YEAR OF INCUBATION

After our deep dives into the artistic processes, performances and presentations of  “as though your body was right” and “Tend”, Khecari has entered into a planned Year of Incubation to make way for something new from our studio process. 

The generative cycle has phases. The fallows of winter are as essential as germination, flowering, fruiting, and harvesting. A healthy ecosystem requires the decomposing fungus just as much as new growth and fruiting bodies. And evolution needs experimentation–the failures as much as the successes–to uncover the new and adapt the established. A perennial plant needs time to take in energy into its rhizome, then rest before reaching back out to sunlight and warmth at the right moment. It is important to follow these patterns, to honor the time needed so that the re-growth doesn’t become etiolated and leggy, reaching toward dimness and depleting the root. To give the fields time to rejuvenate so we don’t engage with an energy of extractive depletion. Every seventh year (or so), our fields need rest for the sabbatical time. A time for work to be done from a different perspective, pace and intention.

We are putting away computers, silencing phones, backburnering questions of Meaning and Import and shelving, for now, detailed production schedules and copious amounts of spreadsheets. Instead, we are showing up in the studio every day, meeting, moving, and talking. Trying out improvisation scores and choreographic structures. Giving time for the awkward and uncertain possibilities that arise to reveal themselves. Prioritizing interest, warmth and connection.

In a field that has always been under-resourced and imbalanced in our country and grows more so each day, in a culture that demands the arts justify themselves with utility, superiority complexes, or economic relevance, there is a nearly inexorable pull back to admin, fundraising, promotion, product production and perfection. During our Year of Incubation, we will do our best to resist that gravity. We will do our best to make time to speculate and ruminate, to wander and watch, to protect these hatchlings as they find their way towards… what they will.

We are all learning, hopefully, to caretake ourselves and each other in such adverse times. In an age that can feel like a clarion call to armoring, to distancing, let us protect the fecund germens of our vulnerability and somatic interconnectedness. 

Does this sound like something you would like to be a part of? We want to stay engaged with you as fully as you would like to be engaged with us in this period of incubation. During this time, we tend to match tone with our following. If you would like to come visit us, please do. If you are interested in a phone call or sending letters in the post, let’s connect. But we probably won’t be spending our energy on hustling up a crowd, just following spontaneous connection and genuine interest. If you are feeling a connection with this ethos, we invite you to treat our studio residency at Indian Boundary Cultural Center like you might the nature sanctuary and lagoon just outside in the park. If you come by during our studio times, you might see one or more artists in their natural environment.

Studio times at Indian Boundary Cultural Center are ::
Mondays – Fridays 10:00-2:00pm

Optimal viewing times are ::
Mondays :: 12:00-2:00
Wednesdays :: 12:00-2:00
Thursday :: 10:30-11:00
Fridays :: 10:30-11:00 & 12:00-2:00

If you come at a time when the artists are not present, we invite you to check out the lagoon. You might see a great blue heron, green heron, night heron, or kingfisher. A turtle or fish. An aster or milkweed. Or just the glint of light skittering the trembling aqueous plane.

If you prefer to ensure your visit will include an artist viewing, please be in touch.