Mission
Mission
Roulette’s mission is to support artists and present performances of innovative music, movement, and media art; build audiences interested in experiencing new work; and trace the evolution of experimental performance in a freely accessible public archive.
The primary ways that Roulette pursues its mission is by presenting and platforming artists whose work confounds expectations–with a focus on new and unusual work by living composers and performers–and using its extensive archive to highlight and contextualize historic work by significant artists, especially those who have been excluded due to systemic oppression.
Values
Creativity
Roulette values creativity.
We value creative intent, individual expression, experimentalism, irreverence, iconoclasm, playfulness, inquiry, humility, resourcefulness, and inclusivity. Roulette presents the excellent and unusual in equal measure, and we believe that creativity and art make the world a more interesting, connected, and worthwhile place.
Diversity
We believe that experimental art is for everyone and that it can and should be created, presented, and experienced by many different kinds of people.
Roulette is dedicated to supporting artists whose work falls outside of traditional genre and disciplinary constraints as well as those who have been historically underrepresented in experimental music, movement, and media. We are also committed to expanding the diversity of our staff, board, audience, and other partners, as we continually work to foster a greater sense of belonging at Roulette.
Guaranteeing Artist Fees
We believe in paying artists guaranteed fees.
Since its inception, Roulette has paid artists guaranteed fees. This allows artists to budget, create, and execute work without the anxiety of wondering if they will make enough from ticket sales to cover their costs.
Chance/Risk
We value chance and risk; it’s part of our namesake.
Roulette has an open call for proposals from artists and we present what artists are doing now, as opposed to what they’ve done in the past. Programming decisions are guided by artists’ work, not the commercial success, press coverage, or social media stats of a given artist or art work.
Trust
We trust artists.
We may not always know how an artist’s project will turn out when we agree to present them, but we believe in giving artists expansive creative freedom, as well as concrete financial and production support, to develop and realize their visions and ideas.
Artist-centric
Artistic needs and practice inform Roulette’s decision-making at every step.
Roulette’s leadership, staff, and board all include active, working artists–with two rotating seats on our Board of Directors reserved for members of our Artistic Advisory Council. The Artistic Advisory Council–composed of artists at varying career stages who are deeply familiar with the field, Roulette’s creative community, and the challenges of being a working artist–makes programming recommendations and serves as nominators and panelists for Roulette’s Awarded Artist Programs.
Evolution
We believe in supporting artists at every stage of their career.
Roulette invests dedicated resources in helping early-career artists create and present new work, and we remain invested in their careers over time, so that today’s emerging artists become tomorrow’s mid-career and more established artists performing at Roulette and helping to define and expand the field at large. We hope to educate new audiences–and to constantly educate ourselves–on what is at the cutting edge of the avant-garde in our time.
Preservation
We seek to record and preserve current experimental work for posterity and use our ever-growing public archive to illuminate lost histories within experimental performance.
Using material within Roulette’s archive of over 4,000 recordings dating back to 1978, we highlight the work of under-appreciated artists–particularly women, BIPOC, queer, and transgender artists. Through interviews, podcasts, and radio broadcasts, we contextualize these artists and historic recordings alongside new and emerging artists within an ongoing history of American experimentalism.
Community
What’s good for artists is good for the field.
The more opportunities that artists have to present their work and that audiences have to experience it, the better. We are part of a larger creative ecosystem, and broad support and opportunities for the people working and existing within that ecosystem are good for all of us. Part of Roulette’s mission is to build audiences interested in experimental work, so we appreciate and applaud the efforts of other arts and cultural organizations as our partners in that endeavor.
Sustainability
We believe in building structures and business practices to support our mission-driven work.
Beyond fundraising and ticket sales, one of the primary ways that Roulette financially supports its arts programming is by renting its venue to other organizations and producers. While the content of these events may differ significantly from Roulette’s programming, the income from these rentals supports Roulette’s mission and ensures our continued ability to present and pay experimental artists each year. In addition to discounted rates for non-profit clients, Roulette further subsidizes rental and presentation opportunities each year for a limited number of organizations whose mission and/or values directly align with Roulette’s.
History
Roulette’s Founding: 1978
Roulette was founded in 1978 during the rich, alternative space movement of the 1970’s by five graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: trombonist/composer Jim Staley, composer/producer David Weinstein, intermedia artist Dan Senn, graphic artist Laurie Szujewska, and composer David Means. This movement changed the way art and music were experienced, with an emphasis on individual expression, experimentalism, irreverence, iconoclasm, playfulness, inquiry, and inclusivity. Spaces and programs were programmed and managed by artists; exhibitions and concerts took place outside of traditional venues; and Roulette emerged in a TriBeCa loft as one of New York City’s safe harbors for risk and discovery, where both young and established artists could explore new territory, invent, and cross-pollinate ideas. This is the very same spirit that has driven Roulette for over four decades; we’re still artist-run, and we’re more curious than ever.
Moving Spaces: 2003-2010
In 2003, Roulette moved out of its TriBeCa loft to a 74-seat space on Greene Street in SoHo, Manhattan, where it operated for the next seven years. As artists’ ideas expanded, audiences grew, and rents in lower Manhattan began to rise, Roulette’s staff and Board began the search for a larger, more flexible and affordable performance space, ultimately finding our permanent home in Downtown Brooklyn in 2010, and opening to the public in 2011. Roulette renovated our 400-seat, 1927 beaux-arts theater with a $2.7M capital campaign, rendering it one of the best-equipped and best-sounding in New York, while maintaining much of the theater’s historic charm.
Expanded Programs, Production, and Audiences: 2011-Present
Roulette now annually presents over 120 music, dance, and intermedia performances by some of today’s most prolific artists and their extraordinary emerging counterparts, alongside an additional 150 community and rental events. We also present a monthly podcast, weekly and monthly radio shows, and weekly TV segments on Manhattan and Brooklyn public access. In September 2020, in response to safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Roulette began live streaming performances from our stage using a sophisticated robotic camera system and making the livestreams available to the public free of charge. We continue to offer multi-camera livestreams of nearly all the performances presented in our season, affirming Roulette’s longstanding commitment to supporting the creation of experimental work and making avant-garde performance available to an ever-expanding audience.