foolsFURY’s Ensemble Archive, The Legacy Project
“As we come to a close, how does foolsFURY maintain a public archive to serve the field?”
In more than 23 years of developing ensemble and devised theater, foolsFURY became the creative home of many artists. The stories, practice and performance that embody the rich history of foolsFURY are preserved in The Legacy Project Archive at the Museum of Performance and Design.
Over the company’s final three months, a core Legacy Project team, consisting of Archivist Emily Weak, Board Member Mercilee Jenkins and Artistic Director Debórah Eliezer, gathered more than 400 GB of existing digital records. Full recordings of nine fully produced shows were transferred to digital format from the miniDV collection of founder Ben Yalom. They also embarked on an ambitious oral history project, which employed a five person interview team to collect the stories of more than 20 individuals, representing a broad sampling of people who participated with foolsFURY in capacities such as trainings, convenings, workshops, productions, FURY Factories Festivals and the day to day running of the organization. Donors pledged $7900 to support these endeavors.
The Legacy Project
The Legacy Project archive includes:
Full video recordings or clips from eighteen fully produced shows
Video recordings and clips from seven FURY Factory festivals
Selected presentation videos and documentation from two BUILD digital conferences
Video recordings of some rehearsals and devising processes
Oral Histories of more than twenty company members and key stakeholders
Documentation of operations
Miscellaneous digitized ephemera, including programs and posters
Selected digital photos and slideshows
An overview and finding aid
The Legacy Project archive will arrive at the Museum of Performance + Design in March 2022. We encourage you to explore all that we’ve accomplished. We hope you will feel pride and inspiration for your creative work moving forward.
Special thanks to: Our interviewing team (Angela Santillo, Emily Dedakis, Jillian Jetton, Julius Rea, and Scott Horstein), all our oral history interviewees, all our donors, and the Museum of Performance + Design.
FOOLSFURY THEATER:
A Letter From Our Artistic Director
Dear Colleagues, Friends, Fans and Fools,
After 23 years of producing, presenting and practicing the model of ensemble theater, foolsFURY is executing closure procedures in a ritual of dismantling over the next several months. We are making this choice as a planned decision in dialogue with our board, ensemble, company members and key community stakeholders. We came to the difficult realization that an intentional closure is in fact the greatest demonstration of equity, self care and grace that we could enact in the face of ongoing instability…..
Please Read More At Link Below
FOOLSFURY IS CREATING BOLD NEW ART, CULTIVATING ARTISTS, AND BREAKING THE MODEL OF ENSEMBLE THEATER TO CREATE A BETTER, MORE EQUITABLE FUTURE
introducIng The TGNC Advocacy Collective
TGNC= The Trans Gender Non-Conforming Advocacy Collective.
This collective is one way foolsFURY is answering the question “How do we break the model?” Producing the TGNC Advocacy Collective (TAC) is to interrogate oppressive practices, center human relationships and empower those least heard.
TAC is a cohort of trans and queer theatermakers working to create safer spaces for the queer and trans theater community. The project will consist of a series of townhalls and an interactive webpage that documents the experiences and stories of the trans community in theater spaces. The project will culminate with a digital resource guide and policies for the Bay Area Theater Community to integrate in their EDI work.
Nicky Martinez will be joined by a cohort of Queer and Trans theatermakers including Kieran Beccia, Leigh Rondon-Davis, Jesse Annette Koehn, Nikki Meñez, Richard Mosqueda, and Chris Steele.
We want to thank and credit Ely Sonny Orquiza and the Living Document Collective for their activism and labor, and for inspiring us to drive this work forward. We are continuously learning from our peers and our own process in order to evolve these models and resources. We hope our work continues to move positive change within our queer and artistic communities.
OUR Anti-racist AccountabilIty Measures
FoolsFURY is committed to the ongoing process of undoing systemic racism, anti-Blackness and discrimination. We understand that trust is earned through actions that match our words. We are reckoning with the privilege and agency that our historically white-led organization has enjoyed for the last two decades and interrogating the oppressive systems this organization supported.
Lasting change is a long term process of transformation. To do that, we are committed to working towards a theater ecosystem in which racial justice is woven into all facets of our organization. We are implementing antiracist accountability measures that go beyond a statement of solidarity and outline achievable actions that can be measured by our artists, board,and audiences, (that means you.)