Couldn’t Have Done It Without Them: Pentacle

​by Mike Marriott
Executive Director – Davalois Fearon Dance

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Pentacle
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Numerous individuals, organizations, and institutions have aided Davalois on her journey to become the esteemed and recognized artist she is today. Without the support of these individuals & organizations, Davalois Fearon Dance (DFD) would not exist. Today, we focus on Pentacle and their fiscal sponsorship*, presentation and administrative support they have given Davalois Fearon Dance.

Davalois started working with Pentacle as an arts administration intern in 2014 focusing on general arts management and education programming. This would create the foundation that has helped make Davalois a successful Artistic Director & General Manager for her company. The ability to operate similarly to a non-profit while maintaining creative control of their artistic endeavors has to lead a lot of artists to start looking at fiscal sponsorship as a way to achieve their artistic aspirations.

Davalois Fearon and Morgan Anderson in Power Inside and Between. Costumes, wearable sculptures and make-up design by Jasmine Murrell. Photo by Nan Melville. Courtesy of the artist and Rossi & Rossi gallery

Pentacle has provided DFD with opportunities to perform by presenting the company over the last two years as apart of their ART APAP series. In addition, Pentacle Just recently, commissioned Davalois to create a new work as a part of the Pentacle Dance series at the Rubin Museum. But Davalois Fearon Dance’s greatest support from Pentacle been back in 2016 when Davalois Fearon Dance was selected to participate in Pentacle’s Administrative Resource Team (ART) Program, a two-year research and direct services program for dance artists. There were 81 responses to Pentacle’s Request For Proposal, and after two rounds of panels, 16 NYC-based artists of similar artistic quality and administrative capacity were selected to participate in the study. Davalois Fearon Dance was one of eight artists who received capacity-building support in the form of one-on-one mentorship, 24 months of bundled administrative support, and grant funds to use toward implementation of their artistic vision.

In the two years, DFD has benefited from ART expeditiously!! Achieving almost all Davalois set out to achieve outlined in the application including Website and marketing materials overhaul, the public launch of the company, increase visibility, more performance opportunity and internal administrative restructuring for efficiency. 

Since Davalois and Pentacle began working together back in 2014, the growth of Davalois as an artist and the company’s growth as an artistic entity have been nothing short of astounding. We are so excited about currently entering into a new phase in the relationship where we have partnered with Pentacle to produce NYC Arts Education programming, centered around the DFD repertory based curriculum!!! Davalois Fearon and all of us here at Davalois Fearon Dance would like to thank Pentacle, its leadership, and staff for their continued support over the years. 

*Fiscal sponsorship is a business model where a non-profit organization, in this case Pentacle, acts as the fiduciary for an artist, or artistic project or company, such as Davalois Fearon Dance. This business model allows the artist, or artistic project to operate similarly to a non-profit arts. Through Pentacle’s Foundation for Independent Artist fiscal sponsorship, Davalois Fearon Dance is able to gain access to non-profit funding opportunities such as receiving tax-deductible donations and applying for grants designated for non-profit organizations such as the Map Fund. There is also a dedicated bookkeeper that is assigned to Davalois Fearon Dance to help the company with any administrative needs they may have regarding the finances. In the end though, Davalois Fearon maintains creative control of her company. As part of FIA, Dava is able to receive non-profit rehearsal rates on studio rentals for Davalois Fearon Dance rehearsals.