COMMITMENTS
Mission
Our mission is to create multidisciplinary, devised performances that celebrate old-school, low-tech theatre magic. We invite our audiences to join us in collective acts of imagination using mask, mime, puppetry, clowning, live music, improvisation and more. We create platforms that invest in our richly diverse community of Bay Area artists by providing paid opportunities to develop their experimental works-in-progress, and we organize events that welcome the public to witness the growth of theatrical art and artists in real time.
Values
We are a small, growing company of performing artists, who operate as a collective, sharing tasks between us.
We are committed to growing slowly and with care, listening, examining and evolving in response to the artists we serve.
We are determined to resist the idea, ingrained in the theatre industry, that “the show must go on“ at any cost. We believe this obsession ignores the fact that artists are humans, and leads to unhealthy power dynamics and dangerous decision-making. Instead, we commit to slowing down and being willing to radically revise our plans if something is not working.
We are unashamedly progressive in our politics, some might say radical, and we are working towards a future in which we, Art workers of the Bay, seize the means of production, creating work whose development we lead and the product of which we own.
We passionately align ourselves in defiance of an American culture that devalues artists by refusing to compensate them. Furthermore, our industry has evolved to only give opportunities to artists who are already well established, or money to productions that are already rich in resources. At Analog, we believe that the permission and resources to cultivate artistic gifts should be radically accessible. As such, we strive to create platforms that celebrate and compensate artistic creation, and support artistic development. We also remove financial barriers for audiences by making all shows free to the public.
We ultimately believe that the physical expression of our stories and identities holds the keys to catharsis, healing, and joy for our communities.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Analog is committed to following anti-racist principles, guided by the work of respected scholars studying the effects of colonization and racial oppression on American culture. These experts on the national stage, as well as local activists and change makers, point us towards a powerful blueprint to a more just, inclusive and generous Bay Area. The commitments that follow are a living document for our organization, that we commit to continue to revisit, revise and add to each year.
We are committed to deconstructing the influence of American white supremacy culture in our industry, our working structures, and in ourselves. We are constantly interrogating our approaches to art making so that we may best serve the diverse cultural histories and identities that make up the Bay Area.
We will equitably make space, share our resources, feature, compensate, amplify and celebrate artists across race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, age, language, class, culture, sexual orientation, race and ability.
We will advocate for indigenous sovereignty, ensuring that a consistent percentage of money that passes through Analog is supporting the indigenous rematriation of the land we reside and make art upon.
We will promote the visibilty of our artists in the community, and offer unfettered opportunities for their self determined artistic development and ownership of content.
We will continue to seek out (and compensate) the guidance of wise and diverse local artistic leaders as we grow, always striving to improve our service to both our artistic community and the larger community of our audience.