For circus artists and
companies towards a
groundbreaking year
of kick ass research
& practice on new
ecologies of funding.

↓

The Sphere is thrilled to invite you to participate in a groundbreaking  performing art event. In collaboration with CircusNext, we are calling  for all the companies that have been CircusNext laureates during  the past 20 years to be part of an experiment in collective curation,  audience engagement, and alternative ecologies of funding that will  be developed over the next 2 years. 

The process goes as follow:

1. 6 original CircusNext performances will be selected and showcased in The Sphere 3D Virtual Gallery during spring 2022. Artists will get special onboarding support from The Sphere team to create a digitised representation of their work (NFT), and prepare it for further artistic iterations and variations (anarchive box-making process).
2. Among these 6 exhibited performances, 1 will be selected through a quadratic voting session involving hundreds of circus aficionados from across Europe. The laureate will be offered 10K + a residency in Berlin in spring 2022 to create a new version of its work. This “alpha” performance will be presented in 3 countries in 2023 (minimum of 7 representations).
3. Immediately after this initial selection process, we will open a new call to circus artists from all over Europe to produce 2 derivative performances directly inspired by this primordial NFT-box. The creations will be funded by The Sphere (2 x 10K + residency) and will be initially presented within The Sphere network.

Why did you receive this call?

You received this call because you are one of the CircusNext laureates of the  last 20 years.  

Who is The Sphere? 

The Sphere is a group of people exploring  new strategies of funding for the performing art world. Inspired by the recent innovations in the field of distributed ledger technologies (blockchain), our goal is to redistribute the risks and opportunities of making art by facilitating the involvement of audiences and other potential stakeholders at different stages of the curation and creative process.

Why should you participate in this funky-alter-financial experiment?

Because:

1. You are offered not only the chance to revive a work that is dear to you, but also to prepare the conditions for multiple creative iterations to make it proliferate. This is what we call the anarchive box-making process (more about it below;
2. You might also have the opportunity to participate in our specially curated “enrichment process”, i.e. a series of personalized workshops with some of the most exciting experts in the field of blockchain, crypto economics and NFT to explore new business models for the performing arts;
3. You get the chance to participate in a thriving international and transdisciplinary community of research-creation practitioners interested in ex ploring the confluence of art & value flows.
4. You like challenges and already have skin in the game of circus production
   

What is the anarchive box-making process again?

We are interested in reviving past works, but we are even more interested in seeing how these works will evolve and generate their own derivative lineages over time. This is why the selected artists are invited to prepare a “box” around their already existing performance. What we call a box is an open-ended score for future iterations. It is like a time capsule addressed to future performers with different conditions or enabling constraints attached. We hope that this derivative curational engine will eventually allow to pass small percentages back to projects that inspired, and out to a Sphere common pool that fund further generative artistic propositions like this one.

Why blockchain and NFTs?

The reason is simple: with these web 3.0 tools, it becomes possible to imagine new ways of funding performing arts ecosystems and seeding a new collaborative infrastructure for the circus community. For instance, each work that will be exhibited in the Sphere 3D virtual gallery can easily become an object of investment because of the NFT attached to it. We envisage a world in which audiences can easily become co-owners of artworks they care for together with artists, technicians, cultural professionals and all other stakeholders of a given project. We call it collective fractal ownership and we hope it will allow for new types of production to grow in the near future.

ROADMAP

1. Oct 31st – Nov 30th Open call for all CircusNext laureates 2001-2021.
2. Dec 20th 6 productions selected by The Sphere network.
3. Jan 17th – Feb 27th: digitalization + anarchiving workshops with the Sphere team for the 6 productions.
4. March 1st Launch of The Sphere Gallery.
5. March 1st – April 1st Large-scale voting for selecting one performance.
6. April 1st – Aug 30th open call to the circus community for the following 2 derivative performances.
7. Sep 1st – 30th Large-scale voting within the European circus community for selecting two artists/companies.

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

1. Residencies and research/rehearsal periods 2-4 weeks.

2. Curated workshops with the Sphere team (Digitalization + anarchiving process).

3. Total production fee 10000 EUR (including salaries).

4. Travel and accommodation.

5. Fees when presenting.

PRELIMINARY TIMELINE

HOW TO APPLY?

APPLY HERE

Contact us at info@thesphere.as regarding any questions about the application procedure. 

About The Sphere

EU Partner organizations: Saloranta & de Vylder/A Radar Styled Novel (SE), Berlin Circus  Festival (DE), Lithuanian Dance Information Center (LT), Teatro da Didascália (PT), Steven  Bachelder (SE), School of Business (SE), Maison des Jonglages (FR), Cordata F.O.R. (It) 

Third country partner organizations: High Acres Farm (US), Nordic House in the Faroe  Islands (FO), La Serre – Arts Vivant (CA) 

In close collaboration with: Curve Labs, Gnosis, Black Swan DAO, Spectre and CultureStake