Site-Specific & Staged Choreography
The call for our 2016 festival is now closed.
Please check back in Spring 2017 for the next call for applications!
Please read this General Information about applying first.
Deadline for Submissions: September 6th, 2016
Decisions made no later than: September 11th, 2016
Site-Specific Choreography
Below is the list of the 43 sculptures available for site-specific pieces this year. Please make sure to only choose from the following sculptures. You may have gentle physical contact with nearly all of the sculptures. If you have questions about how much you can engage, please ask. Admission fees to the park are waived for rehearsals of site-specific work. We have listed artist names first, followed by their sculpture titles, in italics. Multiple works by the same artist are separated by commas:
Brooke Barrie – Mary; Itzik Benshalom – First Love; Emilie Benes Brzezinski – Lintel; Robert Cooke and Daniel Goode – Seat of Sound; William Donnan – Pinched; Linda Fleming – Ex-halation; Harry Gordon – Enki; Mike Gyampo – Matters of the Moment; Jonathon Hertzel – The Gathering, Smoking Root; Seward Johnson – Awakening, The Chamber of Internal Dialogue, God Bless America; Robert Lobe – Bones of the Forest, Da Vinci’s Knot; Peter Lundberg – Where is Geometry?; Kevin Lyles – Passage; John Martini – The Couple; Zoran Mojsilov – Cuckoo's Nest; John Newman – Skyhook; Beverly Pepper – Split Ritual II; Joel Perlman – High Spirit, Southern Star; Martha Pettigrew – Gossip; Andrew Pitynski – Space, Conquer or Die – Swiatowid; Michelle Post – The Oligarchs; Michael Rees – Converge: Graib; John Ruppert – Pumpkins; Mary Schaffer – Forth; Ernest Shaw – Sumo; Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas – Two-faced Telescope; George Sugarman – Doubles; James Surls – Standing Vase with Five Flowers; Gunnar Theel – Nature's Laugh; Steve Tobin – Untitled (Steelroots); Herk Van Tongeren –Teatro X;I Bernar Venet – Arcs in Disorder 4 Arcs x 5, Three Indeterminate Lines; Isaac Witkin – Eolith, Ode to a Possum, The Bathers; Peter Woytuk – Bull #4, Bull #5; Glenn Zweygardt – Allentown Council
Extensive pictures and notes about all the pieces found here.
*We are also accepting site-specific proposals for the indoor portion of the festival. We would like to have at least two pieces that are in conversation with Elyn Zimmerman's installatioin, there. More details about that work are found to the right. *
As part of our continued commitment to collaboration, community building, and the exploration of interdisciplinary intersections, we are once again connecting the site-specific choreographers with the sculptors (or sculptor's representatives) of the pieces that they are working with. Our intention is to create a space for dialogue between the visual and dance artists so as to facilitate the creation of dynamic work that is able to utilize a fuller understanding of the sculptures to inform the dance pieces.
Applications must include the following and are to be sent to theoutletdanceproject@gmail.com:
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Choreographer's contact information: name, address, phone number, and email
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Choreographer's bio (250 words or less)
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Written choreographic proposal. Please include which of the sculpture from the above list you intend to work with along with your descriptive proposal. (Please note: Applications for site-specific dances that do not have a location selected will not be considered.) Be sure to include how your piece relates to this site-specific location. The length of the work to be presented at the festival should be between 2 and 15 minutes. Include what you anticipate the length of proposed piece to be.
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Web link to a 5-10 minute video sample of a previous work.
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Response to the question: "If accepted, how do you plan to help promote The Outlet Dance Festival?"
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Application fee of $15.00 via PayPal (tab below). *Early bird special! If you submit by August 24, the application fee is $10.
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This festival is run by volunteers and with the generous donation of space and publicity from Grounds for Sculpture. This small application fee helps defray costs and garners you a complimentary ticket to the festival.
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To pay by check, please inquire for instructions. You may also submit to the film portion of the festival with one application fee (maximum 2 submissions).
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Staged Dances
This year, The East Gallery – the location of the indoor portion of the festival – is the home to an installation entitled, Wind, Water, Stone by Elyn Zimmerman. As such, in addition to accepting already staged work for the indoor half of the peformance, we would like to accept at least two proposals that are in conversation with the gallery's installation. Admission fees will, of course, be waived for rehearsals in the gallery space for such site-specific work.
This installation will focus on the connection between Zimmerman's public sculptural works and her photography, providing an opportunity to see how the architectural and archaeological shapes she photographs during her travels, as well as her continued studies of light and space, have influenced her work in both two and three dimensional mediums. The long East Gallery Wall will display more than 50 photographs arranged in the following thematic groupings: Egypt, Neolithic Europe, Peru, India, and Geology. Each series of works will include black and white photographs by Zimmerman as well as photographs of her completed sculptural works, demonstrating the influence and inspiration found from studying each particular landscape/geographic areas.
The installation is to be completed on September 1st, so we are unable to share images of it with you. To give you some ideas and inspiration, we are sharing a fantastic video clip of Zimmerman talking extensively about her work, Elyn Zimmerman’s website, Zimmerman’s photography from Peru (Peru is one of the areas focused on in the installation), links to her sculptural work (photographs of which will be in the installation), information about one of her sculptures at Grounds For Sculpture, the Octavio Paz poem that the installation takes its name from, and a photo album of images of the East Gallery over the years with different art installed there to give you a general sense of the space (see below). Please note: the gallery wall will look different than pictured.
Applications must include the following and are to be sent to theoutletdanceproject@gmail.com:
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Choreographer's contact information: name, address, phone number, and email
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Choreographer's bio (250 words or less)
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Title/working title, description (number of dancers, music etc.), and length of work being submitted (between 2 and 15 minutes). *Or, descriptive proposal for new work in conversation with East Gallery installation. Include what you anticipate the length of proposed piece will be.
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Web link to video of the work being submitted. If you are making a proposal, include a web link to a 5-10 minute sample of previous work.
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Response to the question: "If accepted, how do you plan to help promote The Outlet Dance Festival?"
-
Application fee of $15.00 via PayPal (tab below). *Early bird special! If you submit by August 24, the application fee is $10.
-
This festival is run by volunteers and with the generous donation of space and publicity from Grounds for Sculpture. This small application fee helps defray costs and garners you a complimentary ticket to the festival.
-
To pay by check, please inquire for instructions. You may also submit to the film portion of the festival with one application fee (maximum 2 submissions).
-
A Note About Honorariums:
The Outlet Dance Project is completely volunteer-run (even the festival directors are unpaid) and does not turn a profit from year to year (yet). We are greatly relieved the years that we are able to break even. As such, we do not have a set honorarium that we are able commit to giving selected artists, at this time. Coming to a point where we will be able to do so is critically important to us. As dance artists, we know fully well the woeful lack of funding in much of the dance world that often makes it difficult to sustain a career. We are happy to share that there is some good news this year regarding financial reciprocation with participating artists.
1. We are launching a fundraising campaign in order to offer participating artists a modest honorarium that can at least cover basic expenses. Happily, we were able to meet our goal last year and anticipate that being the case again this year. Since this campaign has not come to a conclusion yet, we cannot guarantee any specific amount at this time. We will need all selected artists to help publicize this fundraising campaign.
2. Application fees are the primary way we are able to cover our operating costs. If there are any remaining funds, these will be distributed equally among the artists. Again, this is not something we can guarantee at this point.
3. One of the ways that we reciprocate with participating artists is to provide every choreographer of live performance at The Outlet professional quality photos and video of their performance.