About the Book
On Site: Methods for Site-Specific Performance Creation is a practical book for artists and students at all levels who create or are learning to create making sited dance works. Author Stephan Koplowitz covers specific, hands-on strategies for an array of issues to consider before, during, and after embarking upon a project, including site selection, procuring permits, designing the audience experience, researching and exploring a site for inspiration and
content, differences in urban and natural environments, definitions of key production roles, building effective collaborations with artists, and techniques to generate site-inspired production elements such as
sound/music, costumes, lighting, and media. He also offers helpful chapters on project budgeting, contract negotiation, fundraising, marketing, documentation, and assessment. Based on the author's career spanning over 30 years of site-specific creation, the book also includes the voices of over 24 other artists, producers, and writers who share their perspectives and experiences on the many topics covered. A guide designed to make site work practical, intentional, and
attainable, On Site will become a well-worn reference for anyone interested in the creative process and discovering the power of site-specific works.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction: Motivations and Definitions
1. How Do We Start?
Chapter 1 What Motivates Site Selection
Chapter 2 Permissions, Permits and Insurance
Chapter 3 Designing the Event, Staging the Audience
Chapter 4 The Site as Inspiration for Your Work
3. Fueling Your Vision
Chapter 5 Staffing Key Production Roles
Chapter 6 Negotiating Fee and Contract
Chapter 7 Planning Your Planning Budget
Chapter 8 Fundraising for Your Artistic Plan: A Short Primer
4. Creating/Generating Content
Chapter 9 Staging, Placing Your Work in a Site (one method)
Chapter 10 Site Content and Process
Chapter 11 Collaboration and Collaborative Elements
5. Creative and Production Challenges
Chapter 12 Rehearsal Process
Chapter 13 Rehearsal Safety
Chapter 14 Creating for Physically Integrated Casts and Accessibility
6. More Challenges from the Real World
Chapter 15 Working with a Set Budget after Fundraising
Chapter 16 Promoting and Marketing the Work
Chapter 17 Documentation
Chapter 18 Assessment
7. Epilogue
Chapter 19 Last, Last Thoughts
Appendix
Acknowledgements
Index
About the Author
About the Author :
Stephan Koplowitz is an award-winning director/ choreographer/media artist working on stage, film, and site. He has created 92 works produced in the US, Europe, and Asia. Awards include the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Guggenheim Fellowship, New York "Bessie" Award, six NEA Fellowships, and a Rockefeller Bellagio Fellowship. After 23 years in NYC working as an educator and artist, Koplowitz was appointed dean/faculty of dance at the California
Institute of the Arts (2006- 2016). Koplowitz has a degree in music from Wesleyan University and an MFA in choreography from the University of Utah. He currently resides in NYC.
Review :
In this comprehensive, wonderfully organized volume, ... shares his extensive knowledge of a multi-faceted genre, and he does so with elegant logic, along with a spirit of generosity and care.
On Site is no dry or abstruse tome. It's an homage, first and foremost, to performance in non-traditional spaces, and it is a stunning template that takes the reader step by step through the processes, beginning wide—with site visits—to constructing structures, gathering partners, participants, pr, money, budgets, tech, costumes, documentation and, at the end, designing and making assessments....And on a practical note, On Site is a good reason, if one is needed, for educators to build a class around creating site-specific work. It could even invite collaboration across disciplines, perhaps outside the arts.
The definitive new textbook on site-based work. He meticulously covers the logistics and artistic mindset needed for site-specific projects. Koplowitz lovingly shares his process from decades in the field, including staging large-scale site-specific works around the globe.
With the range of voices and approaches he discusses, Koplowitz is able to touch on the numerous ideas and creative practices involved in the form and utilize his extensive knowledge and experience.
Among a wealth of practical advice for site work creation are Koplowitz's stimulating ideas for site selection and designing events for them, researching site histories and communities, and collaborations with associate artists.
From an acclaimed master comes a complete guide for how to create a site-specific work. Offering both practical and philosophical advice, Koplowitz captures the excitement and challenge of choreographing outside the proscenium frame. He includes a spectrum of voices of today's diverse dance artists who have immersed themselves in this type of adventure. More than a manual, this book will deepen one's relationship to the environment and expand one's relationship to artmaking.
Over his three decades-plus of creating memorable site dances, Koplowitz has meticulously accounted for all the contingencies you could think of and many you couldn't – including touchy subjects like negotiating fees, photo and video rights, salaries, raising extra funds to cover shortfalls – all with practical information, gleaned from his experience and from that of other artists who have explored the site genre. With almost uncanny insight, Koplowitz considers everything, foreseen and unforeseen, that might conspire to foil your best-laid plans.
A lively, engaging book that draws us into the inspiration and power of site-based performance while breaking down the steps on how to make it happen safely and successfully. Koplowitz traces his decades of remarkable work, while also highlighting the stories of innovative artists who share their own discoveries and challenges. As we all consider where performance can and should happen, this is an essential read.
Koplowitz's On Site is a fantastic book for seasoned veterans, novice collaborators, and all those in between. Call the book an encyclopedic how-to textbook; call it a thoughtful methodological study; call it a thorough guidebook; call it a template. It qualifies as any or all of those. Organized in seven parts, the 19 chapters are marked by Koplowitz's candid, clear prose, which communicates the confidence and the humility one would expect from an artist with more than three decades of experience on which to draw...This excellent volume will be an invaluable tool for those interested in the vast stage, film, and site repertoire Koplowitz has amassed during his career.
On Site well poised to become a foundational practical text for future site-specific choreographers and directors. It offers concise information on potential pitfalls and ethical considerations for the artist. In addition, Koplowitz includes many philosophical and thoughtful asides on important contemporary subjects such as land use in colonized Indigenous territory, capacious notions of accessibility, and reflections on the democratizing and politically engaged effects of site work.
On Site is an invaluable resource to artists wishing to round out their practice of site-specific work, to educators wanting to impart these skills to their students, and to scholars wishing to investigate further the creative research and methods required in engaging in site specificity.
