Artist Talk // Spring 2022 Resident Fellow Derek Spencer

PlySpace, the artist in residence program of the Muncie Arts and Culture Council (MuncieArts) in collaboration with the Ball State Department of Theatre and Dance, presents an Artist Talk by PlySpace Resident Fellow in Theatre, Derek Spencer. 

Derek Spencer (Los Angeles, CA) will present an artist talk about his past projects and process on Tuesday, April 5 at 7:00pm in the Arts and Journalism building, room 225, on the campus of Ball State University. This event is free and open to the public. Masks are recommended, but not required. 

Derek Spencer makes performances that distill complex philosophical ideas into salient emotional experiences. His work is typically devised with an ensemble, performed in unusual venues, and formatted with immersive and interactive elements. He is drawn toward expressionistic world-building, dialectic modes of thinking, oscillation between intimacy and spectacle, and moments of intense chaos. In Derek’s devising practice, he utilizes collage, collaborative writing, adaptation, improv, and physical theater techniques to generate material for performance.

While at PlySpace, Derek has been working with acting students from Ball State University’s Department of Theater and Dance, led by teaching professor Veronica Santoyo, to create a devised adaptation of The Eumenides by Aeschylus as his community collaborative project. This performance will be presented to the public in a short run from April 21-24 at Cornerstone Center for the Arts. Learn more about the performance at plyspace.org/events.

Derek is the founder and artistic director of Ceaseless Fun, an LA-based immersive performance company operating since 2016. Select projects with Ceaseless Fun include: Everyone Agrees it’s about to Explode (2020), The Stars (2018), They Who Saw the Deep (2018), and Agnosia (2018). Derek served as a board member for the League of Experiential and Immersive Artists from 2017-2021 and currently runs an intermittent ensemble devising jam called Soft Focus. In 2014 he received his B.A. in Philosophy and Public Policy from the University of Chicago.  

For more information about this and other Spring Term events, visit our website, www.PlySpace.org or the PlySpace Facebook page. Questions or comments about the PlySpace Residency Program, events, and community collaborations can be directed to the Program Coordinator, Lexi Musselman, at hello@plyspace.org.

PlySpace is a program of the MuncieArts and the City of Muncie. PlySpace is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ball Brothers Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Muncie and Delaware County.