You made the work.
Now you need to make it possible for someone who was not inside your process to understand what they are being invited into. This is a different skill. Making a performance and communicating about a performance are not the same thing. You may know the work intimately. The audience does not. A curator does not. A festival does not. Someone seeing one image on Instagram does not. Your task is not to explain everything. Your task is to build a door into the work.

From studio language to public language

During the creative process, you needed words that helped you think. Now you need words that help someone else enter. Avoid writing the whole history of the process. Avoid explaining every symbol. Avoid trying to prove that the work is important. Start with what is actually there. What happens? What kind of experience are you creating? What questions or territory does the work open? What makes this particular performance yours?

    Exercise 1
    ​Describe what we actually see

    Only what happens.
    For example:
    "A performer repeatedly sorts a pile of clothes.
    She moves between very slow actions and sudden vibrations.
    A coat is carried, worn and abandoned.
    The body repeatedly returns to the same physical center.
    The performance ends in stillness."
    No meaning yet. No theory. No “this symbolizes...” This gives you the concrete ground of the work.

    Exercise 2
    Name the territory

    What are you investigating?
    What question keeps returning?
    What tension holds the work together?
    Try to stay close to the work rather than producing an academic statement.
    Instead of:
    This work interrogates contemporary notions of...
    Try:
    This performance begins from...
    I am interested in the tension between...
    The work asks what happens when...

    Exercise 3
    Write the short description

    Now combine the concrete and the conceptual.
    A useful structure can be:
    1. What is the work?
    One clear sentence.
    2. What happens or what world do we enter?
    Two or three concrete sentences.
    3. What territory does it open?
    One or two sentences.
    This text should make someone curious enough to continue.
    Not understand everything.
    Continue.

    Exercise 4
    Write the longer description

    Here you can include:
    • where the work started
    • the artistic question
    • the materials you work with
    • the relationship between body, object, space, sound or text
    • the form of the performance
    • what kind of audience experience you are interested in
    Do not repeat the short description with more adjectives. Use the additional space to deepen the work.

    Exercise 5
    Give the work a title

    If you already have a title, test it again.
    Does it still belong to the work you actually made?
    If not, generate 10 possible titles.
    Then reduce them to 3.
    Then choose 1 working title.
    A title does not need to summarize the performance.
    It can open another door.

    Exercise 6
    Prepare the basic touring package

    ​Before a work can circulate, prepare the material people will repeatedly ask you for.

    Create one folder containing:
    • Title
    • Your name
    • Short description — 70–100 words
    • Long description — 200–300 words
    • Short artist bio — approximately 100 words
    • 2–5 strong images
    • Video link
    • Duration
    • Language
    • Technical needs
    • Minimum space required
    • Set-up time
    • Contact information

    Keep this folder simple and updated. You do not need a beautiful 25-page PDF. You need material that another person can quickly understand and use.

    1. Images
    Choose images that communicate the world of the work.
    Not necessarily the most beautiful photographs.
    Ask:
    Does this image tell me something about the body?
    The space?
    The atmosphere?
    The relationship?
    Would I want to know more after seeing it?
    One strong image is more useful than twenty mediocre ones.

    2. Video
    If possible, prepare:
    • A full-length recording
    for programmers or curators who want to see the complete work.
    And later, if useful:
    • A short excerpt or trailer
    that allows someone to understand the visual and performative world quickly.
    Do not make a trailer simply because everyone makes trailers.
    Only make one if it helps the work travel.

    3. Technical information
    Keep it realistic.
    If the work can happen with one speaker and a chair, do not write a theatre technical rider designed for a major institution.
    If the piece requires darkness, say so.
    If it can happen outdoors, say so.
    If it needs 5 × 5 metres, say so.
    The clearer you are about your conditions, the easier it becomes for someone to imagine hosting the work.

    Your submission

    Please send us within 7 days:
    1. Working title
    2. Short description
    3. Long description
    4. Short bio
    5. Basic technical information
    6. 2–5 selected images
    7. Video link
    Do not try to make everything perfect.
    You are creating the first public language of the work.
    The performance exists.
    Now we are building the door through which others can enter.