Creative Process

What drives cultural practitioners to experiment, discover, and create?

Photo by Dominic M. Mercier, Courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Translating Film to the Stage: Composer Missy Mazzoli and Librettist Royce Vavrek on Breaking the Waves

In advance of the premiere of Breaking the Waves, we invited Mazzoli and Vavrek to share insights into their artistic processes and inspirations.

Community members partake in Mifflin Square Alliance Festival in September 2015, part of Mural Art Program’s Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge. Photo by Steve Weinik.

Questions of Practice: Cohabitation Strategies and Anthony Smyrski on Design in Contemporary Culture

Cohabitation Strategies and Anthony Smyrski discuss how new understandings of design can better relate to and engage communities.

Stephen Petronio rendition of The Courtesan and the Crone by Anna Halprin, 2016. Exhibition detail from Ally, produced in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum. Photographed by Carlos Avendaño. Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum.

Questions of Practice: Choreographer Stephen Petronio on Performance and Ephemerality

Choreographer Stephen Petronio on how his past dances and embodied memory influence future creations.

PRESENT TENSE, performed by the Trisha Brown Dance Company. Photo © Naoya Ikegani Saitama Arts Foundation, 2006.

Questions of Practice: Writer and Dancer Wendy Perron on the Meaning of "Contemporary"

Writer and dancer Wendy Perron evokes Trisha Brown to explain why contemporary dance is open to multiple meanings.

A “Poetry Bureau,” created by the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Westwood Village, 2013. Featuring a group of volunteer poets who write a spontaneous verse for visitors, the bureau appears outside the theater prior to a related performance. Photo by Phinn Sriployrung

Questions of Practice: Visiting Scholar Kristy Edmunds on Philadelphia's Collaborative Arts Ecology

Visiting Scholar Kristy Edmunds on Philadelphia's Collaborative Arts Ecology

Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet in Trisha Brown’s O zlozony/O composite. Photo by Alexander Iziliaev, courtesy of Pennsylvania Ballet.

Questions of Practice: Writer and Dancer Wendy Perron on Trisha Brown and the Body

Writer and Dancer Wendy Perron on Trisha Brown and the Body

Holding It Down, Harlem Stage. Photo by Mark Millman Photography. Courtesy of Kimmel Center, Inc.

Questions of Practice: Composer and Pianist Vijay Iyer and Librettist Mike Ladd on Improvisation

Composer Vijay Iyer and librettist Mike Ladd on how improvisation functions within their creative process.

Rea Tajiri, 2015 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.

Fellows Friday: Q&A with Filmmaker Rea Tajiri

We spoke to filmmaker Rea Tajiri (2015), who is devising new approaches to storytelling that embrace the murky spaces of memory, history, and public consciousness.

Benjamin Volta, 2015 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.

Fellows Friday: Q&A with Visual Artist Benjamin Volta

We spoke to visual artist Benjamin Volta (2015), who creates intricate public murals and sculptures through participatory methods, often involving education, restorative justice, and urban planning.

Merián Soto, 2015 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.

Fellows Friday: Q&A with Choreographer Merián Soto

We spoke to choreographer Merián Soto (2015), whose 40-year career in performance has been marked by a concern for the body—most recently manifested in a somatic, conceptual, and process-based practice that investigates the living body and its relationship to consciousness.