The Metal Shop Performance Lab

To be a locus of experimentation in intersectional, co-creative processes, and to create theatrical events that build community through authentic exchange between artists and audiences.

 

The Metal Shop is a space to experiment with intersectional, feminist ideas and methods of theatrical process and performance. In our increasingly disconnected world, The Metal Shop seeks to create authentic encounters between audience and artists through an experience of exchange and connection. Metal Shop projects seek to transform traditional methods of community-based practice in order to generate conversations and to forge new relationships with the individual members of its audience every night, inviting them to permanently alter the project through their presence and participation.

 

In a metal shop, recycled materials and natural elements are melted, joined, and forged with fire into new life.

 

Co-Creative Process: all artists are part of crafting the vision for the project, and play specific roles in its execution. Co-creation is a non-hierarchical collaborative process that honors every artist and contribution in equal measure. 

 

Process over Product: There is no expected outcome of the time spent in process, so artists are free to experiment. There are time limitations and public sharings of the work in process.

 

Performance as Process: Metal Shop performances are a continuation of the process, in which community members are invited to take part in shaping the piece through their presence and participation.