In 2020, Imani Gaudin founded Gaudanse, an organization of interdisciplinary artists ranging in form from dance, to film, to music, to visual arts, and even culinary arts. The collective is based both in New York City and New Orleans, and seeks to tell profound and impactful stories via art and inclusion. Dance Informa spoke with Gaudin to learn about the challenges of starting a small dance-based organization, the ways in which ideas and art come to her, and the desire to work in two cities.
To begin, why do you refer to Gaudanse as an organization verses a dance company?
“I say organization because we are a nonprofit. There are a lot of things behind the scenes, and a large part of my organization’s mission is to get artists to a point where they can be successful or feel successful in their career in a sustainable and very accessible way – lower, underprivileged communities, marginalized communities…giving them the access to education in the arts (particularly dance) but broadly across all arts. Whoever comes to me are the people that I’ll help. It might be a photographer, it might be a chef, or someone who’s just trying to figure things out. But, that’s why I say organization.”
As someone at the beginning stages of their career in their early 20s, how do you find people to work with?
“I’m an emerging artist, so the people who know me know me, and they’ll branch out, and those people branch out, but that process takes a very long time. Every so often, I’ll have someone reach out to me with an idea. But usually I’m the one reaching out, trying to help people who say, ‘I really want to do this, but I don’t know how.’ Even if it doesn’t involve me artistically, I can help them get to the point where they can make it happen. That’s more important to me than collaborating with every single person who comes to me with an idea, because I don’t need to be involved in that way for everything. It’s exhausting.”
There must be a lot of things to learn when setting up a non-profit and running an organization like this. What have been some lessons you’ve learned along the way, as it relates to the administration side of creating art?
“It’s been quite a journey. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that I need a team. I need help, and I need to admit I need help. When I started actually leaning on people for things that one person can’t do by themselves in a timely, consistent fashion, that’s when things got a lot better.”
Understanding the administration side of the arts is something we don’t often focus on. Once you started delegating tasks to others, did you discover what was the most valuable thing to outsource?
“Most admin things and paying people. They are the two things I was doing that I delegated to two different people. I have one person – my secretary – on the board. She handles financial things, and then our CBO handles contracts, communicating with money organizations, and she took on the grant writer position as well. But those were things that I didn’t want to do this. I just want to create.”
In terms of creating, you work both in NYC and New Orleans. What are some goals you have to further develop work in both cities?
“I have many goals. I would like to be able to provide residencies, particularly in New Orleans. I would like to bring artists down there, because artists often end up going to a bigger, major city that is well known in all of these things. So I want to make New Orleans one of those cities. That’s a big goal of mine. The art down there is so rich and so beautiful. More people should have access to it. I do want to provide the space and be very confident in knowing I can do this for you; to get you here and then I’ll let you off like a bird to go and do it, but you still have my support behind you.”
For more information, visit www.gaudanse.org.
By Emily Sarkissian of Dance Informa.
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