The Ghostlight Residency
In collaboration with Bret Easterling, Kevin Zambrano, Loni Rodgers, Sadie Wilking & Anna Tse
Theaters went dark and artists’ livelihoods were suspended indefinitely. As L.A.-based dancer Kevin Zambrano witnessed time pass and theaters remain shuttered, he had an idea for a residency program that would allow artists to create while keeping everyone safe. The initiative would give one solo dance artist an entire venue to themselves, so they could have the opportunity to develop new works in a performance space.
The Art of Capturing Art:
The Ghostlight Residency has a lot of personal meaning to me, as it was born out of the pandemic and was created to offer safe creative space for performers and creators. But also it was foundational for me in my own practice.
The nature of the residency is that artists were chosen through a lottery to come play and invent at various theaters around the city. But beyond that, there were no rules. In the end, a film crew and I would come in, in the same capacity, to help make real the outcome of the explorative time, but without any preconceived idea as to what was needed.
This particular style of creation, where various talented people, of different disciplines, could all join up and play in the sandbox together really solidified for me the type of art that I truly wanted to do and be a part of: no hierarchy, no winning or losing, co-creative environments where a mix of planned and unplanned prompts lead to entirely new and inventive outcomes.
This has been the cornerstone of every project I’ve sought to do since.
