Well, the mayhem has subsided and I survived, if barely.  I know that it is even harder on the local presenters and my hat goes off to all the folks who produced festivals this year. There was a plentiful array of new -and returning- work and the energy generated by the season was exciting and fun. I feel like I could have pushed a little harder, seen a few more shows, covered a little more. That being said, I’m wondering if more is always more.

If I had to pick my favorites, I’d say my number one fave was L’effet de Serge. I was also charmed by Edgar Oliver’s show and just last night I saw Raymond Scannell’s Mimic at PS122 which was a real treat and a great way to close out the festival.

Not that anyone needs any more symposia or panels or discussions but I think it would be helpful to try and create some discourse around what all this work is saying about our moment. Next year I would love to assemble all the festival curators ahead of time for a public discussion on the work that is about to unfold and what their thinking was as they made their choices.  Since APAP is, essentially, a marketplace, there definitely seems to be a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” mentality, which is fine, but I think it makes it easy to lose sight of why audiences seek live art experiences in the first place.

Also maybe next year I’ll have the technical wherewithal to do some kind of an “audience choice” award for all the festivals. I think it would be interesting to get the public’s unvarnished and anonymous opinion on what they really and truly liked.

What do you think? How was your APAP experience? Feel free to discuss in the comments.