Our Mission & Aims
we believe strongly in acting with intention. to that end, we've put a lot of thought into the way we do our work. click on any of the links below to learn more about our philosophy and the way we operate.
OUR MISSION
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To train a diverse group of artists.
Aim 1: Foster a diverse community of emerging and early career artists
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We commit ourselves to reaching, building, and maintaining relationships with a diverse group of artists. When building our collective, we think of diversity in two ways: we aim to empower BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and neurodivergent individuals in our work, and we work to bring together artists from all disciplines to make innovative, collaborative art that expands our definitions of particular mediums.
Aim 2: Create original, iterative, responsible, accessible, and inclusive art
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Original art is necessary to expand our collective understanding and give a platform to a new generation of artists. We understand ‘original’ to refer to any work that is a unique expression of an individual or group of artists. However, we also acknowledge that artists do not exist in a cultural vacuum, and that artmaking is a process of finding inspiration in and building upon the work of past and present artists and artifacts. Original art can refer to a play, a spoken word poem, a musical arrangement, a dance, a painting, and any other product of one’s creative practice.
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Iterative art-making processes are central to the development of new work. An iterative process involves ideation, experimentation, critical thinking, feedback, and successful refinement. We believe that art and the makers of art benefit from this process of art-making. An iterative process allows for flexibility and responsiveness to feedback, new information, and changes in our sociopolitical environments and the needs of our community. Our programming schedules and Dramaturgs aim to support artists in this process through a series of group and individual workshops with artists prior to the production process.
Our organization as a whole thrives on iteration as well; we continue to reshape our organizational structure, processes, and programming as we learn more about how to support our staff, collective, and communities. We regularly solicit feedback on programming from staff members, associated artists, and audiences to evaluate the effectiveness of our programming for all of those it impacts, and use this information to better support our artists.
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Responsible & Accessible art ensures that program schedules, production processes, and events are respectful of the needs of its participants, audience members, and represented communities. This includes training our staff, artists, and collective in anti-racism, trauma-based practice, social emotional learning, Intimacy Direction, and non-hierarchical governance; building our production schedules around a rest model; attending to our collaborators’ and audiences’ access and emotional needs in meetings, rehearsals, performances, and events; and so much more that we will continue to discover.
Responsibility and accessibility concern where and how we create art. We are committed to working with venues and vendors that are actively working towards anti-racism, accessibility, and reducing their environmental impact. We are committed to reducing waste across all artistic practices we engage with, but are especially attuned to the environmental concerns around theatre-making. We primarily reuse or share props, set pieces, and other tools and supplies needed for performances.
We attempt to mitigate harm through a rigorous sensitivity reading process of submissions before selecting pieces to develop and produce; however, we know that we are not infallible. Reground is dedicated to taking responsibility when our staff or artists have caused harm to individuals or our community through their actions or in the work we produce. We believe in addressing harm through a survivor-first, restorative justice framework. You can learn more about how we address harm in the rehearsal room here. ​
Inclusive art involves dismantling and replacing oppressive systems in our organization, the respective institutions that we are a part of, and our larger community by prioritizing perspectives from underrepresented groups, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and neurodivergent individuals in our organization and through our programming. We provide space for artists and communities of various backgrounds to be seen, heard, and celebrated through their art. This involves listening to and incorporating concerns, needs, and ideas from those most marginalized within our collective and the Greater Boston community through outreach, debrief sessions, and our intended diverse, multi-generational Board of Directors.
Aim 3: Educate said group on how to make responsible, accessible, and inclusive art
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We provide practical professional experience to emerging and early career artists through our staffing and individual program opportunities. Training in arts administration and individual artistic practice will involve working with anti-racist and trauma-informed approaches, social emotional learning, and Intimacy Direction. Although our staff and artists will go through brief and not-so-brief training on how to use these frameworks in their practice, we also believe in continual learning, and use every opportunity we can to work these frameworks into our organizational culture, norms, and programming.
Aim 4: Maintain a collectively-run organization and structure that supports our aims and values
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Our organization is composed of student and early-career artists who are interested in alternative avenues of practical experience and learning outside of traditional, cultural, educational institutions. Everyone who is involved with Reground has stake in how our organization functions; therefore, we believe everyone’s ideas must be heard in order for us to remain accountable to the collective. Our intention in building a collectively-run organization is to give power back to the individuals we are serving, rather than making decisions autocratically. We value transparency, communication, autonomy, and collective, consent-based decision making, and have built our organization to reflect these values. We are committed to holding ourselves accountable to these values and the intents laid out in our mission through continual evaluations of our goals, successes, and failures.
In order to be transparent in our decision making, we publish our Meeting Minutes to our website within 48 hours of a given meeting. We hold open meetings x times a month to give collective members time to see how our meetings run and voice concerns. You can sign-up to attend our next open meeting here.
To learn more about our organizational structure, you can check out our sociocracy page.
Aim 5: Learn from failure
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Reground was built by a group of students who saw a gap in their learning from educational and cultural institutions, and decided to use this failure as an opportunity to build something new. We aim to provide a testing-ground for artists to explore their ideas, take inventory of successes and failures, and use pitfalls as an opportunity for learning and growth. Our organization uses this same philosophy in respect to our structure, policies, and programming. We believe in taking responsibility, learning from our mistakes, and finding solutions to ensure we build an equitable community of artists who can create with grace.
We know that equity-based learning and practice, including anti-racism, is a lifelong commitment. We know we won’t always get it right, and that we will make mistakes throughout our learning and practice. We are committed to recognizing our mistakes through consistent evaluation of our actions and decisions, and addressing our mistakes thoroughly and completely, together. To hold ourselves accountable, we have built debriefing processes into our programming and organizational structure to assess issues as we find them and address them together.
we welcome feedback, questions, and ideas. if you’d like to get in contact with us, you can fill out a feedback form here, or send us an email at regroundtheatrecollective@gmail.com. we will try to respond as soon as possible.