Red Eye is a multidisciplinary creative laboratory that supports the development and production of boundary-breaking performance work. Red Eye supports the rigorous artistic inquiry of Minnesota artists from a broad spectrum of experiences and expression. Artist-run and intentionally modest in size, Red Eye encourages experimentation, foregrounds process and advocates for systemic change for the contemporary performance community in the Twin Cities.

Red Eye was founded in 1983 and was led for 35 years by Steve Busa and Miriam Must. Since 2019, Red Eye has been led by a collective of Co-Artistic Directors: Valerie Oliveiro, Emily Gastineau, Rachel Jendrzejewski, and Theo Langason. They steward Red Eye as a leadership collective, working in collaboration with the Red Eye community, sharing the tasks and responsibilities of running Red Eye, and guiding both the artistic vision and organizational management. For over three decades, Red Eye has supported over 1,000 artists and presented over 200 shows. Red Eye provides crucial in-depth developmental opportunities, incubating the next generation of creators and making space for artists to reexamine creative process in a new light. Rooted in the core tenets of experimentation, collaboration, and critical discourse, Red Eye serves as a platform for the Twin Cities’ multi-faceted contemporary performance community and is a space for profound shared experiences that ignite connections between people and ideas.

Jerome Foundation supports a range of Red Eye’s programs for early career Minnesota-based choreographers, theater artists, performance artists, and inter-/multi-/anti-disciplinary artists:

• NEW WORKS 4 WEEKS (NW4W) is an annual festival; it is the culmination of two incubator programs in which artists meet for structured sessions where they show work and receive critical feedback—WORKS-IN-PROGRESS, supporting artists digging into new ideas/forms, culminating in a shared evening of showing 15-minute work in progress excerpts and ISOLATED ACTS, culminating in premiering 30-60 minute new works on a single or split bill.
• OMNIVERS provides flexible support for BIPOC artists with no requirement for public engagement, emphasizing relationship-building between artists and RE over two years.
• CURATED RENTALS provide artists with affordable, supportive rehearsal/performance space for self-producing artists/groups; at least two early career artists receive full subsidies annually.
• TIGER BALM is a new series foregrounding artistic process and critical feedback, in which artists share excerpts of work in development and then participate in facilitated audience discussions.