Residency Program
The application guidelines for the 2010-11 Fall/Spring residency program are now available online.
The Watermill Center Residency Program began in 2006, when the Center officially opened as a year-round facility. Over the course of the program, up to twenty collectives or individual artists take up residence at the Center to create collaborative works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the existing norms of performance practice. By June of 2010, the Center will have hosted over 55 residency groups.
The Residency Program, which runs from September to June, gives young artists the opportunity to utilize the Watermill Center as a home and a workshop to create and develop their own work. Each residency varies in length according to artists’ and project needs and generally lasts from one to four weeks, when artists have a concentrated period to focus on their work. Residencies are chosen by a distinguished international selection committee composed of artists, academics, and cultural leaders across all disciplines.
In addition to creating and developing their work, artists share their creative process at Watermill with the community through open rehearsals, workshops, and artist talks. We believe this is an important growth experience for young artists as they learn to talk about their work, interact with the public, and receive audience feedback as they move forward in the process of creation. The Center supplements these public gatherings with mentorships, lectures, seminars, educational partnerships, internships, and other creative engagements throughout the year.
Watermill is part of a growing international network of like-minded institutions and offers resident artists the opportunity for personal and artistic development within this network of contacts. For example, residents have gone on to (or will) perform at the New Museum, PS122, Performa, the Donaufestival near Vienna, Kampnagel in Hamburg and other institutions. The first New Island Festival on Governors Island in September will feature four residency groups from Watermill throughout the festival. Above: Image from David Levine's Habit, Watermill Residency Spring 2010. Photograph courtesy Marsha Ginsberg.