who
Erika Block is a director, writer and producer who's worked in the US, Great Britain and South Africa.
Critics on three continents have called her theatre: a dazzling, shifting kaleidoscope of surprises; thoroughly exhilarating; racy, nimble and full of humor; funny, intriguing and enlightening; sheer visual poetry; absolutely magical.
Most recently, she created the Walking Project, an interdisciplinary exploration of desire lines made by people who walk across fields in South Africa and across vacant lots in Detroit – and what connects them.
The Walking Project has taken her to the intersection of performance, emerging technologies, mapping, storytelling, local and distributed collaboration, and participatory media.
Her next work, A History of Eating, explores the pleasures, perils and politics of eating by tracking the journey of food from fields to kitchen tables.
From 1994-2006 Erika was Co-Artistic/Producing director of Walk & Squawk Performance Project, where she was responsible for:
- artistic and education programming
- community engagement and partnership development
- strategic, business and technology planning
- marketing
- board and human resource development
- fundraising & financial management.
Under her direction, Walk & Squawk renovated an unused, 19,000 square foot building into the Furniture Factory, a multi-disciplinary venue with performance, gallery, rehearsal & office space. She also created an award-winning cultural exchange project with 10 South African artists that reached 8000 people in Southeast Michigan, including 4000 young people, through workshops, performances and community events during a 6-week residency.
Her fundraising efforts have raised over $1.9 million, including support from the Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production Fund, the New Generations Program (funded by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by TCG),
the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2002, Erika was the only artist selected for Crains Detroit
Business 40 Under 40. She has an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia and
has done graduate work at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Her writing has been published in Dynamics of Communication: New Ways and New Actors, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Community Arts Network, American Theatre, Contemporary Theatre Review and the Metro Times. As a freelancer, she's written speeches, arts policy and public relations pieces.
She has an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia and has done graduate work at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.