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Ecodrama Playwrights Festival & Symposium Update

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The Ecodrama Playwrights Festival & Symposium On Theatre and Ecology is now closed to play submissions, and have reissued their call for proposals for the symposium. The CSPA sesions are also still open, and are linked at the top of the column on the right. We hope that you’ll apply to one or both and foresee some overlap and sharing in the final symposium. We, the CSPA, will be concentrated on the more scientific research side of the symposium, but are very excited to see everything everyone has to offer!

The Revised Call:

May 21~ 31, 2009 ~ University of Oregon

Ecology is at the heart of burgeoning creativity and interdisciplinary scholarship across the arts and humanities. This Festival, together with a concurrent Symposium, invites artists, scholars and activists to share their work, ideas, and passions with one another and with the larger community.  

CALL FOR PROPOSALS for Artist Workshops and Scholarly Papers.  FEB. 1 2009 DEADLINE

We welcome creative and innovative proposals for workshops, round-tables, panels, papers, working sessions, installations, or participatory community gatherings that explore, examine, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of theatrical or performance responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological relationship in general.

The form and format is wide-open and we will schedule and shape the Symposium around the types of proposals received and selected. We especially encourage artists who have performance work they would like to present to develop a workshop in which they present all or part of their work, and then use it as the basis for involving others in exploration. We encourage proposals that go beyond a recitation of ideas or positions, and instead bring presenters and participants together as they engage the driving question of how theatre has or might function as part of our reciprocal relationship with ecological communities.

Possible topics include: 

  •  land and body in performance;
  •  representations of bioregionalism; 
  •  eco-literacy and performance;
  •  representation of/and environmental justice; 
  •  green theatre production; sustainable theatre;
  •  design and technology developments towards green practice;
  •  old cultural narratives/new stories;
  • indigenous performance; 
  •  community-based performance/ecological communities; 
  •  sensing place/staging place; 
  •  the ecologies of theatrical form and/or space; 
  •  animal representation; 
  •  application of ecocriticism to plays, performance and culture.

    Send a one-page proposal and/or abstract by 1 February, 2009 to: 

    Earth Matters Symposium 2009, Theresa May, Director, 

    Theater Arts, VIL 216, University of Oregon
    Eugene, OR 97403. 

    Please include: type of session & title; time-length (60 min; 90 min; 2+ hours; half-day); bio or cv. 

    We encourage proposals that include more than one presenter; however, single person proposals are accepted and will be combined with others as themes and formats allow.

    Job Openings with the Arts:Earth Partnership

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    Arts / Environmental Program Administrator

    Electric Lodge Visual and Performing Arts Center, Venice, CA.

    Salary: $25 per hour / 10 hours per week. (flexible schedule)

    Do you love the Arts and the Environment? If so, this job may be for you…

    The principal responsibility of this part-time position is to administrate a new ‘green standards’ program called Arts:Earth Partnership for cultural facilities, art galleries, performing arts companies and individual artists.

    The successful candidate will serve as the main contact for both the general public and for AEP members who might have a question about the program as well as keeping the website up to date, managing the Materials & Exchange Bulletin Board and keeping track of the facility auditing process and needs.

    This is a growth position as hours and responsibility will grow as the program expands.

    Requires: High school graduation or the equivalent.  A passion for the environment. Two years of recent, paid progressively responsible work experience in cultural programming, environmental programming or facilities operations. A degree in the arts, cultural programming, environmental sciences or a closely related field is highly desirable. Ability to handle most office software and manage websites a big plus. Good customer service skills and phone manners a must.

    Application deadline:  5:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 7th, 2008.

    Please send resume and cover letter expressing interest to:

    livearts@electriclodge.org or mail to:

    Electric Lodge c/o AEP
    1416 Electric Avenue
    Venice, CA. 90291

     

    Arts & Cultural Facility “Green Standards” Auditor

    Electric Lodge Visual and Performing Arts Center, Venice, CA.

    Salary: $80 per site visit  (1-3 hours per visit) (flexible schedule)

    Do you love the Arts and the Environment? If so, this job may be for you…

    The principal responsibility of this ‘As-Needed’ position is to audit cultural facilities, art galleries, dance studios, individual artist studios and offices to advise them on how they can gain compliance with Arts:Earth Partnership requirements necessary to become a member.

    The successful candidate will be trained on Arts:Earth Partnership guidelines and sustainable practices and audit facilities that wish to join the Arts:Earth Partnership. Auditors will have an initial site visit at which they assess the facility and provide a to-do list for membership. Once the facility is in compliance the auditor returns to validate and hand them their AEP materials or advise them on what they still need to do.

    Requires: High school graduation or the equivalent. A passion for the environment. We are looking for regional auditors who use hybrid or alternative fueled vehicles or prefer to use alternative transportation to and from facilities such as bus, bike or foot. Experience in environmental sciences or the eco-auditing of facilities or a related field is preferred but not required. Good customer service skills and professional appearance a must.

    Application deadline:  5:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 7th, 2008.

    Please send resume and cover letter expressing interest to:

    livearts@electriclodge.org or mail to:

    Electric Lodge c/o AEP
    1416 Electric Avenue
    Venice, CA. 90291

    The Ecological Sustainability of Theatrical Lighting

    Announcements, Research

    This Article was originally presented at the St. Louis University “Constructed Light, Constructed Meaning” Conference April 12th, 2008. To see this article with notations, please visit our Wiki by clicking here.

    Theatrical production is an inherently unsustainable process. Stage shows can live long lives: The Phantom of the Opera became the longest running Broadway musical on January 8, 2006 when it had its 7,486th performance (McElroy 1), but the vast majority of theatrical productions have much shorter runs. Of the 14,000 non-profit productions in the US, in 2006 there were 172,000 performances (“Theater Facts” 2). This works out to an average run of less than 13 performances. While Phantom has enjoyed a sustainable success, the vast majority of professional theater in the United States is created in the non-profit realm. There are 14,000 non-profit productions, but there are only 39 Broadway theaters. This does not reflect the entirety of commercial production, nor does it include community or academic theater, or theater that is produced on a small professional scale without hopes of commercial success and created without non-profit status. But, it does offer a glance at the divide between two distinct modes of production. (more…)

    CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

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    The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CPSA) in partnership with EARTH MATTERS ON STAGE: Ecodrama Playwrights Festival and Symposium on Ecology & Theatre at the University of Oregon, Eugene is asking for presentations from the national arts community focused on building ecologically and economically sustainable models in the arts.   The EMOS Festival and Symposium takes place May 21-31, 2009.

    The CSPA is a start-up arts-service organization focused on researching, developing and implementing change to increase the ecological and economic sustainability of the arts in the United States. The CSPA will be hosting a series of focused sessions within the larger symposium to deal with practical change and repeatable models.

    While the content and format of the presentations is open to the creativity of presenters, preference will be given to presentations that focus on critical analysis, scientific data and documentation as the basis for support of a project’s relationship to issues of sustainability. We seek shareable and repeatable models for active change in arts practice.

    Based on the proposals received, presenters may be grouped into topical sessions and may also be asked to participate in roundtable and/or panel discussions to be able to best compare and contrast existing and proposed models of sustainable change, especially as it may highlight the balance of the ecology and economy in contemporary arts practice.

    Possible topics include presentations on the impact or future impact of LEED certified arts facilities, company greening initiatives, the creation of efficiency standards for the arts, government initiatives, production methodology, education of theater artists, individual projects created with ecology in mind, re-use programs and any practical documentation of positive ecological sustainable change.

    While the CSPA’s session at the symposium will focus on practice and the practical application of change, we encourage all presenters to also submit to the general call from The Ecodrama Playwrights Festival and Symposium on Ecology and Performance. They seek “creative and innovative proposals for workshops, round-tables, panels, working sessions, installations, or participatory community gatherings that explore, examine, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of theatrical and performative responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological situatedness in general.”   See the EMOS Call for Proposals at: www.uoregon.edu/~ecodrama or email ecodrama@uoregon.edu.

    Please send a one-page proposal and/or abstract by January 1, 2009 to:

    Earth Matters Symposium 2009
    The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts

    (attention Ian Garrett)

    c/o LA Stage Alliance

    644 S. Figueroa St.

    Los Angeles, CA 90017

    Or you may email your materials to conferences@sustainablepractice.org

    Please feel free to direct any questions to the CSPA via email at conferences@sustainablepractice.org

    USGBC-LA November Newsletter

    Announcements, Research

    My paper on the ecological sustainability of theatrical lighting, originally presented at the St. Louis Univeristy “Constructed Light, Constructed Meaning” conference, has been included in the USGBC-LA chapter’s November 2008 newsletter. 

    You can sign-up for the newsletter by clicking here

    You can link directly to the paper by clicking here