UA Press to Publish Artists on Creative Administration: A Workbook from the National Center for Choreography

The University of Akron Press is excited to announce that it will publish Artists on Creative Administration: A Workbook from the National Center for Choreography, a new book edited by artist and cultural strategist Tonya Lockyer. This book features essays from and interviews with thirty artists and advocates from the dance and the performing arts worlds, sharing first-hand stories of creative administration in action through case studies, interviews, life tools, and experiments.

Artists on Creative Administration will be published September 24, 2024, as part of the NCCAkron Series in Dance, and has been called “at once visionary and pragmatic…an inspiring read” (Naomi Jackson, PhD, author of Dance, Human Rights and Social Justice, Professor, Arizona State University); “a joy and a challenge” (Liz Lerman, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow, and Institute Professor, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts); “a wonderful collection of essays that are in turn provocative, illuminating, moving, and occasionally hilarious” (Vu Le, NonprofitAF.com); and “a terrific new playbook for the times…a beacon for those ready to reimagine” (Tim Cynova, Principal, Work Shouldn’t Suck).

Artists and arts workers from across the United States reflect on how they challenge and create new approaches to the business of art. The book pairs big topics with actionable tactics, addressing themes like agency, equity, activism, design-thinking, process, leadership, collaboration, family, ethics, and care. Provocative and candid essays and interviews expand our view of what creativity, leadership, and administration can be, as each chapter closes with experiments for the reader to try and adapt for their own thinking, work, and life. Artists on Creative Administration: A Workbook from the National Center for Choreography emerged from NCCAkron’s acclaimed Creative Administration Research program.

This is the second title in the NCCAkron Series in Dance, the first Shifting Cultural Power by Bay Area choreographer Hope Mohr was published in 2021.

Tonya Lockyer, widely praised as “a key cultural changemaker” (Seattle Times), is an award-winning artist and cultural strategist. Her work as a groundbreaking artist, arts leader, and curator has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts International, Princeton University, NPR, the Canada Council, and the City of Seattle. Lockyer was the transformative director of Seattle’s Velocity Dance Center (2011–2018), and she has collaborated with some of the most innovative artistic experimentalists of our time. She is an adjunct professor in Arts Leadership (MFA/BA) at Seattle University. 

The contributors to this volume include: Nora Alami, Julia Antonick, Christy Bolingbroke, Banning Bouldin, Yanira Castro, Maura Cuffie-Peterson, Katy Dammers, Michelle Fletcher, Raja Feather Kelly, Chelsea Goding-Doty, Miguel Gutierrez, Cherie Hill,  Rosie Herrera, Delphine Lai, Tonya Lockyer, Makini, Aaron Mattocks, Jonathan Meyer, Rashaun Mitchell, Hope Mohr, Dominic Moore-Dunson, Cynthia Oliver, Karla Quintero, Antonio Ramos, Silas Riener, amara tabor-smith, Kate Wallich, Marýa Wethers, Pioneer Winter, and Miranda Wright.