you could do together. The exchange grants are really to build on and deepen existing relationships. So this could be a partner that you've known for years, but this is the first time you have the opportunity to work with one another in the room to go deeper on a skill that they have that you want or to share something that you're proficient at that they're looking to gain. The two differences between the programs is that the travel grants are open to net members in all membership categories. So students, affiliates, individuals, and ensembles can apply. The funding is up to $2,000 and they support both U.S.-based activities and international activities. Whereas the exchange grant program is a program that is particular for ensemble members to take the lead in building those partnerships. And so if you're a member of net at the ensemble category, you can apply as the lead partner and you can bring in other partners who could be other ensembles, there could be other nonprofits in the field, experts, scientists, individual artists, but it's about a mutual exchange and a reciprocity that is going to deepen what that relationship looks like. Over the three years, we've had a request for $1.68 million. We have distributed $355,000 in grant support. There have been 404 requests that have come in for the program. 77 awards have been given out. That includes 66 two ensembles and 11 to individuals. Project activities have occurred in 31 states and 70 U.S. cities and 15 countries. So this is a map of the program activities that have occurred in the United States. And we're really looking to expand that geographic diversity of the program. In the exchange grants, often there are multiple partners, so these bullet points represent both the lead applicant and project partners in travel grants and in exchange grants. We have not had any. There has been Hawaii, yes. Technology, don't feel me. It did. Because you're beautiful white and I have a feeling in the middle there. Can you watch on that? Hold please. Yes, Minecraft. Let's build a future. I'm sorry I asked a question. It's all about me. See what happens when I decent her. Here we go. Global activities. These are global activities across the globe. These programs have resulted in 48 sharebacks. Sharebacks are a component of both programs in which we ask grantees to generate some knowledge that will be useful to other artists who might be wanting to engage in similar activities. They're often tutorial or instructional in some way so that it could be as simple as instructions of how do you pack a van for touring or something about how you set up a website. These are elements that are useful to other artists who might be doing the same thing instead of just reporting back and documenting the work or showing a video of the work itself. The Net10 grant program has resulted in 161 new members from the Met. That's huge. We're bringing new people in constantly with the grant program and putting them in touch with other Net members. The majority of applicants are requesting 50 to 75% of the total project budget to support what they are doing. And 93% of the grantees express a desire to continue the work that was started in these programs. So we're seeing that this time together in the room without the pressure or requirement of a final product is resulting in deep relationships that feel closer to friendships or family connections that are encouraging people to continue this work beyond the life of the grant. We are so excited to announce a third component of the Net10 grant program which is a continuation grant. We are in a pilot period for this program. We have just awarded our first continuation grant and these are grants that allow relationships that started in the exchange grant program to move forward and to continue. So it's an award of $10,000 to sustain and move forward a project that was started in that exchange grant period. We're about to enter. We are already in our fourth year of the program. So these are the deadlines for the new cycle. You'll see the fall travel grant program is coming up very soon. We're not going to spend a lot of time in this session talking about the guidelines and the application process but that information is on the website and I strongly encourage you to pick up the phone or email me so that we can set up a time to discuss. I love talking with people on the phone and so I hope we can do that. These are programs that are really about everyone being in the same room together and with that in mind we're going to now talk to a couple of past grantees and I've asked them to visually represent what their relationship looks like. We wanted to share with you the multiplicity of ways that these projects are occurring so that you can see the different durations of time that these relationships are occurring in and also the different geographies that are being managed and how these are allowing people to be in the same room together at the same time. So I'm going to join you up here and I'm going to ask each of our past grantees to introduce themselves and to give a short presentation of a picture or a visual representation of their project. I think you even used the word map. Yes, map or chart. This is just nice. I just wanted to say that. Great. Will you look at it? Yeah. Do you want me to stand or sit here? Whatever you're most comfortable with. Okay. I'll just sit. My name is Shannon. I'm from Go In The Road Productions. We're in New Orleans, Louisiana. I love Stan. I'll touch his middle, too. We got a travel grant in 2013 to do an exchange with the assembly which is a New York-based company. I think they actually joined that after we did this project together and they also do just devise work. So to chart our relationship, we actually met members of the assembly in college. Some people from Go In The Road and then some members of the assembly went to Wesleyan University. So that was in 2002 to 2006. So we knew each other back then and between that time and when we got our exchange grant we each formed different companies. We were in Go In The Road in New Orleans and the assembly based in New York. We also watched each other from afar what each other were doing and occasionally would talk on the phone or see each other on Facebook or something. When we saw the opportunity for the travel grant, our curiosity kind of got piqued about each other's working styles. The assembly is very text-driven and they do a lot of improvisation with dialogue. Whereas Go In The Road does a lot of more movement-focused improvisation to start our pieces. So we saw an opportunity to exchange artistic practices through that. So we got the grant. We went up to New York. We did three days. Two of those days were artistic practices and led by one day Go In The Road, the second day the assembly and then on our third day we did administrative best practices which was pretty interesting because we were kind of two younger companies both established in 2008. So we were kind of at the same place with growth but certain aspects were more advanced for each other. For example, we had just gone through a deepening of our board, strengthening of our board and the assembly had been doing some really important fundraising activities which we lacked. So we had a really nice administrative exchange as well. From there, and the other thing that we did was while we were there, we started work on a project that Go In The Road was really passionate about. It ended up being called NUM. It was about the history of anesthesiology. We actually presented it last fall. It was an association with the Pharmacy Museum of New Orleans and that project really began to see the assembly and did a lot of improv, came up with a lot of material that we did together. So that premiered last fall in New Orleans and didn't involve the assembly members coming down or anything. But our next, we have some future goals because we want to keep working with them. We really want to bring the production of NUM up to New York where it really started and at the same time we'd like to start working with the assembly to create a work together. Being in the room so much together that we want to do something or messing around with it being perhaps about long distance relationships. And then we also want to bring the assembly down to New Orleans. They have a couple pieces that they've been dying to bring to the south. And then eventually we'd like for the work that we start working on together during these two times to premiere somewhere. We don't know where yet. I'm glad you said about the administrative practice as well. What are the goals of the program? It's not just artistic sharing. There's room for administrative sharing in the room of these as well. I love that that was meshed in with what you were doing. An interesting thing, we applied twice before we actually got the grant. And the first time I think there was a question of can two companies that are at the same level especially administratively. And I think that for us actually it was great because we had similar struggles at that moment and we had both advanced in different areas. We really understood each other and we really could share a lot. Great. Thank you. I'm Marcella Trobridge from Art Farm based in Middletown, Connecticut. Gosh. We have been privileged to be awarded an exchange grant and a travel grant. Two different projects. I'm going to talk about one, our exchange grant which is not what I'm going to go into detail about. We were really fortunate to work with Brett and Puppet and Peter Schumann and we had a really fabulous exchange. I could talk a little bit more about that but let me start with this which was our travel grant. We came back we just spent four months in Sri Lanka. We were there January to May of this year. So what I realized it is interesting to me and it's related... Oh, that's really nice of you. Are you sure? Okay. Thanks. What's interesting to me just as an aside about both the Brett and Puppet and the Sri Lanka was when Park asked this question of like where did it begin? What's the story? I was sort of shocked. I hadn't really thought about it and this is really weird. Okay, so my co-founder of Art Farm who is also my husband came to the United States in 1977 to go to Wesleyan University. Weird. But that's where this starts because he had a freshman hallmate named Jeff and now in 1995-ish Dick went to Prague. He was in the Czech Republic at that point. Three times on artistic exchanges, different funders but he was there doing work in villages and communities and he reconnected with this freshman hallmate, right? Okay, in Prague. At that time this friend of his was dating a then 21 a bit younger than this fellow a year old woman named Gayatri she's a Sri Lankan she's a composer and an artist. Jump forward to 2010 this guy Jeff, who has nothing to do with this except that I had to ask myself this question relocates and comes back from Prague to where I live in Middletown. Alright, so then because he still has a connection with her even though they're not so lovers 2011-2012 Gayatri comes to Middletown on a full break. Great. In 2012 we work with Gayatri an original opera called Pulandevi, if you're not familiar is a historical a real person from India. She was she was raped as a young person she became a rebel leader that would go to villages and sort of demasculate men who were violent to women. She was then elected as an official and then she was assassinated. It's a really interesting project that we did with Gayatri in our town when she before she left she and I went out for breakfast I had to put that back in because I was like oh yeah we had that breakfast where she said gosh if you ever came to Sri Lanka we could really like and I was wow that would be great. Okay, so that was in 2012. This is the other thing I just added these to in this morning. So my mom died. That's relevant in the sense of what makes us do things. My mom died so all of a sudden I was like Gayatri because I've been wanting to do this for a long time. Much years I've been wanting to do this and I realize now is the time because when else? So emails, emails, Skype emails all of that happened. Grandbaby, yay! We got a yes, which also helped us leverage our amazing net and I kid wax poetic but I won't do that now. Their support helped us leverage other support so we had three collaborations happening in Sri Lanka. So then we got this and we went to Sri Lanka for four months we again through other funding did a couple of other different collaborations but our primary collaboration was with Gayatri we worked with nine actor dancer singers and three musicians and we performed for over 500 people on an original generative piece called when caged birds sing about women violence oppression and war in community and we're really really feeling very privileged that we were able to do that feeling really privileged that we live in the United States and right now is going off because folks who were in the international collaboration conversation heard this that I'm holding a lot from that time and I have seeded a new piece called not my place hoping to continue working and hopefully Gayatri will come back and we also worked with some other artists we'll see you know what we can afford but I will continue moving forward and I'm very grateful to net for this opportunity and again I can talk more about thank you yeah I mean it's a nice that's such a perfect example of what this long relationship might look like and that it could just be we talked yesterday about the tipping point where something might roll down the hill to see what this starts but it never would have occurred to me to think that I was going back that far but you know somehow yeah thank you Eric were you a traveler in exchange I believe yours was a travel you were an international travel yes okay this is we were a travel this is a volcano yeah and you can it doesn't erupt anymore but it's actually right you can see it pretty much anywhere in San Salvador I don't know if this works for me but I'll do it anyway this is me I'm the one with the baseball hat I was living in Munich in 1985 where I met Roberto Salomon who was living in Geneva Roberto left San Salvador El Salvador in 1982 when the Civil War started there are reasons I mean his theater was how do I say this I mean it's a great story actually when the was it the death squads or the police or the military or whoever it was came to search the theater because it's a theater there must be leftist hiding there and had all the actors basically come out and stand against the wall with their hands against the wall Roberto's mother was actually visiting from France at that particular occasion and she was standing with her hands against the wall saying to herself I shouldn't have come back to El Salvador I shouldn't have come back to El Salvador Roberto was asked to go back into his theater and at gunpoint open every door for the search for weapons and leftist guerrillas who might be hiding there meanwhile the man with the machine gun or the rifle standing outside pointing at everybody standing against the wall said to everybody turn around at which point Roberto's mother who was terribly shocked and confused and frightened the death squads so I met Roberto when he was basically in exile in Geneva he came to Vermont where we lived and actually directed two performances for Sandglass one of which is a degeneration of the piece about dementia that we've been touring for the last few years here we had been talking over this time I mean he did two productions with us in Vermont we thought are we ever going to get to El Salvador and work with this man in his own country in his own theater and then low and behold 2012 I think we're at here 2014 so we got an NPN grant performing America's grant down to El Salvador and that was we got to start this project with a workshop that we did for actors who'd never worked with puppets and that but it was with the idea that this would turn into a production and Roberto and I both particularly love one play it's an 18th century German epic poem called Nathan the Wise basically one of the great pieces of German writing about religious and racial everybody comes from the same place one family sort of thing it has a terribly melodramatic ending but we dealt with that anyway we went we went there and the project really started you know we had a great group of actors to work with who worked with his theater we wanted to go back we got a TCG what's it called global connections grant to go back to the second phase so here we are in the third phase where we've got to finish this piece we've only got seven scenes out of 11 staged we'd really like to actually work with this company to get finished production and we have no money whatever so we went back to NPN and we said we said look you're invested in this and we're invested in this and we can't we we don't have a penny and we got a second NPN grant from performing to go back and it still wasn't enough so there was there was net and that basically got us back tomorrow is the closing performance of this show for this round and we are going to work to somehow get it up on tour to Spanish speaking theaters in the United States thank you when that happens I want to talk about presenting hi I'm Julia Rosenblatt and I'm from Heartbeat Ensemble I don't know if this will work for me either and we were lucky enough to receive two grants two net 10 grants to develop our relationship with the Indian Ensemble and I'm kind of my Steve Ginsburg who was also a co-founding member of Heartbeat it's actually his baby and he's not here until I'm going to do the best to say what he might say although it has involved all this so what we have here is in 2012 in Manhattan thank you by the way I had several help drawers believe it or not I could not even do this so I had Sarah draw India for me and who drew somebody drew New York for me thank you I got Connecticut I did that one so in 2012 Steve and Abhishek Abhishek is the artistic director of the Indian Ensemble they were together for a month at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and we're having a wonderful time at the lab but we're spending much of their time talking with each other and finding out that our companies though obviously in incredibly different places in the world had a lot in common in terms of mission and pedagogy and so Steve got excited and Abhishek got excited and they came back from that so Steve was in Connecticut we spent a few months Skyping with him and talking about what possible things we could do together so looking back actually and looking at the grant guidelines I'm realizing that and we did this step of getting to know each other but I wish that we had done that step before figuring out what our project was because of course we had a large right to project and got excited and I kind of wish we had spent some time just exploring more but things are going well so I'm excited about that so we spent some months and we were talking and one of the things that we quickly started talking about was offshore off-shoremen jobs so Hartford Connecticut is the insurance capital of the world it's very exciting we have lost thousands and thousands of jobs over the years specifically to India and then we found out specifically to Bangalore in large part so the idea was to trace work that was leaving us and going to Bangalore and what that work what it meant for them and what it meant for us so Steve in 2013 traveled to Bangalore and spent a couple of weeks there he worked with the Indian ensemble got to know them did some workshopping with them they shared a piece with him and then they took him around to different parts of the city an area to interview people about the work that they were doing this was kind of the point at which we understood that one job that was leaving Hartford was going to Bangalore to create at least three jobs because the jobs were being split up so much the other thing is that when they're split up they are very specific so people because they were getting paid much less they could afford to do this so if you would have one piece of this job and not know have any context for what it was that you were doing this is what you did which was fascinating to him in interviews because he was finding people that really were trained very specifically for this piece of work they weren't they didn't care, didn't know about insurance in general again it's very exciting but anyway that's where that started to come about and we were lucky enough to get to have a grant for that and that's what got Steve there for a couple of weeks then in 2014 thanks in part to another grant that we got from Net10 we were able to bring how many members was it, five? seven members of the Indian Ensemble it was really only one of their Ensemble members that weren't there too Hartford and that was super exciting they spent a few weeks with us and they came there was a dual thing so they have a show called Fouq which means spit it's the actual sound it's an Anamanapia and it's about hunger, they had been doing this piece for several couple of years that was talking about hunger in the world and so they brought that show to us around that show we created a couple of day festival called the Hunger Project and got wonderful community support from lots of different activist organizations several universities, St. Joseph University Wesley and Yukon they were all involved so that was really exciting and they did their piece which by the way was almost none of it was in English and that was also really exciting and something that we're dealing with now we had super titles often they were on both sides of our theater so that was excellent then we started talking we brought them around we went down to New Haven as well and did one there and we started talking about our piece that we had originally thought about which is East West Stories is what we are calling it right now the concept for East West Stories is that the one act takes place in Hartford and the second act is in Bangalore and they're intertwined but we're not totally sure how intertwined they are so in that whirlwind trip we took them around we had some excellent workshops one of my favorite things was we brought them into one of the schools that we teach one of the after school programs they were 8th, 9th and 10th graders I believe and their reactions was one of them to just the kids they had a great workshop but they were shocked that we were letting kids come in and sit down and they had buds in their ears and they had a hood over and we weren't saying anything we were just continuing with the workshop until they were engaged so I'm of course dying to go and I mean I've seen many things one of which is just that difference in how we're what is etiquette, how we're raising children what is respectful so on and so forth and so we had some exchange also about that piece and what we could do so that's where we are now we were going all over the place trying to show them as much as possible get them as many interviews do as many workshops as possible but also work together that was a year ago and now we're figuring out where to go next so something like the continuation grant is very positive for us because we're trying to figure out what the reality what the reality of this piece is it's not realistic to think that either one of our ensembles could go to the other ensemble for a full run of a show but what is possible is it possible that we have that we're skyping we have a beautiful screen set up that was there in our theater before we got there maybe we use that maybe the second act takes place there maybe we have interchange maybe it's pre-recorded maybe we don't do it that way maybe we do keep them as two separate pieces and we're working together on those we're not really sure and our biggest hurdle right now of course is funding it's nearly impossible for the Indian Ensemble to get funding there's just no sources on one hand their government support what they have gotten especially Abhishek has been amazing because it makes them spread but there's no foundations there's no extra sources of money from which they can apply so we're dealing with that and how long it's going to take the time it takes to get to know each other and understand each other and have that cross-cultural understanding we've slowed things down and said you know what it'll happen when it happens let's just take the next step as opposed to doing what we often do which is like oh we'll get this done by 2015 and it'll be in our season done, you know, let's figure out how to do that so that's where we are now in a second I'm Cynthia for those of you who don't know me and I'm a member of the Post-Nautium Collective we are a trans-national web-based collective of women dance artists and we look at data and critical approaches to South Asian dance this is important because we did not get into a room together and we did not travel physically in space what was then called a seat grant and is now called a travel grant so maybe if it had been called a travel grant we would have felt disqualified but anyway, we had this grant and so Sandra lives and works in Munich and Salzburg which she's always in India and she had done this solo production with this incredible theater director named Abby Thee this was who was based in UW and they were like doing really awesome work together and Sandra was like maybe you should work with all of us so this was to see if Abby Thee working with all of us might make any kind of sense so Shama and I are like in Los Angeles and then like Sandra's here in Europe and then and then Abby Thee is here in India but then Sandra is also kind of like doing this right and so we had this project called Cabaret Travels and we were looking at the translations of Cabaret across you know Germany and India and the United States so the movement and the content of the piece was also sort of there and where we were in space so we were web based and we used our money to make a little website and microsite to facilitate our exchange and also make it something that people could use because if you go through our blog it's like nobody could understand it but us so it was used for that so it would be like I would make an assignment and be like read this thing about the Harlem Cabaret it's amazing and then I would send it to Germany and then they would read it and they would write responses and they would come back and then you would make a creative assignment and you would post them and that you acknowledge not traveling or not being in a room so that you have removing that barrier of distance in your case became creating your own online space and the program actively welcomes and supports innovation in terms of using online collaboration tools phone calls pre-planning so we heard it there's a need for a number of arrows and maps and dotted lines on these posters that you saw looks like an Indiana Jones montage scene but we're aware that there's this need for multiple travel for these long-term relationships to really exist and to come together in a larger relationship building way I want to share a couple of and acknowledge that there are also some other Net10 grantees and recipients in the room so please feel free to introduce yourself and connect over meals through the rest of the conference and talk with one another and perhaps you will meet someone that you would like to go visit and the travel grants are really simple and straightforward there's still plenty of time to apply for the fall cycle and I would encourage you to be thinking about those over the next two days and submit, submit, submit. Yes. As a partner or as a lead applicant. Awesome. So do you want to hear stories about that? Yes. Awesome, thank you. So the Net10 shareback library is on the website it's ensembletheaters.net slash sharebacks so I encourage all of you to go and use this as a resource we're looking to increase its use in the coming year some of you have interacted with it some of you haven't we post them on the Net Facebook page and then include them in the Net eBlast but we're also I want to know what's useful to you I'd love to hear more over the next couple of days of what would be useful we are thinking about compiling these into different like-subjects so there are a lot of sharebacks about using online tools to shrink that distance so we're thinking would it be helpful to make an anthology of those resources and have that as a downloadable PDF to show all of the ways that that might be possible would you rather have them in weekly emails what sort of distribution is useful to you in terms of using this content we'd like some feedback about that but in the meantime I've printed out a couple of sharebacks that we'll be making available for the rest of your time here and some of the open space sessions and I'll just sort of briefly introduce those and you can come get them or you certainly can go online when you get to your homes and find them there so we have a retreat planning kit for writers as ensembles this was a project of three playwrights that came together to get to know one another their shareback was a retreat planning kit that has a checklist of how do you set that up schedule template an outline of what all eight days could look like and sample exercises that you could use on a retreat we have playing with collaborative structures this is a game book for young collaborators and evolving collectives for online games so there are a couple there's six online games you can play with online collaborators so one is called Walk and Talk and can be used by groups of strangers and it addresses structure discussion breaking the ice and physicalizing discussion that includes looking for prompts around the city and walking points that you're sharing with one another in both cities so yes there's a lot of fun fun games to try online in this this is a guidebook ideas for remote collaboration rethinking exchange and co-authorship across distance and discipline so there's some excellent exercises and workshops in this as well we have a PowerPoint presentation titled a matter of radical pushback and this is about two organizations and succession planning for legacy organizations this is Martel, do you want to speak about yours? this is a tip guide if you're traveling for artistic collaboration or exploration to a developing country from like visa application health issues to time frames and research to understand the politics and history and saying yes most of the time this is a diagram that charts the intersection between training, performing and space management so this is a really interesting look and the hinter runs I was just going to say that sounds like double it Matthew do you want to say anything about that? no thanks and then we have an exercise about a kind of music and making melodies from disaster data so those are just a couple of examples that we printed out so 10 to 15 copies of each of those here if you guys want us to make more we can probably arrange that or you can download them when you get home yeah any questions about the shareback already? yay so I encourage you to use them and especially if you're applying it's a great way to get ideas for what projects might look like so a question? just a comment so that was an additional layer to that which is these culturally specific theory companies that are quite significant in our theory history and on some of the history so that additional layer that is kind of I think makes it that something that yes great yes who vets and makes the decisions on the application? we have a peer panel so the travel grants have a peer panel of three peer representatives from across the country and we select them to represent as much diversity in all areas as possible both geographically and what they bring to the table in terms of artistic voice and in exchange grants it's five individuals and so they review and pre-score all applications and then make the award recommendations from there I end up panelist and the names of past panelists and past recipients are online and so I encourage you to go back and read through what past projects look like you've heard a lot of some with final projects and some with tours but one important thing to note is there is no requirement for that final presentation or performance in these just getting together and sharing methodology is enough or getting together and talking and deepening and going to see a show together can certainly be enough I like the idea just as if you're going to ask us about how we would like to access it the idea of organizing in certain ways is interesting but it's also interesting to me as a former reader I find net to be a very different place to apply for grant than most other places and I'm very thankful for that but it might be interesting again if there were any former readers who might say yeah these would be helpful things that you should really think about because they make an impact and maybe that changes and maybe that's not easy a tip guide for applicants and we offer online information sessions for all programs and they're recorded and there are slides from those sessions so if you're not able to join live those materials are available to you and I strongly encourage you to participate and to just give me a call and say hey I'm thinking about this what does that look like cool so we're going to conclude this session with just speaking some of the reflections from the grant program into the room and so hopefully everybody has a plane with a quote banner on the back of it okay maybe we can pass the bag around great are people going to do the plane? you can certainly can try to fly there I want to take a picture of whoever sent it great so maybe we can start with those who have planes then hopefully the bag will have made its way around but I want to try this just sort of whoever feels moved to speak to go ahead and stand and read out their quote welcome moreover it has been an extraordinary difference in our mindset as a company to know we have someone to call help physical labor has a mysterious way of bringing people together throughout my professional life the predominant model has been that presenters set the agenda for artists I'm excited to be in a situation in which I am leading presenters rather than the other way around the grant really took us from two acquaintances to two dear friends we rung in the new year together I visited his family we shared meals and ideas and know clearly that near or far he will be an enduring presence in my life thanks Jean you're really a proud human being in the room I learned about being very mindful of choices really asking how things might be perceived as an audience and I've always asked myself what do I want to say what is the plan say how can we as an ensemble get to the story we are exploring it became a family affair very quickly and we were overwhelmed by how gay everyone was for playing in the room part of the exchange involved joining each other for shows at each visit one of the advantages of improvised theater is that immediate artistic collaboration is possible as a classically trained vocalist it was the first time that she really experienced vocal play and the great possibilities at the intersection of improvised music and improvised theater we discovered early on that collective work and collaboration are not necessarily phenomena we are serious about becoming more involved in facilitating the exchange of resources for ensembles across the Americas how let's figure that out we all agreed having absolutely reduced the intensity of ourselves in isolation we believe it would be possible not to mention early on to establish a hospitality or couchsurfing.com ultimately our best efforts came when we were playing games let's talk it, we'll do it that's the name of the game our priority now is to learn with and not just from each other we're very excited to integrate our disciplines to create original work together this exchange allowed us to stop and examine and luxury most companies rarely get as they zoom ahead at full speed what struck our partner most was the buzzing hide of Vancouver's own local theater scene we were reminded that we are not alone in our struggles to work on conventionally the grant allows us to explore new territory without compromising existing programming by diverting resources as two separate groups each would take somewhat consistent creative process we wanted to share our respective techniques by the end of our project the lines between our ensembles were resolved and even the familiar roles individuals were redefined we went from being virtual strangers to becoming virtual friends to becoming real life friends and finally potentially artistic collaborators this opportunity reminded us of the power inherent in allowing projects to unfold over years the lessening of pressure towards a product giving a sense of space in the working process of harmony to more fully surrender to curiosity I was able to decipher what seemed like fruitful directions to continue researching and what we could let go of right away all because I didn't have to create a piece through this exchange we learned so much and we have also been led to become conscious of our strengths in artistic place making and have gained a great amount of creativity in demonstrating to ourselves that we have much to share with others it is similar to going on tour with someone where you're out of your ailment and the personal begins to leak into the professional sphere for me it's intense and tricky territory and they used to say on MTV things stop being light and dark we've stayed at each other's houses made each other meals and seen each other's work had this been an academic or a remote only relationship we could have emerged as better acquaintances or with some new information now we feel like friends and relatives this relationship has fostered the type of change that is two inches wide and two miles deep we were interested in what happens when you pair of a younger ensemble and an older ensemble what specific wisdom would we have to share with each other and on that those were just a couple of those reflections and thoughts that have struck us as we've been really thinking about this program in what these three years have created and we know these relationships are out there and they're continuing to grow we know that there is a continued need to support them and we know that there is a continued need to support them as they move forward we hope that the continuation grant is going to continue to help do that and also that this work and this time together without the pressure of a final product will ultimately end up in creating better art and stronger art making and so that's really the goal and the hope again please come and speak with me I know we're going to go into the particulars of each grant program and the subtle differences between the two but I'm more than happy to speak with any of you today, tomorrow, over the phone and I encourage you to go to the website and look at those guidelines and hopefully you'll submit a grant in this coming cycle I just made me think of this you're talking about what would be useful and this may already exist and I don't know about it but there was a lot of really difficult things with the exchange and a lot of things in our case also just based on cultural understanding I was just remembering that we had some real difficulty because we were getting seven of them here but they were offended by our paperwork basically we were talking contracts and talking and there was this no we don't want to do it and we got scared and it was right before they were coming and we had this there's so many tiny things that happen within the cultural exchange and understanding and misunderstanding I'd be really interested to know what other people's experiences are dealing with different countries and what we're learning of course about ourselves and just if this is a question that's in the room not all of the activities are international that you can certainly go and have exchanges with people who are close to you in the exchange grants or within other places in the US so again a huge thank you to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for making this possible and for your support park if anybody's thinking of applying it's real easy to ask questions he's very affable so thanks everyone