May 2020 update

5/13/2020

Dear WITD Community-

I am staying, like most of our species, quarantined inside an existential illegibility of the time. I am trying to listen deeply, to love more, to get rooted in simplicity and to detach little by little, day by day, from my own culpability to ways of being that replicate the harm inherent in the systems we have all been conditioned by.

At the beginning of 2020, I proposed to a small group of folx who were starting to work with WITD in varying capacities, that we consider moving towards a collaborative leadership model. While not a new idea in any regard, it has admittedly been a process of undoing to get to this location. I never set out to become the center of an arts organization. I was an artist, improvising around my passions of the last 30 years---dance, ecology, sustainability, healing and social transformation. Slowly, I became an artist also juggling bureaucracy, budgets, bills, artist fees, the maintenance of spaces, and the needs of everyone involved in those spaces. Admittedly, I could not figure out how to decenter myself from all of these equations but have known for some time that for there to be a future of this organization, it was going to have to grow beyond me…and my hope has always been to do this in way that does not repeat the usual institutional hierarchies.

When the pandemic hit, our current experiment of a collective of four (Marilou Carrera, Crystal Sasaki, keyon gaskin and myself) decided that this was a moment that allowed both the pause and thoughtfulness necessary and the erasure of expertise essential to begin to work towards a new model of organizing. As we move forward, you will begin to hear more from their voices and perspectives. Quite honestly, if I were here alone trying to navigate our survival, this letter would most likely be one of resignation. But instead, it is one of hope for our present and future….one being redesigned by a multiplicity of perspectives and orientations and adaptive to the time we are living in.

We are still sitting inside of many questions, like how are we going to continue to pay our rent and utilities when we have lost all of our streams of income? How can we move forward and maintain our spaces for the community without charging the artists who have been hit most severely by this pandemic to use the spaces? Is there a way to subsidize our overhead so that we move away from a rental economy model and into a sharing or bartering one? How do we support the many artists, local and international, who have been essential to our development and have now been without work for months?

We are puzzling our way into solutions. Taking the risk to keep paying rents on empty spaces, trusting we will find our way. So many of you have sent us unsolicited sentiments and donations of support---and we thank you for every single gesture. I truly believe that Water in the Desert was made for these times, born out of an early intuition that we would eventually find ourselves here...and so we will continue...to plant gardens, to dance, and to create in a small way the kind of world we want to live in (with all of you).

with much love and care,

mizu

WITD Response to COVID-19 on March 13, 2020

To our beloved community,

Water in the Desert is a home for experimental art, trying new things and exploration. In our own ways, we have come up against and challenged ideas of creatively coming together, co-existing, and communicating with others. 

The growing concerns and mounting media coverage surrounding COVID-19/Coronavirus are challenging us now and we want to take the time to communicate our efforts in minimizing the potential for exposure at the theatre and through our programming. We recognize that in Oregon things are shifting somewhat rapidly and so we are paying attention to the recommendations being made available and are working to be as adaptive to the process as possible. We are assessing every event we currently have booked on a case by case basis and are prioritizing the health of the staff, volunteers, and artists engaged with Water in the Desert, as well as our community members. 

We are following public health recommendations regarding COVID19 and we want to assure you that we are taking steps to ensure our spaces are cleaned and disinfected frequently and that folks have what they need to protect themselves. 

We are doing the following to ensure that our staff, volunteers, artists, and community members stay safe and healthy:

• Monitor recommendations from the Governor's Office in Oregon

• Assess events on a case by case basis and cancelling if it is appropriate

• Offer programming following public health recommendations

• Provide hand sanitizer at upcoming events

• Routinely disinfect points of contact in high-traffic areas, such as door handles, counter tops, handrails & armrests, etc.

• Instruct staff and volunteers to wash and sanitize their hands as thoroughly and as often as possible for at least 20 seconds with soap and water

• Encourage staff and volunteers to stay home if they are experiencing any symptoms and when possible work remotely from home

We are also counting on you, as a member of our community, to help us maintain a safe and healthy environment. Please:

• Stay home if you are feeling sick or experiencing symptoms.

• Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly. Wash for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water to clean your hands and use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer to kill germs

• Maintain a reasonable social distance. Handshakes and close talking are off the table for now 

• Cover up any sneezing and coughing. If you’re sneezing and coughing, we request that you stay home until you are well. But if you do sneeze or cough while you’re out in public, it is important to cover your mouth or nose with your upper arm or a tissue. Dispose of used tissues and wash or sanitize your hands immediately.

• Keep up to date with the Oregon Health Authority.

• Be aware of the long term impact these cancellations have on artists and arts and culture organizations. Please consider donating to WITD or to your favorite arts organization who may be taking a hit because of folks staying home and event cancellations.

• Also please patronize Asian businesses around Portland who may also be taking a hit because of unfair and racist stigma during this time, as noted by Portland United Against Hate.

In light of all of this, we have decided to cancel this weekend’s programs with Seattle artists Joan Laage, Sheri Brown and Alan Sutherland and have already refunded all tickets and workshop sales. We plan to reschedule these programs for another time once we have a better assessment of the situation.

For those folks who have rented our theatre or studio space, we will assess the continued use and access of these spaces through direct conversation with you. If you or any member of your production group are not feeling well, we encourage you to reschedule your rental for another time. Please email management@witd.org if you have any questions or are interested in rescheduling. 

We are a few weeks out from Butoh College and are moving forward with the current schedule. We are working to create the conditions that will allow us to be as adaptive as possible. That means we are promoting the general recommendations for preventing the spread of COVID19, described above. We are ordering hand sanitizer for folks to use while they are in our space and will clean and disinfect the space between each of the workshops and performances. Please stay home if you do not feel well during this time. If at any time, it is determined that Butoh College should be cancelled, we will communicate this with everyone and work with individuals to figure out what a refund looks like if you have registered and paid for a workshop. Similarly, if you are not feeling well, we encourage you to stay home and we will work with you on a refund.

 This is what we can share with you all now, but if the Governor offers different recommendations, then we will of course follow those instead, and we will stay in communication with you if that happens.  

Thank you all for your patience and courage as we all work to create a safe and healthy environment for everyone.

--The WITD Staff

Marilou Carrera, Mizu Desierto, keyon gaskin, Crystal Sasaki