Sara Coffey, Vermont Performance Lab - Blog

Blog transcript: Sarah Coffey

Sara Coffey: Well, I think it comes out of my interest and concern when I hear presenters, national presenters talking about the shrinking audience for dance. And I think we have to think in different ways. How do we really want to cultivate an audience, a new dance audience? Especially a new dance audience for sometimes experimental and sometimes difficult work. So that is really where I'm coming from.  An artist doesn't have to be making a piece that involves community participants in the work–– but we're open to that also. But it can be about creating different kinds of entry points into the work. And what I've found is that if audience members are part of somebody's process they have direct access to the work. You know, sometimes you go to a performance and you feel so stupid. You feel like I don't know how to look at this. I don't know what I'm looking at. And that is so crushing to me to think that, that could happen. And I feel having been a presenter and a manager of a dance company, I've had the privilege of having access to that piece of the process that has really fed me as a dance aficionado. And to be able to figure out ways to open up the process to our local community has been really important. And it's been really well received. So I know we're doing something right because we are getting audiences to see unusual, non-traditional work

In this excerpt from the podcast, Coffey explains her belief in the vital importance of artists’ working with the local community. (Clip: 1:21)