Accelerator Lab
Accelerator Lab
About the program
Accelerator Lab International Fellowship is a cohort-based program for 4 mid-career, Vancouver-based experimental theatre artists, focused on mentorship, shared learning, cultural exchange and experience in international networking.
Over the year, through both group-based and individual activities, the cohort will explore new ways to grow mobility for their work and reinvigorate the current context for international touring, networking and relationship building.
Each artist will:
Be partnered with an international mentor with wide experience working in contemporary contexts producing and programming international work and have 6 remote mentoring sessions together;
Attend a research trip to Noorderzon 2024 Festival as a cohort, participating in festival activities, meeting local artists, experiencing the city and their communities and creating new long-term connections;
Have sessions with TR’s Artistic Director Maiko Yamamoto and Senior Producer Katie Roberts to share research and unpack findings from their mentor sessions, and gather knowledge;
With the rest of the cohort, share their findings and proposals for re-energizing the Vancouver scene as a cultural hub, recognized for innovative new work, as part of a community conversation at 2025’s HOLD ON LET GO. As part of the experience they will also contribute to a larger report that will be put together by TR in order to further share our discoveries, including international case studies on touring and partnership building, resources to support best practices for developing international relationships and sharing insights on their discoveries about the current context of international touring and networking.
The objective of Accelerator Lab is to provide participating artists with experiences and skill sets to build connective tissue around their creative projects, so they can develop their experiences and networks into real connections and opportunities. As independent artists and companies, this kind of empowerment — building relationships outside of more traditional institutional systems and structures — is hugely important at this time. This mirrors the way in which TR has built networks and key relationships, and our hope is that cohort members will be similarly positioned to be connectors and builders for their own generation of artists.
The anticipated impact of Accelerator Lab is to grow structures that will develop new national and international networks and partnerships. It will transform local and national ecosystems for the next generation of experimental artists by introducing new practices and structures to reinvigorate the community, prioritizing artistic innovation and excellence on par with other cultural centres around the world. This is particularly meaningful post-pandemic, but we also hope to use this opportunity to identify ever-emerging contexts for artists, energizing them to propose sustainable models for their work moving forward, building a critical body of knowledge for our sector.
Accelerator Lab is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. For more information on the program, contact katie@theatrereplacement.org.
Artistic Criteria + How to Apply
Artists will be based in *Vancouver, and have at least 5 years of professional experience with a clear body of work centred around the creation of *new, *experimental and *intercultural theatre.
● All artists will have experience in initiating live theatre projects and a track record for seeing these projects through to completion;
● All artists will be interested in international presentation opportunities, with existing experience touring work internationally, or the ability to articulate how they see their work fitting into international contexts;
● All artists will have a genuine interest in cultural exchange and international dialogue, and can demonstrate sensitivity for the socio-political dimensions inherent to working internationally.
● All artists must be available from August 23 - August 31, 2024 to travel to The Netherlands for Noorderzon 2024 Festival. (Sorry — applicants must be available for this entire time period.)
*based in Vancouver = you live and/or have a regular artistic practice in Vancouver.
*new = your artistic practice should focus on the creation of original performance works.
*experimental = your artistic practice should focus on devised theatre or creation-based process, and/or interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary collaboration.
*intercultural = your practice should include collaborating and intersecting with artists and people who hold different cultural perspectives, histories and identities to your own. (This is not limited to ethnically related difference.)
In order to best support this program, priority will be given to artists who share TR’s mission, values and interests in creating experimental and intercultural new work, in dialogue with the above artistic criteria.
Each artist selected for the cohort will receive a $3500 fellowship fee (plus GST if applicable) to participate. TR will also book flights, accommodation and provide per diems for the cohort to attend Noorderzon 2024.
Although we are aware that experimental artists often work collaboratively in pairs and groups, due to the nature of the program, this opportunity is focused on individual artists only. We apologize, but we cannot accept co-applicants or groups. Thanks for your understanding.
DEADLINE TO APPLY IS MONDAY, JUNE 3rd by 5pm.
The International Mentors
Matthew AUSTIN is Co-Director of MAYK – a producing organisation based in Bristol, UK. MAYK’s flagship project is Mayfest, a biennial festival of international performance that takes place in sites and venues across Bristol every other spring. MAYK also work long-term as producers with a range of artists to develop new ideas and move them through creation, production and touring. Matthew is Chair of Bristol DIY Arts Network, an informal gathering of arts organisations and freelancers across Bristol who meet regularly to address issues and organise to make change in the cultural sector. Through MAYK, Matthew was also most recently part of a consortium of organisations delivering Horizon – a showcase of performance made in England at the Edinburgh Festivals. Horizon existed to help artists internationalise their practice and build long-term relationships with presenters around the world. Matthew also has extensive experience of audience development and marketing for live performance, and was previously a tutor a residential course for early-career arts marketers to build their skills in campaign delivery. He has previously sat on the boards of Fierce Festival, Camden People’s Theatre and Bristol Festivals.
Meiyin WANG is a producer and curator of live performance. She is the Director of Producing and Programming of the Perelman Performing Arts Center, located on the World Trade Center campus in New York, which opened in the fall of 2023. Meiyin was the Co-Director of Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater in New York. In 2013, she led the creation of the Devised Theater Initiative at The Public, a program that served as an incubator for independently produced work. She was also the curator of the Park Avenue Armory’s Artist In Residence series from 2014-2015.
Meiyin was based in the Bay Area from 2016-2020 and worked throughout the West Coast. She was the Director of the 3rd edition of La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls, one of the U.S’s largest site-specific and experiential commissioning festival based in San Diego. She completed a three-year residency as the Andrew W. Mellon Creative Fellow at the Meany Center at University of Washington, Seattle, investigating the relationship between emerging technologies and performance. As an independent producer, her work has been seen on 4 continents, and featured at venues including Holland Festival, The Arts Center NYU Abu Dhabi, and Singapore International Festival of the Arts. Among her projects were Toshi Reagon (Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Tina Satter/Half Straddle (Is This A Room).
Meiyin served on the board of Theater Communications Group from 2014–2016. She was awarded the Josephine Abady award by the League of Professional Theatre Women. Born and raised in Singapore to Taiwanese and Chinese parents, Meiyin is bilingual and spent her life negotiating between cultures and languages. She holds a B.A in Political Science and Theater Studies from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Directing from Columbia University.
Juliet KNAPP is currently co-director of Kyoto Experiment alongside Yoko Kawasaki and Yuya Tsukahara. She graduated Oxford University with a BA in English Literature and Language. After interning and volunteering for Kyoto Art Centre and Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre she later became Communications Manager and Project Manager for Music and Performance at Ryoji Ikeda Studio. Following this, from 2017-2019 she was part of the PR team at Kyoto Experiment and assisted the director in the programming of the festival. She also has experience in editing as well as translation and interpretation related to the performing arts.
Ragnheiður SKÚLADÓTTIR was born and raised in Reykjavík. She finished her BA in theatre and multimedia at the University of Iowa in 1991 and her MFA at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1996. Following her studies she moved to New York City where she lived and worked for four years. In 2000, following a 13 year stint in the U.S, she moved back to Reykjavík after being offered the position of Dean of Department of Theatre and Dance at then newly founded Iceland Academy of the Arts. Ragnheiður worked at the Academy until 2011, initiating new programs in contemporary performance practices and contemporary dance. In 2008 she co-founded the LÓKAL International Theatre Festival, an annual event that presents new local and international work in the field of theatre and performance. She was artistic director of the Akureyri City Theatre from 2012 to 2015 and manager of Iceland Dance Company 2016-2019. Ragnheiður is the artistic director and CEO of Festspillene i Nord-Norge since 2019.
Ragnheiður has years of experience as teacher and mentor (at IAA, University of Syracuse, Academy for Scenekunst in Fredrikstad, MAKE Ireland). She has also worked with various artists/groups as a producer and served as a critical friend (Kviss búmm bang, Dance for Me, Room 408, Shalala, Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir)