Re: discussion on liability

hi artists:

i appreciate everyone's opinions (some shared with all and some not shared with all) + am glad that you have spoke your minds + hearts!

first + foremost -- i am very sorry if the waiver has upset anyone. that was not our intention. we were required to have a mandatory meeting with the climate theater this past week. at this meeting we were told that we had to complete the following or POW! POW! could NOT go on unless the following was taken care of:

1) we must provide our own insurance liability for the festival

OR

2) have artists sign a waiver that states that they will not sue POW! POW! (alyssa + guillermo) or the climate theater.

we don't have thousands of dollars, and we didn't want to ask you to pay anything, so we went with option #2, which we thought in this situation was the lesser of two evils.

we are not trying to attract anything negative + did not know that we had to have this implemented until last week. please bear with us with this.

if we don't provide the climate theater with proof that all of our artists have agreed to take full responsibility for themselves if anything happens to them that they do on their own then we can't have POW! POW! go on.

i promise you that we are NOT asking you to sign a waiver that states you will not offend anyone, and we will NOT ask you to sign a waiver like that!!! in terms of the question - "do we have to ask the audience to sign"...i see a piece developing out of that! :) but the climate said that their insurance covers the audience members. if anyone wants to see the information we were provided about this i would be happy to share.

we appreciate everyone's time, energy, thoughts, etc. about this festival. POW! POW! is going to be an awesome show. see you in less than 2 weeks! we can't wait to see your work.

:)
alyssa


* * * * *

ah, yes, Alyssa! Climate theater put you behind the eight ball by springing it on you two weeks before the show. They are a theater. So they [should have] known about their insurance issues. If the waiver was a part of the original agreement, I doubt that anyone would have a problem. But springing it on you is very unprofessional of them... And if they pulled out of the show, it would have been a breach of contract on their part. But you are right... The thing is to get the show on!

and yes, it's a part of my piece! It shows the difference between THEATER and PERFORMANCE ART. In THEATER the audience and performers are in two separate realities. So they can insure the audience members but not the performers. [Mmmmmm, when we are in the audience, are we covered? Don't ask them this --until after the festival!] But in performance art there's no such clear division between audience and performers. Like most of my cast [if I have a cast] may be in the audience playing audience members. Will they be covered as audience members until they reveal themselves? Moreover I am inviting the audience members up on to the stage to be a part of my performance. Will they stop being covered? If so, when will they stop being covered? When they decide to be a participant, or when they start climbing the steps to the stage, or when they are actually on the stage? And what happens if I get off the stage and the "audience" participates? Who is covered? Oh those damn performance artists!

In Freedom,
Frank Moore