The Exponential Festival is embarking on its seventh year as a month-long January theatre festival dedicated to emerging New York City-based artists working in experimental performance. Now a 501c3!

Lauded as “a cutting edge…boundary-pushing festival” by CBS New York, “[The Exponential Festival] is where you go to see things in [their] purest and most inventive state.” (WNYC) “[Exponential] has curated a slate of emerging experimental performers who blur and complicate the boundaries of theater, comedy, visual art, and dance.” (Brooklyn Rail) Since 2016, Exponential has presented the work of 1,200 NYC-based artists to 17,300 audience members in 23 (primarily Brooklyn) venues. Our artists present multi-week runs, one-offs, and variety shows throughout the month of January in theaters, back rooms, basements, and box-stores—making "The Exponential [Festival] as big as Brooklyn itself.” (American Theatre Magazine)

For our 2021 festival, we pivoted online, presenting 31 films by live performance artists. We gave 100% of box-office donations to the artists, and paid artists stipends for their work. Last year, over 60% of our budget went to paying artists directly or saving them money through resources offered.

The Exponential Festival 2022 will see us returning to in-person performances, while maintaining weekly digital programming. Confirmed venues include: 

Our 2022 festival budget accounts for this hybrid of in-person and digital programming, based on actual expenses from our last two seasons. Our overall budget increase reflects both the aforementioned expenses, and our commitment to compensate artists at our highest historical rate.

Until 2020, artists were compensated indirectly through a means of box-office income split, and free resources, including MFTA access,  technicians, volunteer accident and general liability insurance, 100% box-office income at select venues, and free documentation; every year, our goal is to add to this list of artist services.

This year, our fundraising will go towards the following programs:

100% BOX OFFICE

In our ‘21 digital festival, video premieres were donation-based, which doubled our audience to over 7,300. Serving as the sole box office last year, we distributed over $5,000 to our artists. This year, we want to build upon this program by offering 100% of box-office income to artists presenting at Loading Dock Theater and on YouTube.

FREE DOCUMENTATION

From ‘19 to present, we have provided free documentation for our artists, through our partnership with videographer ZANNI Productions and photographer Walter Wlodarczyk. We want to continue this vital program in order to equip artists with the materials to help them contextualize their work to future presenters, funders, and audience members.

ARTIST STIPENDS

This year, in addition to the free resources and income offered, we are compensating artists on a new model: a base stipend of $100 for the first performance plus $45 per show after that. This new program is rooted in the desire to make a radical intervention in the way new work gets made, and it is a model we're confident can scale with our organization as it grows.

After spending the past year and a half indoors, we are itching to gather again in a toasty theater and celebrate the pleasurable, messy, thrilling, dreamy works of these artists. Stay tuned for campaign updates as we announce the artists joining our roster this coming January and THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!