A centerpiece of all our work is our profound belief in the artistic process as the most effective framework and process for informing all aspects of an arts organization’s life and work, not just the aspects related to making and producing art. The artistic process is a remarkable combination of vision, creativity, inspiration, intuition, and collaboration balanced with craft, technique, accountability, discipline, and use of time and resources. The challenging thing about the artistic process is that it is specific to each artist and therefore each arts organization, and applicable to that organization alone. It is the very definition of elegance applied to organizational behavior – and completely confounding to those seeking institutional uniformity and practice.

According to John Holland, author of EMERGENCE From Chaos to Order, emergence is “much coming from little; where the whole is much more complex than the behavior of the parts.” and is the result of a complex adaptive system. An emergent system includes (1) individual players or components, (2) interacting organically and dynamically, (3) resulting in something greater than the sum of the parts. By this definition the artistic process is emergent, as we observe all three aspects of emergence each time a director assembles a cast, or choreographer makes a new work.

Emergence drives or causes change to unfold from the inside out. Much like the artistic process, we observe emergence in actions and structures that arise without (or in spite of) requirements or demands from the outside. This is a proactive response in which internal building blocks, the unique alignment of resources and relationships, self-defined imperatives, and simple rules defined by the arts entity itself result in complex patterns of response and action. This phenomenon stands in sharp contrast to adaptive behavior that simply absorbs or accommodates external demands or disturbances.