I worked at New Works at The Dance Centre over 15 years ago, and what a great time it was! I started out next door at what was then the Judith Marcuse Projects office as a producer, and thanks to my experience at New Works became General Manager for Tara Cheyenne Performance.

What I learned best from New Works is the value of collaboration. In many cases, people feel they have to do it all themselves and so they form their own individual organization. But in reality, we can do a lot working together. We can build each other up by supporting each other and pooling resources.

You know, it was that cooperative effort that I really admire about New Works—the idea of cluster management and finding ways to do more with what we’ve got. It was smart administratively but also artistically, because it would lead to collaboration, sometimes between unlikely partners, which produced even better work.