This issue’s featured NYFA Fellow is Julia Mandle (Performance Art/Multidisciplinary Work, 2003), a visual artist, performance artist, and designer who has referred to her work as “costume-defined choreography.” Mandle has directed, designed, and produced several site-specific performances in the New York City area since the mid-’90s, and is the founder of the Brooklyn nonprofit J Mandle Performance.
NYFA Quarterly: Your performances seem to be very much about sculpting space; as a result, they can be experienced as installations. Can you talk a little bit about the thinking behind this approach?
Julia Mandle: I divide my work into three categories defined by scales of space. The largest scale is comprised of our outdoor urban space projects, such as our recent performances VARIABLE CITY: FOX SQUARE (2003) and KALCH (1998), the latter of which was performed over six city blocks between Canal Street and City Hall. The second spatial scale is what I call “architectural scale,” such as FEAST (2003), which was performed inside a large sloped house that I designed and was constructed within a 10,000 sq. ft. building in Brooklyn. The third scale is smaller, which I call “interiors or rooms,” such as WHEN (1999), which was performed by two women inside the Broadway storefront window of the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
I’ve recently added a fourth scale, and am playing with the term “take home,” which is a humorous way to convey a portable mode and perhaps an intimate one for audience experience. Within this smaller scale I would include my new line of clothing, called “per/FORM,” which are wearable, soft geometric shapes based on our recent costumes. It also includes another original project that I am working on with a writer, which I can’t discuss yet. All of these projects are linked by a process fundamentally informed by space, a specific audience relationship, and a very rigorous and interdisciplinary collaborative approach. Each project is realized by a new set of artists, and my role is as the primary conceptual artist, artistic director, lead designer . . . I haven’t really found an appropriate, all-encompassing term or title yet.
NYFA Q: Much of your work begins with a specific site that plays a large role in the development of the piece. How much does a site determine the shape and content of your work?
JM: Context or space has been the dominant cause of my work, not only by generating the initial spark for the work’s subject and form, but also, and perhaps most importantly, by inspiring and determining a specific relationship to the audience. This is one of the reasons why traditional theater spaces have held little artistic fascination for me, as they have fixed relationships—rows of chairs and a dissolving physical state that erases the presence of the architecture and the audience’s visceral connection to the art. Of course, this a generalization and the traditional setting has an important purpose, but the proscenium simply does not resonate with me.
One of my mentors, architect Steven Holl, developed a theory of architecture called “anchoring,” which underscores the metaphysical foundation for a building’s physical realization. The site’s role is intertwined in the artist’s mind, the work’s presentation, and the public’s experience of place.
I am very intuitive in my site selection for each project. For KALCH, my fascination with the area below Canal Street began after I stumbled upon maps that illustrated the pre-urban landscape of New York. I created a performance for 11 dancers who wore yellow chalk shoes and used them to literally draw the outline of a long-gone freshwater pond between Canal Street and City Hall. In the early 19th century, the pond was filled-in because it had become too polluted from the first New York industries. The historical site obviously had a fundamental impact on the performance structure, shaping the direction and pattern of the dancers’ movements. The contemporary site had an impact on my choices of color, shape, and intended audience interaction. As the area is surrounded by businesses and courthouses, we chose to present the performance during lunch hour for passers-by.
NYFA Q: Do you view these sites first as social spaces or as phenomenological spaces? Both at the same time? How is this related to the staging/installation of many of your performances in outdoor public spaces?
JM: The mission of my company is to create and produce performances that intend to heighten the public’s perception of its everyday environment. The social and phenomenological aspects are interwoven. I feel I am a product of both the “art as a tool for social change” school and the “art for art’s sake” one. And, this so-called upbringing has had an impact on how I create and direct each project and the philosophy behind each one as well.
NYFA Q: You’ve said elsewhere that it takes you 6 to 12 months to develop a particular performance. Can you describe the process of assembling the various elements that go into what must be a highly collaborative endeavor?
JM: In some ways, I think my company functions something like an architect’s office. Although we don’t work with a client, we work in development phases from creation to presentation (we produce our own work, too). First, I visit a site or have a vision of the project concept. I will do preliminary research and sketch and write about my concept. Next, I will often build a small-scale site model. It is usually at this point that I invite other artists to get involved. We meet often and discuss the project, outlining the performance score or how it will be developed. I also work to drape and create muslin costume forms, which I try on and ask the choreographers to play with to explore any movement limitations or possibilities. If we are lucky, at this half-way point we may be able to hire or find volunteer performers to work with us in a series of preliminary rehearsals.
Simultaneous with these first six months, I work to get access to the selected site—whether it is negotiating a lease or an outdoor activity permit. I am also working very hard with my Board and any staff/volunteers to secure the project funding, which means writing grants proposals, appeal letters, and benefit events. With funding in place, we can proceed to fabricating the costumes, set, etc., and the casting and rehearsal phase of one to two months. During this time, we are also working on some kind of marketing, which is often targeted specifically for a particular audience type to match the project goal.
Ideally, I like to present my work for at least one month, because at this scale it doesn’t make any sense to present it for less time. I like to see the live work evolve with the performers. I like to change things during that period, because it is perhaps the only time to see it all together. In the final two weeks, we thoroughly document the performance through video and photography. And in the month following the performance, I try to meet with the main collaborators to analyze the project.
NYFA Q: You’re the executive director of J Mandle Performance, a nonprofit organization with a Board of Directors and Board of Advisors. Was it difficult establishing this type of business structure?
JM: I have an excellent and devoted Board, some of whom have been with me since the conception of my company. I have learned how to run a company basically on the job, learning development skills from my current board chair; and then I have also taken courses at places like the Support Center for Nonprofit Management and through the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Today, I see clearly how performances are a reflection of the conditions under which they are made: design and artistic intention are only a small part of the creation. The rest depends upon outside factors such as funding, marketing, personalities, staff, location and material availability, time, and even the weather. The hurdles that we all must overcome at the scale of creating and presenting site-specific performance art are really, really tremendous.
I need a year or more per project because it takes so long to raise the necessary funds. I wear the hat of fundraiser for my company, and I have really come to enjoy aspects of this role: meeting officers and staff of foundations and government agencies, and even writing proposals, which I have learned to accept as an opportunity to set down my concepts on paper and clearly articulate and organize what I intend the project to accomplish and what the outcomes may look like. It is a focusing exercise.
NYFA Q: You seem to be successful in attracting funding for your work. What does it take in the current economic climate to receive support for one’s art? Is it more difficult as a performance-based artist, as opposed to a visual artist, to finance work, given the usually disproportionate ratio between money spent and money earned when producing experimental interdisciplinary performances?
JM: Fundraising is a huge challenge for everyone, but luckily I have found a few people out there, including my Board, who have vision beyond vision. While there are few places to go as a “performance art” company for funding, we have experienced some successes—for example with the Jerome Foundation, which supports “emerging arts organizations,” and which was instrumental in providing significant project support for five years in a row. NYFA actually has a performance art category in its Artists’ Fellowships program, which is rare. With each different project, we have found support from visionary funders who could see the value in blending mediums. For example, for our recent VARIABLE CITY project, we combined performance art with urban design and were awarded critical project support from the architectural departments of both the NEA and the New York State Council on the Arts.
I believe performance art is the most important category to support—historically, performance art is the realm where most future innovation appears and where most breakthroughs have occurred.
