Akropolis Performance Lab eschews production for production’s sake. Instead, we prize the catalyst of the studio … the workroom … the room of labor: the laboratory of our name. We reject the trappings of infrastructure which force the presentation of season after season of shows, on pre-determined, tight schedules devised first and foremost to cover rents or other priorities of a non-artistic nature. We do not base our identity upon seasons of plays, summer-stock Shakespeare, genre delineations, or the like. Since our inception, we have striven to exist as an antithesis or — perhaps better — in counterpoint to such theatre-making approaches. We believe in the necessity for an alternative to the constant churn of productions, and we have deliberately situated ourselves elsewhere on the artistic spectrum. This is not a values judgment. To the contrary, we celebrate the full spectrum of approaches and honor the vitality each brings to the theatre community. But for APL, this choice is a matter of Artistic Ethos.
We strive for a different way not because we believe our way is better but because it gives the work meaning to us. Our primary dedication has always been investigating the craft, techniques, obstacles, and abilities of the performer: the individual in connection and confrontation with her/his social and biological culture — with songs, poetry, dance, and literature of deep, resonant tradition. The development of unique, personal actions that spring from the collision of these elements and resonate with intimate as well as collective mythologies. The work demands deep-rooted commitment and personal engagement — a willingness to risk much for potentially few accolades and little external reward.
Periodically, such work does culminate in the preparation and presentation of a public performance: the result of extensive exploration, research, development conducted over long periods of time. The work reaches fruition in a meeting between the performer and the spectator who is open to receiving it — but not until we determine that it is fully developed … that it is, in fact, ready.
For most theatre organizations, such an approach would not be sustainable.
At the heart of APL’s Artistic Ethos is profound respect for something that transcends the audience and accolades of production, the personal pride or gratification of performing, and appeals to some fundamental necessity of an idealized Art. Our Ethos respects each individual committed to this challenging work, the transforming needs of daily life in all its unpredictability, the value of artistic work as a vehicle for personal and collective actualization, the material with which we are working, and the methodologies we use to learn and master that material. Last, but certainly not least, it respects the spectators and their capacity to encounter our work on their own terms — to enter into it, wrestle with it, extract personal meaning from it (absent any dilution for easy consumption) — to meet us on a common field in order to discover Deep Play along with us.
~ September 9, 2014
