ABOUT

WE INCUBATE ARTISTS

Satellite believes in artists collaborating as equals, globally and virtually. We incubate performances, arts exchanges, and publications that allow artists to work together because we believe that is the future. We grow artists.

Satellite Collective is led by Artistic Director Kevin Draper. We are New York City based, with regional homes on Lake Michigan, and the Pacific Northwest, and participating artists throughout the world.

In 2018 Satellite Collective was awarded a Citation for Achievement in the Arts by the President & Borough of Brooklyn.

HISTORY

Satellite Collective is a vital mid-size contributor to the ecosystem that makes New York a vibrant generator of new and ground-breaking works. Neither as massive as the Metropolitan Opera, nor a small or unproven startup, Satellite Collective has spent more than a decade incubating emerging artists and giving them a shot to develop and stage major works. It’s for this reason that the Borough of Brooklyn issued Satellite a Citation of Excellence for “building a sustainable creative, financial, and collaborative model that can generate new visions for dance, multimedia, music and poetry.” The citation goes on to note that the company has “added to the awe-inspiring cultural landscape of our Borough and beyond.”

Working with this company can be one of the most thrilling and satisfying times of a young artistic career. This is due in part to Satellite’s unique approach to collaboration, engaging a wide spectrum of art forms toward a single purpose, cross- pollenating disciplines in a way that is unique, even, according to the New York Times “peculiar.” But it is also due to the fact that Satellite Collective dedicates such an enormous percentage of its operating budget to fairly compensating the artists.

Satellite Collective formed in 2010, with members of the New York City Ballet, visual artists, writers, and composers from across the country. Since then, Satellite has produced twelve seasons of multi-disciplinary work in New York City and in Michigan, where our summer residencies are held.

See what we've created over the years.

EQUITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION

Satellite Collective’s founding charter states that artists in the collective work as equals. That means composers, choreographers, writers, artists are formed into teams and are responsible for the fair, respectful, and equitable treatment of contributors and their contributions. Satellite Collective provides a comprehensive, vetted, contract structure with full pay transparency; pay is uniform and aligned. We follow union guidelines in commission structure where applicable.

Diversity and Inclusion are a key focus of our board, executive, and artistic directors. Satellite annually evaluates its makeup and drives an open dialogue with its artists about the organization’s demographics, what they mean, and how we would like to see them evolve.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

Satellite Collective designs and produces collaborations. We thrive on the work of building a sustainable creative, financial and collaborative model that can generate new visions for dance, multimedia, music and poetry.

1. Regional footprint. We establish relationships where new movements are evolving that we believe will impact the mainstream of the creative disciplines in our working scope: music, dance, multimedia, spoken and written word, photography and fashion design. We pursue working relationships with organizations to incubate works in these areas and then draw talent from the local talent pools.
2. Coordinated funding. We have designed a funding strategy around a footprint of private foundations, state government, corporate and private foundations. Success in each of these funding verticals can be leveraged for legitimacy and credibility in the others. We seek new funding sources in preference to tapping established sources with large competitive pools, however, the repertory is also designed at a level of ambition that makes us competitive with a world class peer group to seek funding in the most competitive environments.
3. Our business plan is strict. We separate creative production and performance financially and logistically. Ticket revenues are reinvested in performances; creative production is a separate funding track anchored by the Satellite Gallery LLC with permanent studio space and a resident performing arts center on Lake Michigan.
4. We seek support in kind. We balance funding with organizational support by building tight, detailed relationships with independent organizations that can offer us environments to incubate the artists and the organization; and we then focus our collaboration around these organizations to establish long term anchors for the organization.
5. We insist on total collaboration.
6. We recruit artists who can sustain their own artistic growth and careers independently and then use our collaborative method to synthesize work that no one individual could create alone.
7. We plan and generate critical dialog about our own works. Each repertory element exists as: Part of a reasoned dialog we wish to generate with our audience about themes we consider relevant; A specific combination of artistic disciplines we believe will generate new creative frictions; A critical framework designed in a 3 year plan; A signature style that can be communicated visually in print and online media.
8. We generate works that are designed to advance a vision in each artistic discipline by co-opting elements of the others. This makes an organization that can advance careers of each individual artist by providing them. We can have many faces, depending in which art the audience at the moment is focused on, and bring the power of the other arts to that audience through their preferred discipline.
9. We have a spiritual anchor, our workshop.
10. We recruit new members to the core creative group according to a plan. Artists with leadership ability join the core creative group and then recruit and manage performers as needed for the repertory. The core creative group determines which new members it needs to meet the demands of the repertory plan and test new members with production responsibilities first, and then with recruiting and management responsibilities, then they join the core team for repertory planning.
11. We utilize corporate form and discipline. Intellectual property rights are managed; Operations do not exceed funding: we don't take on debt; Rights and obligations of all participants are documented in written contracts; Activities are planned with budgets and pro-formas; Legal, organizational, fundraising and accounting actions are advised and directed by paid professionals; Finances are managed through business accounts.