Live ArtDevelopment Agency, also commonly known by its acronym LADA, is a publicly funded arts organisation and registered charity founded in London in 1999 by Lois Keidan and Catherine Ugwu. LADA provides professional advice for artists as well as producing events and publications intended to enhance the understanding of and access to Live Art. They are one of Arts Council England's National Portfolio Organisations.
Activities
LADA is responsible for funding and co-ordinating Live Art UK, a network for bringing together promoters and facilitators to support and develop Live Art infrastructures. The LADA Study Room is an open accessresearch facility for artists, students, curators, academics and other arts professionals. The Study Room is in Bethnal Green, London, and houses a comprehensive collection of publications ranging from theoretical texts to DVDs, videos, CDs and digital files of performance documents and documentation. There is an online catalogue of over 5,000 items accessible in LADA's Study Room. This resource facility was described by The Independent as one of the UK's 50 best museums and galleries.
Selected Projects and Initiatives
LADA Screens - a series of free, online screenings of seminal performance documentation, works to camera, short films/video and archival footage.
Performance Magazine Online, is an online archive created by LADA in collaboration with the original editor Robert La Frenais, of Performance Magazine. Published between 1979-1992, the magazine documents a significant period in the development of art in the UK.
“15 Minutes With…” These podcasts were launched in 2014 to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the Live Art Development Agency. They consist of short dialogues with some of the artists and thinkers that LADA has worked with, including Lois Weaver, French & Mottershead, Maddy Costa and Mary Paterson, Joshua Sofaer and Stacy Makishi.
FRESH AiR - is an initiative from Queen Mary, University of London, produced in collaboration with the Live Art Development Agency, offering recent graduates and emergent artists support, advice and professional development, features the FRESH AiR PLATFORM and FRESH TIPS.
Restock, Rethink, Reflect - An ongoing series of initiatives for, and about, artists who are engaging with issues of identity politics and cultural diversity in innovative and radical ways. Each year's project is under a different theme: race, disability, feminism, and Privilege.
Life Lecture - An online resource which structures and directs an audience to deliver a lecture to themselves about themselves. Life Lecture has been created by Joshua Sofaer, published and distributed by the Live Art Development Agency and the dramaturg and editor in chief is Sibylle Peters in cooperation with the Interactive-Science-Program/ ZMI Geissen. Webdesign and authoring by Platform3.
LADA produces projects to help develop the visibility of, and opportunities for, artists making live work from diverse backgrounds.
Publications
LADA has published a number of titles relating to Live Art, most notably co-publishing Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh edited by Adrian Heathfield with the MIT Press, and Perform Repeat Record edited by Adrian Heathfield and Amelia Jones with Intellect.
Patrons
LADA has a board of patrons composed of ten established artists who have contributed significantly to the development of Live Art.
