How to start a collaborative project

When we come up with a new artistic idea, our main concern as artists is how to transform that incredible thought into a tangible artistic product. As a personal opinion, it is possible to say that the easiest way to choreograph is constructing the movements and phrases based on a specific piece of music. However, other people prefer to choreograph the artistic concept by trying different kinds of music. In both cases, it is useful to have a script about what the choreographer wants the dancers to do in order to communicate his/her concept to the audience. Additionally, taking notes about the dance steps that could appear spontaneously during this creative process is a helpful tool. The studio rehearsal gives the opportunity to try these ideas again and again, to discover new movements for the dancers or to change previous set combinations; it is possible to vary primary ideas many times--respecting dancers' work--until obtain the most beautiful dance piece in the choreographer's mind. This way of proceeding is not complicated because the dance creator is working alone. He/she could receive other people's advice but at the end, the final artistic decisions are making by his/herself.

On the other hand, doing a collaborative project in the performing arts (Internet distributed performances) implies a different way to work. In a community environment, artists must come up with ideas that work for all the people involved in the project beyond their personal objectives. Therefore, choosing a common objective is the first step to follow. Why should this project be done? What is the artistic concept of the project? Communications, collaboration, technology development, artistic creativity, remote interaction, marketing, are some of the primary ideas that could be the core objective.  Artists with different backgrounds will be together for a mutual reason, and they will give the best to make their project an unrepeatable artistic creation.

 

After choosing the common objective, the logical second step is to design what kind of artistic creation to produce. How many artists are going to perform? Are musicians, dancers, actors, visual artists the only people on the stage? What kind of technological devices and softwares are going to be used?  Video cameras, projectors, screens, audio and video mixers, lights, speakers, microphones, video and audio convertors are only some options.. How many remote locations are going to be connected? What kinds of audio and video connections are going to be used? How the feed signals are going to be received and sent? This part involves a mixture of artistic ideas and technological tools. Performers could have several interesting ideas which must be supported by the audio and video designers and vice versa. It is imperative to do a brain storm to be sure of taking into account everybody´s thoughts and suggestions.

 

Timing concerns is another core part when artists are creating Internet distributed performances .Where and when the performance is going to be? How long is it? How many performances are going to be? For fulfilling these purposes, it is important to design a time table considering everybody´s time availability. After defining performance times, it is essential to include technical and artistic rehearsals, ensembles of both parts and dress rehearsals on the schedule. To make a script of the performance is required as well as to assign each participant´s specific function inside the project.

 Now it is possible to start physically a collaborative project in the performing arts. Collaboration could sound harder than working alone at the beginning. However, artistic creation involved in a community is incredible easier. One can receive support in the areas that he is weak and he can contribute to the project with his strongest knowledge. Day after day everybody will become aware how wonderful is interacting and collaborating between artists. Finally, to make a collaboration project successful, planning and organization are mandatory. In Picasso´s words: “the best muse is the discipline”