HowlRound defines commons-based approaches as practices that promote relationality, cooperation, horizontal and decentralized decision-making and networks, bottom-up activity, and peer-to-peer sharing of infrastructure, material goods, knowledge, and ideas. Content in this section directly addresses practices of commoning from around the field. Dive in with essays on the promise of the commons, the birth of a climate commons, and how a commons becomes a selection committee.
The Latest
Essay
Facilitative Directing Centers the Art
by Kimberly Senior
1 June 2026
Essay
Artists Lead the Way at the 2026 Under the Radar Symposium
A Participatory Experiment in Hybrid Community Convening Offered Online and in Philadelphia
Monday 25 July 2022
Philadelphia, PA
Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) presented BREAK/through, a participatory experiment in hybrid community convening offered in Philadelphia and livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network on Monday 25 July 2022 from 7:30 a.m.-12 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. EDT (Philadelphia, UTC -4).
A Conversation With Theatres Implementing Alternative Organizational Models
Tuesday 19 July 2022
United States
The Playwrights Realm presented the panel Different Leadership Models livestreaming on the commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 19 July 2022.
Gabriel Augusto Liparini Queiroz sits down with Adilson Siqueira, Aneliza Rodrigues Prado, and Patrick Veniali da Silva to discuss their work at the Laboratory of Ecopoetics (ECOLAB) at the Federal University of São João del-Rei. They share their research on the concept of the corpo quebrada—literally the “bent body”—which responds to ecological crisis by embodying resilience and flexibility.
Brussels-based artist Anna Rispoli talks about the Common Wallet project.
Thursday 7 April 2022
Brussels, Belgium
IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts – presented a keynote "Beyond Fairness: Stories of Solidarity" by Brussels-based artist Anna Rispoli on the Common Wallet project. Livestreaming on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network Thursday 7 April 2022 at 9 a.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 2 p.m. BST (London, UTC +1) / 15:00 CEST (Brussels, UTC +2).
An Interview with Sharon Day and Chas Jewett facilitated by Priscilla Solis Ybarra
Tuesday 29 March 2022
United States
Cara Mía Theatre’s Mellon Playwright in Residence Virginia Grise presented Talleres for Dreaming: Episode 4 livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network on Tuesday 29 March 2022 at 4 p.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 6 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 7 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).
Cara Mía Theatre’s Mellon Playwright in Residence Virginia Grise presented Talleres for Dreaming: Episode 3 livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network on Tuesday 22 March 2022 at 4 p.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 6 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 7 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).
In this rethinking of authorship in contemporary theatre, Enid Brain uses a collaborative definition of creativity to open up opportunities for theatre workers to advocate for pay equity.
A Two-Day HowlRound Conversation Exploring the Intersection of Art, Culture, and Commoning (and Beyond)
Thursday 17 March and Friday 18 March 2022
Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA - and online.
Double Edge Theatre and HowlRound presented two conversations exploring the intersection of art, culture, and commoning livestreaming on the commons-based peer produce HowlRound TV network Thursday 17 March and Friday 18 March 2022.
A Conversation between JD Stokely and Javiera Benavente
16 March 2022
JD Stokely and Javiera Benavente discuss the ways the navigate they complexities of commoning while embracing listening, unlearning, and care in their creative practices and educational paths.
Cara Mía Theatre’s Mellon Playwright in Residence Virginia Grise presented Talleres for Dreaming: Episode 2 livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network on Tuesday 15 March 2022 at 4 p.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 6 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 7 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).
Play House is a collectively stewarded performance space near the border of Detroit and Hamtramck that has become a place of convening and creation for the neighborhood. Richard Newman, a co-manager of the space and co-director of The Hinterlands ensemble, traces connections between creative practice, community, grief, and an outdoor ramp at Play House.
In their introduction to the Arts, Culture, and Commoning series, curators Jamie Gahlon and Matthew Glassman apply the concept of the commons to theatremaking as a practice and illuminate the potent intersection of these ideas.
Cara Mía Theatre’s Mellon Playwright in Residence Virginia Grise presents Talleres for Dreaming: Episode 1 livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network on Tuesday 8 March 2022 at 4 p.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 6 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 7 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).
Denise Rogers Valenzuela shares the way that learning to perform improvised crowd scenes with large, flat puppets—called naked population puppets or potato people—encourages an embodied practice that resists individualism.
Sarah Plummer kicks off the puppet series by introducing the series contributors and exploring the way their work highlights puppetry’s capacity to form solidarities among humans and nonhumans.
An Annual Convening of Transnational Artists, Thinkers, and Activists Working with Culture to Create a Better World
Friday 19 November 2021
New York City
Building on last year’s theme of resilience and community engagement, ArtsLink Assembly 2021 focused on the artists and arts leaders, the Future Fellows, creating new networks and structures locally and transnationally to support independent artists in a post-pandemic world. Livestreamed on the commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network Friday 19 November 2021.
In these episodes of The Future Is Now, two CEC Artslink Future Fellows—Azerbaijan-based filmmaker Leyli Gafarova and Russian art curator and researcher Elena Ischenko—discuss their vision for the future of arts practice.
A conversation on the importance of oral storytelling in indigenous societies
Friday 29 October 2021
India
Safe Havens Freedom Talks presented a conversation in collaboration with Gothenburg Book Fair livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 29 October 2021.
Featuring Real Alanis, Lyndsay Burch, CJ Ochoco, Leo Grierson, and Jaz Hall. Moderated by Whitney Reed
Wednesday 20 October 2021
United States
Power in Theatre Coalition Building focuses on the strength of theatres, art organizations, individuals and artists alike sharing resources, responsibility, goals, decisions, and leadership to work toward a common goal. In this discussion we listen from partners of In the Margin on strategies of coalition building moving forward in American Theatre. Livestreaming Wednesday 20 October 2021 at 3 p.m. HST (Honolulu, UTC -10) / 5 p.m. AKDT (Juneau, UTC -8) / 6 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles, UTC -7) / 7 p.m. MDT (Albuquerque, UTC -6) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 9 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
Artists Need the Solidarity Economy and the Solidarity Economy Needs Artists
Fridays 3 September to 1 October 2021
Global
Art.coop invited you to study-into-action with us on five Fridays this fall. Our aim is to connect cultural innovators across silos who do not know one another well, but are building the cultural economy we want. We need to socialize, study, and dream together before we can take collective action. Artists need the solidarity economy, and the solidarity economy needs artists! Livestreaming on the commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Fridays from 3 September to 1 October 2021 at 9 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 11 a.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 12 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 17:00 BST (London, UTC +1) / 18:00 CEST (Berlin, UTC +2).
Yura Sapi speaks with Rose Kim, founder and producing director of Art Rat Theatre. Art Rat Theatre is a production vehicle dedicated to gardening anticolonial, anti-capitalist theatre for a truly diverse new era audience and catalyzing a greater network of independent institutionally marginalized, young adult creatives.
Yura Sapi speaks with Eric Lockley, co-founder of the Movement Theatre Company. Lockley is a member of the company’s producing artistic leadership team, who work together to create an artistic social movement by developing and producing new works by artists of color. Their work engages audiences in a rich theatrical dialogue, enlightens communities to the important issues affecting our world, and empowers artists to celebrate the many sides of their unique voice.
In this entry of Devising Our Future, Aly Perry asks, “How might we position and design theatre as an essential space for healing, pleasure, and connection through an intertwining and interdependent realm of the senses?
Unrehearsed Futures Episode #19: Collaborative Theatre-Making and/as Participatory Justice livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Thursday 12 August 2021.
