Naked Stages

Naked Stages, presented by Intermedia Arts with support from the Jerome Foundation, is an intensive performance art mentorship program that gives artists the space to dig deeply into their creative process. Founded and developed by Eleanor Savage, Naked Stages is directed by Obie Award winning artist Laurie Carlos with administrative support by local artist Molly Van Avery. Naked Stages is designed to give artists a supportive environment for building their performance and production skills while creating an original performance art piece. The nine-month program culminates with a series of public performances, which allow artists the opportunity to debut their work and truly communicate their ideas to an audience.

What is Performance Art?

Good question! No one agrees on an exact definition. Performance art is not simply the addition of video as an element into a traditional form such as theater or dance. Below is a lively summary adapted from the essay “Fluid Landscapes,” by Lois Keidan and Daniel Brine.

Performance art is not a singular form of art, but an umbrella term for work that pushes the boundaries of a diversity of disciplines. Whether challenging the orthodoxies of visual art, exploring the limits of theatricality, appropriating the idioms of mass culture, pushing the boundaries of choreographic conventions, or exploring the performativity of cyberspace, performance art practices converge all kinds of mediums in a provocative discourse. Disrupting borders, breaking rules, defying traditions, resisting definition, asking questions, and activating audiences, performance art is a research engine where the limits of art and ideas are tested and new possibilities imagined.

Naked Stages Update

We are pleased to announce that Naked Stages has found a new foster home at Pillsbury House Theatre (PHT) for the 2009-2010 season.  PHT's mission is to create challenging theatre to inspire choice, change and connection.  We are pleased to develop this partnership and feel as though PHT is the perfect organization to support emerging performance artists through this nine-month creation process.  Naked Stages is being led by Laurie Carlos as the Artistic Director and supported by Molly Van Avery as the Administrative Director as well as PHT's co-artistic director Noel Raymond and Artistic Program Associate Kurt Mattsen.  Naked Stages will work closely with Pillsbury House Theatre's "Late Night" programming which offers experimental established and emerging artists the chance to develop new work.  This years selected artists are Julia Babb, Julian McFall, Kelley A Meister, and Mire Regulus.  The performances will take place in April 2010 at Pillsbury House Theatre.