17 Sep Guest Blog | Company SBB
KSF Artists of Choice, is open to artists across the disciplines of dance, theatre, musical theatre, music and film. Over the next few weeks, we will post guest blogs from some of our 2015 grant winners about how the grant has impacted their work. Applications will be open in early 2016.
Name | Stefanie Batten Bland
Project | Patient(ce), Company SBB
Year awarded KSF grant | 2015
The KSF grant has helped to bring to life my fall New York City presented season at the Gatehouse, Harlem Stage, which will premiere Patient(ce), a piece that finds grace in waiting, it fuses the physical, musical and visual arts into a evening piece investigating our relationship to the present tense.
Since receiving the grant we have completed a weeklong residency at the theatre and will begin the final rehearsals in later September, the musicians and dancers will work together in various studios until the last residency week in October, at the Gatehouse. Alongside this I’ve been working with Alaric Hahn, of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, to create the installation design and construction.
As well as taking care of all performers salaries, the grant has for me relieved stress and allowed me to focus on my production budget, fundraising and giving me more creative headspace. The grant will help me way beyond the life of this performance; I feel this will be a significant relationship for this season and beyond.
I would recommend people to apply for the award as it allows artists to scrutinize their work and put themselves out in front of an audience for feedback, development and support. Speaking of which my most memorable part of this process was preparing for the panel presentation and analysing my own project, our means artistically as well as financially and its merit in todays market.
My advice to other emerging artists would be never to have a plan B!
Read more about Patient(ce) here.