The CalArts Center for New Performance has published a new book titled “Follow the Artist: 20 Years of CalArts Center for New Performance,” now available in stores and libraries.

“Follow the Artist” charts the legacy of California Institute of the Arts.

The book features newly authored essays and reflections from creative makers and thinkers: The book also showcases hundreds of images from two decades of projects, workshops and residencies.

“This book chronicles two decades of exhilarating theatrical journeys with some of the most dynamic artists of our era,” said Marissa Chibás, CalArts faculty member, CNP producing artist and director of Duende CalArts. “CNP’s role as a genuine laboratory for groundbreaking talents fills us with immense joy and pride.”

CalArts Center for New Performance was founded in 2002 by Susan Solt, Travis Preston and Carol Bixler and launched with Travis Preston’s groundbreaking all female production of King Lear, staged in six locations within the massive factory spaces of the Brewery Arts Complex in downtown Los Angeles. Originally called the CalArts Center for New Theater, the name was changed in 2005 to reflect the expanded mission, aspiration, and embrace of the larger CalArts performance landscape.

For over 20 years, CNP has been an incubator of new directions in the performing arts. Through ongoing residencies, development support and presentations on the local, national and international stage. CNP has provided over 1,000 professional opportunities to CalArts students, alumni, faculty, staff and guest artists.

CNP is the professional producing arm of California Institute of the Arts, established to provide a unique artist- and project-driven framework for the development and realization of original theater, music, dance, media and interdisciplinary projects. Extending the progressive work carried out at CalArts into a direct dialogue with professional communities at the local, national and international levels, CNP offers an alternative model to support emerging directions in the performing arts. It also enables CalArts students to work shoulder-to-shoulder with celebrated artists and acquire a level of experience that goes beyond the curriculum.

Seminal artists from around the world are brought to CNP to develop work that expands the language, discourse, and boundaries of contemporary theater and performance. CNP fosters the future of live performance by infusing the work of such transformative artists with the talent, vitality and impulses of emerging artists in the CalArts community.

CNP represents an integral part of the Institute’s commitment to provide a home for alternative theater and cross-disciplinary work on CalArts’ Valencia campus, at REDCAT and at other national and international venues.

“Follow the Artist” charts the deep, daring and imaginative legacy of a place unlike any other, one committed to supporting artists, rather than their output. The work of CNP has resulted in heralded premiere productions, but more often the unseen, risk-encouraging workshops, exploratory artistic research and forward-thinking initiatives.

“Follow the Artist” is a visually lavish publication which documents two decades of steadfast creative incubation and commitment to artist-driven experimentation, featuring an astonishing array of seminal, seasoned and emerging artists from the greater CalArts community.

The book features newly authored essays and reflections from creative makers and thinkers, including Yareli Arizmendi, P. Carl, Marissa Chibás, Nataki Garrett, Daniel Alexander Jones, Douglas Kearney, Joanna Klass, Natalia Korczakowska, Stan Lai, Anne LeBaron, Carey Lovelace, Juan Meliá, Deborah Paradez, Travis Preston, Jin Qiu, Carl Hancock Rux and Judy Yin Shih.

To purchase the book and for more information, visit: centerfornewperformance.org/projects/follow-the-artist.