Austin Scenic Co-op Supports the Fusebox Festival

The past two weeks have been very exciting here in Austin. We have had people from all over the globe visit our little oasis. We had the opportunity to see outstanding performances by Frederick Gravel from Montreal, Big Dance Theatre from NYC, Cloud Eye Control from LA, and Daniel Barrow from Winnipeg --just to name a few. The performances were thought provoking, beautiful and intense. It was a pretty awesome celebration of live performance and visual art that took place in different venues all over the city. In addition to all the exciting performance, I was also moved by the way our theatre community came together to pull the whole thing off. I believe that a love and dedication to collaboration is why many of us chose to become theatre artists.

That collaborative spirit was really shining bright for the past two weeks. This was most evident to me in the resource sharing that was taking place. Because of a willingness to share: platforms, ladders, projectors, screens, lighting instruments, and headsets found their way to one of the many venues where Fusebox took place regardless of who they belonged to. The Co-op [collaboration with Salvage Vanguard and Rude Mechs] certainly had a hand in this. Our stock was completely depleted during the festival. We had stuff in theatres all over town. Fusebox is like a disaster hitting a small town, where everybody ends up in the street filling sandbags. Fusebox really shows our true colors. And watching our theater community do what it does best inspires me to redouble our efforts to get the co-op of the ground.

--Thomas Graves, Austin Scenic Co-op & Rude Mechs