mr festival 2005: open source November 27 – December 18, 2005 download the brochure> select letter from the executive director statements from the curators open space performance everywhere classes and workshops party bash studies projects special projects venues ticket info thanks back to general festival info a letter from the executive director The Movement Research Festival 2005: Open Source … is the most recent incarnation of our annual festival, this year expanded to three weeks. It was first initiated in 1992 as an improvisation festival by Sondra Loring (an MR artist-in-residence at the time) and Julie Carr and then curated by MR program director Amanda Loulaki. In 2004, the Festival’s structure and curatorial process shifted away from a single staff-curated lens, a model more aligned with that of presenters, to a curatorial team of artists that would change for each successive Festival. The goal is to bring together, from year to year, emerging as well as ongoing crosscurrents of ideas and investigations, and ongoing and new relationships with artists and venues, and to provide an infrastructure that would support these artists’ experiments, from the art forms themselves to the nature of artist/audience interactions to associated critical discourse. This speaks to Movement Research’s essential role as a research and development engine that contributes to the overall landscape that is, and supports, dance. Many, many thanks and gratitude to this year’s Festival curators, DD, koosil-ja, Margit and Michelle, and to Amanda too. It was a bit of blood, sweat and tears, as the caldron-like nature of experiments often are. But in the end, this curatorial team has conceived an impressive, conceptually coherent, non-hierarchical, gutsy series of investigations through the vehicles of performances (both curated and with Open Calls), discussions, workshops and classes, special projects, think tanks, and, don’t forget the ‘end of Festival’ Bull Yard Bash party! Eleven venues, 200 plus artists, and audiences from small and intimate to likely jammed-packed. Please join in! We’ve kept the prices low and in many cases free! And if you can support our work by purchasing a Festival pass, you can save money and get that ‘feel good’ feeling about supporting R & D. See you soon! Carla Peterson Executive Director